Talk:Alexander Zaïd

Discovery of Beth She'arim ruins
The story that Zaid discovered the remains of Beit She'arim dates from the 1930s and is widely reported. The problem is that the archaeological significance of the Sheik Bureik/Abreik hill was already known. The report of the Survey of Western Palestine published in 1881 has a long description of it (see pages 325-328 and 343-351). SWP did not recognise the site as Beit She'arim, but neither did Zaid (that honor is due to Benyamin Mazar in 1936). So it seems that Zaid can at most be said to have re-discovered the ruins. Zerotalk 10:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)