Neil Asher Silberman is an archaeologist and historian with a special interest in history, archaeology, public interpretation and heritage policy. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...

 and was trained in Near Eastern archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

. Awarded a 1991 Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

, he is a contributing editor for Archaeology Magazine and is a member of the editorial boards of the International Journal of Cultural Property, Heritage Management, and Near Eastern Archaeology

Near Eastern archaeology

Near Eastern Archaeology is a regional branch of the wider, global discipline of Archaeology...

.

With Israel Finkelstein

Israel Finkelstein

Israel Finkelstein is an Israeli archaeologist and academic. He is currently the Jacob M. Alkow Professor of the Archaeology of Israel in the Bronze Age and Iron Ages at Tel Aviv University and is also the co-director of excavations at Megiddo in northern Israel...

, he is the author of The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts

The Bible Unearthed

The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts is a 2001 book about the archaeology of Israel and its relationship to the origins of the Hebrew Bible...

(2001) and David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition (2006). His other books on the themes of history, heritage, and contemporary society include Archaeology and Society in the 21st Century (2001); Heavenly Powers (1998); The Message and the Kingdom (1997); The Archaeology of Israel (1995); Invisible America (1995); The Hidden Scrolls (1994); A Prophet from Amongst You: The Life of Yigael Yadin (1993); Between Past and Present (1989); and Digging for God and Country (1982).

Since 1998, he has been involved in the field of public heritage interpretation and presentation, working on various projects in Europe and the Middle East. From 2004 to 2007, he served as director of the Ename Center for Public Archaeology and Heritage Presentation in Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

. In 2008, he was appointed to the faculty of the Department of Anthropology of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and became one of the founders of its Center for Heritage and Society.

He also serves as the president of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Interpretation and Presentation (ICIP) and is a member of the ICOMOS International Advisory Committee and Scientific Council.