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Policies and Publication Ethics

Contents

Philosophy of 'Atiqot

For more information, please see 'Atiqot Aims and Scope page.

Who Can Submit?

Anyone may submit an original article to be considered for publication in 'Atiqot provided he or she owns the copyright to the work being submitted or is authorized by the copyright owner or owners to submit the article. Authors are the initial owners of the copyrights to their works.

Authors submitting to ‘Atiqot must be be affiliated with research institutions, both academic and professional. Submissions are considered regardless of the author's geographic location, provided that the paper meets ‘Atiqot's Aims and Scope. The journal accepts submissions from researchers from within the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and other academic and research institutions in Israel and abroad, with the aim of publishing at least 50% of the research from scholars outside of the organization. Independent researchers may also submit to the journal given that they are renowned in the field of research.

The journal actively promotes international authorship to ensure broad scholarly representation. However, as the scope of 'Atiqot is the Land of Israel (inland and within its territorial waters), the archaeological finds presented in the journal are primarily studied by Israeli scholars or in cooperation with them. That said, the articles and excavation reports published in the journal are of great interest to the international academic community, as they relate to many disciplines, such as Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Biblical Studies, history (particularly relating to the Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian and Roman Empires), geography and sciences. The archaeological research conducted in Israel is of an extremely high standard in terms of methods applied in the field and laboratories, making it highly valuable for the international academic community.

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General Submission Rules

Articles submitted to ‘Atiqot must present their research results clearly and honestly, in accordance with the journal's Guidelines to Contributors. ‘Atiqot will consider only original, unpublished articles, which were not submitted for publication elsewhere (see Publication Ethics). Articles should not be submitted concurrently to more than one publication unless the Editorial Board has agreed in writing to co-publication; if articles are co-published, this should be clearly stated.

Authors must inform editors if findings have been published previously or if multiple reports or analyses of a single dataset are under consideration for publication elsewhere. The Editorial Board of ‘Atiqot will consider the submission of translations and adaptations of previously published articles if this is found to be valuable for the international academic community and only if this fact is clearly stated and the original source acknowledged.

If you have concerns about the submission terms for 'Atiqot, please contact the editors.

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Formatting Requirements

For 'Atiqot's general rules of formatting articles upon submission, see the journal's Guidelines to Contributors.

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Target Readership

The target readership of the journal are researchers in the fields of archaeology, biblical and classic studies, epigraphy, numismatics, history, environmental sciences (zooarchaeology, archaeobotany, radiocarbon dating, physical anthropology), conservation and behavioral sciences (anthropology, ethnography, sociology).

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Open Access Statement

‘Atiqot is a Diamond Open Access journal, whose content is freely available without charge to readers, authors or institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful, non-commercial purpose (see Copyright and Licensing).

Printed volumes of ‘Atiqot are also available: ‘Atiqot (English Series) Volume Nos. 1–20 (ISSN 9031-4808); ‘Atiqot (Hebrew Series) Volume Nos. 1–10 (ISSN 0067-0138); and ‘Atiqot (ISSN 0792-8424) Volume Nos. 21–119. Starting with Volume 120 (April 2026), the journal has ceased print publication and is published exclusively online.

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Archiving

Long-term preservation of the printed volumes and digital files of the journal is accomplished through their deposit in The National Library of Israel, in accordance with the Israeli Books Law—Legal Deposit (2000). Journal content is backed up on the online platform by Elsevier. Elsevier carries out backup procedures once every 24 hours, all year round. Backups are placed in AWS S3 buckets, with data extending back two weeks. Elsevier keeps an additional copy of the database backup in a separate AWS account. Copies of all data uploaded to Amazon S3 and Amazon Glacier are stored on at least three devices in a single AWS Region to ensure recovery in case an Availability Zone drops out. Each AWS Region has three isolated locations known as Availability Zones.

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Funding Model

Journal costs (editing, translation, graphics) are covered by the Israel Antiquities Authority, a governmental, non-profit organization. Our journal does not accept advertising.

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Articles are published in ‘Atiqot under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license, allowing non-commercial reuse while keeping copyrights with the authors and the Israel Antiquities Authority (as institution). As of April 2026 (Volume 120), the copyright owner(s) and terms of the published articles are clearly stated on the first page of all published articles (PDF). Authors submitting to ‘Atiqot through the web-based submission system must accept and abide these copyright terms upon submission.

