Masada- The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963–1965, Final Reports

(Jerusalem- Israel Exploration Society/Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1989–1995, distributed by the Biblical Archaeology Society, 1856 pp.)

Volume I

The Aramaic and Hebrew Ostraca and Jar Inscriptions

By Yigael Yadin and Joseph Naveh

The Coins of Masada

By Yaakov Meshorer

Volume II

The Latin and Greek Documents

By Hannah M. Cotton and Joseph Gelger

Volume III

The Buildings- Stratigraphy and Architecture

By Ehud Netzer

Volume IV

Lamps

By Dan Barag and Malka Hershkovitz

Textiles

By Avigail Sheffer and Hero Granger-Taylor

Basketry, Cordage and Related Artifacts

By Kathryn Bernick

Wood Remains

By Nili Liphschitz

Ballista Balls

By Andrew E. Holley

Volume V

Art and Architecture

By Gideon Foerster

In the winters of 1963–1964 and 1964–1965, Israel’s most illustrious archaeologist, Yigael Yadin, led excavations at Herod the Great’s mountain palace-fortress of Masada, overlooking the Dead Sea. Twenty years later Yadin died,a having written a preliminary report of the first seasonb and a popular book on the excavation.c But nothing more. No final report.

Would Masada, like so many other excavations after the excavator’s death, be left forever without a final report, a full scientific treatment of the dig?

Now, more than 30 years after completion of the excavation (but only a little more than a decade since Yadin’s death), the question can be answered with a resounding “No.” The publication of the fifth hefty folio volume of the final report is a landmark.

Read the rest of Masada—The Final Reports in the online Biblical Archaeology Society Library.