From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Gabriel Barkay is an Israeli archaeologist. Born in 1944 in Hungary, he immigrated to Israel in 1950. He received his PhD in Archaeology from Tel Aviv University in 1985. His dissertation was about LMLK seal impressions on jar handles. He participated in the Lachish excavations with David Ussishkin. His academic areas of interest include the archaeology of Jerusalem, biblical archaeology, burials and burial customs, art, epigraphy, and glyptics in the Iron Age. Dr. Barkay's most famous discoveries are small silver plaques containing the priestly benediction from the Book of Numbers, which he discovered in 1979 at Ketef Hinnom. These plaques contain the oldest surviving biblically-related inscription discovered to date, dating back to 600 BC. He also excavated the Iron Age tombs on the grounds of the École Biblique in the early 1970s.

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