02/02/2026
In the Footsteps of Kings and Rebels
There are people without age who walk among us. Ḥai, Ḥai Ashkenazi (I shall leave academic prefixes to others), was such a person. I am not sure how many people truly knew his actual age, because Ḥai always seemed like a kind of eternal youth: a lean figure with an enormous smile, moving quietly among us. An analogue nomad in a digital world.
In 2017, when we returned to excavate at Masada on behalf of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, Ḥai and Omer Ze’evi approached me to ask whether there might be a way for them to join the expedition and bring with them digital tools for work on the mountain. In the end, the focus shifted – not to the summit itself – but to the mountain’s full environs: the paths system, and no less importantly, Masada’s siege system. In later years, Ḥai would passionately insist that he had found a way to “beat the system”: he was paid to do exactly what he loved – wandering through nature, along the desert cliffs. A nomad, as we have already established.
Yet this wandering, during which together with Omer Ze’evi, they digitally documented the siege system, the network of paths, and the water system enveloping this extraordinary site, produced a joint research project, whose first results were presented to the scholarly world towards the end of 2024. The precise analysis of the scale of labour and the time required to construct the Roman camps and circumvallation showed that the work was completed within a matter of mere weeks – contrary to a number of myth-laden conceptions that emerged only in the mid-twentieth century and argued for a siege lasting several years.
The three-dimensional model, which became a substantive research tool and for the first time quantified both the scope of the labour and the minimal time required, was also made available as open access at Ḥai’s initiative, via a dedicated website. In doing so, it carried part of his message: that research should be accessible to both the academic community and the general public. An analogue man in a digital world – did we not say so? The fruits of the study of the paths once constructed by King Herod – those, Ḥai will no longer see.
This digital way of seeing, Ḥai later carried with him to the Israel Antiquities Authority, where he led the field of geo-informatics – an approach that, in many ways, represents the future of our past.
Our sages – Monty Python – once proclaimed that “we are all individuals” (I am not!). In his MA thesis, Ḥai beautifully demonstrated the character and power of a one-person archaeology. Through a systematic examination of the human remains and material culture found in the cave known as the “Warrior Cave” in the cliffs of Wadi Mukhukh (yes, in rescue excavations conducted beyond the Green Line), he showed that the individual buried there was not a warrior at all. Rather, he was an adult man without age, moving through the expanses of the Judaean Desert armed with a bow, a walking stick, and a pair of leather sandals. From time to time, I found myself wondering whether Ḥai was, in fact, writing about himself. An analogue nomad of precisely that sort.
Ḥai’s archaeological knowledge and his ventures into the desert cliffs were accompanied by a certain asceticism, a contentment with very little: a tin of tuna and tahini – always tahini. And alongside the HD digital drone, there was an analogue camera – always analogue.
And then there was his unmistakable laugh – “ehhh” – a short, hoarse burst of laughter that I am fairly certain once characterised pirates in bygone days. It was the laugh of a man with a guileless soul: the soul of a child, playful, a bit of a jester. The same spirit that, together with Omer Boaz, and Josh produced an unforgettable tribute in the first season marking the centenary of Yadin’s birth (with Ḥai in the starring role); or the legionary character – children, spot the differences. This almost childlike innocence was part of Ḥai’s charm and grace. It also found expression in his worldview: sometimes astonishingly stubborn, sometimes astonishingly moral, but always attentive to the people behind the words and the ideologies. A kind of Sancho Panza in a changing world – who always practised archaeology pure and simple, analogue archaeology, even when the tools themselves were digital.
I know, Ḥai, that you will not rest in peace, for you are not among those who rest – but I already imagine you wandering through your strange domains, a nomad in other people’s fields.
