Click Into the Past: Israel Opens National Archaeology Database
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has launched a national, public-facing database that brings decades of archaeological digs, artifacts, and archives under one roof this week, offering researchers and casual users in Israel and abroad a fast, map-driven way to search the past. The platform—one of the largest of its kind—houses 3,910,005 records, 964,393 documented objects, 1,223,552 images, and 15,164 3-D models, and lets users query by site, period, or find type, or draw a box on a map to pull up everything nearby.
“In a country with a rich heritage like Israel, a huge collection of archaeological information from all periods has been collected over the years,” said Alby Malka, Head of the Technologies Division at the IAA. Calling it “a real revolution,” Malka added that any user can “type in a single word or mark a point on the map, and receive all the available collected information in seconds.”
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Dr. Débora Sandhaus, the IAA’s chief scientist, said the archive is “a global asset,” giving scholars “unique access from any computer in the world to vast knowledge about the history of the Levant.” Director Eli Escusido framed the project as a transparency pledge: “The online National Archive embodies a universal, fundamental template that makes our human heritage accessible to the general public and researchers worldwide.”
The rollout comes as museums and agencies worldwide push open data for conservation and education. Israel’s trove spans everything from Dead Sea–era texts and coins to late Ottoman architecture and modern rescue digs, reflecting the region’s layers and the legal requirement to register finds. With high-resolution imagery, excavation reports, and 3-D scans in one place, the IAA says the tool will speed research, strengthen heritage preservation, and widen public access to Israel’s archaeological record.
