Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Introduction
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 Archaeology and the 1948 War
- 2 Abandoned places, new places
- 3 Foreign aid
- 4 Frozen funds
- 5 A battalion of guards
- 6 Relief work
- 7 Man robs his land: “agreement” with General Dayan
- 8 “Gold of Ophir for Beth-Horon”: 3,000 shekels
- 9 The building beyond the border: the PAM, 1948–67
- 10 A building of dreams: a home for the IDAM and the origins of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem
- 11 A dead man on the council: the story of the supreme archaeological body in Israel
- 12 “But trust comes from the heart”: travels with the Government Tourist Corporation
- 13 “Whether in a courtyard of a synagogue, in a courtyard adjacent to a synagogue, or under a synagogue”: the Safad affair
- 14 The policy of salvage and early Israeli excavations
- 15 Myths and conclusions
- Appendix: other documents from the IDAM files
- Bibliography
- Author index
- Index
Introduction
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Introduction
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 Archaeology and the 1948 War
- 2 Abandoned places, new places
- 3 Foreign aid
- 4 Frozen funds
- 5 A battalion of guards
- 6 Relief work
- 7 Man robs his land: “agreement” with General Dayan
- 8 “Gold of Ophir for Beth-Horon”: 3,000 shekels
- 9 The building beyond the border: the PAM, 1948–67
- 10 A building of dreams: a home for the IDAM and the origins of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem
- 11 A dead man on the council: the story of the supreme archaeological body in Israel
- 12 “But trust comes from the heart”: travels with the Government Tourist Corporation
- 13 “Whether in a courtyard of a synagogue, in a courtyard adjacent to a synagogue, or under a synagogue”: the Safad affair
- 14 The policy of salvage and early Israeli excavations
- 15 Myths and conclusions
- Appendix: other documents from the IDAM files
- Bibliography
- Author index
- Index
Summary
Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine; – they are the life, the soul of reading!. – take them out of this book, for instance – you might as well take the book along with them; – one cold eternal winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer; – he steps forth like a bridegroom … but the author … in this matter, is truly pitiable: For, if he begins a digression, – from that moment, I observe, his whole work stands stock still; – and if he goes on with his main work, – then there is an end to his digression.
Sterne (2004 [1760]: 63–4)Frozen US Intelligence money; Tedi Kollek; a Palestinian absentee in Cyrenaica; David Ben-Gurion; growing watermelons on the Tell of Ashdod; General Moshe Dayan; a camouflaged evacuation post in the middle of the Megiddo excavations; Shemuel Yeivin; Masada; sacred genizot in the Galilee; the wonderful rock found by Reverend P. of Brighton; Binyamin Mazar; the Institute for Dietary Education of the Ministry of Supplies and Rationing; Yigael Yadin; a deceased representative on the Supreme Council of Archives; the Rockefeller Museum; cigars and Chivas Regal; resting one's head on Marlene Dietrich's legs … All these things are part of Just Past?, for this book tells the story of the creation of Israeli archaeology in the 1950s and early 1960s.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Just Past?The Making of Israeli Archaeology, pp. xiii - xviPublisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2006