Amnon Ben-Tor

Amnon Ben-Tor was born in 1935 in Jerusalem

Amnon Ben-Tor was born in Jerusalem in 1935. His father was the geologist Professor Yaakov Ben-Tor, who received the Israel Prize in 1955. His wife, Dr. Daphna Ben-Tor, was curator of Egyptian culture at the Israel Museum.

He earned his bachelor's degree at the Hebrew University in 1958 and his master's degree in 1962. He did research at the University of London in 1966 and 1967. In 1969 he completed his doctorate on the Early Bronze Age in the Land of Israel, under Yigael Yadin.

During the Six-Day War he fought in the battles for Jerusalem with the reconnaissance battalion of the 16th Brigade.

He became a lecturer at the Hebrew University in 1969 and a full professor in 1984. He headed its archaeology department from 1974 to 1977 and its Institute of Archaeology from 1992 to 1996. He excavated at Tel Yarmut, Tel Yokneam, Tel Qashish and, from 1990, Tel Hazor, and held that the united Kingdom of Israel had existed, based on the archaeological finds.

He received the Percia Schimmel Prize in 2000 and the Israel Prize in 2019. He fell ill with a rare cancer in 2022 and died on August 22, 2023.