Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land (review)

Archaeology in the “Holy Land” exploded during the last three decades of the twentieth century. In addition to many long-term excavations undertaken by universities and archaeological institutes, hundreds of salvage excavations, necessitated by construction projects in Israel and Jordan, have contributed enormously to the fund of knowledge about the material history of the area. Reference books have generally been unable to keep up with the rapid flood of new information and changes. That is why Avraham Negev’s idea to create a handy reference encyclopedia, a sort of archaeological dictionary that could be easily updated, was so creative.

Negev’s first edition of this encyclopedia appeared in 1972, a tour de force, written mostly by Negev with contributions from 20 others. In 354 pages it provided succinct, adequate coverage of all geographical names in the Bible and all sites excavated in the “Holy Land.” In addition, it included general articles about archaeology, agriculture, burial, cult, money, weapons, etc. These general articles made the book not only an up- to-date reference useful to veteran scholars, but also a handbook for novices seeking orientation.

It was revised in 1986. In 1990 the revision came out as a 418-page third edition with contributions by 32 collaborators. Much of Negev’s original edition was main tained where no changes were warranted, but the results of new undertakings were presented in summary form. The present 559-page volume, with contributions by 124 collaborators and the active input of an additional editor belonging to a younger generation of scholars, indicates the strides made in the last decade. The new editor, Shimon Gibson, continues in the spirit of the original work, but brings to it a breezy freshness. His preface invites corrections and suggestions and provides an e-mail address to which they may be sent. Prior to completion of this work, Gibson used the internet to solicit ideas and updates from colleagues around the world so that the volume would be abreast of all that was happening up to the moment of publication. Nothing like it exists in the market.

This work provides neither extensive details about excavations nor analyses of issues involved in the interpretation of sites or types of objects. With regard to these two items, it is unlike The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (1993), a large-format, four-volume work edited by E. Stern. This is its advantage. However, whereas The New Encyclopedia provides a detailed bibliography that enables readers to work back into the literature that interests them, Archaeological Encyclopedia does not, and therein lies what I consider its major disadvantage. Readers looking up a site such as Ekron or Jericho are not directed to any other source. Providing an excavator’s name is insufficient for additional research, since most archaeological data are written up as articles, not as books, and will not be readily available in library catalogues. (In the case of Ekron, the excavators’ names, Trude Dothan and Seymour Gitin, are missing as is a reference to the inscription found in situ mentioning the name of the city.) While scholars will know how to dig out what they need, novices will not. As an instructor, I will have to direct my students to the overview in Archaeological Encyclopedia and then to a fuller treatment elsewhere.

I suggest that future editions drop all geographical references to non-archaeological sites in order to save space. Saved space can be used to provide a sketch map locating every site discussed, additional illustrations for entries such as “Ebal (Mount),” where the structure identified as an altar by Adam Zertal is mentioned and described but hardly comprehensible without one; “Plastered Skulls,” where a type of realia is described verbally and a picture would have been worth about 200 words; and especially “Pottery,” where different types are referred to knowingly, but in a manner that renders the technical terms irrelevant since they refer to nothing visible to readers. Novices...