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celebratingthe seventy~fifth of the founding anniversary of the americanschools of orientalresearch (1900-1975]

Incelebrationof its 75th the American anniversary, Schools of OrientalResearch is proudto offeryou this stunningand memorablecollectionof essays by such widelyacclaimedauthorsof Near Easternantiquityas FrankMooreCross,David Noel Freedman,Avraham Malamat,ManfredWeippert, and YigaelYadin. Diverseand comprehensivein its scope, this superbedition providesvividhistoricalinvestigationintoperiodsof conquest and culturalchange in earlyIsraeland fascinating archeologicalprobesintothe myths,shrines,sanctuaries, and traditionsof the ancient NearEast. A mustforall ASORmembers and seriousstudentsof Near Easternhistoryand archeology, this anniversaryvolume (list price$10.00) is available now in hardcoverat the special prepublication priceof

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To order,fillout formbelow, and mailwithcheck or money orderto ASOR,126 Inman Street,Cambridge,MA02139. Please send at $7.00 each.

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SBIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST Editor David Noel Freedman Associate Editor Harry Thomas Frank Editorial Committee Frank M. Cross Tikva Frymer-Kensky Sharon Herbert Charles Krahmalkov John A. Miles, Jr. Walter E. Rast Assistants to the Editor Wendy L. Frisch Linda E. Fyfe Ronald D. Guengerich R. Bruce Hitchner David M. Howard, Jr. Kent P. Jackson Terrence M. Kerestes Philip C. Schmitz Bruce E. Willoughby

Moshe Goshen-Gottstein is Professor of Semitic Linguistics and Biblical Philology and Chairman of the Department of Ancient Semitic Languages at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is the founder and General Editor of the Hebrew University Bible Project, in which capacity he is responsible for such major enterprises as the edition of the Hebrew University Bible and the recent facsimile edition of the Aleppo Codex.

Advertising Layout Madeleine Churchill

George Cameron is Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan. A noted scholar of ancient Near Eastern history, Cameron has focused his studies on ancient Iran and has written such significant works as History of Earl/ Iran and Persepolis Treasurr Tablets.

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Biblical Archeologist is published with the financial assistance of Zion Research Foundation, a nonsectarian foundation for the study of the Bible and the history of the Christian Church. Partial composition by Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, IN 46590. Printed by Printing Services, The University of Michigan.

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James Charlesworth is Professor of Religion and the Director of the International Center on Christian Origins at Duke University. A specialist in pseudepigrapha, Charlesworth currently is engaged in the study and publication of the St. Catherine's Monastery manuscripts.

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

Yigal Shiloh, of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is a frequent lecturer in Near Eastern archeology. In addition to his numerous publications in archeology, Shiloh is active in site excavations and served as the 1978 Director of the City of David Archaeological Project.

Cover:A Nimrud ivory of a unique winged sphinx discovered by Mallowan and Oates. The ivory is associated with Esarhaddon, king of Assyria (680-669 B.c.).

I

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOG Summer 1979

Volume 42 Number 3

Moshe Goshen-Gottstein The Aleppo Codex and the Rise of the Massoretic Bible Text The rediscovery of the oldest codex of the complete Tiberian Hebrew Bible enables us to gain a new understanding of the rise of the Massoretic Bible.

YigalShiloh City of David: Excavation 1978

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The earliest finds represented by Chalcolithic and EB I sherds bear evidence of settlement on the eastern slope of the City of David, above the Gihon spring.

JamesH. Charlesworth St. Catherine's Monastery: Myths and Mysteries

George G. Cameron Biblical Archeologist(ISSN:0006-0895)is published quarterly (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall) by the American Schools of Oriental Research. Its purpose is to provide the general reader with an accurate, scholarly, yet easily understandable account of archeological discoveries and their bearing on the biblical heritage. Unsolicited mss. are welcome but should be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The American Schools of Oriental Research is no longeraffiliated with the Center for Scholarly Publishing and Services at Missoula, Montana. Address all editorial correspondence and advertising to Biblical Archeologist, 1053 LS&A Building, University

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business correspondenceto ASOR, 126 Inman Street, Cambridge, MA 02139. Copyright @ 1979 American Schools of Oriental Research. Annual subscription rate: $12.00. Foreign subscription rate:

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POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Biblical Archeologist, 1053 LS&A Building, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109.

A scholar's search for the truth about the recent and controversial discovery of a cache of ancient icons and manuscripts at St. Catherine's Monastery. Sir Max Mallowan, 1904-78 In memory of the distinguished British archeologist, most noted for his work at Nimrud.

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Letter to the Readers Notes and News Polemics and Irenics Colloquia

132 133 137 186

Twenty-Five

189

Years Ago

Book Reviews Bailey, Where is Noah 's Ark? (Lewis); Teeple, The Noah's Ark Nonsense (Lewis).

190

Colophon

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BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

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Letter to

the

Readers

It is not often that we have the privilege of sitting at the feet of one of the great scholars of our day and learning wisdom from its fountainhead. In this issue of BA we are pleased to present a magisterial statement on a subject of central importance to all those who read the Bible and are concerned about its history. Here we have the Aleppo Codex-without a doubt the most valuable of all manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible-its place, and its pivotal role in the transmission of text explained by Professor Moshe Goshen-Gottstein of Hebrew University. While headlines have been seized by sensational discoveries (e.g., the Ebla tablets) and publications (e.g., the Temple Scroll), the story of the Aleppo Codex is second to none in drama, suspense, or importance. As Professor Goshen-Gottstein points out, this Hebrew codex was the outcome of centuries of devoted copying of the sacred text, the final perfect product of a process designed to preserve the text intact and without change forever. Into this manuscript went the concentrated skills and wisdom of the master scribe of his age, who thereby preserved not only the text but the traditions which protected it from inadvertent error as well as deliberate alteration. While the purpose of this document was to preserve the ancient text which had been handed down through the centuries, its own survival proved to be a matter of heroism and plain good luck. Undoubtedly this was the manuscript which Moses Maimonides commended as not only the best extant copy of the Hebrew Bible but as the authoritative text of it. And so it has proved, although tragically this perfect manuscript, the highest achievement of the scribal art, was damaged badly in recent times. It remains a miracle that any of it survived. While much has been lost, much has been preserved, and with the publication of the great facsimile volumes of the Codex, the text is now available to all for study. We turn then to our regular report on recent excavations, which this time features the work in Jerusalem being carried out in the Ophel, the ancient city of David, by Yigal Shiloh and his team. Jerusalem is a perennial target of excavators and has been attacked by spade and trowel for a hundred years, not to mention earlier depredations generally carried out for other than

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David Noel Freedman scientific reasons. In spite of all the digging, or perhaps in part because of it, for every mystery solved two new ones crop up in its place, and the cities of Jerusalem, recent and more ancient, continue to exert a powerful attraction for scholars and nonscholars alike. The early word from the latest dig is that the familiar pattern will prove true once more: there is still much to be found, and there will be many new puzzles to unravel. In the Biblical Archeologist of March 1978, our attention was drawn to the discovery of ancient manuscripts in St. Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai by Professor James Charlesworth, the Director of the International Center on Christian Origins at Duke University. In the present issue, he reports on his recent visit to the Monastery and casts his article in a language attractive to nonspecialists. In a subsequent issue, scholars' attention will be drawn to a more detailed description of the manuscripts themselves; that article will be highlighted by the publication of some excellent photographs that reached Charlesworth after he had finished the present account. Max Mallowan was a leading figure in Mesopotamian archeology as the tribute by his long-time friend and admirer, George Cameron of the University of Michigan, makes clear. He had the added distinction of being married to an even better-known figure in the literary world, Agatha Christie, and he wore both hats with aplomb. In fact, their careers crossed at vital points, since Dame Agatha was an avid amateur archeologist and immortalized many of her husband's associates in mystery novels about the Near East.

Notes News

&

Salvage Excavations in the Negev, February 1979 In the wake of the initiative taken by the Department of Museums and Antiquities of the Ministry of Education, which is sponsoring the emergency project to rescue the archeological sites of the Negev, the archeological institutions of the country have carried out the first stage of rescue operations at three sites in the Beer-sheba Valley. The aim of this excavation project, the archeological survey, and inspection and salvage excavations is to rescue archeological and historical evidence of scientific value to the nation that would otherwise be irretrievably destroyed by the extensive preparations for the infrastructure and building activities connected with the reorganization of the area and its restriction as a military zone. In February 1979 three archeological expeditions began salvage excavations at Tell Ira, Tell Malhata, and Tell Masos-three tells centered in the Beer-sheba Valley near the proposed site for an airfield. Te//l Ira Tell Ira, which is the largest tell in the Negev of Judah, rises to a height of 514 m at the northern side of the Beer-sheba Valley. The salvage excavation at Tell Ira, the first season in which excavations have been conducted there, was directed by I. Beit-Arieh. The earliest settlement on the tell was in the Early Bronze Age (around 2900-2700 B.C.E.); eroded remains of this period were found in those places on the tell where bedrock was reached. During the Israelite period the site was fortified by a solid wall 1.80 m wide, encircling an area of about 30 dunams. From this period several buildings adjoining the city wall were excavated, as well as a tower 6 x 9 m, that apparently guarded the approaches to the city gate. A Hebrew ostracon of the 8th century B.C.E., which was found in one of the buildings, has four lines of writing mentioning the biblical names "Berechyahu" and "Shalemyahu." The settlement at Tell Ira was destroyed at the end of the First Temple period. The floors of the buildings were found covered with broken pottery vessels and metal tools covered with debris. Among the artifacts were Edomite ware, a point of a plowshare and an iron sickle. Although settlement at Tell Ira continued into the Persian period, its greatest time of prosperity was evidently in the Hellenistic period. The stratigraphic continuity from the 5th to the Ist centuries B.C.E.shows that during the period when the Edomites occupied the Negev, this was a large, fortified, flourishing city. Some of the buildings were adjoined to the earlier city wall

that had been repaired; others were located on the stone terraces leveled off on the slopes inside the city. In the Roman and Byzantine periods the settlement was confined to the eastern end of the tell and included a large house with a paved courtyard and a cistern in its center and several auxiliary buildings. Like most of the other sites in the Negev, the history of Tell Ira came to a close at the end of the Byzantine-beginning of the Arabic period. Tell Malhata The salvage excavation of the Roman-Byzantine site at the foot of Tell Malhata was headed by M. Gichon under the direction of Z. Shacham. The settlement extends over an area of approximately 400 dunams south of Tell Malhata, and according to the sherds strewn on the surface, it dates from the Hasmonean to the Byzantine periods. During the current season six buildings were excavated, including a pseudo-"megaron" building which abutted onto an earlier structure having extremely thick walls, a wing of a manor house in which two architectural phases may be discovered, a tower, part of another manor house, and a corner of a large structure (evidently a fort) that stood at the southwestern end of the settlement. Malhata is known from the reign of Agrippa I, who, according to Josephus, built himself a manor house there. Later, Malhata became a fort on the summit of the tell with a civilian population attached to it. This settlement complex, which is the major subject of the excavations at this site, is one of the settlements of the southern border of Israel during the Roman period, the "Limus Palaestina." Its importance lies in being located on both the east-west and north-south crossroads of the country and near the richest wells of the region. Tell Masos The importance of Tell Masos as a key to the understanding of the settlement of the Israelite tribes in the Judean hills and the northern Negev has been proven in the excavations carried out there in the 1972-75 seasons. The 1979 salvage excavation at Tell Masos was directed by A. Kempinski. Settlement began on the site at the very beginning of the settlement period at the end of the 13th century B.C.E., and it was abandoned and largely destroyed at the end of the I lth century B.C.E. The site may be identified with the biblical Hormah of the tribe of

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Simeon. During the rescue excavation three areas were dug: in Area A a four-room Israelite house was exposed, next to a public building excavated in the 1975 season. The four-room house is remarkably well preserved, its walls standing almost to the height of its ceiling. It was built at the end of the 12th century and destroyed around the end of the I Ith century B.C.E.In Area C a pillar building, evidently serving as a storehouse, was unearthed. In Area G the excavation of the fort of the Judean monarchy was continued; the latter was destroyed around 600 B.C.E.,when the Edomites penetrated into the Beer-sheba Valley. The brief excavation season of February 1979 has made increasingly clear the extent of the historical evidence hidden beneath the tells of the Negev and the dangers of losing forever this invaluable contribution. Institute of Archaeology Tel Aviv University Petra and Jerash Development Plan

objects from the tomb are now in the private collection of Shukri Sahuri, a Jordanian businessman. The wheelmade amphora is about 0.41 m high and about 0.23 m wide. The rim is squared, and the tall, vertical neck has a low ridge at its base, where it meets the ovoid body. The body tapers down to a fairly small base, broken but originally a fairly high ring base. Two angular handles run out from the neck, just below the rim, and down vertically to the shoulder area. Each handle is doubletwisted and decorated with small knobs or pellets. The shoulder area carries three horizontal panels of molded or fluted lines. The ware of the vessel is light tan, but the entire exterior surface is covered with green glaze that has a slight bluish tinge. The glaze drips partially over the interior of the rim, and a small pool of glaze lies inside the vessel at the bottom. Outside, the preserved interior of the ring base carries dark brown glaze. In addition to this amphora, green-glazed rim fragments of a second and yellowish green-glazed body fragments of a third(?) were also found. Other pottery from the tomb included four small wheel-made Herodian lamps, two larger wheel-made Herodian lamps, three Late Roman mold-made lamps with flaring nozzles, three piriform unguentaria (one unribbed; two ribbed), and various sherds (one terra sigillata base; Early Roman cooking-pot rims; Late Roman cookingpot rims). Two coins came from the tomb, one silver Nabatean of Aretas IV (ca. A.D. 21), and one copper Roman of Titus and Domitian (ca. A.D. 80/ 88). While it is not possible to be sure that all of these items originated in the same tomb, it would seem likely that they did. If so, the tomb would have been in use from ca. 37 B.C. to ca. A.D. 324, at a maximum, but more likely to ca. A.D. 284. The glazed amphora is of a type which is usually attributed to the Parthians, the rivals of the Romans in Mesopotamia and farther east. Such glazed pottery is well attested in eastern and northern Syria (e.g., Dura Europos, Palmyra), but so far it has been found rarely in southern Syria and Jordan.

Since 1976 the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Jordan has been putting to use a $6 million loan from the World Bank, supplemented by $6 million from the Jordanian government, for the touristic development of Petra, the spectacular capital of the Nabateans, and Jerash, the best preserved Roman provincial city in Jordan. Directing the project is Yusef Alami, a specialist in architectural reconstruction who is on loan to the project from the Department of Antiquities. Personnel involved at Petra itself are Mohammed Murshed and Colin Brooker, and at Jerash, Arten Kalayan and Faisal Qedah. Tourism facilities are being improved at both sites. At Petra, construction will start soon on a new hotel outside the siq, as well as on a research center and restaurant inside Petra proper. At Jerash, the plans call for a new restaurant near the South Gate and for a "Sound and Light" program. Excavation, consolidation, and reconstruction of selected archeological remains are also taking place at both sites, including the James A. Sauer Urn Tomb and the Qasr al-Bint at Petra, and the South ACOR Director, Gate, the South Theatre, the Artemis Temple, and various churches at Jerash. UNESCO is involved in the archeological part of the project in an advisory capacity. Byzantine Church and Bath at Um Qeis The development project is scheduled to continue until For a number of years the German Evangelical Institute at least 1981. has been working at the great classical site of Um Qeis, James A. Sauer which overlooks the Yarmuk River in northernmost Director, ACOR Jordan. The director of the project is Ute Lux, and her invaluable architect is Ernest Krueger. Their main task has been the excavation and partial reconstruction of a fine octagonal Byzantine church which had been destroyed by an earthquake. Since 1977 a Danish team "Parthian" Glazed Amphora Found near Rajib headed by Svend Holm-Nielsen also has been working A broken but reconstructible, bluish green glazed at Um Qeis. The main area of interest for this team has amphora of "Parthian" type was found in January- been a monumental (domed?) building, which upon February 1978 at a tomb near Rajib, about 8 km partial excavation has been identified as a bath. During southeast of Amman (on the road to Sahab). It and other May-June 1978 Holm-Nielsen continued to work on this

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BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

complicated structure. The German and Danish work at Um Qeis should continue for many years, and the Jordanian government has begun to move the modern village to a nearby hill to make room for a full-scale archeological attack on the site. James A. Sauer Director, ACOR New French Work at CArAqel-Emir

of the excavated remains have been from the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, and Fatimid periods. The Umayyad materials have been particularly extensive, but the Fatimid remains have been equally exciting because of their rarity at other sites in Jordan. During the last British campaign in June-July 1978, the first tangible Ayyubid-Mamluk evidence (pottery, coins) came from the central sector of excavations. Alastair Northedge has been the assistant director of the British project and also has prepared a detailed plan of the north end of the Citadel, showing his architectural analysis of the Roman and Umayyad remains.

Since the spring of 1976, a French team under the direction of Ernest Will, Director of the French Archeological Institute in Beirut, has been working at the well-known Qasr of CAraqel-Emir. The monumental James A. Sauer ACOR Qasr, located along the Wadi Sir approximately 15 km Director, southwest of Amman, is the most impressive Hellenistic (ca. 2nd century B.C.) structure in Jordan, and it is referred to by the Jewish historian Josephus (ca. A.D. 70). The overall goal of the new work, which is jointly sponsored by the Department of Antiquities, is the total architectural analysis and "stone-for-stone" theoretical reconstruction of the Qasr. Key staff members, in addition to E. Will, are Francois Larch6 (architect) and J. M. Dentzer (field archeologist). Numerous architectural details have been clarified by the work, although the original interior plan of the structure is still uncertain, owing to the extensive Early Byzantine reuse of the Qasr. Fine new examples of Hellenistic sculpture have been uncovered, including a second feline fountain, a magnificent lioness with cub, and fragments of winged eagles. The Byzantine reuse of the Qasr made it extremely difficult to obtain ceramic evidence to confirm the 2nd-century-B.C.date suggested by the architecture, sculpture, and literary sources. However, during a brief excavation campaign in the spring of 1978, a handful of pure Hellenistic sherds came from a place inside the Qasr where the original floor had not been disturbed by the later Byzantine occupants. Larch6 will continue to use ACOR as his base during the coming year while he works on the "paper"reconstruction of the Qasr. When that is completed, it will be up to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities to decide whether or not the Qasr can actually be reconstructed at the site. James A. Sauer Director, ACOR New Excavations on Amman Citadel Fawzi Zayadine of the Department of Antiquities and Crystal Bennett of the British School of Archaeology have been excavating since 1975 near the Archaeological Museum on the Amman Citadel. Zayadine is concentrating on an area near the large pool, while Bennett is working in two areas, a central one near the Museum and a western one on the slopes of the site. A few EB, MB, and Iron Age sherds have been reported, but most

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SUMMER

1979

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Pastoral Nomadism in the Mari Kingdom Studying the numerous cuneiform texts from the northern Mesopotamian kingdom of Mari, Victor Matthews applies anthropologi-77, cal methodology to provide fresh, insightful transliterations and translations. His interpretation offers the reader a valuable understanding of the dimorphic O relationship between the pastoral ,STO• nomads and sedentary communities of the ancient Near East.

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Polemics& Irenics Canaanites in America: A New Scripture in Stone? Did the biblical world of the Canaanites extend to America? Do mysterious tablets from the Western Hemisphere represent a scripture in stone more important than the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls? The great controversy is with us again, and a review of the evidence explains why experts conclude that every alleged Canaanite-Phoenician inscription in the New World is either misidentified or a fraud. A startling title appeared in the September 1978 issue of Biblical Archeologist: "How Wide the Biblical World? A Challenge for Recognition and Preservation." The writer of the letter, Dr. N. Rosenstein, a New Jersey physician, summarized some recent books about Canaanites in America and asked: remainskepticaland How long will the "Establishment" silent?Let theirvoices be heardso that we laymencan learn the truth. For in the wooded lands of Vermont, New Hampshire,and elsewhere, we have our own American-biblicalheritage that is much in need of preservation. Artifacts and inscriptions predate Columbus by hundreds, if not thousands of years. ...

Can we accept the challenge?

