The Dayan Saga—The Man and His Archaeological Collection

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Beginning October 14, 1982, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem will exhibit a few selected highlights from the Moshe Dayan collection of antiquities, which the museum recently acquired for $1 million following Dayan’s death a year ago. In this preview, about 15 of the outstanding examples of the huge collection, comprising 800 to 900 objects, will be exhibited publicly for the first time. A full catalogued exhibition will not be seen until sometime in 1985.

The story of the Dayan collection is intimately intertwined with the story of the man himself—brilliant, controversial and dramatic. One of Israel’s great generals and a flamboyant international personality, Dayan saw his reputation as an infallible strategist sag disastrously during the October, 1973, Yom Kippur War when he absorbed the blame for Israel’s initial setbacks at the hands of Syria and Egypt.

He bounced back to become foreign minister in the Begin administration and figured centrally in the Camp David negotiations. Stricken by cancer in 1979 and defeated badly in a political comeback attempt in June of 1981, Dayan died last October.

In his last book he recounted a frequent dream of death, “ … to lie on a blanket of soft earth and rotting leaves, in a cave … on a hill that looks out over the Valley of Jezreel; to lie quietly, to rest, to forget all, to think of nothing.”^a

Moshe Dayan was born 67 years ago on the first kibbutz ever established, Degania Aleph, at the southern edge of the Sea of Galilee. He grew up on Nahalal, a cooperative farm overlooking the Jezreel Valley. From the beginning, his roots were planted in the soil of the Holy Land, not as a farmer, but as one who felt a mystical link with the Jewish past.

“I was not content only with the Israel I could see and touch,” he wrote. “I also longed for the Israel of antiquity, the Israel of the ‘timeless verses’ and the ‘Biblical names’ and I wanted to give tangibility to that, too. I sought to … bring to life the strata of the past which lay beneath the desolate ruins and archaeological mounds.”^b

From that yearning rose Dayan’s lifelong obsession with collecting. To him the land of Israel was more than an idea, it was pregnant with tangible reminders of the times of Israel’s greatest glories—the patriarchs, the 12 tribes, the judges and the kings. To discover an object miraculously preserved from those periods, to hold it, perhaps lovingly restore it, to have it in one’s home, was to reaffirm the 028timeless continuum of past and present, and to give meaning to life.

Israel’s history, Dayan’s personality, and the time in which he lived collaborated to give him unique access to archaeological artifacts rarely or never before collected. In particular, the Six Day War of 1967, Dayan’s greatest hour as a general and as defense minister, created access to territories included in the Biblical heartland of ancient Israel: Hebron, where the patriarchs journeyed and were buried; Shechem (Nablus), where the Israelites may have settled, and Gaza, home of the Philistines. Since most of these areas were in former enemy territory, at first restricted for security reasons, Dayan often could venture where others could not.

The post-Six Day War period also marked an unprecedented explosion of archaeology fever in Israel. Israeli archaeologists as well as scholars the world over invaded every plot that had a past.

No one pursued the search with more passion—or determination—than Dayan. In his relentless quest for the complete piece, the one-of-a-kind antiquity, Dayan was able to compile what is recognized as one of the world’s great private collections of pre-Biblical and Biblical artifacts.

Moshe Dayan died on October 6, 1981. A week later, Yaakov Meshorer, then chief curator of archaeology at the Israel Museum, phoned Dayan’s wife, Rachel.

“I was expecting you,” she said. “You have competition, you know.”

Meshorer rushed to the graceful Dayan home in suburban Tel Aviv, its rooms and gardens overflowing with archaeological treasures that Dayan had collected and that Meshorer had coveted for the museum for at least 15 years.

Rachel Dayan, a handsome blond woman, informed Meshorer that five or six other potential buyers had already inquired about the collection. Meshorer begged her, “Please don’t sell it before you hear our offer.” She promised.

Meshorer, an effervescent, energetic man who is an internationally respected expert on ancient coins, returned to Jerusalem and phoned Mayor Teddy Kollek. “We need a million dollars,” he said, “and fast.” Kollek said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

For Yaakov Meshorer the stakes were high. For more than a decade he had been wooing Moshe Dayan and his collection. Over that period they had become friends. Indeed, Dayan had even given or sold a number of precious pieces to the museum. But the bulk of the collection, the unique ceramics of the Chalcolithic and Israelite periods, most of the incredible anthropoid sarcophagi from Gaza, the Bronze Age treasures, still eluded Meshorer.

“At one time I was innocent enough to believe he would donate it,” Meshorer recalls. “At a certain stage, unofficially, he told me, ‘Let me enjoy it, and after my death it will come to the museum.”’

But events overtook the informal promise. Dayan divorced his first wife, Ruth, and married Rachel in 1973. In 1979, he developed cancer. Says Meshorer, “My feeling is that Dayan really intended to give the museum his collection after his death, expecting to live to a ripe old age with no family obligations. But, when he realized he was going to leave a young widow, he knew he had to see to it she had enough money. This was the reason he changed his mind.”

