Garfinkel academic activities concentrate on three major fields:
protohistory of the
Near East, archaeology of the
Iron Age in the
Kingdom of Judah and the
history of dance. He has authored 35 books and over 200 articles on
ancient architecture,
farming, water sources,
pottery,
art,
religion and dance. In 2007, he began conducting excavations at the fortified city of
Khirbet Qeiyafa. This site is dated to the early 10th century BC, the period of the biblical
King David. In the 2008 season an
inscription was discovered written in ink on a pottery shard in a script which is probably Early Alphabetic/Proto Phoenician. This might be the earliest
Hebrew inscription ever found, although the actual language of the inscription is still under debate.
Protohistory of the Near East In the first half of his academic career, Garfinkel specialized in the
protohistoric era of the
Near East, when the world's
earliest village communities were established and the beginning of agriculture took place. He has excavated sites dating to the full sequence of the
Neolithic and
Chalcolithic periods at
Yiftahel (1983–85),
Gesher (1986–87),
Tel 'Ali (1989–90,
Sha'ar HaGolan (1898-90, 1996-2004), Neolithic Ashkelon (1998–99), Meitar (1998-1999), and
Tel Tsaf (2004-2007). In the 1960s-70s the Neolithic period was considered as composed from egalitarian communities. Garfinkel analysis of the plastered floors from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B sites of Yiftahel and
'Ain Ghazal indicated the existence of hierarchical order. Garfinkel is credited with defining the
Middle Chalcolithic period. Garfinkel used Tel Tsaf as the period site for the Middle Chalcolithic, with courtyard buildings of nuclear families. Each building contained large tower silos, with a storage capacity of 10-30 ton per household, a grain surplus never before seen in the ancient Near East. This richness enabled the inhabited of Tel Tsaf to acquired exotic artifacts through long distance trade networks, like
Ubaid pottery from
Mesopotamia, a copper awl from the
Balkans?, beads from Ethiopia and seals from the
Red Sea and the
Nile. Garfinkel research on the art and symbolic expression of the Proto-historic Near East. His analysis of Proto-historic iconographic representations from the entire Near east concentrated on dancing figures, gender aspects, birds, and flowers. More recently, Garfinkel discovered arithmatic logic in
Halifian floral decorations of from ancient Mesopotamia, which he considered the earliest vegital depictions in history. The petals came arranged in the numbers 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64. This presents a prehistoric mathematical system, predating the
Sumerian mathematical system based on the
number six. This research garnered international attention and was reported, for example by
Nature and
CNN.
History of dance Dance history has focused mainly on periods such as the
Baroque and
Renaissance, with only limited attention to
ancient Greece, Egypt, and prehistory. Garfinkel highlighted prehistoric dance, and later systematic research identified more than 500 Neolithic dance scenes dating back 9,000–7,000 years, around the start of agriculture. These scenes seem to depict calendrical rituals linked to
seasonal farming activity. The research has drawn significant attention, including coverage in the
New York Times. Later, Garfinkel dealt with dance scenes from the
Upper Paleolithic in Europe dating 40,000 years ago. He later refined a five-stage model was proposed to describe the evolution of human dance, which started hundreds of thousands of years ago
courtship,
rites of passage,
trance, calendrical ceremonies, and the professional
dancing.
Archaeology of the Iron Age in the Kingdom of Judah In the second half of his academic career Garfinkel specialized in the archaeology of the Kingdom of Judah, but he also conducted a small text excavation at Area K in Hazor (2019). His regional project in the
Shephelah, southwest of Jerusalem, included excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa (2007–13), Khirbet al-Ra'i (2015–21), Tel Lachish (2013–17, 2022–25) and a survey at Tel Socoh (2010). He also conducted excavation in the eastern part of the Ophel of Jerusalem (2025). Recently Garfinkel summarized the results of his research in a comprehensive book titled
The Archaeology of the Kingdom of Judah. Atlanta.
Canaanite and Israelite Iconography. Over the years, Garfinkel engaged in iconographic studies of finds from the Bronze and Iron Ages. He published and analyzed objects held by life-size statues that were found in Canaanite temples, at Megiddo and Lachish, providing rare evidence that l
arge anthropomorphic statues were indeed worshipped in temples. He further explored ancient Near Eastern soundscapes, focusing on forgotten bronze bells from Megiddo and Assyria.