The Editor acted most properly in bringing the issue into the open and following it with a rebuttal by Ives Goddard and William Fitzhugh of the Department of Anthropology, The Smithsonian Institution. Theirs is an interesting and informative reply; as a scholar who has done research on the subject, I found their statement correct in every detail. There is neither archeological nor linguistic evidence to support any Canaanite discovery of America. What more can be added to the discussion? The Canaanites were termed Phoenicians by the early Greeks, and most of the speculations refer to them by that name. Because the Phoenicians were renowned seafarers in antiquity, a commonly expressed opinion over the years holds that some ship or expedition once left the Mediterranean and ventured to the New World for the purpose of trade and exploration. Having arrived safely, these representatives of the relatively sophisticated Phoenician civilization supposedly left a lasting impression upon the less-developed aboriginal societies still living in stone-age America. If one accepts the possibility that such pre-Columbian voyages occurred, it is reasonable to search for evidence demonstrating that ancient Old World civilization stimulated the rise of civilization in the Americas. If the

Phoenicians were responsible for the origin of native civilization, we should be able to find very specific and well-defined evidence. Proof of Phoenician influence should include the presence of the following items of a shared cultural inventory: Phoenician loan words in Indian languages and, of course, some Indian words in Phoenician; alphabetic writing; parallels in architecture, sculpture, and art; surviving oral traditions and mythological accounts of the bringing of civilization; farming technology; the use of iron; Phoenician artifacts and pottery; ship construction and navigation; Mediterranean food plants and animals; and derivations of Canaanite religious ritual and cosmology. This is a long list, and part of the dispute between amateurs and professionals stems from differences of opinion in establishing rules of evidence. Proponents of the spread of Phoenician influence into America define the evidence with great latitude. An aboriginal reed float is transformed into a lineal descendant of a Nile River barge; Mayan hieroglyphics become an offshoot of Egyptian; an Olmec statue of a bearded god is a Phoenician merchant prince from Carthage. All sorts of similar proofs are said to link the Old World with the New. If such proof exists, why do scholars reject it? Here we come to the nub of an amazing conflict. In the good old days of scholarship it was enough to say, "The authorities in the field agree that the arguments are wrong"; regardless of the merit of the position, no one would hazard a further opinion against the weight of august professors. But in this modern day everyone wishes to be his own authority, and the personal search for cultural alternatives seems to make every idea or theory equal in value. This search creates a stimulating environment if basic rules of evidence hold firm, but ad hoc rules invented to support new theories wreak havoc in archeology and other fields of inquiry. The proPhoenician group of writers go beyond changing the rules of evidence; they blithely reject the work of professionals. Not infrequently the writers claim that their research is ignored totally or misunderstood because "Establishment" scholars are obtuse, opinionated, self-serving, and engaged in a sinister plot to conceal the evidence of Canaanite-Phoenicians in America. These charges against the professionals are widely believed. Some evidence of this can be seen in Rosenstein's letter complaining about the hostile "Establishment." Such sentiments may be only the tip of the iceberg. If this were a technical article, I could cite at this point

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the names of 15 authors who have written about exotic conquests and imaginary migrations to America. This growth of scientific fantasy in the past decade has been of great concern to American anthropologists and archeologists. Until recently the feeling seemed to be that if these strange theories were ignored they eventually would disappear. More recently there has risen a clearer recognition of the great damage being done and a growing awareness of the extent of misinformation reaching the reading public. Much of the professional response has occurred in the past year. The evaluation of America B.C. by Goddard and Fitzhugh (1978: 85-88) is just one of a number of responses which indicate that some of the profession are beginning to mobilize to set the record straight. Other examples have appeared in the public journal of the Archaeological Institute of America, Archaeology, in two recent editorials. Rathje's article (1978: 4-7) points out the errors of Von Diniken's pseudoarcheological myth-making concerning ancient astronauts. Riley's article (1978: 59-61) addresses itself rather to the controversial migrations to the New World propounded by professors Fell, Van Sertima, and Gordon. The November 1978 issue of the American Anthropologist illustrates the extent of professional concern. That journal of the American Anthropological Association now reviews books written for the general public about archeology. Four such volumes are evaluated shrewedly therein by Philip Weigand. Additionally, a new journal, The Zetetic, devotes itself to the scientific examination of astrology, pyramid power, chariots of the gods, Atlantis, and other paranormal explanations of reality; it is making a useful contribution to clearing up their mysteries. These professional efforts are coming none to soon, as the reading public already has been misled badly by the fantasists. Finally, I have recently written a book about alleged Atlantic voyages, and I have heard that another book on the same subject is being prepared for the Oxford Press. From this discussion the reader may be able to put the Canaanite- Phoenician speculations into clearer perspective, for they are just part of the outpouring of the archeologically refutable argument which is flooding the literary marketplace. The Smithsonian reply to Rosenstein is, indeed, an excellent contribution to the controversy, but the problem is of such scope that no single article, rejoinder, or reply will give much satisfaction to either side. Even a book is too short to discuss every author and every question. Where does and their this leave the Canaanite-Phoenicians proponents? The clearest line of argument centers on the presence of Phoenician writing on stone tablets in the Americas. If genuine, these tablets provide final and unassailable proof that the influence of the biblical world reached the Western Hemisphere at an early date.

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If false, they do not disprove the Phoenicians'arrival on these shores, but they knock away a major prop of its linguistic evidence. The Smithsonian rebuttal touched on this question, but too lightly to convey a clear impression of the extent of inaccurate reporting. Six major inscriptions have been attributed to Phoenician explorers; I shall discuss each briefly. New England prove that (1) Ogam messages.from Celts and Phoenicians lived in the eastern United States. In the summer of 1978 two British archeologists, Ross and Reynolds, published in the Britishjournal Antiquity a report titled "Antique Vermont," summarizing their field studies and examinations of alleged sites, inscriptions, and artifacts reported by Fell (1976) and by Trento (1978). Fell claims in America B.C. that the New World holds many Phoenician inscriptions written in Ogam, an alphabetic script which uses combinations of bars and dots, representing consonants and vowels, respectively. Ogam, developed in southwest Ireland no later than the 4th century A.D.,had no known precursors in Ireland or the Mediterranean; it is manifestly absurd to decipher casual scratches on rocks as ancient Phoenician, Libyan, or Iron Age Celtic languages written in 4th-century-A.D. script. Ross and Reynolds (1978: 100-7) found that the Vermont "inscriptions" usually have some obvious explanation. For example, the examination of a grooved boulder at the Crow site, an early, abandoned Yankee farm in Vermont, showed that the striations were not Ogam letters; in fact, they readily were identifiable as abrasions left by a horsedrawn plow of the single share, Gloucestershire type. The two British archeologists found no evidence of any prehistoric Celtic or Phoenician settlements in, or visits to, Vermont, and they concluded that the evidence from other states was equally insubstantial. (2) The Davenport slate tablet from Iowa is an American Rosetta stone proving that an ancient expedition of Libyans, Egyptians, and Spanish Phoenicians colonized the Upper Midwest in 800 B.C. This theory, also proposed by Fell (1976), has received wide publicity in the Reader's Digest and elsewhere. In fact, however, the supposed tablet is a 19th-century building slate taken from what is alleged to have been a Davenport house of prostitution, the Old Slate House. Members of the Davenport Academy of Natural Science carved this tablet among others and put them into Indian mounds, hoping to embarrass a local Swiss clergyman who had antagonized them. The source of the inscription was letters copied from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1872 edition), or from an almanac. This hoax was released to the press in the 1870s as a genuine discovery, and the whole affair later became a source of great embarrassment to the Academy (McKusick 1970). (3) The Grave Creek tabletfirom West Virginia proves that Phoenicians, Erse, and others built the Adena Hopewell mounds. This story was exposed in the 19th century by Cyrus Thomas (1894) and others, but it

refuses to give up the ghost. The Grave Creek tablet bore a mixture of alphabetic signs, including Runic, Phoenician, Greek, Roman, and Erse, apparently all taken from some dictionary current in the 1840s. They do not, of course, spell out any message. Those who inscribed the tablet hoped to create interest in artifacts taken from the Grave Creek Mounds and exhibited to the public in the 1840s for profit. (4) The Bat Creek tablet is a Canaanite inscription of the period of the Jewish revolts (A.D. 66-71 or 132-135) and proves that an expedition reached Appalachia in eastern Tennessee. Cyrus Gordon (1971) provides several decipherments of this tablet, including, "For Judea, the end of days." Smithsonian excavations in the 1880s found the tablet in an Indian mound. Thomas (1894: 391-94) identified the burial of the tablet as dating from the period of historic European contact because there remained fragments of bark and polished wood which had not decayed in the moist environment. No artifacts except the tablet turned up in the Bat Creek mound, but other nearby mounds contained the remains of historic Cherokee burials with European trade goods; the region was the center of the Cherokee nation. The "Canaanite" characters on the tablet closely resemble those used in the system of writing which Sequoyah developed around 1821, a syllabic system using derivatives of English letters to spell the 86 most common syllables. The Cherokee used Sequoyah's system widely in the 1820s, even printing a newspaper with it. The Bat Creek tablet has only nine characters, too short a string to translate, especially because of variations in denotation of signs before the stablilization of the writing system by printing. Despite some difficulties, Cherokee script is a closer match to that on the tablet than the late-Canaanite proposed by Gordon. (5) The Metcalf stone from Fort Benning, Georgia, proves that either Cretans or Phoenicians discovered America. The stone came from a recent barn foundation and has no archeological history, though Gordon (1971) attempts to show that the few marks on the stone may be either Linear A and B, or else Phoenician. He makes no attempt at decipherment, and his tentative identification is astonishing in light of the fact that Phoenician letters and Minoan scripts do not resemble each other. An illustration of the stone shows that the marks thereon are vague and imprecise delineations that do not resemble any Mediterraneanpatterned writing. If the Metcalf stone has prehistoric markings, the specimen may be an aboriginal charmstone, but the designs are too few to suggest any exotic voyages, or that any galleys from the Mediterranean rowed up North American rivers to Georgia. (6) The Paraiha tablet proves that Canaanites voyaged to Brazil in 600 B.c. Long known to be a hoax, the Paraiba inscription regained attention when Gordon restudied the question using a slightly different text copy. The extremely long inscription related that a Phoenician galley was lost in a storm during the

circumnavigation of Africa. This event can be dated approximately 600 B.C. if it refers to the only known attempt to round Africa from the east, an attempt described briefly by Herodotus. The Brazilian inscription reported that twelve men and three women arrived on a "new shore," where they sacrificed a youth to obtain good luck. Gordon (1968, 1971, 1974) argues that the story is authentic and the Paraiba stone genuine, but he has never successfully countered the arguments raised by Frank Moore Cross (1968) of Harvard. The only record of the inscription is an 1872 letter to the museum, containing a hand-drawn representation of the inscription. Brazilian authorities quickly learned that the signature on the letters was fictitious and that the plantation where the mysterious letter writer said the stone had been found was nonexistent. When the director of the Brazilian National Museum learned that the story of the discovery was false, he began to wonder who was responsible. Knowing only five men in Brazil capable of concocting a Phoenician text, he wrote each of them on some minor matter and checked the handwriting of their replies. The mystery was solved when the handwriting of one of the men matched that of the fictitious plantation owner who reported finding the inscription. The hoax seems to have been intended to beguile the Emperor of Brazil, Don Pedro II, a Semitic scholar. Linguistic analysis of the inscription also proves its 19th-century composition. The forger substituted biblical Hebrew when he could not find the right Canaanite expression, made a few inspired guesses, used alphabetic letter forms from various time periods rather than consistent 6th-century-B.c. script, and followed 19th-century handbooks which contained Punic examples of later periods. It was, plainly, a Brazilian fraud. These six inscriptions are poor substitutes for reality, and yet, many examples from North and South America are even more conspicuous frauds or misidentifications. Obviously, no Canaanite scripture in stone has been found in the New World. The Canaanites and closely related Hebrew peoples left a remarkable heritage in the Mediterranean area; nothing requires elaboration upon that heritage by the invocation of prehistoric fantasies in the Western Hemisphere. Marshall McKusick University of Iowa Bibliography Cross, F. M. 1968 The Phoenician Inscription from Brazil, A NineteenthCentury Forgery. Orientalia 37: 437-60. Fell, B. 1976 America B.C. Ancient Settlers in the New World. New York: Quadrangle. Goddard, I., and Fitzhugh, W. W. 1978 Barry Fell Reexamined. Biblical Archeologist 41: 85-88.

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Gordon, C. H. 1968 The Authenticity of the Phoenician Text from Parahyba: The Canaanite Text from Brazil; Reply to Professor Cross. Orientalia 37: 75-80, 425-36, 461-63. 1971 Before Columbus: Links between the Old World and Ancient America. New York: Crown. 1974 Riddles in History. New York: Crown. McKusick, M. B. 1970 The Davenport Conspiracy. State Archaeologist Report 1. Iowa City: University of Iowa. forthAtlantic Voyages to Prehistoric America. Carbondale: coming Southern Illinois University Press. Rathje, W. 1978 The Ancient Astronaut Myth. Archaeology 31.1: 4-7. Riley, C. L. 1978 Interhemispheric Contacts'? Archaeology 31.6: 59-61. Rosenstein, N. 1978 How Wide the Biblical World? A Challenge for Recognition and Preservation. Biblical Archeologist 41: 84-85. Ross, A., and Reynolds, P. 1978 "Antique" Vermont. Antiquity 52.205: 100-7. Thomas, C. 1894 Report on Mound Exploration. Bureau of American Ethnology 12th Annual Report. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. Trento, S. M. 1978 The Search fbr Lost America: The Mrsteries of Stone Ruins. Chicago: Contemporary Books. Weigand, P. C. 1978 Reviews. American Anthropologist 80: 731-33.

Where is the Third Wall of Agrippa I? The recent publications of Benoit (1976) and Hamrick (1977) have contributed to narrowing the gap among various scholarly views concerning the nature and date of the wall unearthed in Jerusalem in the 192728 excavations of Sukenik and Mayer, 400 m northwest of the present wall of the Old City. Both Benoit and Hamrick are of the opinion that these are the remains of a wall which defended the city in the Ist century C.E., prior to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. The questions of the precise date of construction and the identity of the builder remain open to discussion.

Excavations carried out by the authors intermittently between 1972 and 1974 along the line of the Third Wall have thrown additional light on various aspects of the problem. The discovery of two additional towers enabled the excavators to observe a pattern of evenly spaced (42-43 m), northward-facing towers (see plan), thus proving that the wall faced north. Among other problems, the methods used in the construction of the wall were studied in detail. The remains of the 4.5-m-thick wall are part of an engineering enterprise which, in one section, follows a straight line for 750 m(!). The courses of masonry uncovered comprised the foundations of the wall which had been adapted to the natural surface of the bedrock. These foundations were constructed of small and medium-size field stones and of ashlars of varying sizes. Fine workmanship is evident, mainly in the well-fitted ashlars and in the high quality mortar binding the field stones. The foundations match perfectly the measurements of the Third Wall as described by Josephus: 10 cubits for the width of the wall and 20 cubits for the width of the towers. He may have exaggerated somewhat in describing the size of the stones employed in the construction, although several huge stones (5 m long) were found incorporated in the foundation. Similarly, Josephus exaggerated in describing the size of the stones used in the construction of the three towers of Herod's western palace (Phasael, Hippicus, and Miriamne). He was accurate, however, in the overall measurements he gave for the towers, as evident in the so-called "Tower of David." The remains of the excavated foundations are impressive enough to have been part of the ambitious plans of Agrippa I. They are not the desperate and hasty work of the Jewish insurgents. The scanty remains of their building activities at Masada and Herodium are of considerably inferior quality. Recent archeological finds have enhanced Josephus' reliability as a source for the history of this period. This is a weighty obstacle to the acceptance of

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Hamrick's suggestion that Josephus ignored the construction of such an imposing wall (the so-called Fourth Wall) in the northern confines of the city, if indeed the Third Wall was "simultaneously being completed some 400 m to the south" (Hamrick 1977: 22). It is thus also implausible that this was "constructed as a formidable barricade against the cavalry" with no southward continuation on either side. Once more we should return to the evidence in Josephus. He asserts that Agrippa, who initiated the construction of the Third Wall, was ordered by the Romans to discontinue his enterprise. It subsequently was completed, hastily perhaps, at the time of the War against the Romans. The attempt to employ tenuous topographical data mentioned by Josephus, such as the Royal Quarries or Psephinus' Tower, seems unnecessary in view of clearcut archeological remains which confront us. Sara Ben-Arieh and Ehud Netzer Department of Antiquities and Museums Jerusalem, Israel Bibliography Benoit, P. 1976 Ou' en est la question du "troisi me Mur "? Jerusalem. Corbo, U. 1967 L'Herodian di Giabal Fureidas. Liher Annuus 17: 5-121. Hamrick, E. W. 1977 The Third Wall of Agrippa 1. Biblical Archeologist 40: 18-23. Yadin, Y. 1966 Masada. London: Widenfeld & Nicolson.

Legend 1 Sections Exposed in 1927-28 2 Sections Exposed in 1927-28 and 1972-74 3 Sections Exposed in 1940 4 American School of Oriental ResearchThe Albright Institute

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The North Wall Outside Jerusalem In his article "The Third Wall of Agrippa I" Emmet W. Hamrick (BA 40.1 [1977]: 18-23) seeks to identify the builders of the 750-m wall that lies about 400 m north of Jerusalem's Old City. As Hamrick shows, distinguished scholars of the past and present are divided in their opinions about the origin of this wall. Those who do not think it is the Third Wall built by Agrippa I (as described in Josephus) suggest other possibilities. Hamrick himself agrees with Pierre Benoit of the Ecole Biblique that there is an alternative worthy of serious consideration: this north line may have been a defensive position planned and built entirely between A.D. 66 and 70 by the Jewish insurgents. There is no documentation to support such a view. In order to be acceptable, it must at least be supported by circumstantial evidence. Thus, in considering Hamrick's view, we are forced to ask the question: What was the situation in Jerusalem during the interval A.D. 66-70? Josephus (JW 5.1.4) records that at that time the Jewish insurgents were engaged in fighting a savage three-way civil war. Chief Priest Eleazar, leader of some 2400 Zealots, had entrenched himself in the great Temple's Inner Court, a fortress superior even to the Antonia and coveted by all factions. Maintained by the offerings, it appeared Eleazar could hold out there indefinitely. When Vespasian and his armies swept through Galilee crushing the revolt there, John of Gischala with his army of 6000 fled to the safety of walled Jerusalem. He seized the cloistered Outer Court of the Temple. This amazing structure was a quarter mile long and about 900 ft wide. Established in this incomparable base of operations, he could both present a strong front to the Romans when they came and completely surround Eleazar in the Inner Court. When John's marauders unleashed a reign of terror over the people of Jerusalem, the city fathers sent for the legendary Simon ben Giora to save the city.

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Always ready, the superhero Simon came overnight with his well-disciplined army of 10,000, firmly intending to evict John and his men. Unfortunately, his attempts were a furious exercise in futility. Operating from the hills and valleys southwest of the city, Simon found that it was not possible to close quarters with John on the Temple Mount. Unacquainted with failure, he intensified his efforts. He proclaimed that he would stand firm and press his attack. None of his men would be allowed to desert. He closed the gates of the city. John, meanwhile, not only repelled Simon at his rear but also raised towers against Eleazar (JW 5.1.5). To prevent a surprise attack, Eleazar was forced to maintain perpetual guard. Is it likely that under such circumstances one of these three leaders would have had the time or the spare manpower to go 400 m outside the city and build a wall 750 m long? No. None of the three would have left his position, whatever advantage or protection it afforded. In fact, Josephus (J W 5.2.4) says that the various Jewish groups were "astonished" when they saw the Romans actually building their camps outside of Jerusalem. Only then the Jewish groups stopped fighting each other and, "encouraging one another," joined in a swift attack on the Tenth Legion as it was digging in. The circumstantial evidence does not seem to support the view of Hamrick and Benoit. Who then built the wall which, according to all archeologists working at the site, dates from the period under discussion, that is, the Ist century A.D.? There is an alternative supported by documentation. Unproven son of a famous and proven father, young Titus recognized his position early in the campaign and thus addressed his troops: "I cannot but think that this is an opportunity wherein my father and I, and you, shall be put to the trial, whether he be worthy of his former glorious performances, whether I be his son in reality, and whether you be really my soldiers" (JW 3.10.2). This was his opportunity to show what he could do. The size of the force which Titus had at his disposal is a matter of debate. At its core were four Roman legions: V (Macedonia), X (Fretensis), XII (Fulminata), and XV (Apollinaris) "besides which marched auxiliaries that came from the kings" (JW 5.1.6). The kings who came to help the Romans were Antiochus of Commagene, 1000 foot and 1000 horse; Sohemus of Emesa, 1000 foot and 1000 horse; Agrippa II of Trachonitis, 1000 foot and 1000 horse; and King Malchus of Petra, 1000 horse and 5000 foot, chiefly archers (JW 3.4.2). "The whole army, including the auxiliaries sent by the kings as well as the horsemen and footmen, amounted to 60,000 men." Thomas Lewin doubts this figure. He counts the strength of the legions at 4200 each, the cohorts in Roman pay at 8900, the allies at 11,000, and the various cavalry contingents at 3830 for a total of 40,530 (Lewin 1863: 4-5). But H. M. D. Parker says that "in the

