Claire Epstein

Epstein was born in London into an upper-class family.[1] Her mother was active in saving Jews from the Nazis.[1] Epstein was involved with Zionist circles at a young age and learned Hebrew early on.[2] Epstein attended King Alfred School and then studied Italian at the University College, London.[1] In 1932, she received her bachelor's degree.[1] Epstein immigrated to British Mandate Palestine in 1937, living in Tel-Aviv. She translated Hebrew for the 1937 Peel Commission.[3] In 1942, she joined the British Army Women's Unit and later became the first woman Sergeant Major from the yishuv.[4]

After two years in the army, she joined the new Kibbutz En Gev, near the Sea of Galilee.[2] Epstein first began to work in archaeology when she helped a team of archaeologists excavating Tel Hazor in 1952.[1] Also in 1952, she adopted a boy whose parents had been killed in a pogrom in Iraq.[1] In 1955, she moved to another kibbutz, Ginossar, on the other side of the Sea of Galilee.[2] Epstein later went back to University College, London to work on her PhD in archaeology, focusing on bichrome pottery from Palestine and working with Kathleen Kenyon.[2] She received her PhD in 1962.

After the Six Day War, in 1967, Epstein, working with Shemaryahu Gutman, was the leader of the archaeological emergency survey in the Golan area.[1] During her survey, she discovered large dolmen fields and also a late prehistoric Chalcolithic Culture in Golan.[2] Epstein became a full-time archaeologist, working for the Department of Antiquities, which later became the Israel Antiquities Authority.[3] To get to her archaeological sites, she often hitchhiked, because she did not have a driver's license and many of her assistants were local Druze villagers.[2]

In 1985, Epstein received the Percy Schimmel Award from the Israel Museum for her work in archaeology.[1] In 1995, she received the Israel Prize for her work.[1] Epstein continued to work on the Chalcolithic sites in the Golan region, which she "almost single-handedly discovered, excavated, and reported" on.[5] In 1998, published her monograph, The Chalcolithic Culture of the Golan in the Israel Antiquities Authority Report.[2] Her monograph describes the unique features of the Golan site which include "house-chains" which are broad-houses linked together in long lines.[5] She was awarded the Irene Levy-Sala award for her monograph.[2] Her attention to the Golan area helped preserve many of the area's archaeological sites.[5] Epstein's analysis of the stratigraphy of Megiddo's sacred areas was also an important part of her body of work.[2] She also helped identify the remains of a 2,000-year-old boat found at the bottom of the Sea of Galilee.[6]

In 2000, she was in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem from complications which developed after a fall.[2] She died not long after in her home in Kibbutz Ginosar.[4]

• Epstein, Claire (1997). Palestinian Bichrome Ware (Ancient Near East). Brill Academic Pub. ISBN 9789004004719.
• Epstein, Claire (1998). The Chalcolithic Culture of the Golan. Israel Antiquities Authority. ISBN 9789654060325.