There was something else underlying the urgency to obtain the collection for Israel’s national museum. For years, Dayan had come under intense criticism for the manner in which he had assembled his collection. He excavated a portion of it himself in violation of Israeli law, occasionally using his position as defense minister to commandeer helicopters and troops to help him excavate and retrieve artifacts. (Once, while probing in a cave south of Tel Aviv, he was trapped in a cave-in and barely escaped with his life.)

Dayan bought most of his collection, however, through a network of Arab traders and local overseas dealers. He was a competitive buyer (sometimes racing the Israel Museum itself to acquire a piece). Many of these dealers had themselves obtained the objects under questionable, if not illegal, circumstances. After all, it is as illegal for a Bedouin to excavate without a permit as it is for an Israeli general.

Although Dayan occasionally returned pieces to their original locations or to museums, his activities disturbed professional archaeologists, who were often outraged at Dayan’s acquisition of illegally excavated pieces. Israel’s leading archaeologists also believed that Israel’s ancient treasures should belong to the nation, not to one man.

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Thus there would always be a taint of sorts on the collection if it fell into private hands or even left the country.

It was touch and go for awhile. Three days after Meshorer’s visit to Mrs. Dayan, she phoned the curator to say she had eager buyers with cash. Some of the buyers even called Meshorer to ask that the museum step out of the picture.

One of the buyers, a private collector, was offering $2 million for the collection and the Dayan house, of which $1.5 million was allocated to the collection. This was 50% more than the Israel Museum was attempting to raise. Meshorer pleaded for more time.

Meanwhile Teddy Kollek was operating. A man with enormous international connections, who had raised millions for his beloved Jerusalem, Kollek still had some chits to call in.

“I was looking for 10 or 15 people to put the thing together,” recalls Kollek, who is 71, and who has been mayor for nearly 20 years. One of those he called was Laurence Tisch, a wealthy New York developer who heads the Loews theater and hotel chain. Tisch had been a donor to Israel and had visited Dayan in his home several times. “Tisch said, ‘I’ll do the whole thing, but I’ve got to talk to my wife first,’” Kollek recalls. “So, I called his wife, Billie, and we got it all lined up.”

The Tisches committed $900,000. Two Israelis donated $50,000 each. Yaakov Meshorer had his $1 million. But Rachel Dayan was looking at the higher offer. Would she go for the lesser amount?”

She was tempted to go for the bigger sum,” says Meshorer. “But she knew she was going to continue to live here. She may have felt she should do something for less money and more prestige. Perhaps she realized that by making a sacrifice she would be rehabilitating the part of the collection that was excavated by Dayan.”

Whatever the reason (Rachel Dayan declined to be interviewed), the deal was made. The Israel Museum could announce proudly that it had acquired the Dayan archaeological collection. The part of the collection that Dayan had bought (about 90%) was purchased with the $1 million. The remaining 10% of the collection, illegally excavated by Dayan, was simply given to the museum as part of the deal.

With the announcement, Israel’s Department of Antiquities, which for years had been struggling with the delicate legal issues surrounding parts of Dayan’s collection, could close its books on the subject. The collection was now back in official custody, a legacy to scholars, tourists and the Israeli public. Soon after, Rachel Dayan sold the Dayan home and garden and settled into a condominium in Tel Aviv. The saga had ended.

Or had it? The style of noblesse oblige adopted by Dayan the collector is linked to the man’s personality and his role in history. He was larger than life, a hero, and to many Israelis he could be forgiven for actions for which others would be condemned.

But not by all. A few months before his death an editor of an Israeli newspaper savagely attacked Dayan as a thief who stole antiquities belonging to the nation.

Meshorer disapproved of Dayan’s collecting excesses, but, like most of his countrymen, forgave them. “He was in a way a child,” says Meshorer. “A brilliant mind, a great personality, but in some ways a child. He wanted to appear like a kind of 18th century pirate, half hero, half villain. Even the eye patch contributed to the image. And he encouraged that image.

“He was a very passionate man and he did things without considering the feelings of archaeologists or other people. We didn’t totally agree, but as a museum man it was my task to see to it that our relationship would end by getting the entire collection into the museum. In doing so, I feel I have accomplished a national mission.”

The reputation of the Dayan collection is now assured. That of the collector must be left to history.

Beginning October 14, 1982, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem will exhibit a few selected highlights from the Moshe Dayan collection of antiquities, which the museum recently acquired for $1 million following Dayan’s death a year ago. In this preview, about 15 of the outstanding examples of the huge collection, comprising 800 to 900 objects, will be exhibited publicly for the first time. A full catalogued exhibition will not be seen until sometime in 1985. The story of the Dayan collection is intimately intertwined with the story of the man himself—brilliant, controversial and dramatic. One of Israel’s great generals and […]