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Macedonian wars the strength of the units [the Legions] varied from 5,200 to 6,000 men" (Parker 1928: 17). And an ancient witness, Flavius Vegetius, tells us that "one legion operating alone could be increased to 10,000 men and 2,000 horse" by the addition of auxiliary troops (Clark 1944: 69). Moreover, in the camp of every legion there were camp measurers, clerks, record keepers, apothecaries, physicians, surgeons, bone-setters, the forecasters, service of supply, smiths, makers of tents, and makers of tent poles, nails, staves, and the other items and services required by a legion. Perhaps when one considered all of these people, as well as the legionnaires and the auxiliary soldiers, Josephus' figure of 60,000 seems fairly accurate. On any reckoning Titus had a large force of hardened veterans (including those of the XII Legion who were seeking revenge for the defeat handed them by the Jewish insurgents in the opening phases of the Revolt). On the fifteenth day of the siege these troops under Titus took the Third Wall "when they had demolished a greater part of it" (JW 5.2.2). Five days later Titus held the Second Wall, which he demolished "entirely." The "war party" within the city did not necessarily view these early Roman victories as disasters. On the contrary, they "rejoiced" that they could shorten their internal lines and withdraw to their hilltop walls with the besiegers far below. The defenders' greatest problem was famine within the city, but even that was tolerable because secret passages permitted them to go almost at will into the countryside and bring in food. They even foraged in quantity from the Roman commissariat! This allowed them to hold out indefinitely. When Titus learned of this activity, he responded by building a wall of circumvallation to shut the defenders in and cut them off from their outside food supply. "Now the length of this wall was 40 furlongs, one only abated. . . . Within were created thirteen places to keep garrisons whose circumference put together amounted to ten furlongs. The whole was completed in three days" (JW 5.12.2). Each Roman mile consisted of eight furlongs. To avoid the criticism that I have loaded my argument by choosing the shortest estimate of the length of a Roman mile, I have chosen the highest estimate: 5000 ft. Thus each furlong would equal 625 ft. Thirty-nine furlongs would have been 24,375 ft. The 60,000 men, spread over that distance would have yielded 2.4 men to the foot or 24 workmen for every 10 ft of wall. One can assume that captives from other phases of the campaign at least made up for the number of soldiers who kept guard and supported the personnel who maintained essential services during those three days. The point is this: there was easily sufficient manpower in the Roman forces to build the wall under discussion in the time mentioned by Josephus. Furthermore, considering the horse power available, Titus would not have had his men dragging the stone blocks by hand out to the line of circumvallation. There were not only the 1200 cavalry mounts

belonging to the four legions (Clark 1944: 7) but the 4000 horses brought by the kings. There was plenty of water available for these animals since the Romans held most of the water sources around Jerusalem. At Jerusalem they could have been watered in continuous relays south of the city at the copious spring of En-rogel. There in the area of the confluence of the nahal Kidron, the gai Hinnom, and the Central Valley emeq, industrious Captain Warren investigated a well 100 ft deep that overflowed in an abundant stream (actually an artesian well). Its water ran down into the long and elaborate system of channels with basins cut into the hard mizzeh (Wilson and Warren 1871: 200-1). This stream ran copiously during the wet season, but to a lesser extent during the dry, due to the "weeping out" of the drainage from the porous limestone which, says the geographer George Adam Smith (1908: 58), "retains water up to a third of its own bulk." After the horses were watered, one can see them in a ring of thousands around the city, each horse harnessed to a tow rope with a slip noose at the outer end. The groom merely threw the noose around a block of masonry, drew it up tight and guided the animal out to dump the stone at the line of circumvallation where the builders waited to seize it; then, led by the groom, the horse trotted briskly back to be hitched to another building block. It is likely that seldom in history has such a transfer of material been made so expeditiously and painlessly. But did the Roman forces build a wall such as the one actually found north of the city, a mammoth wall 4 m wide and fortified with towers? Could they-in three days? Titus had the manpower and the animals, but did he have the know-how to build in three days not a dike of rocks but a proper wall capable of housing garrisons? We are not left to question Roman know-how. Earlier, during the reign of Augustus Caesar (27 B.C.A.D. 14), Rome enjoyed the services of one of the most gifted men who had ever lived, Marcus Vitruvius Pollio. Here was a man whose extraordinary mind worked with the precision of a modern computer: Pollio wrote textbooks for the construction of almost everything imaginable. Although almost 2000 years old, his Ten Books on Architecture still provide fascinating reading. The chapter on city walls begins with "Directions of the Streets with Remarks on the Winds." On the tuning of catapults, says this observant operator, one can tell by the musical note (!!) if the thong is wound to the proper force. Because of their value as an engineering guide, the Ten Books were dog-eared textbooks for the Roman legions for many years. Can one doubt the Roman know-how available to Titus' engineers? In our mind's eye, we detach the 10 ft of wall to be built by the 24 men in three days and stand it out alone. Ten feet of wall stacked up out of dressed stones ready at hand? They probably built it completely on the first day. With the greatest of ease, Titus and his armies built

the entire wall of circumvallation in three days. Yet, in spite of all the evidence, many modern historians reject the whole episode as unrealistic. But here is direct and reasonable documentary evidence. Moreover, according to Hamrick's splendid illustration (cf. Simons 1952:465, fig. 57), the 750-m wall discovered north of the Old City agrees with some of the descriptions of Titus' wall of circumvallation. He reports that the segments of wall uncovered by Kenyon's excavation vary from 4.30 to 4.80 m in width. The faces were constructed of a heterogeneous mixture: beautifully drafted Herodian ashlars (from the Third and Second walls?) and also crudely shaped boulders and field stones. As though to save time, the bedrock had not been shaped to accommodate the wall. The wide area between the two faces was filled with mortar and field stones. In short, here was a hastily built, makeshift casemate wall. "No trace has been found of a southward continuation of this wall on either side," says Hamrick (1977: 22). This is true today. However, a southward extension apparently existed when Edward Robinson visited Jerusalem 137 years ago: On the east of the said path, in the field about halfway between those tombs [his so-called "Tombs of the Kings"]and the N. W. corner of the city we noticed foundationswhich belongedverydistinctlyto the third wall; consisting of large hewn blocks of stone of a charactercorrespondingto other works of those ages. On the rightof the part,and runningup the hill in a line with the above, wereothersimilarfoundations;and still furtherup werestones of the like apparentlydisplaced. By following the general direction of these, and of several scarped rocks which had apparentlybeen the foundationof towersor the like,we succeededin tracing the wall in zigzagsin a westerlycoursefor muchof the way to the top of high ground. Here are the evident substructuresof towersor otherfortification,extending

for some distance; and from them to the n.w. corner of* the city the foundation of* the ancient wall is very distinct/h visible (Robinson, 1856: 466).

That these ancient remains have disappeared in the past 137 years is understandable. In 1953 I heard Carl Kraeling, then Director of The American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, say that even during the years in which he had been coming to Jerusalem the ground north of the city had lost much of its top dressing of scattered building stones. Some too large to be moved lay where they were, and buildings were erected over them. One day a group of girls from St. Sidnya's Mission School stopped me in the street and invited me to crawl with them under the building to see a great stone. With thanks, I accepted the invitation. The word "great"accurately described the stone, which was not only huge but also beautifully tooled. Too large to have belonged to Solomon, it looked as though it might have dated to the time of Herod the Great, but I was not skillful enough to be certain. Edward Robinson was quite convinced that the wall in question and the southward extension he saw

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were the Third Wall of Agrippa I. I, however, agree with Kathleen Kenyon (1974: 254) when she says "the identification of this wall as a part of Titus's circumvallation wall seems to be convincing." Not only does her archeological evidence point in this direction, but so does the literary evidence. Ilene Beatty McNulty Okeene, OK Bibliography Clark, Lt. J., trans. 1944 The Military Institutions of the Ro-mans of Vegetius. Harrisburg, PA: The Military Service Publishing Company. Eschenburg, J. J. 1841 Manual of Classical Literature. Philadelphia: E. C. Riddle. Hamrick, E. W. 1977 The Third Wall of Agrippa I. Biblical Archeologist 40: 18-23. Kenyon, K. M. 1974 Digging Up Jerusalem. London: Benn/ New York: Praeger. Lewin, T. 1863 The Siege of Jerusalem. London: Longman. Morgan, M. H., trans. 1960 The Ten Books of'Architecture of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio. New York: Dover. Parker, H. M. D. 1958 The Roman Legions. Cambridge: W. Heffer. Robinson, E. 1841 Biblical Researches in Palestine, vol. 1. London: J. Murray. Simons, J. 1952 Jerusalem in the Old Testament. Leiden: Brill. Smith, G. A. 1907 Jerusalem, vol. 1. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Wilson, C. W., and Warren, Capt. 1871 The Recovery' of Jerusalem. London: R. Bentley.

Corrigenda Just a brief note to point out a slight misidentification of an illustration in the September 1978 BA. The inner columns of the Temple Scroll pictured on p. 115 are cols. 56-58, and not 55-57 as labelled. Only the portion of col. 55 (and 59) is visible in the illustration. I also want to offer a belated word of praise concerning the BA's now familiar format. It greatly enhances the presentation of its excellent content. William A. Hartfelder, Jr. Cincinnati, OH A True City

1) It is not I, unfortunately, that excavated the Iron Age wall (p. 51). This extraordinary discovery was made by my teacher, Professor Avigad. 2) Beer-sheba was considerably smaller than Jerusalem (20% of David's Jerusalem, 2% of Hezekiah's and his successors'). 3) 1 believe that Jerusalem from the 10th century onward was a true city. Size is of minor importance as a criterion in defining a city. Jerusalem was undoubtedly an important administrative and cultic center, a sizable part of its population finding their livelihood in nonproductive occupations, in short, a true city with all the ten traits of a city according to Gordon Childe (Town Planning Review 1950: 3-17). Magen Broshi The Israel Museum, Jerusalem Response I appreciate the opportunity to note the correction that the wall, upon which so much turns, was excavated by Avigad and is so noted in Broshi's important study (IEJ 24 [1974]: 21-25). Readers will have to study Broshi's articles on population to see if they agree with him. For myself, there seem to be too many open variables and uncertainties to take his figures seriously-although I would note that I have no others to put in their place. The question of the definition of "city" is a difficult one, and V. Gordon Childe's 1950 study is an interesting attempt to solve the problem. Childe, however, was primarily interested in the move from primitive village to something that was clearly more complex than that. Whether this next stage is a city (urban area) is more difficult. Certainly as Childe notes, "Of course it was not just their size that constituted their distinctive character. . . . Yet a certain size of settlement and density of population, is an essential feature of civilization" (p. 4). I would suggest that Beer-sheba's population may have been larger than 20% of David's Jerusalem, particularly if one allows for settlement around the tell at Beersheba. This is something that is considerably less likely on the hill of Jerusalem. The population of Jerusalem will be decreased further if one allows for even some modest monumentalization of space in David's creation of a palace complex. Beer-sheba seems to have had enough people, and more important, enough of the right types of people to be an urban area. I am skeptical as to whether the right types of people existed in the urban relationship in Jerusalem before the crisis at the end of the 8th century turned it from a palace-temple center into an urban one.

Michael M. Eisman I read with great interest Professor Eisman's article "A Temple University Tale of Three Cities" (BA 41 [1978]: 47-60), and I hope he would not mind if I allow myself to make two minor corrections and raise a point in which I beg to differ from his opinion:

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BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

The rediscovery'of the oldest codex of the complete Tiberian Hebrew Bible enables us to gain a new understanding of the rise of the Massoretic Bible. In this paper GoshenGottstein analy'zes the position of codices of the Hebrew Bible, recounts the detective work that led to the authentication of the Aleppo Codex, and details for the first time the manifold ramifications of this unique treasure of the past for broadening our grasp of the history of the Bible text.

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M. H. Goshen-Gottstein It is one of the fascinating pastimes of the historian of biblical studies to try and evaluate the interrelationship between material discoveries and new insights. Some decades, or even centuries, could not boast any discoveries, and most of the scholarly output consisted of rehashing formulations, harmonizing positions, and exploring further speculations. At other times, hard facts came in fast, and scholars hardly managed to integrate the evergrowing body of new information. For over a century Bible scholars have become used to a never-ending stream of treasures from the past. It is part of this process that the very term "biblical archeology" has slowly changed its contents, so much so that definitions such as Albright's, a generation ago, would seem to many present-day scholars rather all-embracing and overly comprehensive. Even so, many a scholar who considers himself a biblical archeologist would still regard, say, a biblical text from Qumran as part of his domain, possibly because it was "excavated," whether by a professional excavator or a Bedouin. Yet the recovery of a biblical text not hidden in the caves of the Judean desert but rather in the "Cave of Elijah" in the venerable synagogue of Aleppo would probably be regarded as belonging to another subspecialty of biblical studies. It may be a thousand years old; it may be a discovery of paramount importance-the biblical archeologist will tend to pass the find to the textual critic or to the specialist in matters massoretic.

ALEPPO CODEX the and of the Rise Bible Massoretic 9Text

REQUEST FROM THE AUTHOR This article contains some reproductions from the A leppo Codex for your convenience. In accordance with religious custom, as explained in Maimonides' Code, hiblical texts-even though only reproductions-should not he discarded in such a way that the divine name might be profaned. Kindly make sure that you keep this issue in a special/Iy saqfeplace.

BIBLICALARCHEOLOGIST/SUMMER1979

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The Aleppo Codex is the oldest codex of the complete Hebrew Bible.

146

So much for the point of principle whether the most important discovery in the field of Hebrew "massoretic" manuscripts is a legitimate matter of interest for the "biblical archeologist." To be sure, our story does not rest entirely on a single discovery but rather integrates various discoveries and insights. Yet without the Aleppo Codex our reconstruction would have remained much more tentative and clouded by doubt. It is thanks to what can rightly be termed the miraculous recovery of this codex that we are now able to retell the story of the rise of the massoretic Bible. Let us start with some basic points. The rise of the codex form of the book in the early Christian era concerns books in various languages and scripts. Yet a codex of the Hebrew Bible is functionally different from a codex of the Septuagint or the Peshitta or most other texts. It both coexists and contrasts with another major form of textual transmission: the scroll. To be sure, scrolls of Hebrew biblical texts in our possession today predate Hebrew codices by more than a millennium. That is to say, we possess no codex of a Hebrew biblical text earlier than the last quarter of the 9th century C.E. This brings us within two or three decades of the Aleppo Codex itself. From a functional point of view there remains a basic difference between scroll and codex. The scroll was the original form of scribal tradition, and it remained the only one acceptable for liturgical use, at least within medieval Rabbanite Judaism. The outer form of the scroll did not change, nor the scribal conventions of its production. None of the scribal refinements we shall discuss-strokes and dots of various shapes, to indicate vowels and tonal accentuation-could ever be introduced into a scroll for liturgical use. However much the graphic notation was refined, however exact the details transmitted from generation to generation, they were only noted down in a codex. The codex became the model for student and scribe, to assist their memory in verifying

BIBLICALARCHEOLOGIST/SUMMER1979

details; it became the storehouse for all information to be studied. The knowledge thus mastered and committed to memory was applied when the sacred text was being read aloud from a scroll before the assembled congregation. It will therefore be understood why biblical texts in languages such as Greek or Syriac were transmitted in codex form fairly soon after the codex became a convenient and acceptable form. The Hebrew Bible, on the other hand, was copied into codices only as a result of what amounted to a revolution in the ways of its transmission. A further remark is in order. In the nature of things, the opening of a scroll at the right spot is not always easily achieved. The longer the scroll, the more cumbersome the process. Hence, the maximum length of any biblical scroll is, so far as we know, that of a major subdivision, such as the Pentateuch. A scroll of the entire Hebrew Bible could not be handled. This fact must be borne in mind when we speculate about the emergence of the first codex of the entire Hebrew Bible. The facts known from the study of the early Hebrew massoretic codices, penned between the end of the 9th century and the middle of the 10th, bear out what we would assume by analogy. Just as the first Hebrew printers, six centuries later, stuck to most conventions of scribes, so the scribes of codices stuck to various conventions of scrolls. They tended to produce codices of one book or of a part of the Bible, such as the Pentateuch or the Prophets. Penning for the first time a codex of the entire Hebrew Bible with its hundreds of thousands of separate graphic details must have been a mind-boggling undertaking, something to be achieved only after untold years of developing expert knowledge and skills. This should suffice as a background for a discussion of that very undertaking-the Aleppo Codex. "Song of David" (2 Samuel 22) as laid out in the Aleppo Codex with the usual occurrence of "massoretic notation" in the margins.

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148

The Aleppo Codex is the oldest codex of the entire Hebrew Bible-traditionally termed the 24 books-fully vowelled, accentuated, and adorned with marginal notes according to a Tiberian massoretic tradition. Its status is borne out by the overall evaluation of many technical details. Our judgment happens to tally with the contents of an authorship note appended to the codex about a century after it was written, but by no means depends on it. There are older Hebrew manuscripts-after all, the Qumran texts predate the codex by more than a thousand years. Also, we possess one Tiberian massoretic manuscript that definitely predates our codex. That is the beautifully executed manuscript of the Prophets known as the Cairo Codex, belonging to this very day to the Karaite community in Cairo. The production of that manuscript had been undertaken by the great master, Moshe ben Asher, the father of the great master, Aaron [ben Moshe] ben Asher, none other than the massorete in charge of producing the Aleppo Codex. The claim is, then, that the Aleppo Codex is the oldest codex containing the entire Tiberian massoretic Bible, that is to say, the oldest we possess and the oldest of which we know. May one claim more than that? With all the caution due when arguing from silencemost probably, yes. Given that Hebrew books suffered through pogroms, war, or persecution as much as Jewish communities themselves, one cannot attach too much weight to the fact that this is quite simply the earliest codex of that kind that survived. Slightly more weighty is the argument that no contemporary or earlier source mentions any such massoretic codex of the entire Bible as being penned or supervised by a master-massorete. More important, still, is the fact that all our sources point positively to Ben Asher's oeuvre as being the decisive event. To be sure, we cannot absolutely rule out the possibility that there is a

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

reference pointing to a lost codex penned by the father, Moshe ben Asher. But the evidence against such an assumption is compelling. Without getting involved in a full-dress technical discussion, we may state for the moment that there is excellent reason to maintain that the Aleppo Codex is not only the oldest manuscript of its type of which we know, but the oldest Tiberian massoretic codex of the entire Bible. A further consideration is in order. If we study a later codex of an entire massoretic Bible-the work of a copyist who does not have to do any spade work-we are struck by the enormous effort that must have gone into copying those hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of details. Whereas some copyists produced several copies of the same part of the Bible, there are almost no instances in which the same copyist produced two copies of the entire Bible. Even though work was often divided between the scribe who penned the letters and the scribe-massorete who supplied vowels, accents, and massoretic notation, the effort involved was so immense that hardly any professional copyist ever managed to produce more than one copy of the entire Bible. If this holds true with regard to later copyists, it would be especially so with regard to the superhuman effort of the last scion born to the house of "the old Rabbi Asher," who had founded a dynasty of master-massoretes. Now that we hold the original codex in our hands, we can appreciate the unbelievable akribia necessary and the never-ending toil involved in checking and rechecking all the details for the entire Bible. Up to this point we have used terms such as "massoretic notation" without further explanation. If we look at a page of a massoretic model codex, as reproduced here, we see various letters or abbreviated words on the left or right margins as well as between the columns. These correspond to tiny circlets written over a word of the text. Also, at the top and at the bottom of the page we find units of short

shorthand notes as to the specific orthography of a word was perhaps the major achievement of the massoretic endeavor. It has been known for generations that in all massoretic codices there are thousands of discrepancies between the text itself and the notes that go with it. As centuries passed by, copyists copied both texts and \ )'" *i* notes, but those did not tally. The X401 copyists understood less and less of what they were doing. In fact, very VIIIA often they turned the notes into I't fanciful figures of ornamentation, without any remnant of textual value. Even if the notes were left intact, they no longer served with absolute precision the basic text to which they were attached. The the of 32 Detail from Deuteronomy question of absolute precision and characteristictiny marginalnotations relative correlation between text and which appear in the left margin of the massoretic notation thus became a text on p. 157. major touchstone for judging the quotes centered around a word (not quality of a codex. Though the evaluation of the always spelled out) which are a sort of concordancoid, mnemotechnical Aleppo Codex is very complicated, the problem of methodology-of aid. Marginal notations usually how one goes about this evaluaconsist of a Hebrew letter, the tion-is not in itself complicated numerical value of which indicates since it rests on various typological the number of occurrences of that graphic unit in that selfsame orthog- tests. It is the only manuscript of raphy. Or else, it might be the letter the entire massoretic Bible in which lamed, indicating "letha," i.e., not in the correspondence between text and massoretic notation is practically existence elsewhere. in this notes these perfect. If we ignore the inevitable Deciphering signs of human frailty, the codex day and age of computer-arranged turns out to be the only example concordances is not everybody's cup in existence of almost complete of tea; but for the history of stabiharmony between text and massora. lizing the tiniest massoretic details, It is largely this internal evidence they are of the utmost importance. is Bible the substantiates our claim with letter of that Every second Almost every regard to the uniqueness and meaningful. word raises a problem of plene or authenticity of this codex. We may now come back to our defective spelling, i.e., whether a vowel is indicated by a mater previous observation and, perhaps, lectionis or not. Each spelling, rephrase it from a different point of according to Rabbinic tradition, may departure. The first production of a be indicative of some deeper codex of an entire massoretic Hebrew Bible was a major event in meaning. Hence, in theory, scruthe history of the development of pulously guarding the exact orthogour Bible text. No later copying or raphy and informing future scribes in a framework of running marginal adaptation would be quite the same.

There is considerable merit to the argument that if the father, Moshe ben Asher, had succeeded in producing such a codex, he would have been credited with such an unparalleled achievement; and Maimonides might well have chosen his codex as his standard. But there is not the slightest reason to assume that such a codex ever existed. As far as our reconstruction of events goes, the man who actually achieved that distinction, obviously basing himself on the family tradition, was the son, Aaron [ben Moshe] ben Asher. The codex he produced was what centuries later became known as the Aleppo Codex. At this juncture another detail ought to be examined. We have stressed time and again the difference between a codex of the entire Bible and a codex of one book or one part of the Bible. What are the facts with regard to the Aleppo Codex? A look at the facsimile will show that there are 294 folios. A quick count will indicate that roughly the following parts are missing: most of the Pentateuch, a few chapters from II Kings, Jeremiah, Minor Prophets, Chronicles, and Psalms, as well as the entire final part of the codex, containing much of Song of Songs, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. If we reckon the parts missing proportionally to the entire text, we arrive at the conclusion that in its present state the codex is reduced to about three quarters of its original contents. If we speak, then, of this codex as the oldest one of the entire massoretic Bible, we speak of its original status, of the basic achievement of Aaron ben Asher. It is less than gracious-as some people have done-to confuse the issue by playing upon words and maintaining that the Aleppo Codex is not the oldest codex of the entire massoretic Bible. But from the point of view of

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Contrary to widespread belief, the Leningrad Codex does not mirror the tradition of Aaron ben Asher with absolute fidelity.

