
Time & Location
25 Feb 2025, 19:30 On Zoom only
About the event
2025 marks sixty years since the conclusion of Yigael Yadin’s two seasons of digs at Masada. The excavation of this spectacular fortress on the Dead Sea remains the most celebrated archaeological accomplishment of the modern State of Israel. Masada was the last stronghold to fall to the Romans three or four years after the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple in the summer of 70 CE. This lecture will draw on personal reminiscences of working (and playing) as a volunteer, on a dig that was like no other, and highlight the special British contribution, and discover how this surprisingly close involvement emerged out of Yadin’s 1961 stay in London, his connections in the Anglo-Jewish community and his friendship with David Astor, editor of the Observer newspaper. Reflections on the contrast between Israel’s international image then and now will inevitably arise.
We welcome Professor Tessa Rajak who is an ancient historian and classical scholar. She has lectured all her life and written several books and many articles on the history of the Greek and Roman worlds and on Jewish and early Christian history. She is especially interested in the interactions between Jews, Greeks and Romans. She is Professor of Ancient History Emerita at the University of Reading, a Senior Research Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford and a Senior Associate of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.
She has been a visiting professor at Yale and at the Humboldt University, Berlin, and she has held research fellowships at the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at Tel Aviv University, among others.
This talk will take place on Zoom only, details of which will be sent in your ticket.
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