Michael Avi-Yonah

Michael Avi-Yonah (born September 26, 1904 in Lemberg as Julius (Jonah Jehiel) letter ; † March 26, 1974 in Jerusalem ) was an Israeli archaeologist .

life and work

Michael Avi-Yonah was born in Lemberg in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire . In 1919 he emigrated with his family and finally came to Israel in 1921. He attended Rehavia high school in Jerusalem and then studied history and archeology at the University of London , where he received his bachelor's degree in 1928 . He then deepened his studies at the British School of Archeology in Jerusalem and took part in several archaeological excavations. In 1941 he completed his master’s degree . He worked as a librarian and archivist in the Antiquities Department of the British Mandate Government . After the independence of the State of Israel (1948) he was appointed Scientific Secretary at the State Department of Antiquities (until 1953). From 1949 he also worked as a lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . In 1953 he was appointed Associate Professor of Classical and Byzantine Archeology. In 1958 he reached his promotion to Ph.D. In 1963 he was appointed professor of archeology and art history.

Avi-Yonah spent his life studying the history of the Holy Land , particularly the Roman and Byzantine periods. In addition to the history of art, he took into account the topography and the findings of the numerous excavations in which he participated. In addition to special studies, he also published numerous non-fiction books that appeared in Hebrew, English, French and German. In 1955 he received the Bialik Prize for his book Kadmoniot Artzenu (“Antiquities of our Country”) . The model of Jerusalem from the time of the Second Temple, which is exhibited in the Israel Museum in 1:50 scale , also goes back to his planning .

Michael Avi-Yonah was married to the author, painter and sculptor Eva Avi-Yonah (1921–2011). The couple's son is the lawyer and historian Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (* 1957).

Fonts (selection)

• Mosaic pavements in Palestine . In: The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine . Volume 2 (1933), pp. 136-181
• Bījmē Rōma we-Bijz'antiōn . Jerusalem 1946
  • German edition: History of the Jews in the Age of the Talmud, in the days of Rome and Byzantium . Berlin 1962
  • English edition: The Jews Under Roman and Byzantine Rule: A Political History of Palestine from the Bar Kokhba War to the Arab Conquest . Jerusalem 1976. Reprinted 1984
• The Madaba Mosaic Map. With Introduction and Commentary . Jerusalem 1954
• Cadmoniot Arsynu . Tel Aviv 1955
• A History of the Holy Land . London 1969
  • German edition: History of the Holy Land . Berlin 1971
• with Yohanan Aharoni: The Macmillan Bible Atlas . New York / London 1972
  • German edition: The Bible Atlas: the history of the Holy Land 3000 years before Christ to 200 years after Christ . Augsburg 1990
• Palestine. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Supplementary volume XIII, Stuttgart 1973, Sp. 321-454.
• Search for the past. An Introduction to Archeology . Minneapolis 1974
  • German edition: From expeditions, excavations and finds . Zurich / Cologne 1978
• with Israel Shatzman: Illustrated encyclopaedia of the classical world . Jerusalem 1975
  • German edition: Illustrated encyclopedia of antiquity . Königstein / Taunus 1979
• with Richard L. Currier: The Art of Mosaics . 1975
• with Ephraim Stern: Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land . 4 volumes, Jerusalem 1975–1978
• Gazetteer of Roman Palestine . Jerusalem 1976
• with Zvi Barras: The World History of the Jewish People. Vol. 8: Society and Religion in the Second Temple Period . Jerusalem 1977
• Hellenism and the East. Contacts and Interrelations from Alexander to the Roman Conquest . Jerusalem 1978
• Our Living Bible
  • German edition: The Bible in its world . Constance 1964
• The Holy Land
  • German edition: The Holy Land . Lucerne / Frankfurt 1973
• Jerusalem the Holy
  • German edition: Jerusalem, the holy city . Geneva 1974

literature

• Susanne Blumesberger, Michael Doppelhofer, Gabriele Mauthe: Handbook of Austrian authors of Jewish origin from the 18th to the 20th century . Volume 1: A-I. Edited by the Austrian National Library. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11545-8 , p. 52.
• Reuven Avi-Yonah, The Late Michael Avi-Yonah. In Memory of my Father. In: Eretz-Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies , 1987, pp. IX-XI

Individual evidence

1. ^ Reuven Avi-Yonah, The Late Michael Avi-Yonah. In Memory of my Father , p. IX

Web links

• Literature by Michael Avi-Yonah in the catalog of the German National Library