150

the present generation, the fact cannot be denied: what was a codex of the entire Bible for over a thousand years has been desecrated, torn, and partly burned by Syrian pogromists who vented their hatred three decades ago, after the establishment of a Jewish state was determined. They stormed the synagogue in Aleppo and nearly succeeded in destroying the entire codex. Whether one terms it a miracle or proof of supreme Jewish self-sacrifice, whatever has been salvaged was literally pulled out of the fire. The Aleppo Codex, as extant today, has ceased to be a codex of the entire Bible. Hence, we face the irony of history also in the field of Bible codices. When the late Paul Kahle realized, back in the 1930s, that the Jewish community of Aleppo would never grant him permission to use Aaron ben Asher's original manuscript, he decided to use a substitute. Henceforth, the editions of Kittel's Biblia Hebraica were based on the so-called Leningrad Codex (see below). Now that vandals have burned part of the Aleppo Codex, that substitute remains, indeed, the oldest extant codex of the entire Hebrew Bible. Thus, when we were able, for the first time, to study side by side the two oldest manuscripts of the entire Hebrew Bible-the codices named after the cities of Aleppo and Leningrad-only one remained intact. Yet at the same time, comparison showed the two codices for what they are: the Aleppo Codex-the perfect original masterpiece which authenticates itself by internal criteria; the Leningrad Codex-a none-too-successful effort to adapt a manuscript of a different Tiberian subgroup to a Ben Asher Codex. The very attempt of the "harmonizing" massorete of the Leningrad Codex is the most telling proof one can imagine that Aaron ben Asher's text was used as a model a few decades after his death. No scribe in his right mind would go to the trouble to adapt an existing manuscript to another model unless he recognized its superiority. This is

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

what the (second) scribe of the Leningrad Codex attempted. Yet such an undertaking was doomed to failure because the scribe could, at the very best, deal with differences of some methegs or even accents and matres lectionis. But he could not change the layout of sections and Songs. The history of internal disharmony among manuscripts started then and there. By various counts, the consonantal text of the Leningrad Codex-wrongly proclaimed to this day as practically identical with Aaron ben Asher's codex-has been shown to be about the furthest removed from that subtradition, if we count the identical and the different features of early codices. It is only after two decades of intensive comparative study of various indicators that we are able to back up earlier hunches with numerical data. Since even specialists in other subfields of biblical philology are usually unable to appreciate minutiae of massoretic argument, it is quite easy to confuse the issue with a few clever sounding bon mots. It is not a very encouraging sign for the state of biblical philology that some scholars have been able to get away with general statements without ever having spent the years necessary to acquaint themselves with the facts. Rather than cataloging baseless misstatements, we should now take a look at the decisive statement of Maimonides which has remained the basis for scholarly inquiry for many centuries. This is what that towering halachist had to say on the subject, and it is from here that the search started: Since I have seen greatconfusionin all the scrollswhich 1 looked into for these matters, and also the Massoreteswho compose[writings]to makeknownopen and closed sections contradict one another according to the books on which they base themselves,I saw fit to note down here all the sections of the Law, closed and open, as well as the layout of the Songs [viz Exodus 15,

Deuteronomy32] so as to correctall the books accordingly.The book on which we basedourselvesin thesemattersis the

identification. Local traditions are not scholarly proof. It was one of the major achievements of modern philological detective work to show that the legend was true. While the technical proof cannot be detailed here, we shall come back to some of the points involved in this identification. Meanwhile, we may ponder the rather daring step taken by a We ought to stress immediately master-halachist like Maimonides. that this statement of Maimonides He was struck by the considerable a with he deals that leaves no doubt between books in his day differences avoid should we and specific issue, occurrence and type the as He does loose regards generalizations. any of sections. In order to remedy that not speak about orthography, or about vowels, accents, or differences confusion, he relied on one of metheg, or about massoretic particular codex which happened to be available to him in Cairo (or, notation. He does not say whose whose rather, Fustat). That codex served as book he would not accept or This a model for the Torah scroll he had system seems untrustworthy. written for himself in order to fulfill needs stressing because it is rather the demands of the Divine law. how to see reputable disconcerting Moreover, he seemed to expect that scholars have invented completely if he copied the details into his different statements allegedly made Code, scribes would accept those by Maimonides in this context. He features as normative. Henceforth, states unequivocally what has mistakes would be eradicated, and decisions become the basis of later the correct way of writing Torah Jewish within the accepted legal scrolls would be restored. he deals expressly system (halacha); Was Maimonides really so with the issue where a section naive, or was there more to the should be marked, what type the section is, and how the two large story than meets the eye? In order to explore the probPentateuchal poems should be laid to out. The lending of his authority lem, it is not enough to approach it on from the point of view of the a certain model codex is done him tradition of the Bible text. We must to known it is the basis that that everyone used to rely on it. The study it primarily in the light of his halachic reasoning and procedures. description has a causal flavor: Ben The historian of halacha is well Asher spent many years to ensure utmost correctness, so everyone used aware today that only a small number of halachic rulings handed to accept his book as authoritative. down by Maimonides are not clearly Hence, Maimonides accepts that based on a statement from Talmudic codex as authoritative and copies or Gaonic literature. Sometimes we to so as details out the relevant make that particular tradition suspect that the reason for a halachic difference between him and, halachically binding. At this juncture I should add say, his great critic Rabbi Abraham another piece of information, small but decisive. Local lore of Aleppo Jewry had it for centuries that the model codex they cherished and held in awe in the "Cave of Elijah" was none other than the very codex prepared by Ben Asher and declared authoritative (as regards the details mentioned) by Maimonides. As with other tales of local lore, scholars were justified in doubting that pious one well knownin Egyptwhichcontains all the twenty-fourbooks, which was formerly in Jerusalemas a model for correcting books. Everybody used to accept it as authoritative,for Ben Asher went over it mostexactlyfor manyyears and correctedit many times . . ." (Maimonides, Code, Laws of Torah Scrolls VIII, 4).

ben David of Posquieres is to be found in a variant text in their sources, rather than in different interpretations of a Talmudic text. But in general, halachic decisions by Maimonides are based in one way or another on an identifiable Rabbinic source. The one major exception in the huge field covered by Maimonides' Code is the issue of writing a Torah scroll. There he takes, as it were, one codex and declares, "Only this one is correct." This is not a matter of interpreting a Rabbinic text. It is a matter of throwing his authority behind a certain fact and denying recognition to all other facts. Even more surprising: whatever the later developments, no rabbinic authority, contemporary or otherwise, ever declared that Maimonides was wrong and that another model codex should be adopted. To be sure, the modern student of biblical antiquities has the right and duty to raise questions. For him the decision of Maimonides is a subject of inquiry. It does not affect the modern student if the conclusion of his scholarly analysis would turn out to be that Maimonides was illinformed. But he will have to bear in mind that in order to elevate the layout of one particular codex to the position of an absolute halachically perfect model, Maimonides must have had extremely compelling reasons. This was no matter for arbitrary whims, and the halachic opponents of Maimonides were not the men to acquiesce in such a whim. Let us look at a point which is decisive in the context of our story. Maimonides looked for a model for writing his scroll of the Law, and he dealt with the laws concerning Torah scrolls. It stands to reason that he should have chosen a model codex of the Pentateuch. As stated above, codices of parts of the Bible were in existence and were easier to come by. But this is not what he did. Only one particular codex was authoritative for him, and that was a codex of the entire Bible, although the nonpentateuchal parts were of no relevance for his purpose.

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It is no coincidence that that very codex turns out-when measured by our criteria of inner consistency and correlation with otherwise established Ben Asher readings-to be unique, indeed. After years of painstaking, detailed comparison the modern critic has to concede not only that the Aleppo local lore is correct, but he is compelled by the circumstances to admit that Maimonides knew exactly what he was talking about. What looks to the critical eye at first blush like an arbitrary decision was in reality based on a tradition about the unique trustworthiness of the codex of Ben Asher. We may now proceed one further step. We have already remarked on the fact that whereas the modern philologist tends to dwell on differences of readings with regard to vowels, accents, and methegs, Maimonides' concern was different. The major point of halachic interest-as we can see for instance in tractate Megilla of the Palestinian Talmud-concerns the question of proper division into sections. The real importance of that particular feature was perhaps not quite clear until very recently, for only now do we possess various scrolls or fragments of the same biblical text, as written or kept at Qumran. These fragments enable us, for the first time, to deal with some important details of scribal tradition in writing a sacred text over two thousand years ago. Only today are we able to put forward some educated guesses as to why certain features were endowed with halachic importance and why, in the end, Maimonides put his authority behind one particular codex in that regard. The following observation rests on an examination of parallel texts of Isaiah from Qumran, as well as tentative results of some other comparisons. Most of the fragmentary material, though not all of it, comes from Cave IV. The striking Facingpages of prosetext (pp. 152-53)in the Aleppo Codex showinga section from 1 Kings(11:8b-12:7).The circletat the extremeright marginof the right page is considereda massoreticcorrectionmark.

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BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

fact is that in spite of quasirecensional differences-not to speak of textual and orthographic changes-there exists a considerable unity of tradition as to the place of a section, that is to say, where to leave some empty space to mark off a textual subdivision. This is true both with regard to Qumran fragments among themselves and to the stubbornly guarded tradition kept alive for a thousand years from, let us say, 150 B.C.E. till 850 C.E.

The place of a section seems pretty well fixed, although far from being absolutely uniform, whereas the type of section-open, closed, or otherwise-seems more open to variation. To put it differently, we are beginning to gather some material for the history of fixed scribal responsibilities and customs. Such activities developed over a thousand years beyond the limits of textual differences. Cutting the textual continuity into sections turns out to have been one of the earliest and most basic responsibilities of the ancient scribes, or as they are called, the soferim-that is, possibly, counters of letters. Now that we can see for the first time the results of scribal tradition in the Qumran period, we can appreciate why the exact position and type of section space became the halachically decisive feature. It remains to be seen whether one day we also shall recover some fragments of Pentateuchal Songs. A thousand years had passed since the days of Qumran. When Aaron ben Asher finally attempted to utilize the combined experience of his family for the preparation of the codex which was to become known by his name, he was obviously most careful in matters of primary massoretic responsibility, i.e., spelling and preservation of textual layout. Meanwhile, further fields of specialization had developed: the tradition of special orthography (types of letters), the tradition of vocalization, accentuation, and methegs (gacyas), the tradition of massoretic marginal notation. By the 9th century, layer upon layer had grown until the

massorete's eye had to coordinate and survey hundreds of thousands of minute details. To be sure, the Aleppo Codex was singled out by Maimonides because of its reliability as regards the one feature halachically relevant. Today we can appreciate that the achievement of Ben Asher was just as amazing in other areas of his massoretic activity. For the first time, Bible scholars are able today to study the oldest codex of the entire Hebrew Bible side by side with the first published parts of the large critical edition of the Hebrew University Bible which collates in one of its apparatuses the differences from all the early massoretic codices. It becomes immediately clear that the quantity of differences stands in an inverse relationship to the historical development of massoretic activity. There are comparatively few differences with regard to cutting into sectionsalthough the differences in the books of the prophets are noticeably more than in pentateuchal codices. A larger number concerns differences of plene and defective orthography; the bulk deals with differences of methegs-just as we would assume from the quotes in Mishael ben Uzziel's "Treatise on Differences between Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali" (see below). How do these findings relate to the historical development? For three centuries--roughly between 1500 and 1800-there raged a controversy about the nature and "inspirational" position of the Hebrew vowels, largely as part of theological feuds between the Catholic and Protestant churches. Today it is practically impossible not to accept the results of prolonged study: that the massoretes active between ca. 700 and 900 C.E. added a new dimension of activity in order to achieve their goal. That goal was to devise a reliable and exact graphic notation for indicating details of the liturgic reading of the Bible in public. How can one indicate which words should be read together? How to indicate main stress and secondary

stress? When to lift one's voice or to lower? How to note which syllable is in danger of being swallowed-hence one ought to linger for an additional split second? There were differences between individuals, as well as between rival studios, concerning the minutiae. But what seems minute to us is not too trivial to note if the word of God is concerned. Even if two massoretes grew up in the same studio or workshop, they never perceived exactly the same thing. Yet the slightest hesitation or holding back in the enunciation of a syllable was worthy of note, hence the immense number of differences as regards methegs, differences which the ordinary student of the Bible today hardly notices. It boggles the mind to realize how those students of the Bible text, over a thousand years ago, toiled for generations in order to refine their system of graphic notation.

the codex produced by Aaron ben Asher. The "differences" between those two masters concern the very last divergences which could not be resolved. The graphic notation had been refined to its tiniest tittles and had become practically unanimous. Even so, some slight differences remained, almost all of them with regard to the use of a metheg. Yet those last minute differences were still deemed so important for the correct tradition of Bible reading that they were collected in lists in order to make sure that all future generations would remain aware of all the smallest details of public Bible reading, even those which were not accepted by Ben Asher, whose particular brand of tradition was generally accepted. We have dwelt on the position of the Aleppo Codex, written about 900 C.E. It is an educated guess that it must have taken about 200 years for the graphic system to develop to perfection. That takes us back to about 700 C.E.-if

Putting side by side the Aleppo Codex, the Hebrew University Bible, and the "Treatise on Differences" will resolve an age-old misconception. We knew all along the names of some master-massoretes, but hardly anything more than their names. Over the centuries the names of Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali had become synonymous with the issue of textual differences. Late medieval writers and modern scholars had gotten into the habit of relating any kind of textual divergence to the alleged feud between the two. Any list of variants, whatever its true origin, was related to them. Today the picture has changed, and so has our understanding of the essence of massoretic activitylargely, though not exclusively, thanks to the fact that we possess

we bear in mind

the list of names of Aaron's forefathers, back to the "old Asher." We possess no direct evidence as to the very onset of the invention of graphic notation, nor do we have any hard facts to connect the invention of massoretic graphic notation with the misnamed Syriac "massora," as was claimed a century ago. In any event, why was it about 700 C.E. that graphic notation became necessary? The correct answer was probably given in the first generation of Renaissance Hebraists, yet nobody paid attention to it because it was not given in a technical treatise on Bible or language, nor was the author a scholar of great repute. In his disputation against his former coreligionists, entitled Shebhile Tohu (Itinera Deserta, Venice 1539), wrote Gerardus Veltwych-then recently baptized-referring to the opinion which Elija Levita had published a year earlier in his Massoreth Ha-massoreth with regard to the late origin of vowel signs: ThereforeI hold thatafterthe religionof Ishmael had been victorious in all the

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countries of the Orient and there was some peacein the landof Israel,... they put their minds to it and spent every effort to make the lost languagereadable. ... If we translate Veltwych's idea into a historical hypothesis, it roughly amounts to this: the invention of vowel signs is one of the instances where traditional inhibitions were overcome because of external danger. They were invented because Hebrew was in danger of being lost after the Muslim onslaught, yet they could not be devised during wartime, but rather in a period of relative quiet, because such an invention requires time and leisure. Veltwych's observation, which ought to be read in its full context, reflects a keen historical mind. It explains the why and when of graphic notation. Without being based on all the evidence we possess today-culminating in the monumental achievement of Aaron ben Asher-it strikes us as amazingly to the point. Up to now we have taken it for granted that the Aleppo Codex is, indeed, the very model codex declared authoritative by Maimonides. Again, we cannot reopen the discussion of all the technical details, the more so since they are of an intricate halachic nature. But I should like to dwell on the major evidence because it is of far-reaching interest for understanding the process of both textual and halachic development. At this juncture, it will be useful if the reader will look at the reproductions of the relevant pages of the codex. One ought to remember two basic facts. On the one hand, all evidence is restricted a priori to the

S 156

Pentateuch, since Maimonides was only concerned with that part of the Bible. On the other hand, we have already noted that practically the entire Pentateuch part of the Aleppo Codex was destroyed in a pogrom 30 years ago. To be exact, only 11 pages out of the existing 588 of the facsimile belong to the Pentateuch. Whatever proof we wish to offer must come from these few leaves-a rather difficult demand. As it happens, the crucial evidence has survived, in a most unlikely fashion. It is a clearly stated halachic precept that in a Torah scroll the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32 must be laid out in 70 lines. We are told exactly how to start the prose lines at the top of the column and how to divide the Song into 70 lines. This is normative teaching, as laid down in Rabbi Joseph Caro's code, Shulhan cAruch, based in turn on what we find printed in Maimonides' code, Mishne Torah. Counting the lines in the reproduction of the Aleppo Codex will show that the song is laid out in 67 lines. This is such an obvious discrepancy that one must immediately reach the conclusion that the Aleppo Codex cannot be the codex mentioned by Maimonides. It stands to reason that this was the very fact that caught the eye of the late Umberto Cassuto, who was the only modern Bible scholar with rabbinic training who was allowed to look at the codex when it was still in Aleppo. His announcement in 1946, subsequent to his visit to Aleppo in 1944, caused much consternation. Cassuto flatly denied the possibility that the Aleppo Codex could have been the codex used by Maimonides. Most tantalizingly, however, he never indicated the reasons for his judgment because as he said, they were of too technical a nature for a public announcement. Cassuto was the only modern scholar to be allowed by the Aleppo community to study the codex at some length, even though he was not allowed to take notes. When it was announced in 1948 that the precious manuscript had been destroyed, it was inevitable that his

BIBLICALARCHEOLOGIST/SUMMER1979

judgment had to be accepted. There was nothing to argue about-he had never stated his reasoning and nobody was aware of the facts, anyway. Very soon afterward he passed away. This is where matters stood until the codex reappeared. The importance of what has emerged since then does not just lie in the facts themselves. It lies also in what we learn about the dynamics of textual change and halachic decision, about the power of local traditions which turn out to be stronger than all the care which an authority such as Maimonides exercised in order to get matters straight. It is true that our printed editions of Maimonides' Code state that Deuteronomy 32 should be laid out in 70 lines. This as well as some other obvious discrepancies between the facts of the codex and the text of the Code is, in all probability, what made Cassuto deny the identity of the Aleppo Codex with the one used by Maimonides. However, if we refuse to rely on printed editions and take the trouble to check the copy of the Code prepared by Maimonides himself-the Bodleian MS Hunt 80, which fortunately has survived-we are in for a surprise, for the text reads 67 lines! If we go on to check other ancient manuscripts of the Code, we see how "correctors" crossed out 67 and wrote 70 and then changed some of the catch words so as to fit the number. In other words, Maimonides' original wording and list fit exactly the facts of the Aleppo Codex! Yet those facts ran directly contrary to a widespread custom of certain massoretes; so some copyists of the Code substituted precisely the kind of division and arrangement which Maimonides had set out to prevent in the first place. Thus, as irony would have it, they caused him to turn into accepted halacha precisely the opposite of what he had really The layout of the "Song of Moses" is shown in the next three photographs. Here the Song is laid out in 67 lines, which matches the original "precorrected" version in Maimonides Code.

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written. We can only assume that this was a pia fraus-that those copyists could not imagine, for good reasons, that Maimonides had really meant what he had written. Surely he must have erred-and hence they tactfully and tacitly corrected the text of the Code. The facts of the Code, then, fit the facts of the Aleppo Codex perfectly. The unbelievable mishap that befell Maimonides' true ruling goes a long way to suggest that the facts may fit uniquely. Since we can see from various medieval discussions that the correct number (67) and arrangement of catchwords seemed to experts like an exercise in squaring the circle, we have fairly convincing evidence that if there ever was another manuscript that fitted the description exactly, none of the medieval scholars had seen it or was even ready to admit the possibility of its existence. We must realize, however, that while Maimonides knew exactly why he accepted the layout of that one codex as binding, the forces against him were greater. It was neither his authority that was openly disputed nor the facts of the Codex. It was simply that a different system was quietly substituted and made out to represent his decision. To make the irony complete, being convinced that this was, indeed, the ruling of the master, the scribes of later manuscripts, as well as the printers of the Code, caused the authority of Maimonides to be thrown precisely behind the kind of tradition which he had declared faulty. We have stressed sufficiently that the halachically authoritative position of the Aleppo Codex is not based on details of orthography and methegs. But the study of internal correlations leaves no doubt that massoretes around 1000 C.E. had good reason to hold in highest esteem "the correct codices prepared by the master Aaron [ben Moshe] ben Asher." On the other hand, rival traditions were deeply rooted and could not easily be brought into line. Precisely because the differences were not very obvious, non-Ben Asher traditions easily were mixed

158

into the stream, and most copyists produced what were technically codices mixti. It would carry us too far afield were we to analyze the ways in which the medieval responsa-literature dealt with these obvious discrepancies. The responsa-literature clears up some other misapprehensions. Throughout the Middle Ages, Jewish scholars were fully aware that there were differences between codices. To be sure, they did not think in terms of readings and recensions. They spoke of "correct" or "reliable" codices. It was self-understood that just as God is one, so also his Torah is one. That was not to deny the obvious, i.e., that there are more-or-less reliable scribes and more-or-less correct manuscripts. Within the Jewish tradition there were no such terms as "Massoretic Text" or "Textus Receptus. " Such terms were completely alien to the conceptual framework of massoretic scholars or halachists. It will be the final task of the present paper to explain how these terms grew to denote the realities of the Tiberian Bible text, of which the Aleppo Codex was the earliest and most renowned model codex. We may start by trying to trace the turning point in the history of understanding the nature of the Bible text. That point was the very moment when a relatively fixed printed form emerged and when Christian Hebraists took over from their Jewish masters and started to speculate about the nature of the Hebrew text as part of their innerChristian debates about the authority of the Bible.

