Field Microscopes
Since childhood, I was fascinated by the wonderful world
seen under the microscope. At the age of thirteen I found a Roman coin on my
way to school, and while studying its background, I fell in love with
archaeology. My family lived in a very small apartment in the southern city of
Beer Sheva in Israel, where I shared a room with
my elder sister for most of my childhood. Hence I had to keep my collection of
archaeological artifacts and the microscopy lab always mobile, ready to be
packed and stored in the closet after use. This picture, taken by my father
when I was twelve years old, is of my first portable laboratory.
As an adult I combined my two childhood passions and became
a microarchaeologist. The
portable microscopic laboratory, now increasingly better equipped but always
improvised, became a repeating motif of my work.
This site is dedicated to the history of field
microscopy of the last 200 years. I hold a collection of nearly 100 historical
field microscopes dating to the last 200 years. I research the history of
microscopic fieldwork and I published several articles on this topic. I have
developed during the last three years a new model of a highly portable,
versatile field microscope for my routine work as a microarchaeologist.
