Michael Avi-Yonah, born Julius Jonah Jehiel Buchstab on September 26, 1904, and died March 26, 1974, was an Israeli archaeologist and art historian. He worked as a professor of archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and also served as secretary of Israel’s Department of Antiquities. Over his career, he published more than 400 academic works, including books, journal articles, and encyclopedia entries. He is recognized for helping establish the study of Classical and Byzantine archaeology in the Land of Israel/Palestine. He also designed the Holyland Model of Jerusalem. Michael Avi-Yonah was born on 26 September 1904 in Lviv" target="_blank">Lemberg, Galicia (now Lviv, Ukraine), and moved to Mandatory Palestine with his family in 1919, settling in Jerusalem in 1921. After studying classical history and archaeology in England and gaining advanced qualifications, he worked for the British Department of Antiquities, helped organize its archives, and edited academic publications. In 1948 he joined Israel’s new Department of Antiquities, later teaching at the Hebrew University where he rose from Lecturer to Full Professor, and he also held visiting roles abroad; he died on 26 March 1974, and later editions of Eretz-Israel were published in his memory. Michael Avi-Yonah devoted much of his research to ancient art, especially early in his career, focusing on Mosaic floors and lead burial coffins in Palestine. He explored how “oriental” influences shaped local art in classical and Byzantine periods, publishing key studies between 1944 and 1950 and later a major book in 1961 called Oriental Art in Roman Palestine. He also wrote in Hebrew on classical art and studied ancient Jewish art. Michael Avi-Yonah focused much of his academic career on the historical geography of ancient Israel/Palestine during the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods. He produced influential maps and studies, including major editions of his Map of Roman Palestine, a Hebrew book on Palestine’s historical geography, and an English version published in 1967. He also wrote about Jewish history after the Bar Kokhba revolt and researched important sources like the Madaba Map, while editing major historical atlases for the Second Temple and later periods. Michael Avi-Yonah did extensive research on the history, archaeology, and layout of Jerusalem. In 1932 he co-edited a short bibliography of Jerusalem’s archaeological studies, and he later wrote articles about the city and edited the first volume of the Book of Jerusalem (1955). He also designed a detailed 1:50 model of ancient Jerusalem, originally displayed at the Holyland Hotel before being moved to the Israel Museum in 2006.

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