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

In a certain sense we may fix the year 1525 as the turning point, i.e., the year when Bomberg's printing press turned a particular Tiberian subcrystallization, as edited by Jacob ben Hayim, into the Hebrew Bible text. To the naked eye there are hardly any differences between the Aleppo Codex and that Venice publication of Ben Hayim's Rabbinic Bible. Today, however, once the apparatus of the Hebrew University Bible enables us to see the innumerable differences, we can begin to appreciate their importance. We have already intimated that the problem was a Christian one. The text as printed in 1525 became an absolute model because the time was ripe for a theological misinterpretation which has partly been carried over into modern times. In the context of the Christian debate, the text as transmitted by the massoretes came to be regarded in certain Christian quarters in the 16th century as absolutely correct and divinely guarded. The "Massoretic Text" was conceived of axiomatically not only as the original text, but "original" was interpreted to include all those graphic refinements which had been devised by the massoretes. The very tittles of vowel and accent signs had been transmitted by the massoretes from the time of Moses. To speak of the "correct Massoretic Text" implied, as it were, the continuous chain of pure divine word from Sinai. The array of forces was rather amazing, and throughout the 16th century, positions were explored both by Catholic and Protestant churchmen. Whereas Elija Levita was generally recognized as the masterHebraist whose word was accepted by all Christians, his astonishingly accurate picture of the late rise of vowel- and accent-signs was not accepted by most Protestant scholars in the outgoing 16th and early 17th centuries. Since the slogan of sola scriptura was interpreted to refer to what now became the "Massoretic Layoutof the middleportionof the "Song of Moses"(continuedfrom previousphotograph).

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Speaking of the "Massoretic Text" as a fountain kept in pristeen purity was not a Jewish concept.

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Text," as a whole, including signs for vowels and accents, reformers were driven in the direction of turning the "Massoretic Text," down to its smallest detail, into the pure receptacle of divine inspiration. As is well known, this process culminated in the self-defeating claims of the renowned Basel Hebraist, Johannes Buxtorf. It is worth stressing again that this idea of the "Massoretic Text" was not a formulated Jewish position, although it happened to fit ideologically with medieval Karaite views. Again, since Kabbalistic writings made much of the hidden meanings of points-and Christian Hebraists had been drawn in the first place to the study of Hebrew because of their attraction to the hidden teachings of Kabbala-the axiom of the "purity" of the massoretic text was strengthened from various sides. On the other hand, Catholics, as a rule, were driven to find proofs against the reliability of that text and against the early origin of graphic notation. The full details of that history will be discussed elsewhere. Suffice it to say that we have today a pretty good idea how the concept of the "Massoretic Text" spread in Christian Hebraist circles, how the Tiberian Bible text developed, and how the subcrystallization perpetuated in the early printed texts related to an originally different Tiberian subcrystallization, as can now be seen from Aaron ben Asher's codex. Even more astonishing is the use of the well-established term Textus Receptus, which to many. scholars has become synonymous with "Tiberian" or "massoretic." Thus the text of the Aleppo Codex could be termed today at once Tiberian, massoretic, and Receptus, and possible differences have become blurred. As in various other instances, terms originating within the framework of the study of the New Testament were easily adapted to that of the Old Testament, and their origin and specific meaning were quickly forgotten.

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

We might pause for a moment and remind ourselves that there were severe problems with the first edition of the Greek New Testament which Erasmus published rather hastily for his Basel publisher, for reasons of marketing competition. Roughly speaking, that was the time when Jacob ben Hayim published his Hebrew text, while the Alcala Polyglot had already been printed but not yet published. To be sure, the textual problems with regard to the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament are of a totally different order, but no Christian scholar at the beginning of the 16th century could have had any inkling of that. The full details of that history will be discussed elsewhere. Suffice it to say that we have today a pretty good idea how the concept of the "Massoretic Text" spread in Christian Hebraist circles, how the Tiberian Bible text developed, and how the subcrystallization perpetuated in the early printed texts related to an originally different Tiberian subcrystallization, as can now be seen from Aaron ben Asher's codex. Between the mid-16th century and the beginning of the 17th a generally accepted Greek text emerged, largely thanks to the influence of the renowned Paris printer Stephanus (hence the Greek sigma tau as a symbol). Even specialists in New Testament textual studies do not quite seem to have realized that when the 1633 Elzevir edition of the Greek New Testament appeared, the author of the preface-lately said to have been Scaliger's disciple Heinsius-did not yet use textus receptus as a term, but rather built a descriptive syntagma: textum ergo habes nunc ab omnibus receptum... "Herewith you have the text now accepted by every one." Unless some student of the history of New Testament studies proves otherwise, I am inclined to

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suggest that Textus Receptus as a term came into vogue about a century later, in the writings of Bengel or Wettstein. In other words, Textus Receptus became a meaningful term in 18th-century New Testament textual studies. I submit that only after the term Textus Receptus was adopted in New Testament studies was it taken over into Old Testament textual criticism, in spite of structural and typological differences. Thus it became part and parcel of the issues which Kennicott set out to study and which have kept scholars busy ever since. Our survey of some of the major issues connected with the position of the Aleppo Codex and the rise of the Massoretic Bible text has taken us far afield. On the one hand, these seem the driest of dry questions-details of orthography and tiny accent strokes. Yet they become of decisive importance in the struggle to guard traditions of liturgical reading in a chain from millennium to millennium. As students of biblical antiquities, we have noted how biblical fragments from Qumran, written 2000 years ago, link up with the story of the dynasty of the "old Asher," which for generations toiled to save the purity of the Torah in the face of the encroachment of Islam. Another two centuries, and the towering figure of Maimonides attempted to create order out of the chaos of rival traditions by lending his authority to Ben Asher's codex-and failed. This paper was not meant to explore halachic ramifications; but the lesson we learned from the substitute readings in Maimonides' Code was a very basic one, both for the history of biblical philology and of halacha. From there we moved to the great Bible printings of the early 16th century, which, by the very nature of the process, turned a particular Tiberian subtype into what became the "Massoretic Text" or finally, "Textus Receptus. It was the stress on sola scriptura in Protestant circles that turned that subtype-including all its accent

162

signs-into the one-and-only correct and true text, and it took generations of modern scholars to appreciate the correct facts-up to the reemergence of the original manuscript of Aaron ben Asher, the justly famous Aleppo Codex. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Some material on the subject matter of this paper can be found in other publications of the present writer and others. Only publications by scholars who have used the codex at least in part have been mentioned. Ben-Zvi, I. 1960 The Codex of Ben Asher. Textus 1: 1-16. Breuer, M. 1976 The Aleppo Codex and the Accepted Text of the Bible. Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook (Hebrew). Cohen, M. 1973 Orthographic Systems in the Ancient Massora Codices. Unpublished Ph.D. Hebrew University dissertation, (Hebrew). Dotan, A. 1977 Ben Asher's Creed. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press. Goshen-Gottstein, M. H. 1960 Text and Language in Bible and Qumran. Jerusalem: Orient Pub. House. 1962 The Missing Part of the Aleppo Codex. Textus 2: 53-59. 1963 The Rise of the Tiberian Bible Text. Pp. 79-122 in Biblical and Other Studies, ed. A. Altman. Cambridge: Harvard University. 1965 The Aleppo Codex and the Scribe Ibn Buy~ca. Tarbiz 33: 149-56 (Hebrew). 1965 The Book of Isaiah: sample edition with Introduction. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. 1966 A Recovered Part of the Aleppo Codex. Textus 5: 53-59. 1967 Hebrew Biblical Manuscripts. Biblica 48: 243-90. 1972 Biblica Rabbinica. (Introduction to the reprint of the 1525 edition.) Jerusalem: Makor. 1975 The Hebrew University Bible: The Book of Isaiah, Vol. I. Jerusalem: Magnes Press for Hebrew University Bible Project. 1976 The Aleppo Codex: I. Facsmimile. Jerusalem: Magnes Press for Hebrew University Bible Project. Lipschiitz, L. 1965 Kitab al-Khilaf. Publications of the Hebrew University'Bible Project 2. Loewinger, D. S. 1960 The Aleppo Codex and the Ben Asher Tradition. Textus 1: 59-111.

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

Penkower, 1. in Maimonides and the Aleppo Codex. press Textus 9. Yeivin, 1. 1968 The Aleppo Codex of the Bible-A Study of its Vocalization and Accentuation. Publications of the Hebrew University Bible Project 3 (Hebrew).

Men and Terms Abraham ben David: Rabbi in Posquieres (12th century), eminent halachic opponent of Maimonides. Alcala Polyglot: First polyglot Bible, also known as Complutensis, authorized by the Pope for publication, with delay, in 1522. Aleppo Codex, authorship note: Note appended (in lieu of colophon) at the end of Aleppo Codex and lost in the 1948 pogrom. The contents of this note now are borne out by internal evidence. It reads (as published by I. Ben-Zvi 1964: 14): "This complete copy of the twenty-four Books, which was written by our Master and Teacher Solomon known as Ben Buydac .. .and pointed and given a full Massorah by the great scholar and wise sage, lord of scribes and father of the sages and chief of the scholars, etc. Master Rab Aaron the son of Master Rab Asher, etc." Bengel: 18th-century New Testament scholar. Biblia Hebraica: Widely used student edition of the Hebrew Bible with textcritical notes, edited originally by Kittel, offering since the third edition a text based on the Leningrad Codex. Bomberg: Famous 16th-century Venetian Christian printer of many major Hebrew texts. Buxtorf: Renowned 17th-century Basel Hebraist and foremost champion of the belief in the origin of vowel points in biblical times. Cassuto: Late Professor of Biblical Studies in the Hebrew University. Cave of Elijah: Niche in the Aleppo synagogue in which the chest with the codex was kept. codices mixti: Manuscripts that do not preserve a text of undisturbed lineage, but exhibit influences from various sources. Elija Levita: Foremost wandering teacher of Hebrew to Christian scholars in the early 16th century and most penetrating student of massoretic matters before modern times. Erasmus: Renowned Rotterdam preReformation humanist and editor of the first printing of the Greek New Testament. Gaonic literature: Writings of legal and exegetical nature by the heads of academies of the post-Talmudic period. halacha: System of legal tradition, reasoning, and decision as developed

from the Talmudic period onward and codified in the Middle Ages. Kabbala: System of esoteric theological teaching, developed for centuries by Jewish sages, which was widely held, around 1500, to contain the solution to the problems of the ailing Church. Karaite: Jewish sect, as developed in the Gaonic period, which rejected the oral tradition of the Talmudic sages and recognized verbatim interpretation of the written Law only. Kennicott: 18th-centuryBritishscholar who was responsible for a large-scale textual collation of medieval Hebrew biblical manuscripts. Maimonides: Most widely acclaimed all-round medieval scholar (Spain and Egypt, 12th century), active in halacha, philosophy, and medicine alike. metheg: Small vertical stroke, written next to vowel and indicating slight tonal accent or secondary stress. Mishael ben Uzziel: Compiler of most trustworthy list of minute differences still remaining between the texts of the two massoretic masters, Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali. Mishne Torah: The code of halacha written by Maimonides, the first of the two major medieval codifications. Palestinian Talmud: Literary crystallization of Rabbinic tradition as discussed and taught in the academies of Palestine, roughly between 200 and 350 C.E. Peshitta: Bible version in the Syriac language, as created for and used by the Aramaic-speaking Church of Edessa. Rabbanite: Tradition of mainstream Judaism which recognizes both written and oral Law, in contrast to Karaites. Rabbinic Bible: Edition of Hebrew Bible and its major traditional commentaries, as first printed in 1518 and 1525 by Bomberg in Venice. responsa: Literary genre of written replies to questions concerning specific issues of halacha. Scaliger: Most renowned of humanist philologists (around 1600) who turned the then recently founded University of Leiden into a major center of Reformed scholarship. Septuagint: Greek version of the Bible, originally reflecting the state of the text in Egypt ca. 200 B.C.E. sola scriptura: "scripture only"-slogan of the Reformation in its fight against the tradition of Catholic Church

doctrine, as held binding by Rome. Shulhan CAruch: The code of halacha written by R. Josef Karo (16th century), the final major medieval codification. Syriac "Massora": Tradition of reading difficult words in the Bible text as taught in academies of the Syriac Church and laid down in special manuscripts (about 1000 C.E.), which has some superficial similarities with the system of Hebrew Massora. Textus Receptus: "The received text," i.e., by the authority and unbroken tradition, as it were, of Church or Synagogue. Tiberian tradition: One of the three graphic traditions of Hebrew vowel and accent signs, and the one most accomplished and finally accepted by all Jewish communities. Tractate: Any of the dozens of subdivisions of the Talmud, arranged according to subject matter. Veltwych: Jewish 16th-century convert, Orientalist, and statesman. Wettstein: 18th-century New Testament scholar.

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settlement combined both to conceal earlier archeological discoveries and, finally, to make their renewed exploration essential. Several factors brought about the decision to renew excavations. First, during development works in the Silwan area, the Jerusalem municipality dug a number of drain trenches, necessitating salvage excavations. Again, in the last few years tremendous mounds of earth left by earlier excavators of the tell area, today settled, have caused a number of landslides in which six local youths have been killed; the removal of these mounds became imperative. Finally, over time rubbish and dumps of the modern city have

Area E, in the center of the eastern

slope: generalview from the east. The broad wall appears beneaththe massive dumps and on top of the bedrock. buried the ancient archeological remains. Demanded by this combination of circumstances, the renewed excavations in the City of David will clean, preserve, and restore the archeological remains there, in the framework of the archeological garden now being set around the Old City of Jerusalem. In 1978 the City of David Society for Archaeological Excavation, Reconstruction, and Preservation of the City of David in Jerusalem was founded,' and during July and August the

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

165

Society conducted the first season's excavations of the City of David.2 This article presents the major results of that first season. Past excavations within the City of David have uncovered remains of ancient structures, burials, water systems, and the city's network of fortifications. Kathleen Kenyon's seven seasons of excavation provided a new stimulus to exploration in the area. The project of renewed excavation aims through expansion of the area of exploration in the City of David to collect the maximum amount of information from the remains of Canaanite Jerusalem in the Bronze Age and the Israelite city of the Iron Age. This guiding principle dictates, then, that excavators carry controlled excavation in a number of squares down to bedrock rather than resting content with limited trenches and probes. The spread of excavation areas during the first season enabled excavators to deal with a broad range of topics from the ancient city: the fortification systems on the crest of the east slope (Areas A, D, G), early water systems (Areas A, B), buildings and residential quarters, fortifications from the Israelite period on the eastern slope (Area E) and on its crest (Area G), and finds from the Canaanite period (Area E). Acquisition of areas open to excavation will facilitate this range of exploration. At the moment all digging on the site is being conducted on state lands, for the most part in the area of the east slope. Baron Edmond de Rothschild purchased this land at the beginning of the century in order to carry out archeological excavations, begun at that time (1913-14, 1923-24) under the direction of Raymond Weill. This area was transferred to PICA and subsequently to the authority of the Jewish National Fund and the Israel Lands Administration.

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The Hellenistic-Roman Fortification System Since the mid-19th century various explorers, including Warren, Clermont-Ganneau, Guthe, and Parker, have identified segments of the line 166

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do not belong to the "Jebusite" and Davidic city but are instead part of the line of Jerusalem's fortifications in the Second Temple period. Previous excavations left some 225 m2 to be excavated at the head of the east slope, above the spring: we hoped to uncover there a residential quarter from Iron Age II. According to information at hand before excavation began, the remains of the fortification system along the line of the "First Wall" included the line of the ancient wall, built on bedrock in the time of Nehemiah; the Hasmonean tower added on the south; a smaller tower, built somewhat later into the wall on the north; and between the two towers, a semicircular, stepped, stone glacis supporting the base of the wall. The new excavation revealed an additional element in the fortification system: a stone-faced, terre pisee glacis which supported the fortifications' base. This glacis stood at least in the northern section of the new excavation, opposite the stone, stepped glacis. The newly discovered glacis is a 5-6-m-thick sandwich of alternating, uniform lenses of pebbles and compact earth between terre pisee base and cover, the latter with a stone facing. The uncovered section slopes sharply downward from the lowest level reached by Macalister to a depth of some 7 m. Dumps containing much ceramic material, mostly Roman sherds of the Ist century A.D. but many later elements as well, overlay this glacis. Most of the pottery from the pebble/soil lenses dates from Iron II, with a few pieces from the Persian and Hellenistic periods. The latest sherds found so far allow a date for the construction of the glacis in the late Hasmonean or Herodian period (1st century B.C.). This dating is important, as we assume that this glacis served as the outer covering of the stone, stepped glacis. These two fortification elements complement one another and are, therefore, contemporaneous. This elaborate system-stone, stepped foundation, pebble and soil lenses, and terre pishe cover and stone

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facing-served to broaden the base of the city wall in this spot, where in the Second Temple period, it expanded beyond the bedrock to stand on the ruins of the Israelite city. In Area D, next to Weill's previous excavations, the team cleaned a large area which he had explored in 1913-14. Most of this area served as a stone quarry in antiquity, and its date has been attributed in the past to the late Roman and Byzantine periods. Bordering that area, on the crest of the eastern slope, Weill began, and we finished, the excavation of a stretch of thick wall which runs along the crest. The total stretch of excavated wall measures some 18 m long and 3.5 m wide. An opening at its north end had been, at some time, closed intentionally. The data culled from the stratigraphy in this area disturbed by Weill's excavations allows this segment of wall, too, to be attributed to the line of the "First Wall"; the small gate was blocked, apparently, in the face of the final confrontation with the Romans at

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the end of the Second Temple period. From an overall analysis it would seem that at least part of the quarry is not so late as had been thought in the past but must predate the construction of the "First Wall," as in several places the lowest courses lay on the remains of earlier quarrying.

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BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

167

Also in Area D a large, rockcut pit (Locus 317) presented excavators with additional evidence of pre-Second Temple-period settlement. This pit contained enormous quantities of Israelite pottery. Some of the whole vessels found within show that the pit was filled with its contents ca. 700 B.C. However, ceramic indicators typical of the last phase of the Iron Age in Judah are missing. The Persian Period: The Return of the Exiles The exiles returning to Jerusalem from Babylonia resettled within the boundaries of the eastern spur-the "Old City" of their time-close to the spring. Their settlement there explains the scarcity of material from this period on the western spur, Mt. Zion, and in the northern areas of the city. This summer's excavation found for the first time in Jerusalem a Persian-period ceramic layer within clear stratigraphical context-solid archeological evidence for that resettlement of the Babylonian exiles in the City of David. The ceramic layer, which contained only Persian-period pottery, and two thin stone walls lay in a narrow strip in Area G, beneath the glacis base and overlying the collapse of destroyed Israelite houses. Next season's removal of additional parts of the glacis will undoubtedly yield better understanding of this Persian-period level. The Southern Tip of the City of David-Area A Below the rock cliffs enclosing the City of David at the mouth of the "Valley" (the Tyropean), on the east side of its southern limits, Bliss and Dickie and Weill investigated fragments of walls and installations serving the water reservoirs and city fortifications. In January 1978 the sinking of a deep ditch for a new municipal drainage system necessitated a salvage dig in this important area. In fact, we expanded the area of exploration to facilitate proper excavation in the summer season. These excavations uncovered remains of settlement from the Iron 168

Age through the Byzantine and early Islamic periods. Underneath them stood a well-built, thick wall of beautifully dressed limestone, clearly the northern flank of the monumental "buttress wall" which enclosed the area of the pools and the mouth of the Tyropean at its confluence with the Kidron Valley. By tunneling, Bliss and Dickie had previously discovered parts of this wall. North of this buttress and parallel to it we uncovered part of a 6-m-wide wall. The first phase of this second wall, contrary to earlier opinion, apparently is not later than the "buttress wall." Both served the system of dams, pools, and fortifications of the city in the Second Temple period, until A.D. 70. In the area to the north of this wall system, a heap containing dozens of whole vessels of the Ist century A.D., discarded together with thousands of broken vessels, indicates that the area north of the thick wall was a rubbish dump and hints at its proximity to the original "Dung Gate," which stood here during the Second Temple period. Within the Second Temple destruction layer a large fragment of a bone flute was found. Approximately 15 cm long, with six holes, the flute is made of a bone, probably from the foreleg of a cow. This is an extraordinary find that can be dated with certainty to the Second Temple period. Dr. Bathya Bayer, musicologist, currently is examining this flute. Attached to the bedrock on the east slope of the City of David stands the corner of what was apparently a tower, built of five courses of roughly dressed stone masonry laid in alternating headers and stretchers and preserved up to a height of 1.8 m above bedrock. Stratigraphical and structural considerations, as well as the type of yellow plaster covering the structure, suggest an Iron Age date. The Siloam Tunnel Area-Area B At the southern end of the City of David two tunnel channels led to an area of pools. The most famous of

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

Solid archeological evidence for the resettlement of the Babylonian exiles in the City of David. these is Hezekiah's Tunnel, bored through bedrock to conduct water from the Gihon Spring to the Siloam Pool. By the latter part of the last century, explorers already knew of another water system which conducted the Gihon's waters to the pools-partly an open, rock-cut channel, partly a rock-cut tunnel through the foot of the eastern hill. The last to investigate this system was Weill, whose excavation dumps in the southern part of the city ultimately buried its remains. This summer we reexcavated to bedrock a 15-m-wide strip in the area of Weill's dumps, rediscovered three tunnel openings, and cleaned 80 m of its course. This process clarified several interesting details about its nature and operation. This system, too, conducted the Gihon's waters to the southernmost pool. Its builders cut "windows" and openings out of the rock on the side facing the Kidron Valley, along the tunnel course, and in several cases they exploited natural fissures in the rock, either for lateral openings or by cutting the north-south tunnel through them. The windows were cut at varying distances from each other, between 5 and 15 m. Their low sills allowed the passage of water through them to gardens and agricultural plots in the Kidron Valley throughout the length of the tunnel. The tunnel and some of the windows were covered with a thick yellow plaster identical in composition to that found on the Israelite tower in Area A. This water system seems to be earlier than Hezekiah's tunnel and may be identical with that mentioned in Isa 8:6: Forasmuch as this people hath refusedthe watersof Shiloahthat go softly...

