REVELATIONS FROM MEGIDDO
The Newsletter of the Megiddo Expedition
 
Why a Megiddo Newsletter?

Keeping our Team Members, Sponsors and Friends in the Know about the Excavation, Survey, Lab Work, Research and Publication of Megiddo the Daily Life of the Megiddo Family
Megiddo is not just ‘another site’. It is the cradle of the archaeology of Israel; in fact, it is the cradle of Biblical Archaeology. But its importance goes far beyond archaeology, extending into biblical studies, and far beyond the borders of present-day Israel to the Levant and the entire Ancient Near East. Hence, we feel we must tell our sponsors, team members and many friends about the field and lab work, the people involved, both center stage and behind the scenes the ‘daily life’ of the project.

Revelations from Megiddo will include updates not only on final publications, but shorter articles to be published in various journals and keep you up to date on public lectures and future excavation and survey. Revelations is produced by the Megiddo Expedition staff, and we hope to go to press twice a year. Lest Revelations become a carbon copy of the often dry, technical academic publications, we will also offer lighter tastes of the human side of the Megiddo team. 

The pots and artifacts don’t crawl from their ancient burial places of their own volition, and the crew members who carefully, even lovingly, expose their secrets have much more personality than Megiddo III will reveal.
Why a Megiddo newsletter? A modern archaeological excavation involves such an enormous amount of work behind the scenes, after the hot summer mornings have yielded their treasures, we thought we would be nothing less than remiss if we did not reward the Megiddo Family with a continual peek into the doors of Nogah’s restoration room, Itzhak’s world of virtual reality, Paula’s laboratory the secondary resting place of Megiddo’s bones and the continuing saga of those who are uncovering the Revelations from Megiddo.

Israel Finkelstein
Baruch Halpern
David Ussishkin


Cult stand from Area H of the renewed excavations. It dates to one of the last chapters of Israelite Megiddo in the 8th century BCE.

Inside:  

 

Publications from The Megiddo Expedition staff:

  • Eric Cline's new book, Battles of Armageddon (University of Michigan Press, Upcoming), looks at Megiddo's unique military history, discussing the battles of, among others, Pharaoh Thutmose III, Joshua, Saladin and Napoleon.
  • Israel Finkelstein, one of the Megiddo Expedition Directors, has published his two volume work, along with Zvi Lederman and Shlomo Bunimovitz, the product of over a decade of field survey and research in the Samarian hills, Highlands of Many Cultures: The Southern Samaria Survey: The Sites. (Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University, 1997).
  • David Ilan has published, with A. Biran and R. Greenberg, his book, Dan I: A Chronicle of the Excavations, the Pottery Neolithic, the Early Bronze Age and the Middle Bronze Age Tombs. (Nelson Gleuck School of Archaeology, 1996).
  • Benjamin Sass, the Megiddo Expedition's small finds expert, has published, with Nahman Avigad, a book called Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Seals. (Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Hebrew University, 1997).
  • Orna Zimhoni, the Megiddo Expedition's Iron Age pottery expert, who died shortly after the 1996 excavation season, has had a collection of her studies published as Studies in the Iron Age Pottery of Israel: Typological, Archaeological and Chronological Aspects. (Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, 1997).
About the Megiddo Griffin:

 The griffin depicted as the logo of Revelations from Megiddo is a picture of one of the ivories discovered by the Chicago Expedition in the Late Bronze palace. The collection from the palace, the most extensive from any site in Israel, is one of the most important corpora of information about the art of Canaan at this time, a genre combining Egyptian, Hittite and Aegean influence with its own local flavor. The ivories were used as furniture decoration, jewelry boxes, cosmetic cases and various ornamentation. Our griffin shows a strong Aegean influence.

    The Megiddo Expedition operates under the auspices of Tel Aviv University. Senior American partner: Pennsylvania State University. Consortium institutions: Universities of Loyola-Marmount, Southern California, Vanderbilt (USA), Rostock (Germany), Bern (Swizterland). Megiddo Expedition Directors: Israel Finkelstein, David Ussishkin and Baruch Halpern. Excavation Directors: Israel Finkelstein and David Ussishkin. Head of Academic Program and Consortium Coordinator: Baruch Halpern.