Nahman Avigad

Nahman Avigad was born in 1905 in Zavaliv

Nahman Avigad was born Nahman Reiss in 1905 in Zavaliv, Galicia, then part of Austria-Hungary. His parents were Perl and Yitzhak Reiss. He studied in Brno.

He moved to the Land of Israel and worked on the excavations of the synagogues at Beth Alpha and Hamat Gader, as an assistant to Eleazar Sukenik. He earned his PhD at the Hebrew University in 1952 with research on the tombs of the Kidron Valley. He taught at the university from 1949 until he retired in 1974.

From 1953 he directed the dig at Beit She'arim. He took part in work at Masada and in the exploration of caves in the Judean Desert, and he published the Genesis Apocryphon, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He studied ancient Hebrew and Aramaic scripts and wrote on Hebrew seals.

From 1969 to 1985 he led the excavations in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. Finds included the Broad Wall, the Burnt House, a menorah carved in plaster, the Nea Church and the Cardo. The finds showed that the city had spread to the western hill in the 8th century BCE.

He was married to Shulamit, and their son Gad Avigad also received the Israel Prize. He died in Jerusalem in 1992 and was buried on Har HaMenuchot.