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Gila was born in Brooklyn and raised in Chicago. She earned her BSc in Ann Arbor and continued in Assyriology first in Chicago and after making aliya in 1968, at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
She “fell” into archaeology while still a student, drawing pottery and artifacts for Israel Museum archaeologists and curators Ruth Amiran and Ruth Hestrin. She then joined the field staff – still drawing pottery and artifacts – but also assisting the architects and surveyors of the American excavations of Tel Anafa in the northern Galilee.
That was the turning point. Having honed her field skills under the guidance of Michael Feist, chief surveyor of the then Department of Anitquities, she free-lanced at the Department and other archaeological institutions and universities. Turning almost full circle, in 1975, Gila went to the Hebrew Union College to become the head surveyor of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology – headed by Prof. Avraham Biran, the former Director of the Department of Antiquities.
Having surveyed and prepared field and stratigraphic plans of Tel Dan, Aroer in the Negev, sites around Jerusalem and other northern sites excavated by Biran, today Gila continues stratigraphic development and preparation of plans and sections as a member of the Tel Dan publication team. She also edits and is currently writing the chapter on the Middle Bronze gate and preparing Biran’s chapter on the Middle Bronze Age ramparts for the forthcoming Dan III – the 3rd volume of the Dan series.
