Adam Zertal (; 1936 – October 18, 2015) was an Israeli archaeologist and a tenured professor at the University of Haifa.
Biography
Adam Zertal grew up in
Ein Shemer, a kibbutz affiliated with the
Hashomer Hatzair movement. Zertal was severely wounded in the Yom Kippur War. He later told a reporter for
The Jerusalem Post, “I spent a year at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, and I became interested in archaeology. Although I had argued that the Bible was full of myths, I decided after my recovery to travel the land by foot to look for archeological evidence.”
He completed his doctoral dissertation on
The Israelite settlement in the Hill-Country of Manasseh under the supervision of Nadav Na'aman and
Moshe Kochavi at Tel Aviv University in 1986.
Archaeology career
Zertal claimed to have identified several sites he worked on as being connected to sites, events and characters from the narratives in the
Hebrew Bible:
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Joshua's altar. A structure on Mount Ebal identified as an early Israelite altar.
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Sisera's town. Zertal headed the excavations at Ahwat, which he has identified as the Biblical Harosheth Haggoyim, a fortress described in the Book of Judges as the fortress or cavalry base of Sisera, commander of the army of King Jabin. (Judges 4)
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Foot-shaped enclosures in the Jordan Valley and the hill country west of it. Zertal described them as ceremonial sites used during Iron Age I and probably later, as well.
[Rachel Feldman Haifa ] He explained the term "aliya la-regel" (lit.: "rise to the foot"), commonly translated as "pilgrimage", as derived from these enclosures, and saw the use of the expression in connection with the mandatory pilgrimage Temple in Jerusalem as an adaptation of the term to a new situation.[John Black (International Christian Embassy Jerusalem), "Footprints of Ancient Israel: Unusual stone circles may mark biblical 'Gilgal'", first published in The Jerusalem Post Christian Edition, January 2013 [1]] Zertal discovered five such sites: Bedhat esh-Sha'ab (near Moshav Argaman), Masua (4) (near Masua), Yafit (3) (near Yafit), el-'Unuq, and the inner and outer enclosures at Mount Ebal.[ No access to relevant passage. Fully accessed in December 2015 on A. Zertal's homepage, p. 10, note 6 .]
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Underground quarry (possibly identified as biblical Galgala). In 2009, Zertal headed a team that discovered an ancient underground quarry in the Jordan Valley.
[ Cave Dating From The Year 1 A.D. Exposed In Jordan Valley, Science Daily, (July 7, 2009).]
Zertal's work was not without controversy, and, in particular, his claims about Mount Ebal, where he worked for nine years, never gained traction within the wider archaeological community.[ While many archeologists agree that the structure was a site of an early Israelites cultic activity, its identification with Joshua's altar is disputed.]
Selected publications
Bibliography
