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1960s
1964
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— 1930s —
1932
AMERICAN SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH
JERUSALEM, PALESTINE
August 15, 1932
Dr. N. Glueck
A.S.O.R., Jerusalem
Dear Dr. Glueck,
I am enclosing a copy of a letter I have written to Prof. Montgomery about the Corpus and Jerash. I have omitted a request for a regular vacation each year and I think that this might much better come from you. I think six weeks will be all right.
I have also written to Mr. Horsfield to extend the permit to excavate until next year and informed him that in the near future I intend going to Jerash to complete the division of antiquities for Yale. That Art Museum at Yale, I understand have a special fund for packing and shipping the Jerash antiquities to them, so we should keep a complete record of expenditure and collect from them later.
Have you any word as to el-Hamma? A two weeks series of hot baths will suit me very well at present.
Yours sincerely,
Clarence S. Fisher
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AMERICAN SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH
JERUSALEM, PALESTINE
August 15, 1932
Professor James Montgomery
5806 Greene St.,
Germantown, Philadelphia.
Dear Prof. Montgomery,
I had delayed answering your letter about Jerash and the Corpus until I got back to Ramallah and went over the notes and drawings so as to make an approximate estimate of the time required to complete the corpus. Of course, in a work of this nature which envolves so much detailed drawing and the collection of data from various publications, no absolute limits can be set. I am now waiting for the publication of Dr. Albright on Tell Beit Mirsim so as to include his wholly new and valuable pottery material. We shall have to stop with this publication and include any future material in supplements.
After considering the work to be done, I think the work can be completed by the end of April 1933 but this can be done only by having assistance on drawing and typing. I am at present making use of Mr. Adib Ishak as typist. He was the secretary of the expeditions at Jerash and Antioch. Labib Sorial who has always been connected with the expeditions of the school, has been helping me on drawing. Unless other arrangements are made I will have to bear the expenses of such assistance. Labib Eff. will, I understand, not be free after the end of this month, so I will have to manage without him. On the other hand there is the possibility of getting Mr. Detweiler without salary but at the expense of his living. As I understand the arrangements, he is to receive lodging at the school free in exchange for certain administrative work and is to pay his board out of the money he will receive as salary next spring when he goes to Jerash.
You may be quite sure I am only too anxious to see the Corpus off my hands, as it has been a very heavy burden on me in every way.
In connection with Jerash we all were very much disappointed at having the work there postponed. We have already made some tentative plans for next season’s excavations, as we understood that the necessary funds had been appropriated at the last annual meeting. The long cessation of work may entail out loosing the trained staff which we had built up, but thus far other expeditions have been making use of them. I think Mr. Horsfield thoroughly understands the financial situation and will stretch the law in our favor.
As regards our staff for next year I strongly recommend having the same group which we had last season, adding Mr. Detweiler as architect. If the budget for Jerash will permit, and extra architect like Mr. Beidler will be a very welcome addition to the staff.
Dr. Burrows and Glueck agree with my suggestion that the next season’s work at Jerash should be mainly a collection of drawings and notes on the various buildings exposed. There are many fine buildings waiting for full recording and these would make excellent publications. So long as we have new excavations in progress we have little time to work on these buildings, such as the Zeus Temple, the South Theatre, the walls and gates and many other buildings. If we reduce the local force to one small gang of about 15 laborers, merely to clear out angles of these buildings so that accurate measurements can be taken, we would make our appropriation last much longer and secure much finer results. So long as Yale is not cooperating this next season, there need be no question of objects for division.
Yours sincerely,
From Fisher
1939
THE JEWISH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF AMERICA
NORTHEAST CORNER, BROADWAY AND 122D STREET
NEW YORK CITY
November 29, 1939
Dear Professor Glueck:
I want to thank you for your kindness in coming to the Seminary last night. I was deeply interested in your address and found it most instructive. I am sure you realize that the audience shared my enthusiasm.
Faithfully yours,
— 1940s —
1946
THE JEWISH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF AMERICA
NORTHEAST CORNER, BROADWAY AND 122D STREET
NEW YORK CITY
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
January 17, 1946
Dear Doctor Glueck:
Last summer we established for the benefit of our alumni a series of lectures on “My Faith as a Jew.” Each of the lectures was given by a different scholar who tried to indicate his particular approach to Judaism.
The series was extremely successful and illuminating — so much so that we decided to continue it. Accordingly, I am writing to ask whether you would be willing to deliver a lecture on this subject for us on Tuesday, March 26th, at 12 o’clock.
The audience would consist primarily of rabbis, graduates of the Seminary. We hope that these lectures will be published in a symposium. We are in a position to offer a nominal honorarium of $50. for this lecture.
Hoping you will find it possible to accept this invitation, and with warmest good wishes,
Cordially, as ever,
Louis Finkelstein
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THE JEWISH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF AMERICA
NORTHEAST CORNER, BROADWAY AND 122D STREET
NEW YORK 27, N.Y.
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
January 22, 1946
Dear Doctor Glueck:
I appreciate your letter of January 19th, and regret that you are not able to speak for us on March 26th, but of course I understand the situation. It is very good of you to say that you will be willing to participate in this series if it is continued during next autumn, as I hope it will be.
