Yosef Garfinkel

Yosef Garfinkel (hebrew: יוסף גרפינקל; born 1956) is a professor of Prehistoric Archaeology and of Archaeology of the Biblical Period at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Yosef (Yossi) Garfinkel was born in 1956 in Haifa, Israel. He is a curator of the museum of Yarmukian Culture at Kibbutz Sha'ar HaGolan. Garfinkel specializes in the Protohistoric era of the Near East, the period of time when the world’s earliest village communities were established and the beginning of agriculture took place. He has excavated numerous Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites, including Gesher, Yiftahel, Neolithic Ashkelon, Sha'ar HaGolan, Tel ‘Ali and Tel Tsaf. Garfinkel is the author of 12 books and over 100 articles on ancient architecture, farming, water sources, pottery, art, religion and dance.

In 2007, he began conducting excavations at the fortified city of Khirbet Qeiyafa. This site is dated to the early 10th century BC, the period of the biblical King David. In the 2008 season an inscription was discovered written in ink on a pottery shard in a script which is probably Early Alphabetic/Proto Phoenician,. This might be the earliest Hebrew inscription ever found, although the actual language of the inscription is still under debate.

He is currently digging at Tel Lachish in search of Iron Age fortifications.

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