STERN, EPHRAIM

STERN, EPHRAIM (1934– ), Israeli archaeologist, expert on the Land of Israel during the Iron and Persian periods. Born in Haifa in 1934, he studied at the Reali High School and was a member of the local branch of scouts known as "the Carmel Wanderers." His military service was undertaken from 1952 and eventually he reached the rank of officer. In 1955 he began his studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, taking courses in archaeology and the history of Israel, and finally receiving his Ph.D. in 1968 for "The Material Culture of the Land of the Bible in the Persian Period," supervised by Prof. Benjamin Mazar. His ground-breaking research on the Persian period is regarded as a milestone in the archaeology of Israel. He began teaching archaeology at Tel Aviv University in 1964, but in 1971 he returned to the Hebrew University and began teaching at the newly founded Institute of Archaeology at the request of his mentor, Yigael Yadin. He was appointed full professor there in 1984, eventually holding the Bernard M. Lauterman Chair in Biblical Archaeology, and continued teaching until his retirement in 2002. Stern was director of the Yad Ben-Zvi Institute in Jerusalem between 1993 and 1996. As a student Stern participated in numerous excavations in Israel, notably at Masada, Hazor, Beersheba, and En Gedi. He subsequently conducted his own excavations at a number of sites, including Gil'am, Tel Kadesh, and Tel Mevorakh, but most of his scientific energy was directed towards 20 years of digging at Tel Dor (Tanturah). Stern served as editor of the Hebrew archaeological journal Qadmoniot (published by the Israel Exploration Society), as well as editor of the distinguished New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (1988–93). Stern published numerous research papers, excavations reports, and books, including Dor – Ruler of the Seas: Ten Years of Excavating a Phoenician Israelite Harbour Town on the Carmel Coast (1994); Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, vol. ii. The Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Periods (732–332 b.c.e.) (2001). He was the recipient of many awards and prizes, including the Ben-Zvi Prize (1979), the Biblical Archaeology Society Publication Award (1984), the P. Schimmel Prize (1994), two Irene Levi-Sala Book Prizes (1995, 2002), and the Emet Prize on behalf of the Prime Minister of Israel for Distinguished Scholarly Achievements (2005).

[Shimon Gibson (2^nd ed.)]