Ze'ev Herzog
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Ze'ev Herzog (; born 1941) is an Israeli
archeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes. Archaeol ...
, professor of archaeology at The Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at
Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a Public university, public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and ...
specializing in social archaeology, ancient architecture and field archaeology. Ze’ev Herzog served as director of The Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology from 2005 to 2010, and has served as archaeological advisor to the Israel Nature and National Parks Protection Authority in the preservation and development of National Parks at Arad and Beersheba. Herzog took part in the excavations of
Tel Hazor Tel Hazor (), translated in LXX as Hasōr (), and in Arabic Tell Waqqas or Tell Qedah el-Gul (), is an archaeological Tell (archaeology), tell at the site of ancient Hazor, located in the Upper Galilee, north of the Sea of Galilee, in the northe ...
and Tel Megiddo with Yigael Yadin and in excavations at Tel Arad and Tel Be'er Sheva with Yohanan Aharoni. He directed the excavations at Tel Beer Sheba, Tel Michal and Tel Gerisa and at Tel Yafo (ancient
Jaffa Jaffa (, ; , ), also called Japho, Joppa or Joppe in English, is an ancient Levantine Sea, Levantine port city which is part of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, located in its southern part. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on ...
) in 1997 and 1999. Herzog is among Israeli archaeologists who say that “biblical archaeology is not anymore the ruling paradigm in archaeology and that archaeology became an independent discipline with its own conclusions and own observations which indeed present us a picture of a reality of ancient Israel quite different from the one which is described in the biblical stories.” In 1999 Herzog's cover page article in the weekly magazine ''
Haaretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...
'' "Deconstructing the walls of Jericho" attracted considerable public attention and debates. In this article Herzog cites recent scholarship to support that "the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is the fact that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. And it will come as an unpleasant shock to many that the god of Israel, Jehovah, had a female consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai". Herzog's article was criticized by Hershel Shanks, editor of the '' Biblical Archaeology Review'', in a letter to the same publication. Herzog is a co-author with Israel Finkelstein of a 2007 paper which opposes claims made by
Eilat Mazar Eilat Mazar (; 10 September 195625 May 2021) was an Israeli archaeologist. She specialized in Jerusalem and Phoenician archaeology. She was also a key person in Biblical archaeology noted for her discovery of the Large Stone Structure, which ...
who unearthed what she believed was King David's palace in Jerusalem, but is now known as the Large Stone Structure. Most scholars rejected Mazar's identification of this site as David's palace. Herzog et al.'s paper further argued that the structure that Mazar excavated should be downdated. The attempt to re-date the site received a detailed response by Amihai Mazar. Agreeing with Mazar, Avraham Faust noted that Herzog's paper was written prior to the publication of all the excavation material and that its full publication was sufficient to settle the debate in favour of Eilat Mazar's interpretation of the dating of the site.


Publications

Herzog has written a number of books and articles, including: * ''Beer-Sheba II: The Early Iron Age Settlements'' (1984) * ''Excavations at Tel Michal, Israel'' (1989) * ''Archaeology of the City: Urban Planning in Ancient Israel and Its Social Implications'' (1997) * ''The Arad Fortresses 1997''. ebrew * '' Redefining the centre: the emergence of state in Judah'' (2004)


References


External links


Tel Aviv University profile page for Ze'ev HerzogThe Bible: no evidence, Herzog's original 1999 article in Ha'aretz newspaper (in hebrew)
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Has King David's Palace in Jerusalem Been Found? (complete article)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Herzog, Zeev 1941 births Living people Israeli archaeologists Academic staff of Tel Aviv University