The High Chronology of the Israelite Kingdoms Beginning in the 1980s, scholars like
Israel Finkelstein published numerous books and hundreds of articles, in which they argued against the historicity of the earlier periods of the
Deuteronomic tradition, and especially the traditions about the 10th-9th centuries BC. Proponents of this new chronology, called the Low Chronology, dated state formation to the 9th century, refuting the historicity of David, Solomon, the construction of Solomon Temple, and Rehoboam's fortifications recorded in the bible. In contrast to these scholars, Garfinkel is a prominent proponent of the so-called the Minimalist, or
Low Chronology of the bible, hilighlighting early state formation in Judah and Israel. In 2007 Garfinkel began conducting excavations at
Khirbet Qeiyafa with
Sa'ar Ganor from the
Israel Antiquities Authority and Michael Hasel. The excavations revealed a fortified city in Judah, radiometrically dated to the early 10th century BC, the period of the biblical
King David. It included well-planned fortified city, with two gates, a casemate city wall, and houses abutting the city wall, of a plan known known only of Judean cities. The architecture includes an elongated storage building, a large administrative building at the top of the site and three cultic rooms. Imported items indicate trade connections to
Transjordan,
Cyprus, and Egypt. The site and its finds challenged and revised the Low Chronology, and accordingly drew much international attention. Supporters of the Low Chronology claimed that the city was occupied by
Philistines, Canaanites, or even belonged to
King Saul of the Northern Kingdom. The findings of Qeiyafa continued to challenge the proponents of the Low Chronology for over dacade, who offered diverging and inconsistent refutations of the interpratations of the finds, while the material record and dating withstood their scruitany. Later, Garfinkel made a case for the historicity of Solomonic architecture and civil construction based on a carved limestone box with an elaborate building facade, discovered at Khirbet Qeiyafa. This miniature representation has two architectural feathers: 1. Beans of the roof organized three together, as triglyphs in classical buildings. 2. Three recessed frames around the door. These two architectural features match biblical description of the palace and temple of Solomon, providing material evidence for their use in 10th century BCE Judah. Following the excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa the regional project moved to Lachish, directed together with
Michael Hasel from
Southern Adventist University (2013–17). Additional excavations took place in the years 2022-25, together with
Hoo-Goo Kang and
Itamar Weeissbeen. These two expeditions concentrated on Level V at Lachish, the earliest Iron Age settlement at the site. Together, they discovered a previously unknown city wall in the north and south sides of Lachish. The radiometric dates of this city ranged from c. 930 to 860 BC. Garfinkel claimed that these dates support the biblical tradition of
2 Chronicles 11:5-12, that King Rehoboam indeed fortified Lachish. Garfinkel's dating was not universally accepted.
Semitic Epigraphy. Garfinkel disovered a large numbers of notable inscriptions, including: • A Middle Bronze Age (c. 1700 BC
) ivory comb from Lachish, with a spell against head and beard lice, considered the earliest sentence uncovered so far in
Proto-Canaanite, and - indeed- any
alphabet. The discovery made international headlines, and was reported, for example by the New York Time, The BBC[iii], and the
Smithsonian Magazine. • The
Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon. Dated to the Early Iron Age IIA (c. 1000 BC) inscription, this might be the earliest
Hebrew inscription ever found, although the actual language of the inscription is under debate. The ostracon has 5 lines and about 70 letters, making it the longest Proto-Canaanite script ever found. • The Ishbaal son of Beda' inscription incised on a large storage jar from Khirbet Qeiyafa, also dated to The Early Iron Age IIA (c. 1000 BC). In addition, Garfinkel published many other bullea, private seals impressed on the
Royal (lmlk) Judean storage jars, on the titles
mpkd from Tel Ira and the
Qrsi from Arad, the administration of the Kingdom of Judah, and Hebrew inscriptions from Jerusalem. File:Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon.jpg|Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon
History of biblical archaeology Garfinkel contributed to the study of
biblical archaeology. He showed how the field's founder,
W. F. Albright, misidentified the name Yokan as the name of King
Jehoiachin. For over sixty years, this error misled researchers and skewed the dating of
archaeological levels in Judah by about a century. Levels destroyed in the Assyrian campaign of 701 BC were mistakenly attributed to the Babylonian conquest of 597 BC. Regarding the murder of British archaeologist
James Leslie Starkey, the director of the excavations of Tel Lachish, he discovered that the murder took place due to aggravated land disputes between the expedition and the landowners rather than a sporadic act of terrorism. This discovery sparked renewed scholarly interest in the incident. Garfinkel's discovery was a cornerstone for his book,
Colonial Archaeology in Palestine in the 1930s: The First Expedition to Lachish, a monumental account of the biography of the first expedition to Lachish. ==Excavations and surveys==