BAR Highlights: 10/31/07

More recent archaeological news from Biblical Archaeology Review:

The Rise of the Synagogue
Scholar Lee Levine, of The Hebrew University, is interviewed about the role of the synagogue after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 A.D.

Princeton Punts
The university’s art museum has agreed to return eight ancient artifacts to Italy that are suspected of having been looted from that country, but it is keeping seven others.

Learning Your ABCs
A newspaper profile features archaeologist Ron Tappy, who discusses the abecedary discovered at Tel Zayit and its implications.

Tut Luck
Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s antiquities director, says the boy king died after falling off a chariot while hunting.

Scroll Tunnel?
University of Chicago professor Norman Golb suggests that a recently discovered tunnel in Jerusalem may have been used to move the Temple treasures and the Dead Sea Scrolls away from ancient Judea’s besieged capital.

Canal to Nile Found
The ancient canal, now filled in, linked a quarry to the Nile and allowed builders to transport huge building stones to some of Egypt’s greatest sites.

Scrolls Exhibit, Part II
The San Diego Museum of Natural History exhibit on the scrolls continues with a dozen new fragments on display (Israel only allows 12 scrolls out of the country at a time), including one that contains a longer version of the Ten Commandments.