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Yosef Garfinkel

Yosef Garfinkel is an Israeli archaeologist and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, known for his excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa and at Neolithic sites in Israel.

born 1956Excavations at Khirbet QeiyafaThe Khirbet Qeiyafa inscriptionResearch on Yarmukian cultureDefining the Middle Chalcolithic period

Born: 23 July 1956, Haifa
Occupation: anthropologist, archaeologist, pedagogue, historian

Yosef Garfinkel was born in 1956 in Haifa

Yosef Garfinkel was born in Haifa in 1956. He served in the Israel Defense Forces from 1975 to 1978.

He studied at the Hebrew University, earning a BA in geography and archaeology in 1981 and an MA in 1987. He completed his doctorate there and spent a postdoctoral year at Harvard University in 1992.

In the first part of his career he studied the early villages and farming of the Near East. He excavated Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites such as Yiftahel, Gesher, Sha'ar HaGolan, Neolithic Ashkelon and Tel Tsaf. He is credited with defining the Middle Chalcolithic period.

Since 1993 he has taught biblical archaeology at the Hebrew University. From 2007 he excavated the fortified city of Khirbet Qeiyafa, where an ink inscription on a pottery shard was found in 2008. He later led excavations at Tel Lachish from 2013 to 2017.

He curated the museum of Yarmukian Culture at Kibbutz Sha'ar HaGolan and has edited the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology since 2021. He is married to Tal Ilan, a professor of gender studies.