The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) is known worldwide for excavating sites and artifacts from biblical times. Now, a new mission has archaeologists involved in recovery efforts from the October 7 massacre.
For the first time, the IAA is using its expertise investigating ancient burn sites to help identify remains of a modern attack in Gaza border communities.
“We are able to go into these houses and apply our archeological methodology into a modern context – as difficult as that is emotionally – (and) be able to understand what happened in the building, to divide the building into different locations in order to specifically place different events and to sift through the burnt remains, in order to look for anything that can help us identify missing people,” said Israeli archaeologist Dr. Joe Uziel.
That could include, “personal adornments, which may be specific to a certain individual that we know is missing, or human remains primarily human bones, which were burnt,” Uziel said.
As head of the IAA’s Dead Sea Scrolls unit, Uziel normally works in ancient biblical texts.
“As we are familiar with this through our excavation contexts, which we deal with destructions from hundreds and thousands of years ago, we can apply
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