Orna Cohen

Overview

Orna Cohen is an Israeli archaeological conservator with more than forty years of work in the field, the laboratory and the museum, specialising in wood and metal. She runs her own conservation laboratory serving excavations and museums, and is included on the Israeli Ministry of Culture's list of recommended conservation experts.

Major Works and Contributions

She is best known for leading the conservation of the ancient boat recovered from the Sea of Galilee in 1986, a task that took fourteen years because the waterlogged wood could not be allowed to dry without collapsing. She published that work herself in the Israel Antiquities Authority's journal 'Atiqot (2005). She has also conserved finds and architecture from the Late Bronze Age palace at Hazor.

Work at Shiloh

She serves as conservator for the Associates for Biblical Research excavations at Tel Shiloh. In ABR's television episode on the Shiloh excavation she is credited with identifying a small gold pendant with a human face among the finds; that identification is reported in the programme rather than in a published report.