Moshe Kochavi

Moshe Kochavi (1928-2008) was an Israeli archaeologist who served as professor at Tel Aviv University and helped institutionalize Israeli field archaeology in the second half of the twentieth century. He is best known for directing the long-running excavations at Tel Aphek (the Herodian Antipatris) from 1972 to 1985, in partnership with Pirhiya Beck.

Tel Aphek, identified with the Aphek of 1 Samuel 4 where the Philistines staged the battle that captured the Ark of the Covenant, produced an exceptionally rich stratigraphic sequence from the Middle Bronze Age through the Roman period. The most internationally significant find was a Late Bronze Age cuneiform archive from a Canaanite administrative residency, including the Aphek letter — a diplomatic correspondence between an Egyptian official and a Hittite king during the late 13th century BC. Kochavi's team also documented the Philistine destruction and reoccupation layers that frame the Ark Narrative.

Earlier in his career Kochavi directed excavations at Tel Esdar in the northern Negev and led regional surveys of Judea, Samaria, and the Golan Heights for the Israel Antiquities Authority. The "Kochavi survey" of the West Bank highlands produced the first systematic catalog of small Iron Age I villages that document the emergence of distinctly Israelite settlement in the central hill country during the period of the Judges.

Kochavi's pedagogical legacy is as substantial as his fieldwork. As a senior figure at Tel Aviv University he trained a generation of Israeli archaeologists, including Israel Finkelstein, who served as his student and assistant before launching his own career. His combination of large-site excavation, regional survey, and graduate teaching shaped the methodological style of the Tel Aviv school of archaeology.