Area D, generalview from the east: the "First Wall"line is preservedon top of the bedrockand ancient stone quarrying. In the center, beneath the wooden ladder, one of the naturalpits in the ..I----.??L rock was rich in pottery from the end of the 8th century B.C. r ? construction, we excavated an u; r ?~~PI~ r r additional square (5 x 5 m) inside r ? the line of the wall. After having ~ (3 r3~,~.2e 6 m of diagonally sloping excavated r?.? .~hl '' ~,~a~ L~1 rZ (~~'I~L~Y ? Pre r circ~dump debris, the excavators reached horizontal levels of the Iron Age. (?' ( cl 1, I IL?:I ?,?'C`? We succeeded in defining four ??, ~? ~v' '? phases of residential structures, all 1: ~ Ijr~F~ rr/7 '' r I r;r; I which date to the Iron Age II, of ? ? i.e., the 8th-7th centuries B.C. The ~ c~P~~? ?rlL~rrl ----------------------------------------~r 4 final building phase was constructed I ~'5' ? rF~PM?x f??? rather poorly in relation to the ,; ii v '? P ?, r ?C ;r: .1C earlier phases, although it preserved -Ibi; 'r? ?:5 ,, /r w,, the same walls and orientation as its ,ir ~L??? t?a~r predecessors. The excavation area ;I ?P,.-??? ? ~L-=P ~ ,. s -~?- -,. ? here is still rather too confined to the stratigraphical reladetermine whose original thickness is still Topographical and geological these levels and the between tionship data from along the east slope of bed- unknown; 3 m of its width has this stage it may at but thick wall, rock indicate that the channel played already been uncovered. In some the wall is no later that stated be an additional role: that of the drainplaces this wall has been preserved the buildings and of than the period to a height of 3-4 m. We have age and collection of rainwater runJerusalem Israelite have served may discerned two phases of conoff on the rocky east slope, still and the Babylonian Assyrian during exposed in the Israelite period, and its struction, the first of which was The exact date of its consieges. various in stones of built area to the conduct for storage cyclopean pool struction is still unclear. at its southern tip. The uncovering of spots on the bedrock. Reaching the Excavation in the squares outremains of the wall/terrace-wall and this channel-tunnel, its preservation, the wall and on the bedrock of side the stone collapse connected with it and its integration into the City of the slope in Area E yielded poorly David Archaeological Garden should required excavation of 4-5 m of late built wall fragments, installations, attract and interest scholar and dump from the last few hundred thin support walls, testifying to and tourist alike in the future. years. The layers of historical dumps settlement on the bare rock scattered which lay underneath the late dump Hellenistic period. A to the up were deposited, apparently, on the The Central Terrace--Area E of number pits and crevices in the face of the hill after the destruction The major effort this season contained bedrock many small of the city in A.D. 70. The bulk of concentrated on the center of the of them dating most sherds, pottery the finds they contained date from eastern hill, in the area midway a and minority to the the Ist century A.D., although appre- to EB I between the Gihon Spring and the Chalcolithic Age. This find points to ciable quantities of Hellenistic and southern end of the City of David. the beginnings of human settlement Israelite sherds were also in The slope, somewhat less steep here in on the rocky eastern Jerusalem, evidence, including a substantial than it is further north near the as early as the fourth spur, number of Rhodian amphorae Temple Mount, descends in steps, B.C. millennium handles, some with seal impressions apparently created by the presence from the island of Rhodes dating Epigraphic Finds of walls, terraces, and structural The above excavation areas yielded from the 4th through 2nd centuries remains which retained the dumps from a picture of material prosperity in B.c. This find, attested also on the face of the slope and caused Jerusalem during most of the in Hellenistic of other cities Palestine, accumulation of rubbish on top in of wine evidence is periods examined. Even though we them. importation islands have just begun the excavation of from the the this of terrace central the On Aegean period settlement strata themselves, we the to Jerusalem. crest its m beneath 30 some hill, have uncovered a rich abundance of The examination of the dump and 17 m from its base, we dug a finds of all types, e.g., pottery, materials shows that the wall/terraceseries of squares covering 250 m2. wall was built no later than A.D. 70. stone, glass, bone utensils, coins, Beneath some 7 m of later dumps, its of date the metal objects, both in those and to determine order In a of wall excavators uncovered 25 m

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

169

strata and in the overlying dumps and debris. Outstanding among them are epigraphic finds from the First Temple, Persian, and Hellenistic periods. The 70 Rhodian handles mentioned above and handles bearing the impressions yhd (previously called hcyr) and yr?lm date from the Hellenistic period; another collection of handles from the period of the return of the exiles bears, in various combinations and abbreviations, the name of the Persian subsatrapy yhd, i.e., Judea. One of these even bears the personal name of the satrap, Ahazay. An identical impression has been found in a Persian stratum at Ramat Rahel. We also recovered a number of handles from the 8th-7th centuries B.C., some bearing the impression Imik, i.e., "belonging to the king," others with two concentric-circle designs and a rosette impression. A number of sherds also have turned up-incised either before or after firing with different letters of the alphabet-as well as a fragment of a jug handle bearing the incised letters nhm, probably from the personal name Nahum or Menahem. The gem of the season was a large stone plaque fragment (10 x 12 cm) with a monumental Hebrew inscription. This inscription was incised with a chisel, in broad lines, like the stroke of a pen, upon the finely smoothed face of the red "Mizzi Ahmar" stone. Three upper lines are preserved and a fourth line hinted. The text is broken on both sides of the tablet and can be interpreted only partially: sbr. h bibC. c~r "• ? yl rbcy w . l It is possible to interpret the words as numbers (gebac = seven, ceer = ten, rbtici = fourth) or as nouns (c'jer = riches, .lbac = abundance). At this stage of the research it may be agreed that the key word in this inscription is the first, sbr, which should be understood as meaning "to heap up," "to accumulate." The inscription apparently was affixed to the wall of some public building in 170

order to specify the activity of its writer, who "stored up" or "heaped up" much of something, perhaps wealth, money, or property. Eight occurrences of the root shr in the Bible all deal with accumulating large amounts. "And Joseph stored up corn as the sand of the sea" (Gen 41:49); "AndTyredid buildherselfa stronghold and heaped up silver as the dust" (Zech 9:3). These two uses, defining the storingup of corn or the heaping-up of silver as the dust, are likely to suit the act of royal accumulation in Jerusalem, in commemoration of which this inscription was made. An analysis of the letters finds an

almost complete paleographic identity between them and those of both the Hezekiah tunnel inscription and the Silwan village funerary inscription of the one "who is over the household." This correlation allows us to assign to the inscription a date towards the end of the 8th century B.C.

Summary Last summer's excavations have established a pattern of settlement and development of the City of David beginning in the Chalcolithic and EB I, extending through the Persian period with the return of the Babylonian exiles, and continuing on past the Second Temple period. The earliest finds, Chalcolithic and EB I sherds, so far provide the first piece Area B, photographinsidethe ancient Siloam Tunnel/Channel:one of the stones of the pattern, bearing evidence of may be seen, lying in situ, for the purpose settlement on the eastern slope of of stoppingthe flow of the waterand the City of David, above the spring conductingit outside-through the of Gihon. Only a few sherds from windowon the righthandwall-to the entire Bronze Age have appeared in the Kidron Valley. agriculturalplots in any of the excavation areas. All the areas explored, however, / contained remains of Israelite Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, although no pottery or structures from this period may be dated i!ii earlier than the 8th century B.C. A greater number of Iron Age remains contribute to the growing picture. The Siloam tunnel at the / foot of the eastern slope may be dated provisionally to the beginning of Iron 11 by circumstantial/stratigraphical considerations alone, e.g., i j its relationship with Hezekiah's ') tunnel. The great wall in Area E, as I i " yet undated, may prove to be of pre-Iron Age construction when its date is examined next season. It served the city during Iron II both as fortification, standing atop the rock scarp, and as a strong retaining wall for the terraces further up the slope upon which the houses were built. So far we have been able to define four phases of the Israelite city, all from Iron 11. At the beginning of the Second Temple period the bedrock in the City of David still lay bare, but during the Hellenistic period inhabitants of the city, as the evidence shows, exploited the -

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bedrock and built installations, retaining walls, and stone pavements on it. During the course of the Second Temple period, then, such construction covered the rocky slope, culminating in the destruction of the city in A.D. 70. An enormous collapse of earth and stones from the structures on top of the terrace walls and the city wall tumbled down the hill and covered it with thick layers of debris. Significantly, a typological analysis of the debris scattered throughout the area, including a large quantity of Hellenistic material, revealed an interesting statistical fact with regard to finds from the other quarters of ancient Jerusalem: in the post-Exilic and Hellenistic periods, settlement on the eastern hill was extraordinarily dense, reaching its peak at the end of the Second Temple period. The dump debris excavated on the east slope yielded pottery and finds in enormous quantities, but nothing later than A.D. 70. Ceramic evidence from postSecond Temple periods has appeared so far in Area G (to the north) and Area A (to the south) in which latter area excavators have found

NOTES

even Byzantine-Islamic building remains connected with the pool system. By the Ist century B.C. the fortification system on the crest of the eastern hill was completed (Area G). At the time a stone, stepped glacis coated with stone and soil was built to cover the base of the "First Wall" line, whose earliest components date to the time of Nehemiah. For the first time it is possible to define stratigraphically a poor but clear layer of settlement containing a large number of sherds from the 5th-4th centuries B.C. and attesting to the resettlement of the City of David in the Persian period. One season of excavation in the City of David already has opened the door to greatly increased knowledge about and awareness of the patterns of settlement and construction there through the centuries. The second season, in summer 1979, will continue excavation in all the areas already begun. After the second season we hope to begin planning the preservation and restoration of part of the remains, looking forward to integrating them into the archeological garden being set around the Old City. Volunteers are welcome to join in the excitement of the discovery of ancient Jerusalem.

Area E, looking north: at left is the line of the broad wall built atop the bedrock. In the rock are various pits and installations in use from the fourth millennium B.C. through the Hellenistic period. In the section may be seen the dumps from the destruction at the end of the Second

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'The society was founded by the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Israel Exploration Society, the Jerusalem Foundation, The Ambassador International Cultural Foundation (U.S.A.), and the first group of sponsors from the Republic of South Africa, headed by Mr. Mendel Kaplan, who initiated and provided the impetus for this archeological project. The president of the society is Mr. Teddy Kollek; the vice-presidents are Mr. Yoseph Aviram (Israel) and Mr. Mendel Kaplan (South Africa). 2Heading this project is the author, from the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The expedition staff included Giora Solar (architect), Rivkah Gonen (registrar), Sari Gilon (administrator), Marsha Gross-Kaniel (surveyor), Hanan Shafir (photographer), Yigal Val (restorer), David Treuger (artist), Malka Levi (in charge of volunteers). Allon de Goot, Yeshayahu Lander, David Tarler, Karen Seger, Hana Frankenberg, David Cohen, Arza Caspi, Suzie Gabison, and Harvey Schneider were area supervisors. They were assisted by students from the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University, many volunteers, and laborers. Altogether, some 120 people were in the field each day. The expedition extends its thanks for the aid rendered by the several departments within the Jerusalem municipality in removing previous excavation dumps and coordinating the course of excavation and reconstruction in Area A, within whose boundaries runs a municipal road.

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St

Catherine's The discoverv in 1975 of'a cache of ancient icons and manuscripts at St, Catherine's Monasterir has, from the outset, been shrouded in a web of controversy and mnisinformation.In an attempt to penetrate the mystique associated with this remarkable andt paradigmatic find, scholar James H. Charlesworth journeried to the site of the discoverY'. is the What.follows author v account of his search for accurate, firsthand information an(d insight into the nature ant signifi'cance of the recovered (locuments.

MONASTER

James H. Charlesworth Since I published the announcement of the discovery of precious icons and thousands of ancient manuscripts, or portions of them, in St. Catherine's Monastery (BA 41 [1978]: 29-31), I have received an avalanche of contradictory reports and advice. Some scholars told me that these manuscripts were found years ago; others claimed that they had been discovered only recently. One group of scholars told me that the manuscripts are now hidden somewhere other than St. Catherine's Monastery; another group informed me that they are in the monastery. Some specialists claimed that there are no plans for the preservation and publication of these manuscripts; others reported in some detail the preparations being made for the rapid microfilming and publication of facsimile editions. A few scholars told me that authorities from the Greek Ministry of Culture, which has been helping to finance the restoration of the monastery, recently had been denied permission to see the discoveries; others claimed that the Ministry was

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174

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

D~enisBaly

Myths & Mysterie

well on its way in organizing a Greek team of specialists who would photograph and publish facsimile editions. Many informants offered the opinion that the manuscripts were discovered shortly after a fire in the monastery; others stated emphatically that they were found during the process of restoring a wall. Several colleagues warned me that it would be a waste of time to visit the monastery because the manuscripts had long been smuggled out of the country; others encouraged me to visit the monastery and expressed the opinion that the manuscripts were still there despite contrary rumors, which were obvious deliberate attempts to discourage anyone from visiting the monastery in search of the manuscripts. Announcements in Foreign Presses To my knowledge, the only publication by a scholar in the United States. concerning these discoveries appeared in the Biblical Archeologist. Other announcements, which appeared in or emanated from foreign newspapers, are in chronological order as follows:

"Ta Polutima Cheirographatas Monks HagiasAikaterines:P6s Prepeina MeletUthounto Nea Heurimatatou Sina,"HPe Kathemerine Trit, Tuesday, 23 May

1978.["ThePreciousManuscriptsof the Monasteryof St. Catherine:How the New Discoveries of Sinai Should Be Studied."]A brilliantand sophisticated pleato the Greekauthorities(andothers) by Prof. N. M. Panayotakisto move rapidly toward the first priority, "the security of the discoveries,"and to includeforeignfoundationsand specialists in the final scholarlypublication. "Riddle of the Sands," Sunday Times Magazine,29 October 1978;byline: M. Modiano. These journalistic releases are of mixed quality. The most polemic and sensational is "Sinai Monks Hoarding Ancient Christian Texts." The most succinct and reliable is "Riddle of the Sands."

A truly significant discovery had been made in St. Catherine's Monastery.

"47 Kistenmit Fragmenten:Aufsehenerregende Handschriften- und Ikonenfunde auf dem Sinai," FrankfurterAllgemeine Zeitung, 3 April 1978; byline: K.

A. Odin. ["47 Boxes with Fragments:A Sensational Find of Manuscriptsand Icons on Sinai.'] "Sinai Monks HoardingAncientChris-

tian Texts," The Ann Arbor News,

Thursday,27 April 1978;p. B-12.[Bonn, West Germany(AP). This is the article thatcontainsM. Hengel'sand K. Aland's comments, which L. Politis rejects as "unacceptablein their impudence."] "Ta Nea Heurematatou Sina: Exaireta kai MegaloDeigmataMikrogrammat~s grammates Graphis, Euangelia, Psaltaria, Manaia kai Apospasmata tes Iliados," HP Kathemerine Trite, Sunday and Monday, 21-22 May, 1978;pp. 4f. ["The New Discoveries on Mt. Sinai: ExceptionalExamplesof Minusculeand Uncial Scripts, Gospels, Psalters, Menaia, and Selectionsof the Iliad"(with7 photographs;a significantstatementby ProfessorL. Politis).] View of St. Catherine'sMonasteryfrom the slopes of Jebel Musa (opposite).

The Purpose of My Recent Visit to St. Catherine's Monastery The recognition that a truly significant discovery had been made in St. Catherine's Monastery, the encouragement of numerous colleagues to visit there, and the friendly insistence by Noel Freedman that I had an obligation to update my previous report cumulatively forced me to plan a visit to the monastery. Succinctly put, the purpose of my visit was to offer my services to the Archbishop and his monks so that I might help them achieve those things which they wished to accomplish. In a letter written in English and translated into modern Greek by one of my doctoral students, George Zervos, I expressed this desire. I also asked permission to photograph: (1) the place in which the manuscripts had been found; (2) (if possible) some of the monks who were involved in

the discovery; and (3) (perhaps even at a distance) some of the manuscripts and icons. With these things in mind, I dispatched nearly 100 letters to my colleagues in Greece and Israel seeking advice regarding the best ways to approach the authorities involved and to visit the monastery. Most of the letters remained unanswered. Some replies were written in such a garbled fashion as to suggest that I was being told that such information could not be shared because of possible personal danger. One little note from Greece stated that perhaps we could talk confidentially and quietly in the airport. Even the official delegates of the Greek Ministry of Culture, Professors L. Politis and N. Panayotakis, were hindered in their initial examinations of the manuscripts. The monks had requested the assistance of such experts, yet Panayotakis has stated publicly, "We were allowed to take a few photographs, but with great difficulty. Eventually we were barred" (Sunday' Times Magazine 1978). (He has been utterly frustrated in his further efforts, and his offers of assistance in the preservation and study of these manuscripts have not been accepted.) He and my international colleagues in Greece have been excluded from participation in subsequent discussions and developments. Each has lamented failure to be of significant assistance in the development of the preservation and research of these invaluable treasures, and each has urged me to try to open new channels for communication and research. With this encouragement, I made plans to visit the monastery. On 13 February 1979 1 departed for Israel. In Israel, 1 was given further advice and information about the discoveries and the habits of the monks. The Trip to St. Catherine's Monastery After some minor difficulties, I found a flight to Mt. Sinai that would allow me to be at the monastery for two days. On 19 February I was driven to the Jerusalem airport as the sun was

BIBLICAL

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coming up over the Judean hills. At 8:30 a.m. we landed at Elat; at 9:28 we arrived at a small airport where the words hr-syny ("Mt. Sinai") were on the little passenger terminal. It was 61" F. By 10:26 we were at St. Catherine's Monastery. I was taken by the Israeli guide to meet Monk Dionysus, the Economos, the officer

176

in charge of accommodations and other economical matters at the monastery. I gave him the letter translated by George Zervos. This letter then was given to an Arab with instructions to take it to the Archbishop. At 10:35 1 was taken to the reception room across the walkway from the office of the

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

Economos. Almost at once Turkish coffee was brought to me. A minute later the phone in the reception room rang. It was clear that the Economos was speaking to the Archbishop. The Archbishop asked to speak to me. He told me that he was planning a trip to Jerusalem. He was sorry he could not meet with me or talk with me further. He advised me that it would be impossible for me to photograph any of the manuscripts, any of the monks involved in the discovery, or the place in which they had been found. An official release by the monastery would be published within one month. He acknowledged my good will and said that it had been decided that, as of the present, no one would be allowed to see the manuscripts or the place in which they had been found. By 11:04 a.m. I was in room number 23 on the top floor of the southern wall of the monastery. In this room were two beds, one table, two chairs, a small mirror, one window, and one tiny wooden shelf. A padlock on the door secured the room from the outside; from the inside, it was impossible to lock the door. The room was 20 steps from the gate to the Bibliotheke, the library. For the next hour I browsed the library and talked with the librarian, Monk Pavlos, and his assistant, Monk Alexandros. Then I descended a long flight of stairs and headed out of the monastery through a very low door. Shortly before 12:30 I saw the Archbishop leave the monastery. I returned to my room at 12:40 and ate lunch which I had brought from Jerusalem. During the afternoon, I toured the monastery and conversed with many of the monks. They were extremely gracious to me. Their lives mirror the antiquity and sanctity of the site, where tradition places God's words to Moses, "Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place

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whereon thou standest is holy ground" (Exod 3:5, KJV). As it was getting cold and there was insufficient light to read, I soon fell asleep under two blankets. At 3:15 a.m. I awoke to climb Mt. Sinai and to share in quiet devotions with Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Descending Mt. Sinai after the extraordinary climb, I could see occasionally the monastery in the distant valley. The rest of the morning and early afternoon was spent in continued search of answers to the many questions I brought with me and in gentle probes for ways to achieve openness and international cooperation.

centuries)-and biblical studies. I am convinced that monastery officials are harassed by tourists and perplexed by the international tension centering directly upon this area of the world and specifically upon their monastery. Further anxiety is caused by many factors, among which may be the fear that these newly found precious items will be stolen from the monastery in the same way that the monks believe Codex Sinaiticus was taken by Tischendorf in the last century. In the library on a pillar close to the door is framed Tischendorf's letter and his words: To6Xtp6ypa(pov TOuTO... dtno6o5vat otoov . . . Ut6Xootpat "this manuscript I promise to return safely . . ." (Cairo, Sept. 1839).'

Observations Despite the confusion, the inability to obtain clear answers, and the impossibility of seeing the discoveries, several things are now clear. It is obvious that a sensational discovery has been made in St. Catherine's Monastery. Moreover, the treasures recovered will be of significance for specialists in early Greek history and literature, Byzantine art, Greek calligraphy-especially during the "period of great silence" (7th-9th

Determinations From numerous sources, most of which, for obvious reasons, must remain anonymous at the present time, I have obtained the following determinations: 1) At least 3000 items have been found, including manuscripts and icons; these are now resting in 47 "milk" boxes.

