Yoram Tsafrir
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Yoram Tsafrir (; 30 January 1938 – 23 November 2015) was an Israeli archaeologist. His research has included the
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
influence on ancient synagogues, demography of
Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...
in the Byzantine period, mosaics at Horvat Berachot, excavations at
Beit She'an Beit She'an ( '), also known as Beisan ( '), or Beth-shean, is a town in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. The town lies at the Beit She'an Valley about 120 m (394 feet) below sea level. Beit She'an is believed to ...
, and excavations at Rehovot-in-the-Negev). A Professor Emeritus of the Institute 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. ...
, he was a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.


Biography

Yoram Tsafrir was born in 1938 in Kfar Azar in Tel Aviv District. A graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1976, he became senior lecturer there in 1978, professor in 1987, and professor emeritus in 2006. From 1989 until 1992 he was Head of the Institute of Archaeology and was Director of the Jewish National and University Library from 2001 to 2007. He was also visiting Fellow at the
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
,
Dumbarton Oaks Dumbarton Oaks, formally the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, is a historic estate in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It was the residence and gardens of wealthy U.S. diplomat Robert Woods Bliss and his wife ...
,
Washington DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...
. Yoram Tsafrir died on 23 November 2015 at a hospital in
Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
.


Archaeology career

His work mainly involved the archaeology and history of Palestine and the East during the
Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...
, Roman,
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
and Early Islamic periods. His archaeological excavations covered Bet She'an-Scythopolis, Rehoboth in the Negev, Alexandreion (Sartaba), Horvat Berachot (between
Bethlehem Bethlehem is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, located about south of Jerusalem, and the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate. It had a population of people, as of . The city's economy is strongly linked to Tourism in the State of Palesti ...
and
Hebron Hebron (; , or ; , ) is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Hebron is capital of the Hebron Governorate, the largest Governorates of Palestine, governorate in the West Bank. With a population of 201,063 in ...
) and many other sites. Tsafrir has claimed that by around the year 400 C.E., Christians "constituted the majority in Palestine." He has also concluded that virtually no synagogue buildings in Palestine can be dated to the second and early third centuries. In Jerusalem, Tsafrir worked on numerous monuments, including Acra Fortress and Nea Ekklesia of the Theotokos. From 1974–1975 on, he superintended and updated the
Holyland Model of Jerusalem The Holyland Model of Jerusalem, also known as Model of Jerusalem at the end of the Second Temple period () is a 1:50 scale model of the city of Jerusalem in the late Second Temple period. The model, designed by Michael Avi-Yonah, was moved from ...
, a project of Michael Avi-Yonah (1904–1974), whose student he was. With Yitzhak Magen, he published ''Two Seasons of Excavations at Sartaba/Alexandrium Fortress'' (1984). In 1993, he published ''Ancient Churches Revealed''. In the same year, Tsafrir and Gideon Foerster organized a study group at the Institute for Advanced Studies,
Givat Ram Givat Ram () is a neighborhood in central Jerusalem. It is the site of Kiryat HaMemshala (Hebrew language, Hebrew: קריית הממשלה, ''lit.'' Government complex), which includes many of Israel's most important national institutions, among t ...
, on the topic of conceptualizing the end of ancient Mediterranean cities. His work also involves research into the geography of historical Palestine, and he has co-authored ''Tabula Imperii Romani Iudaea-Palaestina: Eretz Israel in the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Periods; Maps and Gazetteer''. Tsafrir and Gideon Foerster's preliminary exploration and conclusions on Beit She'an/Scythopolis, were reported in "Urbanism at Scythopolis: Bet Shean in the fourth to seventh centuries" (1997), which was followed by "Skythopolis: Vorposten der Dekapolis" (2002). His critical review of "Numismatics and the Foundation of Aelia Capitolina" appears in Peter Shafer's ''The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered'' (2003). He has contributed to ''The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land''.


Model of Jerusalem

A scale model of Jerusalem giving a vivid view of the city as it existed before it was destroyed by Romans in 70 AD, was prepared by the archaeologists associated with the study of the city's ancient culture. The project was sponsored in 1964 by the Holyland Hotel of Jerusalem. It was made between 1964 and 1974 by Michael Avi-Yonah and was refined and elaborated by Tsafrir. The model was made with authentic material such as stone and marble from Jerusalem itself, embellished with colorful small ceramic tiles and
gold leaf upA gold nugget of 5 mm (0.2 in) in diameter (bottom) can be expanded through hammering into a gold foil of about 0.5 m2 (5.4 sq ft). The Japan.html" ;"title="Toi gold mine museum, Japan">Toi gold mine museum, Japan. Gold leaf is gold that has ...
used for
gilding Gilding is a decorative technique for applying a very thin coating of gold over solid surfaces such as metal (most common), wood, porcelain, or stone. A gilded object is also described as "gilt". Where metal is gilded, the metal below was tradi ...
the
Temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...
and palaces. The model was built to a scale of 1:50 and was provided with illustrations and explanatory pamphlets by Tsafrir.


Published works

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tsafrir, Yoram 1938 births 2015 deaths Israeli archaeologists Israeli Jews Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni Academic staff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Burials at Har HaMenuchot