Why is it exciting to be an archaeologist in Israel?

‘Archaeology in Israel is a popular movement,” Amos Elon wrote in his 1971 book The Israelis: Founders and Sons. “It is almost a national sport. Not a passive spectator sport but the thrilling, active pastime of many thousands of people, as perhaps fishing in the Canadian Lake Country or hunting in the French Massif Central.”

Those words, published a half-century ago, reverberated this week as dramatic archaeological finds hit the front pages of the newspapers, and squeezed into prime-time television and radio news shows.

While it has been a long time since one could honestly say they felt that same fervor for archaeology among the masses as Elon described, the fact that the media did devote so much attention to these findings on Tuesday – in a week dominated by political news – indicates that the embers still burn from the country’s once great passion for excavations.

On Tuesday, the Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced a trove of finds from a wide-scale archaeological operation ongoing since 2017 in hidden caves in the Judean Desert, in cooperation with the Civil Administration’s Archaeological Department.

Among the finds were an ancient woven basket, believed to be some 10,500 years old, and the 6,000-year-old skeleton of a child. Those were the “universal” finds. Of more particular Jewish interest were the discovery of fragments of ancient scrolls of the biblical books of Zechariah and Nahum, as well as coins dating to the Bar-Kochba revolt in 132 CE.

And these findings come just a week after another archaeological story was highlighted in the media: an 11-year-old boy hiking with his family in the Negev discovered a figurine, believed to be a fertility amulet, dating to the First Temple period.

The findings announced on Tuesday from the Judean Desert were not just stumbled upon this week. The findings were announced on Tuesday, but the artifacts themselves were discovered over a year ago.