Archaeology is a fascinating discipline. The definition states that it is “the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture”.

It uncovers, spade by spade, shovel by shovel, centuries of historical and authentic presentations and accounts of civilisations that each, in its own time, dominated or directed the course of human history.

One of the most striking revelations proven by recent archaeology has been the verification of the

Bible stories, in particularly those of the Old Testament that are sometimes cast off as fables. For example, the story of Abraham’s journey from the Ur of the Chaldees and through the lands of Canaan has been accurately traced through archaeological ‘diggings’. And those memorable Sunday school accounts of the worship of Baal by the Canaanites have been backed up evidence unearthed at the site of fabled Ugarit on the Mediterranean.

In Palestine archaeologists have established with unerring accuracy the location and remains of familiar names that we have come to associate with biblical stories.

Some of them we know about only by their names. The sketched reliefs exposed on ancient walls and stone tablets bring these faces to life as we begin to see and identify those legendary tribes of the Old Testament. Their features, clothes and even their armour takes shape before our very eyes: the slim, tall Philistines, the aggressive and big nosed Hittites, the kings of Mari who were the contemporaries of Abram, and the Canaanite kings who threw terror into the Israelites with their ‘chariots of iron’.

Then there is the infamous tower of Babel, the location found through research by scholars, and other locations on the Nile Delta where cities and trenches have been found where the Israelites toiled as slaves.

In Gibeah they have identified the mountain caves where Saul retreated in times of stress to be soothed by David’s harp. Not to speak of a place called Meggido where they came across the great stables of King Solomon and his 1,200 horsemen.

As they come closer to us in time with New Testament findings we have uncovered the pavement where Jesus stood before Pilate, as described in the Gospel of St John.

TheBible is still looked at by sceptics as a bunch of pious, goody goody stories. But on the contrary the archaeology and the patience of archaeologists have proven that the events and locations in theBible are true.

The city of the Ur of the Chaldees, once thought to have been Abraham’s original home, was uncovered in the early 20th century. The patient diligent work of the international archaeological teams revealed a city with palaces, some large two-storied villas with as much as 14 rooms, lavatories, powder rooms, and living quite the life of luxury. Ur was one of the earliest cities reported in Genesis 11: “Terah took Abram, his son Lot…and they went forth…from Ur of the Chaldees.” Then period. Nothing more, until the archaeological excavations of the 1930s and the 1940s, which opened up new gateways to the historical world of the Old Testament.

Consider the work of the Frenchman Paul Emile-Botta, who while excavating at Khorsabad in Mesopotamia suddenly found himself confronted by reliefs of King Sargon 11 of Assyria, who ravaged Israel and led its people off into captivity. Accounts of this conqueror’s campaign deal with the conquest of Samaria fully described in the Bible.

Elementary schoolchildren of the 1950s might well remember Lord Tennyson’s poem taught in our schools, “The Assyrians came down like the wolves on the fold, and their cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold.”

My own appreciation of the incredible work of these archaeologists comes from a book,

The Bible as History — Archaeology confirms the Book of Books, written by a German Werner Keller and translated and published in English by William Neil in 1956.

Keller describes himself as an ordinary journalist and a non-theologian who in the course of his studies came across the reports of European archaeologists on their excavation of the cities of Mari and Ugarit in 1933.

According to the author, the tablets discovered at Mari were found to contain Biblical names and as a result, narratives of the Israel patriarchs (Abram begat Isaac who begat Jacob who begat Joseph) in the dim dawn of history and which had been regarded as pious tales were unexpectedly transferred into the realms of history.

“Thanks to the findings of the archaeologists”, says Keller, “many of the biblical narratives can now be better understood than ever before. There are, of course, theological insights which can only be dealt with in terms of the Word of God”.

But as Professor Andre Parrot, famed French Archaeologist put it, “How can we understand the Word, unless we see it in its proper perspective? We know from Genesis stories that Abram and his family lived in Haran. But until recently we knew little more than a Biblical mention about Haran and its history.”

It was almost a chance discovery, effected by persistent digging by an archaeologist team led by the same Parrot that opened a door to the vast kingdom of Mari which hosted the land of Haran.

June 23, 1934, and in the course of their diggings near the River Euphrates, suddenly out of the rubble falls a neat little statue with some lettering on its shoulder. The teams gather around, fascinated, as the words are decoded. “I am Lamgi-Mari…the king…of Mari..the great Issakav…who worships…the statue of Ishtar.”

It was as if the monarch had suddenly welcomed the strangers and introduced himself to them, politely inviting them into his kingdom of long ago which lay in a deep sleep beneath him.

Intense archaeological follow up saw the history of an empire unfolding with the revelation of a whole series of familiar Bible names like Peleg, Serug, Nahor, Tehra and Haran.

“These are the generations of Shem”, says Genesis 11. “Peleg begat Reu, Reu begat Serug, Serug begat Nahor, Nahor begat Terah, Terah begat Abram.”

Names of Abram’s forefathers emerge from the dark ages as the names of cities in Western Mesopotamia, inscribed on tablets unearthed all over the empire.

Abram’s death and burial in the village of Mamre, “which was in Hebron”, is recorded in Genesis 25. About two miles north of Hebron, the Arabs still venerate a site which they call “the Friend of God”, the Mohammed term for Father Abraham. His grave is still exhibited today as a Holy Place visited by pilgrims.

It is another grave of a well-loved personality in the New Testament that is probably the crowning glory of Christian archaeology, and represents a most outstanding find. It is the confirmation of the last resting place of St Peter, beneath the Basilica of St Peter’s in Rome.

For over 1,000 years legend had it that St Peter’s tomb lay under the altar. It was probably walled up for protection because over that period it disappeared from history.

Then in 1950 word emerged unintentionally from Pope Pius XII himself that the grave of St Peter had been rediscovered several years earlier, but kept as a top secret by the Vatican who had sworn everyone in the know to silence.

The tomb was actually rediscovered around 1930 while repairs to the sanctuary were being carried out. Nearly 25 feet below the floor of the Church excavators came upon a vault with messages inscribed all pointing to a veneration of St Peter — “Peter pray for us, Peter intervene for our need.” By 1950 critical examinations had confirmed beyond doubt that it was the tomb of the martyr. Pope Pius XII himself had seen with his own eyes the most important find in the history of Christian archaeology.

There is much more to be discovered. No book in the whole of human history has had such an influence on world development such as “the book of books”. It has been translated into 1,120 languages and dialects, remains the number one best-seller, and shows no sign of letting up on its readership.

As Keller summed up in his introduction, “In view of the overwhelming mass of authentic archaeological evidence now available, as I thought of the sceptical criticism which from the eighteenth century onwards would fain have demolished the

Bible all together, there kept hammering in my brain this one sentence, ‘TheBible is right after all’.”

Lance Neita is a public and community relations consultant. Send comments to the Observer or lanceneita@hotmail.com.