An Israeli historian and archaeologist. In 1934 he became a member of the academic staff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he established a department for the Historical Geography of the Land of Israel. His largest and most important enterprise was the excavation south and west of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where he unearthed remains from the Iron Age, Second Temple Period and Early Islamic period. His broad knowledge of the various Near Eastern fields of study, Biblical studies and archaeological research, and his ability to synthesize these disciplines, were his main legacy to three generations of scholars in Israel.