Michael Avi-Yonah (Hebrew: מיכאל אבי-יונה; September 26, 1904 – March 26, 1974) was an Israeli archaeologist and historian.
During his career he was a Professor of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem[1] and served as secretary of Israel's Department of Antiquities.
Born in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary (today Lviv, Ukraine), Avi-Yonah moved to Mandatory Palestine with his parents in 1919 during the Third Aliyah.
[2] At the end of his studies, he joined the Department of Antiquities of the British government of Palestine.
[citation needed] In 1949, he conducted excavations at Givat Ram in Jerusalem during the construction of the International Convention Center, where he was the first to discover a brick factory of the Legio X Fretensis.