HERSHEL SHANKS

TOO HAZOR TO HANDLE. While on a visit to the archaeological site of Hazor, Elizabeth Shanks (Hershel’s older daughter) found an incised handle. Although she was just six years old at the time, she recognized that it was a significant discovery and gave it to the excavator of Hazor, the late Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin. In return, he gave her a restored juglet from the site. Yadin identified the figure carved on the handle as a Syro-Hittite deity and dated the find to around 1400 B.C.E. Yadin, pictured here with Elizabeth, helped Hershel publish the handle in the Israel Exploration Journal. This was Hershel’s first foray in archaeological publishing, and the rest is history.