I am looking forward to seeing the Hebrew translation of your OTHER SIDE OF THE JORDAN, and also your forthcoming book, THE RIVER JORDAN. I have no doubt that both books will prove immensely instructive and valuable.
With warmest regards,
Cordially, as ever,
Louis Finkelstein
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THE JEWISH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF AMERICA
NORTHEAST CORNER, BROADWAY AND 122D STREET
NEW YORK 27, N.Y.
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
May 23, 1946
Dear Doctor Glueck:
In going over the various books submitted for the list of outstanding religious volumes of the year, I have just had the opportunity to read your own fine volume. That was a real privilege for me, and I am indeed grateful that I could see the book.
I do hope that it will receive the widespread circulation that it so well deserves.
With warm regards, I am
Cordially, as ever,
Louis Finkelstein
1947
THE JEWISH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF AMERICA
NORTHEAST CORENER, BROADWAY AND 122D STREET
NEW YORK 27, N.Y.
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
May 23rd 1947
Dear Doctor Glueck:
I cannot tell you how much I appreciated your taking time to have dinner with Doctor Greenberg and myself especially in these days when your schedule is so hectic. I am eager to spend an evening with you some time soon when you are not quite so hard-driven.
Your lecture the other night at the Museum was very moving as well as most instructive. Although I have read “The River Jordan” several times, the points you brought out with new emphasis is helped me a good deal and I am sure, proved equally informative for the rest of the audience. The enthusiasm of the group was greater than I have seen it at previous meetings in the Museum.
I am looking forward to your being with us on June 8th and if possible, also on June 7th.
With warmest good wishes
Cordially, as ever,
Louis Finkelstein
— 1960s —
1964
18th August 1964
Professor II. J. Franken,
Leyden University
Leyden
Holland.
Dear Professor Franken,
I have been reading your Vetus Testamentum reports of your excavations at Tell Deir-calla with great interest. I was particularly pleased to read about the “flue-holes” and your explanation that “the constant north wind would have supplied the power (draft?) to create the intense heat of the furnances” (Vetus Testamentum X, 1960, p. 389; Pl. 9, section a,a).
In my The Other Side of the Jordan, published by the American Schools of Oriental Research, 1940, you will find the following photographs which will interest you, I am sure. The likelihood is that you have already seen them, but I mention them again, nevertheless.
OSJ, p. 96, Fig. 46. Outer south wall of the “refinery” (smelter), showing two rows of flue-holes;
- 97, Fig. 47. East wall of the “refinery” showing one of the transverse flues through which air flowed into a channel running lengthwise inside of the wall;
- 97, Fig. 48. Flues in the south wall of furnace room “l” in the refinery at Tell el- Kheleifeh
I can report to you, that after clearing the great Solomonic smelter, one could hold one’s hand over one of the flue-holes in the outer south wall and feel the draft of air emerging, which had entered through the north wall of the building, several furnace rooms away. The wind at Tell el-Kheleifeh blew with force and constantly from the NNW, and during the first period of the history of Ezion-geber furnished all the draft necessary to keep the flames burning fiercely.
As I have published it years ago, I found many ancient mining and smelting sites in the Wadi Arabah, which I dated by pottery finds to the times of King Solomon and later. The Kenites were the metal smiths who introduced both the Israelites and the Edomites to the science of metallurgy, which, however, to some degree can be traced back to the Chalcolithic period.
For early reports of my discoveries and dating of the mines in the Wadi Arabah, I refer you also to my Explorations in Eastern Palestine II, which appeared as Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, XV, 1935, pp. 22-54; Explorations in Eastern Palestine, in AASOR XVIII-XIX, 1939, pp. 6-9; Rivers in the Desert, 1959, pp. 153-168.
Several years ago, in one of the issues of the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (BASOR), I published an article dealing with fragments of crucibles I have discovered in the Wadi Arabah, with slag still adhering to the inner surfaces. I haven’t the specific issue at hand at the moment.
A lot of nonsense has been published in recent years that a) crucibles were not employed in the smelting process and b) that the structure I excavated at Tell el-Kheleifeh did not have flue-holes or that they were intended to provide air for supplies of stored grain.
I should be pleased to hear from you in connection with the flue-holes you have discovered, and I look forward to reading more detailed reports of your findings at Tell Deir-calla. I, myself, have been derelict in not yet publishing in final form the results of my excavations of Tell el-Kheleifeh (Ezion-geber: Elath), but I hope at long last to commence it this coming fall, after the appearance of a new book of mine on the Nabateans under the title of “Deities and Dolphins”.
Should you have an extra copy of the photograph of the flue-holes you discovered at Tell Deir-calla, published in Vetus Testamentum X, 1960, Pl. 9, section a,a I should be glad to have it, with eventually permission to publish it in my planned new book on Ezion-geber. I should be pleased to send you photographs of the flue-holes I found there.
I shall be at the above address till the middle of September 1964 and after that can be reached care of the Hebrew Union College, Clifton Avenue, Cincinnati 20, Ohio.
Sincerely yours,
Nelson Glueck
P.S. In my “The River Jordan”, Westminster Press, 1946 pp. 147-155 I have dealt with the Tell Deir-calla which I examined during my archaeological explorations of the Jordan Valley