Nationality Israel Name Eleazar Sukenik | Role Archaeologist Fields Archaeology | |
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Born 12 August 1889Bialystok ( 1889-08-12 ) Spouse Chassia Sukenik (m. ?–1953) Children Yigael Yadin, Yossi Yadin, Mati Yadin Books The Earliest Records of Christianity Similar People Yigael Yadin, Yossi Yadin, Hanna Maron, Daphna Rechter | ||
Eleazar Sukenik
Eleazar Lipa Sukenik (12 August 1889, Białystok – 28 February 1953, Jerusalem) was an Israeli archaeologist and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In Israel his first name is popularly known as "Eliezer".
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Having arrived in Palestine in 1911 he worked as a school teacher and tour guide. He participated in the "War of the Languages" that erupted among Zionist activists in Palestine in 1913.
He served in the British army in World War I in the 40th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers which became known as the Jewish Legion.
In addition to his important excavations in Jerusalem (including the "Third Wall" and numerous ossuary tombs) he played a central role in the establishment of the Department of Archaeology of the Hebrew University. He recognized the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls to Israel and worked for the Israeli state to buy them. In 1948, he published an article tentatively linking the scrolls and their content to a community of Essenes, which became the standard interpretation of the origin of the scrolls, a theory that is still probably the consensus among scholars, but has also been widely questioned. In 1950, he received the Solomon Bublick Award of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for this work.
2 Isaiah Scroll of Qumran - Video
Family
He was the father of soldier, politician and archaeologist Yigael Yadin, the actor Yossi Yadin (born Joseph Sukenik, 1920-2001), and Mati Sukenik, one of the first pilots of the Israeli Air Force, who was killed in action during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
He and his wife, Chassia, were buried in the Sanhedria Cemetery near the Tombs of the Sanhedrin which he researched. Unlike the other graves in the cemetery, which are covered by uniform limestone blocks, the couple's gravestones are uniquely decorated with carvings and motifs of the Second Temple era.
He was the paternal uncle of Herbert Sukenik.
Works
As editor