like Petrie, an Egyptologist, well aware of typology, stratigraphy and the prob-
lems associated with excavating tells. In archaeological method he was self-
taught. His methods matched the higher standards of the time but his
involvement in Palestine archaeology was as limited as that of his British
counterpart. The work was followed by Clarence S. Fisher (1876–1941) and
David Gordon Lyon (1852–1935), the latter the director of the American
School for Oriental Research in Jerusalem from 1906 to 1907. As a student,
Lyon, like Reisner, had received some training in Semitic philology in
Germany (in Leipzig between 1879 and 1882) after his studies in America.
Lyon became theWrst Professor of Assyriology in the United States in 1882
as the Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard (from 1910 the Hancock
Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental Languages). He had started to
organize the Semitic Museum at Harvard University in the 1880s (Silberman
1982: ch. 16; www nd-h).
Regardless of their nationality and despite all their eVorts, one of the major
Wgures of the next generation, William Foxwell Albright (1891–1971), sum-
marized the situation years later in 1914, saying that:
The dates given by Sellin and Watzinger for Jericho, those given by Bliss and Macal-
ister for the mounds of the Shephelah, by Macalister for Gezer, and by Mackenzie for
Beth-Shemesh do not agree at all, and the attempt to base a synthesis on their
chronology resulted, of course, in chaos. Moreover, most of the excavations failed
to deWne the stratigraphy of their site, and thus left its archaeological history hazy and
indeWnite, with a chronology which was usually nebulous where correct and often
clear-cut where it has since been proved wrong.
(Moorey 1991: 37).In spite of such a pessimistic account, in the course of a century biblical
archaeology had managed to revolutionize the landscape of the Bible. Yet, the
power of the text—of the Holy text as well as that found in inscriptions—had
prevented archaeology becoming institutionalized in isolation. The professional
base of many of those who undertook archaeological work in Palestine was
critical philology and theology (chairs of Oriental Languages, Old Testament,
Divinity and Christian Literature have been mentioned in the preceding pages).
Professionalism as such would only arrive after the First World War.
PHOENICIA AND THE BIBLEAWnal area where biblical studies had an impact was in the old territory of
Phoenicia, roughly located in modern Lebanon and parts of Syria. The
Phoenicians were an ancient people mentioned in the Bible as the Canaanites
Biblical Archaeology 155