Strata: Amir Drori, 1937–2005

Distinguished military commander and former head of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), Amir Drori died this March of a heart attack during a hiking trip in the Negev Desert.

Drori had two noteworthy careers, first as an officer in the Israeli army and later as director of the IAA. Drori rose through the military ranks to become commander of the famed Golani Brigade during the 1973 Yom Kippur War and led the recapture of Mt. Hermon, in the Golan Heights. In 1981 he was placed in charge of Israel’s Northern Command, and he played an important role in the 1982 Lebanon war. He was subsequently promoted to deputy chief of staff, making him the second-highest-ranked general in the Israeli army. In 1988 Drori left the army to take on an entirely different command as the first chief of the IAA (archaeology had previously been subsumed under the department of antiquities and museums in the Ministry of Education). He served in that capacity until 2000, when he was replaced by the IAA’s current head, Shuka Dorfman.