Shmarya Guttman

Shmarya Guttman was born in 1909 in Glasgow

Shmarya Guttman was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1909 to Yehuda and Sonia Guttman, who had left Russia. The family moved to the Land of Israel in 1912 and settled in Merhavia. After his parents died, he lived with his eldest sister, Miriam.

He studied at the Mikveh Israel agricultural school but did not finish, joining the HaNoar HaOved youth movement instead. He was among the founders of Kibbutz Na'an and remained a member for the rest of his life. His knowledge of archaeology was self taught.

He was an emissary of HeHalutz to Poland in 1935 and worked in the Zionist underground in Iraq from 1942 to 1945. He later served in Haganah intelligence and the Palmach, and after the IDF was founded he was an intelligence officer. In 1966 the Mossad sent him to advise Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani.

Guttman helped lead the first archaeological expedition to Masada in 1955 and 1956 and took part in Yigael Yadin's excavations there in 1963 and 1964. He initiated and directed the excavations at Gamla. He also led surveys in the northern Golan Heights and the Hebron Hills and the dig at the Susya synagogue.

He married Sara Frebman, and they had two daughters and a son. He received the Yigal Allon Prize in 1982 and died in 1996.