5 Questions: The IAA to the Rescue
Gideon Avni, who heads the Archaeological Division of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), began his archaeology career in 1980. Since then, he has conducted extensive archaeological fieldwork throughout Israel. Here, Avni discusses the topic of salvage excavation. To read the full interview with BAR, visit biblicalarchaeology.org/rescue.
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What is a salvage excavation?
GIDEON AVNI: This is the basis: If you have antiquities on your property, the site and its artifacts are owned by the state—through the Antiquities Authority. The director of the Antiquities Authority has the right to decide what to do with the antiquities on your property. It can start by saying, “Don’t touch; you’re not allowed to do anything,” but then, after the proper documentation and excavation, you can often go on with your development or construction. The basic idea is that cultural heritage must be protected. This is a practice in many countries all over the world. In Israel, from the Negev in the south to the Galilee in the north, we have about 35,000 archaeological sites in 4,000 square miles, which makes it one of the densest concentrations of sites in the world. At the same time, it is a rapidly developing modern country. Immediately you face this tension: To build new cities, you sometimes must excavate and destroy ancient sites.
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What are the big differences between a rescue excavation and a university expedition?
GA: In university expeditions, you can design your research priorities. In rescue archaeology, you don’t plan a research strategy. You’re not looking at specific periods; you excavate everything. This is why certain periods, such as the Mamluk period (13th–16th centuries), which were ignored in previous scholarship, are now becoming the frontlines of research. Dating systems have become more refined, and the whole attitude to these periods has changed. It has produced a new scientific approach to the archaeology of Israel.
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What is the scope and cost of rescue archaeology in Israel?
GA: We have about 300 rescue excavations per year. Meanwhile we have around 50 organized prescheduled excavations, sites excavated by Israeli and foreign academic institutions. The IAA has 300 archaeologists working today, which is not only more than any university, but also more than all the universities combined. Regarding cost, the principle that applies in Israel, but not in other countries, is the “polluter pays” principle. If you own land, and there is a need to conduct an excavation because of development, then the landowner, the developer, or the state (if the property is government owned) must fully finance all the aspects of excavation. That includes not only the fieldwork, but also the processing, storage, publication, and so on.
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How do you decide how large a salvage excavation will be?
GA: The volume and size of the development directly impact the size of our excavation. We get all the planning for everything that is being constructed in the country, and we inspect every building plan. Our policy is to excavate only things that are going to be destroyed. Sometimes when the development covers a very large area, we do experimental probes, between 5 and 10 percent of the total area that is going to be covered. But there is another aspect: Once we discover something worthwhile, then we come and reevaluate. We may want to preserve something but must first consider: Who is going to maintain this? It’s very nice to keep something, but you need funding for maintenance. Sometimes the process ends in destroying everything; sometimes a section is preserved.
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What determines whether a site is preserved?
GA: UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) has selection criteria for sites on their World Heritage List, and we adopted their criteria. They consider six principles, including the find’s rarity, its value to local society, its value to global society, and so on. When we discover a religious building, either synagogue, church, or mosque, then other considerations come into play. Sometimes the local community insists on keeping it. There are all kinds of considerations, but from the point of view of archaeology and cultural heritage, we strictly adopted UNESCO’s principles.