Avraham Negev (; 1923–2004)Prof. Avraham Negev (1923-2004)
The Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Accessed 25 July 2021. was an Israeli archaeologist. Avarham Negev

Life

Negev, surname at birth Eisenberg, was born in the town of

Pinsk Pinsk (; , ; ; ; ) is a city in Brest Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Pinsk District, though it is administratively separated from the district. It is located in the historical region of Polesia, at the confluence of t ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, today in

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

.''Negev, A. (1923-2004)''
at ''Persée'': Bibliothèque historique de l'Éducation. Accessed 26 July 2021. He was a commander in the

Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...

police force, and lost his right hand in 1947.

Career

Negev has excavated

Nabataea The Nabataean Kingdom (Nabataean Aramaic: 𐢕𐢃𐢋𐢈 ''Nabāṭū''), also named Nabatea () was a political state of the Nabataeans during classical antiquity. The Nabataean Kingdom controlled many of the trade routes of the region, amassin ...

n sites in the Negev, at

Caesarea Maritima Caesarea () also Caesarea Maritima, Caesarea Palaestinae or Caesarea Stratonis, was an ancient and medieval port city on the coast of the eastern Mediterranean, and later a small fishing village. It was the capital of Judaea (Roman province), ...

(1961–62), and Susiya (1984–85), which he associated with biblical

Carmel Carmel may refer to: * Carmel (biblical settlement), an ancient Israelite town in Judea * Mount Carmel, a coastal mountain range in Israel overlooking the Mediterranean Sea * Carmelites, a Roman Catholic mendicant religious order Carmel may also ...

. Researching the Nabataean culture was difficult, not least because major sites lay outside his reach due to the

Arab–Israeli conflict The Arab–Israeli conflict is a geopolitical phenomenon involving military conflicts and a variety of disputes between Israel and many Arab world, Arab countries. It is largely rooted in the historically supportive stance of the Arab League ...

, such as

Petra Petra (; "Rock"), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu (Nabataean Aramaic, Nabataean: or , *''Raqēmō''), is an ancient city and archaeological site in southern Jordan. Famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit systems, P ...

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

Hegra (Mada'in Salih) HEGRA, which stands for High-Energy-Gamma-Ray Astronomy, was an atmospheric Cherenkov telescope for Gamma-ray astronomy. With its various types of detectors, HEGRA took data between 1987 and 2002, at which point it was dismantled in order to bu ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

, and Seeia in Syria (Sî' near Kanatha in Jebel Druze). His excavations in the Negev desert included the Nabataean caravan stops of Oboda (

Avdat Avdat or Ovdat (), and Abdah or Abde (), are the modern names of an archaeological site corresponding to the ancient Nabataean, Roman and Byzantine settlement of Oboda (''tabula Peutingeriana''; Stephanus Byzantinus) or Eboda (Ptolemaeus 5:16, 4 ...

, 1958–61 and 1975–77), Mampsis (1965–67), and Elusa (1973 and 1979–80). This work allowed Avraham Negev to gain in-depth knowledge of the Nabataean civilisation and particularly of its trade network in the Negev region. Negev worked as a professor of archaeology at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...

(HUJI) between 1964 and 1990.

Published work

Negev was the editor of the ''Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land'', which was first published in 1972.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Negev, Avraham Biblical archaeologists Israeli male non-fiction writers