Archaeology and National Identity in Israel

After the establishment of Israel in 1948, archaeology became a search for national origins--for material evidence of an ancient Israelite kingdom embedded in the modern state. In an excerpt from Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society, University of Chicago anthropology professor Nadia Abu El-Haj outlines the archaeological debate concerning the nature of the ancient Israelite conquest of the land of Canaan. Copyright 2002 The University of Chicago.