NOTEWORTHY DEATH

JERUSALEM — Discoverer of King Herod’s tomb

JERUSALEM -

Ehud Netzer, one of Israel’s best-known archeologists who unearthed King Herod’s tomb near Bethlehem three years ago, died Thursday after being injured in a fall at the site. He was 76.

Netzer was leaning on a wooden safety rail Monday when it gave way, sending him tumbling 15 feet. He was taken to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem with critical injuries and died there.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the death “a loss for his family, for scholars of Israel’s history and for archaeology.”

Netzer, who was professor emeritus of archaeology at Hebrew University, had led highprofile digs across the country and helped educate several generations of Israeli archaeologists.

After three decades of research, he was the pre-eminent expert on Herodium, a fortifiedpalace complex that Herod built atop a small mountain near Bethlehem when he ruled in the decades just before the birth of Jesus.

Netzer announced in 2007 that he had found the remnants of Herod’s burial site, including pieces of a large sarcophagus made of pinkish Jerusalem limestone and decorated with carved floral motifs. He had been excavating the site since 1972.

Netzer began his archaeological career in the 1960s as part of the dig of Masada led by Yigael Yadin, the country’s best-known archaeologist, who later went into politics. Masada is the site of a showdown between Roman legionnaires and Jewish rebels after the destruction of Herod’s temple in A.D. 70. That siege ended when the Jews committed suicide en masse and has become a potent symbol in contemporary Israel.

Netzer is survived by his wife, Devora, three children and 10 grandchildren.