Neil Silberman is an archaeologist and historian who served as the president of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) International Scientific Committee on Interpretation and Presentation and was a member of the ICOMOS International Advisory Committee and Scientific Council. In 2008, he became a founder of the Center for Heritage and Society at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in 1991. The subject of Neil’s ICWA fellowship (1984–1986) was the political and cultural impact of current archaeological research in the Middle East. He went on to author and coauthor a dozen books, including The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, Archaeology and Society in the 21st Century, The Hidden Scrolls, and Digging for God and Country.