Digital Archaeological Archiving in Israel

In this article, the authors present two points of view on the preservation and dissemination of archaeological data in Israel: An official version of the policy makers (the Israel Antiquities Authority, henceforth IAA), and the view from the archaeological, especially academic, community outside the IAA. This includes an assessment of the strategies undertaken (or not) over the last 40+ years resulting in the majority of data being inaccessible, and documenting significant data loss since the 1990s. This is followed by current work to address these issues, including not only efforts to digitise but misconceptions about the problems digitisation both solves and creates, along with recommendations for how to approach the issues going forward.