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2) At least 8 pages from Codex Sinaiticus have been recovered.2 Only 400 of the original approximately 730 pages are now preserved in the British Museum. Because of the singular importance of this discovery, the comments of Professor Nikolaos Panayotakis, who was permitted to study the manuscripts, if only for a brief period, are especially significant: A majorfind has beensome 14 leavesof vellum which exactly match the Codex Sinaiticusin the BritishMuseum.They contain passages from the Book of Genesis-which is [sic] missingfromthe BritishMuseum'sCodex.At themoment Archbishop Damianos, Abbot of St. Catherine's,keeps them. They have not yet been photographed(Sunday Times Magazine1978). As I have stated in the BA previously, these are the pages Agourides said he held in his hands. "I was trembling, and time was too short for reading [them]." The report that the Archbishop secretes them and that they have not been photographed explains why I have seen neither them nor photographs of them and why announcements about the number of pages are contradictory. 3) Most of the manuscripts are in the rare uncial script. Found in uncial are 10 almost complete, and over 50 incomplete, codices.3 Our knowledge of this script and the papyri, vellum, or "oriental" paper upon which it is written will be enriched greatly as a consequence of this discovery. 4) Some manuscripts are in Greek, others are in Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopic, Georgian, Latin, Slavic, and Syriac. No scholar has seen the non-Greek manuscripts. None of us knows what they contain.4 5) A small number of icons were recovered, but none of the very early centuries.5 6) The discovery does not relate, as some have claimed, to the fire which occurred in 1961. Rather, in May 1975 a fire damaged the Church of St. George. The monks then View of the North Wallwherethe recent discoveriesof ancientmanuscriptswere made.

decided to clear the debris beneath this Church in the northern wall of the monastery. In the process, on 26 May 1975 they found an old cell which contained the treasures beneath much trash and dirt. Long ago, the ceiling above the floor of the cell apparently collapsed, sealing the treasures. 7) The most recent documents in the cache date from about A.D. 1750, according to Politis.6 Yet, one has to ask if the hoard had been contaminated by the accidental addition of more recent writings. At Sinai a reliable source told me the treasures had been concealed for "450 years." If this figure is accurate, then the treasures were hidden probably out of fear from the conquering Turks, who submerged Greece, Bosnia, Serbia, Albania, and Hungary and were hammering at the gates of Vienna in 1529-exactly 450 years ago.

palimpsest, with minuscule Greek above and Estrangela Syriac below. I am now at work on these photographs and expect to make them available to my scholarly colleagues in the Winter 1980 number of Biblical Archeologist. It is one of the first obligations of a scholar to report what he (or she) has learned and has received through unusually good fortune. If the other thousands of documents are as significant as the ones I have seen, then the discovery is of sensational and paradigmatic importance. All of us wait with eager anticipation to see what lies as yet unrecognized and still "lost" among the reported thousands of leaves and portions of manuscripts. Will we ever recover the first and second Odes of Solomon, the major part of the Testament of Moses, the Diatessaron, the lost portion of the Old Syriac Gospels, or the dozens of now lost works that were written during the first few centuries of our era?

forgotten. Also, such an explanation clarifies why most (all?) of the items were broken (or were they broken after they were hidden'?).Perhaps only the "worn out" or loose leaves of Codex Sinaiticus were discarded.

Conclusion Questions obviously arise about this cache. If it was hidden from threatening warriors or Bedouin, why was it forgotten? Why were only some leaves of Codex Sinaiticus included in the collection? Was this not a hoard but a geniza, a collection of discarded documents?7 Other questions pertain to the present. Where are the manuscripts now? Have the monks hidden them again? Have they been taken to remote chapels in the desert? Why has there been a struggle within the monastery? Why was the old Economos deposed? Why have distinguished Greek specialists been excluded from participating in a team that now supposedly is photographing and studying these invaluable discoveries? Is there such a team? Through the mist of contemporary intrigues, the recovered gems sparkle with brilliance. The manuscripts are spectacularly important. Only very recently 39 photographs of the manuscripts have come to me. Among them are precious copies of Genesis, Mark, Byzantine prayerbooks, and bilingual liturgical documents. My favorite is a

Notes 'According to Tischendorf, the manuscript was returned; subsequently he served as an intermediary so that the monks could sell it to the Czar of Russia. In 1933 the British Museum purchased it. The monks at the monastery tell an appreciably different story. Tischendorf visited the monastery and found a manuscript that was recognized by the monks as being very precious. He asked for permission to borrow it so that he could study it in Cairo. The monks generously allowed him to borrow the manuscript and retained his letter with the promise to return it soon. Tischendorf then left with the manuscript never to return. He sold the manuscript for a vast sum and became a rather wealthy individual. 2According to Agourides in a letter sent to me and M. Hengel, who shared it with the public through K. A. Odin. L. Politis and N. M. Panayotakis mentioned "nine complete pages and many pieces of pages of the Sinaitic Codex." Hi KathiPmerinPTriti (21 May 1978) 3. 'According to the examinations by Politis and Panayotakis, cf. HP Kathiimerine Trit; (21-22 May 1978). 4Professors Politis and Panayotakis stated, "Our research was limited, as was natural, only to the Greek, which had been placed in ten boxes." HP KathdmerinP Trith(21-22 May 1978). TPolitis (HP Katlhemerine Trit; [21-22 May 1978]) corrects the German reports (in Frankfurter AiellgemeineZeitung [3 April 1978] and in AP article from Bonn) that icons of the 4th century were recovered. 6HP KaithnmerineTrith (21-22 May 1978), cf. also Suml/a Tinles Magazine (29 October 1978). 71f it were a "garbage" collection, or geniza, then there is no reason to ask why a cache was

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST SUMMER 1979

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190?4 George G. Cameron By far the finest obituary that could possibly be produced in honor of the distinguished British archeologist Max Mallowan has already appeared. It was published just 18 months before he died, and its author was none other than Max himself in a volume which he called Mallowan's Memoirs (Dodd, Mead and Company, 1977). Mallowan has always been so firmly identified (at least in the mind of the writer of these lines) with matters respecting England and Great Britain that it was a sudden jolt to learn that Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan's father Frederick came from the Austrian province of Styria (southwest of Vienna) and was a "born soldier (artilleryman)" who left the Austrian army after World War I to seek his fortune in England. The rigorous training he had secured in Austrian schools soon enabled him to prosper in London "where he set up in business and traded in copra, fats, and oils." Later, he was the "qualityarbitrator" to the enormous international but Londonbased firm Unilever. The maiden name of his Parisborn wife (the mother of Max and the daughter of an opera singer of renown) was Duvivier; she "died at the age of 74 (1950) but remained a Parisienne all her life although more than 50 years of it were spent in England" (all unidentified quotes are from the Memoirs). The homelife created by these two strong personalities was not altogether congenial, and Max's

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-1978

years in Preparatory School (at Wimbledon) and Public School (Lancing; with, among others, Evelyn Waugh) were "largely wasted." The transition to Oxford University (1921-25) was, then, a "step from purgatory to paradise," although, with remarkable humility, he admits that he achieved little at Oxford "for I was not yet prepared: like all my family I was a late developer and did not shine in the schools." He was soon smitten by the lure of archeology, however, in no small part because of Percy Gardner, Professor of Greek Art and Archaeology, and of his tutor, Stanley G. Casson. By sheer coincidence, one day a dean asked Max about his future plans-he had none, he acknowledged, although he would like to work in archeology. "Go and see the Warden; he may help you," said the dean. From that moment Mallowan's future was resolved in the following ways, all chronicled in the Memoirs: (I was)courteouslyreceivedby thataffable,renownedpublic figure,H. A. L. Fisher... [who] kindlygave me a letterof introductionto the well-knownOrientalist,D. G. Hogarth, then Keeperof the AshmoleanMuseum,and who thatvery morning had received . . . a letter from (Sir Leonard) Woolley asking for an assistantto help him at Ur of the Chaldees-that was in 1925. Woolley,always in a hurry, practicallyengagedme on sight, in spite of my total lackof experience;partlybecauseI was not bumptious,and partly becausemy tutor, StanleyCasson, had sent him a kindly letter.

All photographscourtesyof the late Sir Max Mallowan

Max concludes this astonishing summary with the comment: Such was the series of happy accidents whichled me to Ur,but I havelongcome to the conclusionthat, providedone is born undera favourablestar, opportunitycomesto thosewho are readyfor it. Six seasons with Woolley (plus a trying Mrs. Woolley and the kindly epigraphers, Fathers Legrain and Burrows) brought Max to the point of being a reasonably seasoned archeologist, interested especially in prehistoric materials. His 1930 season was especially memorable: a visitor to the Woolleys at Ur, one Agatha Christie, engaged his attention in March, and the attraction was so overwhelming that the two were married in September! From then on, with but one exception, Agatha joined Max on "every single expedition to the East." The 1931 season was spent with "bluff, hearty, free-and-easy-going" R. Campbell Thompson at Nineveh, in a successful effort to penetrate deeply, with some peril, into the prehistoric mound there; the major goal, however, was admittedly a "glorified (cuneiform-)tablet hunt" for more of the Ashurbanipal library materials. By this time, Max felt equal to undertaking a dig of his own. He proved this-with notable success-in a single season at a site near Arpachiyah not far from Nineveh, under the sponsorship of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq and the British Museum. However, a change in Iraqi antiquities laws at just this time seemed to him "cogent reasons for moving to another part of Mesopotamia," and Syria (then under French mandate) was an obvious attraction. The lower Habur River area adjacent to the Euphrates interested him briefly, but it was in the upper reaches of the Habur, at Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak, that his hopes bore splendid fruit (1936-38). Brak especially yielded several important buildings named "Eye Temples" (so-called because within them were hundreds of eye images, or

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A Nimrudivory of a wingedyouth spearinga winged griffin.No personis betterqualifiedto write about Nimrud ivoriesthan Sir Max Mallowan.He excavatedNimrud (biblicalCalah,Gen 10:11-12)and throughsuccessive seasons, beginningin 1949,almost doubledthe largecorpus of ivoriespreviouslyrecoveredby Layardand Loftusin the mid-19thcentury.

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A Nimrudivory of a uniquewinged sphinx discoveredby Mallowanand Oates. It is Phoenicianajoureor openwork and carvedin three-quarterrelief. The ivory is associatedwith Esarhaddon, king of Assyria(680-669B.c.). idols of black and white alabaster), as well as an Akkadian-period structure dubbed "the Palace of Naram Sin." The results of all this work were published almost immediately-for it is more than an interesting observation that, already this early in his independent career, Mallowan had adopted a policy which scholars and archeologists the world over have admired (and, unhappily, too often ignored): "It has been our practice,

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and it is certainly a good one," wrote he, "to put into print some account of what has been done in the field within a few months of terminating a season of excavations" (from the Preface to Nimrud and its Remains). World War II (for England: 1939-45) interrupted all archeological excavations, of course, and England could find no immediate way for Max to contribute to its war effort until 1942 when, chiefly through the understanding of S. K. R. Glanville ("a man of talent and magnetism, perhaps the most lovable I have ever met"), he was sent to Cairo to maintain effective liaison between the RAF and the Czech, Polish, and Free

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

French air contingents. Later, in 1943, Max served in Transpolitania with the "Occupied Enemy Territory Administration." By 1947 the war was over and Mallowan had prepared for publication all his previous archeological results. With the assistance of Sidney Smith, Gordon Childe, and (again) Glanville, he then became Director of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq and, simultaneously, the first occupant of the "Chair of Western Asiatic Archaeology" at the Institute of Archaeology in the University of London. Initially with Childe as Director, it was this Institute which caught and held the attention of the world through its excavations: those of Mortimer Wheeler at Mohenjo Daro, those of Kathleen Kenyon at Jericho, and that at Nimrud by Mallowan. Nimrud (Calah), east of the Tigris and ca. 20 mi. south of Nineveh, had fascinated Mallowan ever since he visited it at the conclusion of his first dig with Woolley (1926), and by a stroke of good fortune he obtained permission to excavate it in the same year that Chicago was given authorization to reopen excavations at Nippur. Both sites have paid off handsomely. Eleven years of excavation at Nimrud were rewarding in every respect. Most spectacular were stunning ivories (for which Mallowan still pleads a probable source in Byblos), as well as many treaties, recorded in cuneiform, that the Assyrian Esarhaddon imposed on nine princes of the Medes around 672 B.C. But palace after palace yielded precious and unexpected results, such as a stele inscribed with an inventory of the city's principal buildings, walls, royal parks, and botanical and zoological gardens. From 1957 on, work was concentrated on an arsenal ("the Fort of Shalmaneser III") about one mile southeast of the Nimrud acropolis. Here enormous walls and towers protected over 200 rooms with a "series of vast courtyards [giving] access to magazines, royal residences, and soldiers' barracks, amply furnished with bathrooms."

Throughout his career, Mallowan always gave his associates full credit, and with a few deft phrases he could, and did, characterize magnificently those with whom (and for whom) he worked. Thus he comments about his employer at Ur: Woolley'smethodswereslapdash,buthe hada senseof relativevaluesand of what was truly significant... ; no one was more capableof accomplishingbrilliant fieldwork. Similarly, he wrote of Barbara Parker, his secretary from "Fort Shalmaneser" on: Barbara . . . was expected to do everything,especiallyto take the blame when things went wrong:the catchword was "sackedagain"and what we would havedone withoutthis paragonI do not know..., a womanof dauntlesscourage. Elsewhere he speaks of Jorgen Laessoe as "a superb organizer and exceptionally competent"; of Joan (Lines) Oakes: "no better field worker in all Mesopotamia"; and of David Stronach (words with which we must all concur): "modest, likeable, and energetic . . , (with an) endearing personality. . . . Director with distinction of the British Institute of Persian Studies"-an institution, by the way, of which Max was the first President and (although he does not say so) a founding member along with Sir Maurice Bowra and Sir Mortimer Wheeler (1961-). By 1962 Max obtained a Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford-an appointment which released him from other administrative duties and enabled him to finish and publish his monumental three-volume Nimrud and its Remains (1966). Perhaps erroneously, he attributes almost exclusively to the latter work his knighthood, awarded in 1968, but he is justifiably proud that his wife Agatha-who had been awarded a CBE in 1956-was created a Dame in 1971. The entire issue of the journal Iraq for 1974 was issued in honor of the birthday of "Sir Max Mallowan,

Knight, Commander of the British Empire, Doctor of Literature, Fellow of the British Academy, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries"-all, of course, identified only by capital letters-and perhaps the only addition that he would have liked to make would have been "Trustee of the British Museum." The same issue of Iraq contains his bibliography, complete to 1974; thus, there is lacking only Mallowan's Memoirs, published in September 1977 and in which the very last page records the death of his beloved Agatha in January 1976 "after forty-five years of a loving and merry companionship." Also, in September 1977, Sir Max married Barbara Parker, the long-time, faithful Secretary of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, and then Sir Max himself departed this life 19 August 1978. Requiescat.

A four-wingedyouth, holdinga papyrus bud, stands 25.7 cm high. The fragment of a corniceover the head most likely cappeda much largercomposition.The ivory representsa stage in the full development of Phoenicianstyle at Nimrud.

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Colloquia Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 1978 The Annual Meeting of ASOR at New Orleans, 17-21 November 1978, was of particular import since it focused on fundamental issues concerning Near Eastern archeology rather than on excavation reports and accounts of new finds. The deaths in quick succession of Albright, Glueck, de Vaux, Wright, Lapp, Kenyon, and Aharoni, dominant figures in the field for nearly half a century, made a deep impression and led to a sense of loss of direction. Subsequently, the emergence of a new generation of archeologists, together with the development and application of the "new technology" in all fields of human endeavor, demanded a reexamination and reevaluation of old and established goals and practices. A Symposium on "Retrospects and Prospects in Biblical and Syro-Palestinian Archaeology" served as a vehicle for taking stock of the past and submitting proposals and guidelines for new approaches in the future. The difference between biblical and SyroPalestinian archeology was scrutinized closely-a difference not only in geography and terminology, but also one of basic character entailing diametrically opposed approaches and ambits. Darrel Lance of Colgate/ Rochester Theological Seminary pointed out that biblical archeology is a uniquely American discipline which took its agenda from the Bible, whereas SyroPalestinian archeology makes the territory of Palestine its center of investigation. Thus, biblical and Palestinian archeology are not interchangeable, nor can the former be subsumed to the latter. Archeology, as it had been practiced by Albright, comprised all lands covered in the Bible and embraced a span of time stretching from 5000 B.C. to the present. Lance explained that biblical archeology seeks to build bridges between archeological studies and generalists in Bible. It depends on specialists in interpretation rather than on technicians on the site of excavations, and its contribution to the world. of learning is provided by interpreters of the Bible. Lance recommended that, on the one hand, biblical archeology devise better ways to make archeological results available to biblical scholars, while, on the other, archeological information not be buried amid the wealth of biblical material, as it is, for instance, in the Anchor Bible. In general, the information explosion must be controlled. David Ussishkin of Tel Aviv University maintained that biblical archeology, "the study of the material culture of the biblical world, remains the most impor-

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BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

tant branch of archeology in the Holy Land." A new generation of professional Israeli archeologists, employing new techniques and adopting new concepts, is contributing to a better understanding of biblical history, quite independent of written sources-for example, the Israelite conquest and the settlement of Canaan. "Digging" takes place at a slower rate with only half a mound being permitted to be dug. The WheelerKenyon method of horizontal excavation is complemented by vertical digging, work in complete units being preferred to sectional efforts. The combination of these two methods, while it may retard the progress of work, leads to a better understanding of an area and its environment. Israeli archeology confines itself to a period between the latter half of the third millennium B.C. and the Hellenistic era. Archeology possesses historical and biblical interest for the nation of Israel, and the connection with scriptural sources has a special meaning for the people of the country. Similarly, James Sauer, Director of the American Center of Oriental Research in Amman, gave a national rationale for archeological efforts in Jordan. He reports that the term "biblical archeology" rarely is used in Jordan or Syria, an area forming about 90% of the territory covered by the term "Syro-Palestinian archeology." Archeological remains from prehistoric times through the Islamic period are viewed as a national heritage, thus linking archeology more closely to ongoing issues concerning humanity. Lawrence E. Toombs of Wilfrid Laurier University asserted that in the past archeology in Israel had been more of an outline of a discipline than a discipline in itself and needed a clearer definition. He, too, recommended a revision of the Wheeler-Kenyon method, seeing that a grid of squares results in units too large to permit detailed examination of the discarded earth. Vital information, provided by bones, shells, and other material embedded in the discarded earth, thus tends to be lost forever. The excavator must be responsible for the kind of data being gathered and must decide what has to be retained and what has to be discarded. Petrie and Albright had established a ceramic chronology by which artifacts could be dated, but in the course of time, "dating" became an end in itself rather than a tool for reconstructing and explaining cultures. Toombs traced the development of Syro-Palestinian archeology from a time in which the Bible was the dominant interest to one in which attention shifted to artifacts and architectural and chronological matters. In his view, the

turning-point was reached "with the development of a concern for the nature and contents of the earth itself," followed by an interest in cultural aspects. SyroPalestinian archeology is still pragmatic, and while it is gradually absorbing the application of science and technology, it has remained thus far in the realm of the humanities and of the social rather than the physical sciences. Lastly, Toombs pointed out that modern archeology demands a "team" effort depending on the participation of experts in various branches of science, technology, and learning rather than on the knowledge and expertise of a single individual genius. James F. Strange of the University of South Florida reported on a new trend in the development of Greco-Roman archeology involving architectural and space analysis. This trend "characterizesthe preliminary reports on Herodian Jericho as an advance in understanding a Hellenistic-Roman site." Greco-Roman archeology in Palestine has moved beyond the conceptualization of classics and now centers around "ethnoarcheology," "ecological archeology," and model building. The most rapid advances in Greco-Roman archeology in ancient Palestine are those made through the reconstruction of cultural history from archeological data. The divergent opinions expressed in the symposium were summarized by William G. Dever of the University of Arizona, who subsequently placed them within the larger context of future prospects for Palestinian/ biblical archeology. He emphasized that biblical archeology has no independent rationale, methodology, objective status, or foundation. He viewed biblical archeology as an interdisciplinary pursuit-a dialogue between specialists in Near Eastern archeology and biblical historians, but not an autonomous discipline. He doubted that biblical archeology would continue to dominate Syro-Palestinian archeology as it had done in the past in the uniquely American (specifically "Albrightian") tradition. With the death of Albright there is no other scholar who would satisfy a viable description of a biblical archeologist. Syro-Palestinian archeology gradually is being accepted in the U.S. as an entity in itself. It forms an autonomous discipline with its own proper and unique geographical, chronological, and cultural boundaries. Syro-Palestinian archeology is in its infancy; it lacks theoretical formulation and detailed research programs and is still so strongly oriented toward a pragmatic approach that even its field-reports lack any indication of purpose. "Digging" and skills in stratigraphy and ceramic typology seem to be an end in themselves, which, of course, they should not be. Only a proper methodology transforms archeology from a treasure-hunt into an imaginative penetration of the past and makes it an intellectual discipline, designed to reconstruct the human cultural process. Syro-Palestinian archeology requires a truly multidisciplinary approach to become and remain a viable branch of archeology. To this end the training of archeologists

must not be limited to the study of the Bible and of Near Eastern languages and literatures, as has been the curriculum so far, but must be expanded to include specialized knowledge of geology, paleo-ethnobotany, zoology, ethnography, and social, cultural, and physical anthropology, as well as statistical theory. Dever concluded on a hopeful note. Archeology is one of the youngest branches of the humanities and one of the fastest growing; it is only beginning to reveal its full potential. "The general prospects for our field and for archeology in relation to biblical studies have never been brighter." The new approach to Syro-Palestinian archeology made itself already felt in a number of survey reports: J. Maxwell Miller of Emory University described his investigation of the plateau between Wadi Mujib and the Kerak-Qatrana road-central Moab during Old Testament times-a region hitherto sparsely explored; William H. Shea of Andrews University hoped that further surveys in southern Jordan might provide archeological evidence relating to the military campaign of Ramses II in the 13th century B.C.; and the pilot season of the Central Negev Highlands Project was discussed by William Dever, its director. MB sites in marginal areas were investigated, and shaft tombs from this period were examined. The importance of integrating archeological efforts and excavations into the environmental context of a site was pointed up by Reuben G. Bullard in his "Environmental Geology in Archeological Research: Highlights of Fourteen Years Work." He proposed that the aim of modern archeological investigation should be "to recover the total historical situation of a site of human activity," rather than the discovery and exhibition of objects unearthed. To this end, geology provides most fundamental knowledge and is an indispensable tool. Among the papers concerning revisions and corrections of data hitherto accepted, attention was focused on those concerning the Ghassulian period, the end of the Bronze Age in Palestine, and the destruction of Lachish. Walter E. Rast, in his paper "Carry-overs from Ghassulian to Early Bronze," brought out the division of opinion regarding the latter part of the Ghassulian culture and its regional variants to the culture which follows in Proto-Urban or EB I. Albright, Kenyon, Lapp, and Carolyn Elliott held the view that there was practically no influence of Ghassulian upon the ProtoUrban, and according to Lapp, "The break between the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages is one of the most thoroughgoing in the history of Palestine." The opposite opinion was expressed by Hennessy and Callaway, who proposed that Late Chalcolithic cultures and those of Proto-Urban ABC were successive. Rast presented artifactual, architectural, and burial evidence which disproved several arguments, and he concluded that Ghassulian culture carried over into the Bronze period, albeit in a modified form, rather than having come to an abrupt end. In view of evidence available, it is more

