The Spring/Summer 2011 issue of DigSight has just been released by the Institute of Archaeology of Southern Adventist University. The newsletter includes a good primer on biblical minimalism and its shifts in the last two decades. Another article discusses “Evident Silence or Silenced Evidence” in defense of the historicity of Daniel 5.
The lead article summarizes the major tasks and discoveries of the 2011 team:
- Completion of excavation of 4th-century BC large building with olive press
- Discovery of early 10th-century BC stone quarry that continued in use in Hellenistic and/or Roman times
- Excavation of three Iron Age rooms with some partially restorable vessels and a standing stone (signifying a cultic area?)
- Discovery of best-preserved example of Iron Age floor at the site.
- Significant small finds including a faience scarab seal, a bone seal with lion and man, an iron ring, and a portion of an Aramaic ostracon
- Excavation of more than 25,000 pieces of pottery in Area D alone
The newsletter notes that the Institute’s three-year excavation of Qeiyafa has now concluded and the next two years will be used for publishing the final results.
The quality of the newsletter is superb but reading it in the issuu format has its drawbacks. Unlike previous issues, downloading the newsletter in pdf format requires login and the only login I could see to use was Facebook. (And I don’t know yet what adverse effects there may be from that.)
