BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

From National Hobby to Scientific Profession

Charting historical trends in Israeli archaeology

Yigael Yadin, the father of Israeli archaeology, giving a tour of Hazor to Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, 1958. Photo by Moshe Pridan, courtesy the Government Press Office.

Archaeological remains, brought back to the light of day, serve as tangible evidence of the past. As such, they are capable of connecting people to that past, becoming powerful tools for the construction of social and national identities. It is therefore common to use archaeology in political and social discourse.

The modern State of Israel has been no exception, especially in the first two decades after its foundation. From 1948 and through the 1950s and 1960s, Israeli archaeology—represented by such founding figures as Yigael Yadin—played a major role in the public sphere of modern Israel. In that period, the discipline of archaeology was practiced in the context of the secular “national religion” grounded in secular Zionism. In that view, material remains of a distant past, dug out from the earth, illustrated the Jewish history of the land and helped people strengthen their ties to the land.

In the Fall 2024 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Hayah Katz provides a historical overview of Israeli archaeology with particular attention to how archaeology served the social and political agendas of a changing society. A senior lecturer in the Department of Land of Israel Studies at Kinneret College in northern Israel, Katz has recently published a book, on which her BAR article draws. She traces the different developments in Israeli archaeology, from the Zionist movement and its “religion of the soil,” through the 1970s and 1980s, which saw the political and cultural hegemony of secular “Israeliness” crumble, until the 1990s, when archaeology began to have less of a foundational role in Israeli society.

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“As long as archaeology was the ‘national hobby’ of the secular Zionists, this identification formed a psychological barrier that deterred both observant Jews and Israel’s Palestinian citizens from entering the field, which seemed less relevant to their identities and ideals. It was only when Israeli archaeology became professionalized that a change in the Israeli archaeological landscape was possible. Only then could archaeology graduates who were Palestinian citizens of Israel, observant Jews, or new immigrants begin to integrate into the field in an equal manner,” writes Katz about the most recent developments.

To explore the societal and institutional developments that both reflected and enacted changes in Israeli archaeology, read Hayah Katz’s article “The Changing Landscape of Israeli Archaeology,” published in the Fall 2024 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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How BAR Was Born

The Simple Joy of Digging

Biblical Archaeology: Whither and Whence

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The Changing Landscape of Israeli Archaeology

Pillars of Jerusalem Archaeology

Yigael Yadin 1917–1984

BAR Interviews Yigael Yadin

BAR Interviews Amihai Mazar—A New Generation of Israeli Archaeologists Comes of Age