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST SUMMER 1979

187

likely to accept Ghassulian culture as a core from which several other cultures developed. Attention has always been focused on the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age in Palestine, since this time span coincides with the date assigned by various theories to the biblical exodus and conquest. Frederick R. Brandfon of Central Michigan University pointed to the two sites of excavations which had evoked controversy regarding the end of the Bronze Age in Palestine. Tell Beit Mirsim (TBM), excavated and interpreted by Albright, resulted in a dating not later than 1170 B.C.based on a Philistine invasion, as well as on the latest occurrence of Mycenean pottery in a dated context, viz., in the reign of Ramses II (1298-1232), and on the date of the Merneptah stela mentioning a people named Israel. Excavations at Megiddo, however, revealed neither a Philistine nor an Israelite phase in the Early Iron Age but provided evidence that the Canaanite culture had lasted throughout the 12th century. Thus, while TBM sets the Late Bronze Age close to the end of the 13th century B.C., that is, between 1230 and 1200, Megiddo "brings the Late Bronze Age to a close some time after Ramses III acceded to the Egyptian throne in the 12th century." Amazingly enough, the dating of TBM found general acceptance, thus placing the end of the Bronze Age in Palestine ca. 1200 B.C.or before, even though the chronology of TBM was based solely on pottery, the dates of which may not be precise. The absolute chronology of Megiddo, however, is relatively certain in view of inscriptional material found at the site. Brandfon further examined the stratigraphic and inscriptional evidence from such sites as Beth-shemesh, Bethel, Tell Deir Alla, Tell Abu Hawam, Afula, and Lachish and concluded that Afula, Beth-shan, and Tell Abu Hawam share stratigraphic features with Megiddo. "Despite some discrepancies between sites, the picture drawn by evidence from all of them is that the Late Bronze Age in Palestine ended in the first half of the 12th century." Furthermore, this dating is supported by inscriptional evidence from Megiddo, Beth-shan, Deir Alla, and Lachish, suggesting a date in the early to mid12th century B.C. as the end of the Bronze Age in Palestine. Additional papers concerning dates and chronologies were presented by R. Thomas Schaub ("Reflections on Cultural and Chronological Problems of EB III in Palestine") and by Albert Glock, Director of the Albright Institute ("Taanach in the Bronze Age"). Schaub commented on the interesting changes in the map of Palestine before EB III when small settlements were abandoned after the EB II period. The EB III period suggests concern regarding matters of defense, and the preparation of huge walls and storage jars would suggest fear of attack or invasion. That these apprehensions were not unfounded is attested by the complete destruction of EB III (2400 B.c.) which may have been caused by the reemergence of Egypt, a

188

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

popular uprising, or an Amorite invasion. Records from Ebla reveal attacks from Syrian bases. Papers on agriculture and trade were offered by Thomas L. Thompson of Durham, NC and Barry M. Gittlen of Baltimore Hebrew College, the latter concentrating on "The Ceramic Evidence of Cypriotic Trade with Palestine during the Late Bronze Age." The analysis of thousands of pottery vessels and sherds found in Late Bronze Age deposits in Palestine revealed that in all likelihood there existed a well-organized export of Late Cypriotic Bronze Age pottery to familiar Palestine markets. The trade was based on solid knowledge of the market and was selective. The locality of the point of export is not known, nor is that of the harbor receiving the goods. We also do not know by what methods the goods were moved from the place of import to the settlements. An economic study of trade in the Late Bronze Age has not yet been undertaken but should be on its way soon. The meeting was further enriched by Dorothy Irvin's explanation of "The Typology and Significance of Stratified Spindle Whorls," accompanied by Barbara Keith's "Demonstration-The Use of the Spindle Whorl in the Ancient Near East: Spinning Flax, Wool, and Cotton with an Appropriate Whorl Type." According to Dorothy Irvin's contention, any change in spindle-whorl form which can be traced chronologically is not to be attributed simply to aesthetic change or change in construction technique (as often in pottery chronology) but must be seen to reflect developments in textile production. In view of the orientation of today's archeologists toward anthropological/ ecological concerns, Irvin stressed that careful recording and photographing of excavated whorls (as well as of other doubtful objects which are, in fact, tools for textile production) should give us new information about an area hitherto neglected. Lotta Moreau Gaster

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Covenant Forms in Israelite Tradition The names given to the two parts of the Bible in Christian tradition rest on the religious conception that the relationship between God and man is established by a covenant.... When the statement is made that religion is based on covenant, it implies that a form of action which originated in legal custom has been transferred to the field of religion. Therefore, a study of the covenant form as we know it in ancient legal documents may possibly serve to bring into the chaos of opinion some objective criteria for reconstructing the course of Israelite history and religion. . . It is .. . becoming increasingly difficult to maintain

The primary purpose of the suzerainty treaty was to establish a firm relationship of mutual support between the two parties (especially military support), in which the interests of the Hittite sovereign were of primary and ultimate concern. It established a relationship between the two, but in its form it is unilateral. The stipulations of the treaty are binding only upon the vassal, and only the vassal took an oath of obedience . ...

This covenant type is ... important as a starting

point for the study of Israelite traditions because of the fact that it cannot be proven to have survived the downfall of the great Empires of the late second millennium B.C. ...

that there were blood-ties close enough to bind Israel together or to produce the feeling of solidarity, which The Structure of the Covenant has since Wellhausen been described as the pre-eminent Here we shall give a brief resume of Korosec's juristic effect of the work of Moses. If those blood-ties, kinship, analysis of the covenant form. .. as the basis of Israelite solidarity be given up, it is 1) Preamble: . . . This identifies the author of the inconceivable . . there could have been, at that covenant. ... .that time, any other basis of solidarity than a covenant 2) The historical prologue: This part of the treaty describes in detail the previous relations between the relationship. If so, then it follows inevitably that the covenant two. In the suzerainty treaties great emphasis is placed relationship between Israel and Yahweh which is upon the benevolent deeds which the Hittite king has inseparable from the historical solidarity of the tribes, is performed for the benefit of the vassal, and such a not merely a stage in the history of religious concepts, narrative is never lacking in texts which have been but was an event which had a definite historical setting completely preserved. They are emphatically not stereoand the most surprising historical consequences. The typed formulae, as one might expect, but are rather such difficulty in the past has been in arriving at any concept careful descriptions of actual events, that they are a of a covenant which would bind together the tribes and most important source for the historian. . . . A striking also adequately form a foundation for the normative formal characteristic of this section is the "I-Thou"form conception that in this event Yahweh became the God of of address. . . . The covenant form is still thought of as a Israel. Further, there is the problem of the origin of that personal relationship, rather than as an objective, sense of law and justice, morality and ethic which is so impersonal statement of law. ... inseparable from the religion of Israel. . . . At the risk of 3) The stipulations: This section states in detail the rushing in where angels fear to tread, the writer would obligations imposed upon and accepted by the vassal.... suggest that there is a type of covenant preserved in 4) Provision for deposit in the temple and periodic ancient oriental sources which may be of use in arriving public reading. ... at some tentative conclusions concerning . . . the 5) The list of gods as witnesses: Just as legal problems mentioned above. This is the suzerainty treaty contracts were witnessed by a number of peoples in the by which a great king bound his vassals to faithfulness community, so the gods acted as witnesses to the and obedience to himself. . . . international covenants . The Hittite covenants have been very carefully 6) The curses and blessings formula. .. analyzed by V. Korosec with the following results. The covenants are not all of a single type, but rather to be Covenant Forms in Israel classified as suzerainty treaties or as parity treaties. The It is well known that biblical traditions preserve for us a basic difference between the two is that in the former, number of references to covenants of different sorts. only the inferior is bound by an oath--the vassal is There are only two traditions, however, which fall into obligated to obey the commands stipulated by the the form described above. The first is the Decalogue, Hittite king. In the latter, both parties are bound to and the second is included in the narrative of Joshua 24. The covenant of Moses . . . imposes specific obey identical stipulations... S.. BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/

SUMMER

1979

189

obligations upon the tribes or clans without binding Yahweh to specific obligations. .... The question which faces us is why the Israelite federation had such a lasting influence, while the others evidently fell apart in a short time ... .[The clans] were formed into a new community by a covenant whose text we have in the Decalogue. .... In effect . . . each clan became a vassal of Yahweh by

covenant-and at the same time bound to each other in a sacred truce. No clan was sovereign, and at the same time, the terms of the covenant left each clan free to regulate its internal affairs so long as the religious covenant obligations were protected. The unity of which we spoke was further enhanced by the fact that they evidently had no other political ties, but most important was the fact that the first obligation of the covenant was to reject all foreign relations-i.e., with other gods, and by implication, with other political groups . . . It is not only the Decalogue itself, however, which is illuminated by this covenant form. The tradition of the deposit of the law in the Ark of the Covenant is

certainly connected with the covenant customs of preMosaic times. The Covenant of Joshua 24 It is very difficult to escape the conclusion that this narrative rests upon traditions which go back to the period when the treaty form was still living, but that the later writer used the materials of the tradition which were of importance and value to him, and adapted them to his own contemporary situation . S. .. The point which is to be made here, is the fact

that the covenant form itself furnished at least the nucleus about which the historical traditions crystallized in early Israel. It was the source of the "feeling for history" which is such an enigma in Israelite literature. And perhaps even more important is the fact that what we now call "history" and "law" were bound up into an organic unit from the very beginnings of Israel itself. George E. Mendenhall University of Michigan (BA 17.3 [1954]: 50-76)

Book. Reviews Where is Noah's Ark? by Lloyd R. Bailey. 128 pp. Nashville: Abingdon, 1978; paper, $1.95. The Noah's Ark Nonsense by Howard M. Teeple. 156 pp. Evanston, IL: Religion and Ethics Institute, Inc., 1978; $10.00. Bypassing the critical, geological, and historical questions connected with the Flood narratives in Genesis, Bailey's study centers upon the validity of the claims that evidence of remains of Noah's ark has been found on the slopes of Mount Ararat (Buyuk Agri Dagi) in Eastern Turkey. Attention is called to the fact that "mountains of Ararat," and not "Mount Ararat," is the phrase occurring in Genesis for the landing place of the ark, and that at that period Ararat was a vast district rather than one peak. Sources through the Byzantine period claim numerous different places for the ark's landing and say that remains of the ark have survived, though

190

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

none of the ancient writers claim to have seen it. Bailey finds that claims for Buyuk Agri Dagi as the mountain date only from the I Ith century at the earliest. Verifiable reports of ascents of Agri Dagi begin in 1829. Dependent for his information upon accounts of eyewitnesses to ark ruins which are given in the books of the ark searchers, Bailey finds them all wanting in reliability. The reports are often known only third- and fourthhand, the eyewitnesses have died, the original documents cannot be found, there are conflicts in details, and new details seem to have been added as the stories are retold. For example, the sighting of the ark by the Russian aviator Roskovitsky cannot be substantiated. The photographs allegedly taken of an object on Agri Dagi during World Wars I and II have never been produced, and objects shown on a more recent photograph have proved to be natural geological formations.

The finding of pieces of wood on the various mountains where the ark allegedly landed was reported in ancient sources. Much wood from Agri Dagi has also been reported. That found by Fernand Navarra in 1955 at an elevation of 13,500 feet is the first submitted for scientific analysis; but the Carbon 14 date for this material is between A.D. 260 and A.D. 760-too late for the ark. Bailey notes that the latest Carbon 14 date for this wood, allowing 250 years for the life of the tree from which it came, roughly corresponds to the earliest evidence that Agri Dagi was considered the site of the ark's landing, and he notes that the wood comes from the upper elevation limit where construction of a chapel would be possible. Bailey also points out that wooden monastic structures and crosses have been erected on the mountain at various times, creating the possibility that the discovered wood comes from them rather than from the ark. With its extensive notes, Bailey's book is a needed and wholesome corrective to the numerous written accounts of searching for the ark as well as to the movie, "In Search of Noah's Ark." His book is considerably less polemic and considerably less vehement toward the "Fundamentalists" than The Noah's Ark Nonsense, by Howard M. Teeple. The basic premise of Teeple's study is that no remains of the ark can be found because the Flood narrative is "a story," unhistorical to begin with. Teeple is convinced that flood stories began with the Sumerians and that the motif can then be traced with modifications through the literature of the Babylonians, the Hurrians, the Assyrians, the Hittites, the Greeks, the Romans, the Syrians, and the Phrygians. A brief survey shows the form in which the story was told in each of these cultures. Teeple deals with the biblical narrative in classical source-analysis terms, insisting that there are contradictions and inconsistencies within the story. He examines flood stories which parallel and differ from the biblical story. He insists that there is no geological evidence for a flood, finds that the local flood idea is wanting, rejects the idea that a change in the earth's tilt could have brought a flood, and is equally emphatic that there is no archeological evidence for one. He finds the idea of a flood implausible, insisting that there was neither enough water in the world to rain that long nor enough for the Flood to cover all the mountains. He further finds it unbelievable that an ark could hold all the necessary animals, that pairs of all sorts of animals could be gathered to board the ark, that food could be had for all of them, and, in particular, the idea that God would kill off nearly all life on earth. Teeple notes that in the various flood stories the ark is said to have landed on different mountains. He finds Mount Nisir in Iraq to be the earliest one mentioned and Mount Ararat to be the last chosen and then postulates that the height of Ararat determined its choice.

A description of the physical features of Ararat and of the difficulties-apparently not from firsthand experience-in scaling it is given. A list is given of the better-known persons who climbed the mountain in the 19th and 20th centuries without observing remains of the ark, and another of those who claimed to find wood. Teeple cites many differing legends that have sprung up around the ark motif and notes that there is no agreement on the elevations at which the alleged sightings have taken place. At first the ark was supposed to be on the summit where there was no hope of finding it, but afterward the search moved to the slopes. There is agreement neither on the shape of what is seen-boxshape or boat-shape-nor over whether the ark is intact or only survives in fragments. Whether the wood is soggy, can be cut out in solid pieces, or is petrified is also disputed in the reports. Like Lloyd R. Bailey in Whereis Noah ' Ark?, Teeple points out that Carbon 14tests show that Navarra's wood could not come from the ark, and he also points out that there are no reliable photographs of what has been seen. Teeple, admitting his abandonment of a formerly held fundamentalist attitude toward the Bible, finds religious fundamentalism and sensationalism to be the culprits in leading people to believe the ark could be on Mt. Ararat and in causing a television network to show a movie about the "discovery." He has a particular case against the NBC television network which displayed this film, "In Search of Noah's Ark." Correctly denominating the film "a pseudo documentary," the final chapter of the book surveys Teeple's efforts, as head of the Religion and Ethics Institute, to take NBC to task before the FCC for showing the picture. A brief of his case against the movie is given, and then NBC's reply to his complaint is rebutted item by item. Those who are not enthusiastic about Teeple's vitriolic attack against the "Fundamentalists," but yet who are puzzled by the claims made in the books of the ark-searchers and in the above-mentioned film, would profit by reading Teeple's survey of the efforts to locate the ark. Notes are extensive and a selected, classified bibliography is supplied. Jack P. Lewis Harding Graduate School of Religion

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/SUMMER

1979

191

Courtesyof IsraelMuseum Submittedby B. Cobbey Crisler

When a lampis lit, it is not put under

the

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light among your fellows, so that, when they see the good you do, they may give praiseto your Fatherin heaven. Matt 5:15-16 NEB

Although its provenance is unknown, since it was acquired from a private source, the lamp on lampstand is the only one of Herodian date found thus far in Israel and is the closest known object that resembles the lamp "on the lamp-stand" used in Matthew's record of Jesus' words as part of what has since been called the "Sermon on the Mount."

The Tabernacle Menorah A Synthetic Study of a Symbol from the Biblical Cult by Carol L. Meyers The Tabernacle Menorah is a synthetic study of the menorah which stood in the tabernacle of ancient Israel. By treating it as an artifact, and by bringing the methods of philology, comparative archeology, art history, and phenomenology together in an investigation of the object, the nature of its physical reality and of its symbolic function within the biblical cult can be understood. It is clear as a result of the study of the biblical and archeological sources that the details of form and fabrication alone do not complete our understanding of the tabernacle menorah. Thus, the peculiar seven-branched shape as well as the general vegetative and repetitive characteristics are scrutinized as they appear in other ancient Near Eastern cultures. In this way, the second level of meaning, the thematic identification of the object, can be determined insofar as Israel's history is rooted in these cultures. Finally, at the third level of meaning, the symbolic value of the object within the biblical cult, as a specific historical manifestation of that object, is approached. The concluding chapter deals with the tabernacle menorah within the Israelite cult. As its emotional overtones become clear, the manner and purpose of this integration into the Israelite religious experience can be understood. ASOR DissertationSeries 2 Orderfrom ASOR 126 Inman St. Cloth $9.00 ($6.00 ASOR members) Cambridge, MA Paper $6.00 ($4.00 ASOR members) 02139

164

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

new

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By M. Liverani MANE 1/5, 30 pp., $3.25. Translationof three Italianarticles:Pharaoh'sLettersto Rib-Adda(1971); Social Implicationsin of Amurru(1965); "Irrational"Elementsin the AmarnaTrade(1971). the Politicsof Abdi-Asirta

atTelllMardikh Ebla:RecentDiscoveries By P. Matthiae MANE 1/6, 16 pp., 26 plates, $6.50. Ebla in the Periodqo the AmoriteDynastiesand the Dynastyof Akkad. Recent Archaeological Discoveriesat Tell Mardikh.Translationof a major article in Orientalia1975 with many new illustrations.

Ola Canaanite Texts from Ebla By G. Pettinato MANE 2/1, 10 pp., $1.50. Translationof the first articleon the languageof Ebla: CuneiformTextsof'the ThirdMillennium Recoveredduringthe 1974 Season at Tell Mardikh-Ebla (Orientalia1975). in Old-Canaanite

ofBerossus TheBa,yloniaca 39 SANE

1/5, pp., $4.20. By S. M. Burstein first the complete English tranlationof the surviving fragments of this This fascicle contains importantwork.

1EaryTechnologies

Editedby D. Schmandt-Besserat InvitedLecturesat Austin, Texas3

78 pp., 28 plates, $16.00 (hard), $12.00 (soft). A new assessment of the major first steps in the technologicaladvancementsof humankind. Articles by J. A. Williams, Th. A. Wertime, D. Schmandt-Besserat,D. de Solla Price, B. S. Hall, J. F. Epstein.

The Court of the Palms By Y. M. Al-Khalesi BM 8, 85 pp., 5 plates. $18.00 (hard), $14.50 (soft). of' the Mari Palace is based on the study of The Courtof the Palms:A FunctionalInterpretation written records,art objects, artifacts,and installationswithin their architecturalcontext.

Syr-MersopotamianStudies

Editedby M. Kelly-Buccellati. $17.00 per volume of 200 pp. approx. A majornew journalwith key articleswidely acclaimedby the scholarlyand nationalpress-on the origin of writing by D. Schmandt-Besseratand on Ebla by Paolo Matthiae and by I. J. Gelb.

TeraPreliminary RTorts

G. Buccellati, M. Kelly-Buccellati, O. Rouault and others SMS 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, 2/5, 2/6.

,By

A modularseries in which six fascicles have alreadyappeareddealing with the stratigraphy,the tablets, the ceramics,and the objects from the first three seasons of excavation. For additional information, descriptive flyers of individual titles, and a general catalogue, write: UNDENA PUBLICATIONS, P.O. Box 97, Dept. B.A., Malibu, Ca. 90265.

Rediscover

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In 1976 BA offered the earliest reportsof the epochmakingfind of the royal archive of Ebla by Giovanni Pettinatoand Paolo Matthiae (Mayand September). In 1978 BA EditorDavid Noel Freedmanpresented his account of the meaning and relevance of the Ebla discovery in the light of biblical history. Now, for the first time, BA takes pleasure in making this set of three special Ebla issues availableto you. To order this unique three-issue package send $10.00 in check or money order payable to ASOR, 126 InmanStreet, Cambridge, MA 02139

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The Nelson Glueck's provocative classic of archeological exploration in the desert and sown lands of Transjordan remains an essential sourcebook for all serious students of biblical history. First published in 1940, The Other Side of the Jordan is now available in an attractively illustrated, revised second edition. (Use ASOR Bookshop order form.)

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