Is archaeology in Israel another victim of the coronavirus?
Starting on Sunday, the pastoral hill of Tel Azekah, located in the Judean lowlands some 10 kilometers south of Beit Shemesh, will be buzzing with life. For a period of four weeks, the area will welcome several dozen people to excavate its unique archaeological remains dating back to millennia, under the direction of Prof. Oded Lipschits, the director of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University.
Any other year the event would be anything but unusual: Israel boasts about 30,000 archaeological sites and every summer – and to a lesser degree in other periods of the year – dozens of excavations are carried out by local and international universities in the country.
However, the coronavirus crisis has led to the collapse of the system, as explained to The Jerusalem Post by Gideon Avni, the head of the Archaeological Division at the Israel Antiquities Authority, which
is in charge of authorizing and supervising any archaeological digging in the country.
“Usually around this time we would have about 50 excavations organized by universities from abroad, mostly from the United States and Europe, with some 2,000 students and volunteers flying in and spending a significant amount of time in Israel,” he said. “This year everything got canceled, it is the complete collapse of everything. We were hoping that some excavations would be able to open at the end of the summer or in the fall, but after the coronavirus cases started to spike again we understood that it was not going to happen.”
Avni explained that the situation has far-reaching implications for the academic institutions. Participating in excavations represents not only a hands-on experience for archaeology students, but also the equivalent of a course for which they are charged tuition and receive credits. Canceling the excavations therefore has a financial impact and might also discourage people to sign up for programs in the future.
“There is a great uncertainty also for next year. Nobody knows if universities will be able to bring students here even then. This has never happened before. Even during wars or the Intifada, archaeological expeditions were constantly coming and digging in the summer,” he added. “In the past few years, with so much unrest in our neighboring countries, more and more schools had started coming to us.”
While many excavations conducted by the IAA, including salvage excavations, are still happening in spite of the health emergency, Israeli universities are facing challenges as well. According to Avni, they usually organize about 25 field projects in the summer, the vast majority of which have been canceled.
Tel Azekah is one of the few exceptions.
In past seasons, the project saw the involvement of several foreign institutions, including the University of Tübingen in Germany, Charles University in the Czech Republic, Notre Dame University in the US and Université Laval in Canada, with about 100 people taking part in the excavation.
For 2020, the group will be smaller, but TAU still managed to get organized to open, Lipschits told the Post.
“About 45 students will participate, including some who managed to come from abroad because they have Israeli citizenship,” he said. “We are going to follow all the coronavirus regulations, such as working in capsules and avoiding big gatherings for lectures or meals.”
The students will receive full credit for their work.
Azekah, a site mentioned in the Bible as the setting of the epic battle between the future King David and the Philistine giant Goliath, has been excavated by TAU since 2012.
“We have three main goals for this year: finish excavating a temple and a complete pottery workshop dating back to the Late Bronze Age that we found in previous seasons, and try locating the city gate from the Iron Age,” Lipschits said. “Of course, if the authorities decide to impose a full lockdown, we might face more challenges.” • allowed to continue working. He is supposed to manage the country, not deal with these cases.”
“Bibi, go home!” the demonstrators cried in between posters calling Netanyahu corrupt, stating that he “does not have the public’s mandate” and crying out against the economic situation, with many posters saying that the “small citizen” is a poor one.
Protesters called the “government capital,” referring to the current financial system, as “underground” as they crowded close to one another, breaking coronavirus procedure along the way.
“With all the crumbs that they throw at us, we have no money for bread,” they said. “As they continue to quarrel among themselves, a million people are waiting for security and justice. We do not have time to wait. We have no air to breathe.”
An identical barricade to the one blocking the protesters stood several meters away, beside which a handful of Likud supporters cried out against the protests and expressed support for Netanyahu.
The supporters cried out admiration for the prime minister, as well as for Public Security Minister Amir Ohana.
“We are here to strengthen the prime minister,” Itzhak Zahar, a Likud activist from the Jordan Valley who attended the “anti-protest,” told the Post. “We can see here what behavior the Right has and what behavior the Left has. I vote for who I like, but not in this brutal way.”
After the previous protests throughout the past week, tensions are high as dozens of arrests are once again expected. Throughout the past week, over 100 protesters were arrested at the various demonstrations. Protesting organizations claimed that in the previous events, police would not let the crowds disperse and instead used dispersal means against them.
“Israel Police, we remind you, your job is to protect your citizens, not to fill quotas for detainees and not to issue
false messages to the media,” the youth protesting group HaBa’alabatim shared on Facebook ahead of the protest.
Those who have previously been arrested have been forcefully distanced by 100m. from the event, but nevertheless insist on gathering 101m. away to nevertheless show their solidarity for the event.
Protesters sent a letter to Israel Police ahead of the event asking that they not use water cannons as a means of dispersal. It is a “use of disproportionate and unjustified force against demonstrators, which actually endangers them,” according to the letter, which was addressed to the police in the name of the protesters, sent through Attorney Gonen Ben Itzhak, a prominent activist and protester.
However, “Police will use water cannons if necessary if there will be public disorder and disturbances,” the Israel Police Spokesperson’s Unit told the Post.
The police did not use water cannons as a means of dispersal at the time of writing.
Women’s rights activists joined the protests, as well, because the government “harms women in times of crisis.” They called on the government to make sure that “next year, there are no murders of women.” This follows a spike in violence against women during coronavirus closures and lockdowns, in which 11 women and a baby were murdered in acts of domestic violence since the pandemic began.
The Black Flag protesters gathered on bridges throughout the country and alongside the Balfour protesters, with some recognizable names among them, such as former defense minister MK Moshe Ya’alon (Yesh Atid-Telem) and former MK Stav Shaffir.
On Balfour, the Black Flags stood alongside pride flags, along with the dozens of posters calling for Netanyahu to resign.
Anti-occupation activists attended the protest, as well, crying out that “occupation is the illness, corruption is just a symptom” in an “apartheid.”
Some protesters additionally reflected the current civil unrest in the United States and around the world, wearing
Black Lives Matter shirts and telling the Post that the country must “defund the police.”
Meanwhile, the number of people to test positive for coronavirus in Israel topped 60,000 on Saturday, with the Health Ministry reporting 1,770 new infections.
Ninety-four patients are on ventilators and 312 are in serious condition. Both numbers registered an increase of about a third over the past week. Additionally, the country’s death toll rose to 455.
Rossella Tercatin contributed to this report. •