Third-party content (such as photographs, maps, plans, graphs, etc.) are not automatically covered by this license and may be subject to separate copyright terms. It is the author’s responsibility to obtain any permission regarding third-party content. The credit line, e.g., in a figure caption, must acknowledge the author/creator, title and source, and include a copyright notice or CC license.

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Self-Archiving and Press Releases

The submitted and accepted versions of an article should not be archived in any repository pre-publication.

Authors are allowed to upload copies of their published work (Version of Record) to repositories in order to make their research more accessible, given that they add a link to the IAA Publication Portal and cite the article's DOI. There is no embargo period for self-archiving an author's published work.

Authors must not allow their findings to be reported in the press if they have been accepted for publication but not yet published, unless they receive permission in writing from the Head of the Editorial Board. Press releases should acknowledge the journal in which the findings are published, including a link to the publication.

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Publication Ethics

The journal follows COPE Core practices and guidelines regarding publication ethics and misconduct.

Authorship. Authors submitting to ‘Atiqot are collectively responsible for their academic work and should accurately indicate each author's contribution. The corresponding author is responsible for sharing the reviewer's remarks with all co-authors and accepting their approval of the submitted and accepted versions, as well as for the final proofs.

Requests to remove an author during the peer-review process must be sent for consideration to the Editorial Board. All co-authors must share a consensus regarding the removal. If all authors do not consent to the removal, the peer-review process will be suspended. Once the authors or institution resolve the authorship issue, their article will continue the reviewing process. Once an article is accepted for publication, requests for author removal will not be accepted.

Once an article is submitted for publication, no authors may be added. If an author's name was mistakenly dropped, and all co-authors share a consensus regarding its addition, a request to add an author must be sent in writing to the Head of the Editorial Board for consideration; if misconduct is suspected, the IAA Legal Adviser will be consulted as well. Once an article is accepted for publication, requests for author addition will not be considered.

Editorial Board. The ‘Atiqot Editorial Board is appointed by the IAA Head of Archaeology Division. It consists of seven members, who are committed to a five-year term. All members of the Editorial Board are IAA employees, with a Ph.D. in archaeology or related disciplines, who are experts in a variety of research fields. The main criterion for their selection is their status as professional researchers, with a proven experience in publishing academic articles in a variety of peer-reviewed publications in Israel and abroad. The journal is committed to ensuring editorial independence in all decision-making processes, regardless of the publisher’s institutional affiliation.

Members of the Editorial Board meet once a month to suggest and discuss volume themes, to appoint managing editors for new submissions, to raise concerns or suspicion of plagiarism, duplicate or redundant publication, citation manipulation, image or data manipulation, or to address conflicts of interest. Each member of the Editorial Board is appointed Managing Editor of one to three articles per journal, based on their availability and familiarity with the research under concern.

The Head of the ‘Atiqot Editorial Board is one of the Editorial Board members, appointed by the IAA Head of Archaeology Division. The Head of the ‘Atiqot Editorial Board is responsible for administrating the submission process, in consultation with the Series Editor. The Head of the ‘Atiqot Editorial Board schedules and directs the monthly meetings of the Editorial Board, and appoints a Managing Editor for each submitted article, while keeping track of timeframes and alerting misconduct or conflict of interest. The Head of the ‘Atiqot Editorial Board has access to all submitted materials and supervises the peer-review process via the web-based submission system. All complaints and appeals of the editors, reviewers and authors are directed to the Head of the Editorial Board, who holds the responsibility for handling and addressing each case within the Editorial Board, or involving the IAA Legal Adviser if necessary. The Head of the ‘Atiqot Editorial Board, together with the Series Editor, are also responsible for tracking site reports that conform to the topics of the journal volumes. These are carefully selected based on their synthesis component and their potential contribution to the volume theme.

The Series Editor is one of the Editorial Board members, also an IAA employee, with a Ph.D. degree in archaeology or other related disciplines and an editor's certificate, working for the IAA Publications Department. The Series Editor acts as the administrator of the online (and printed) publication, and like the Head of the ‘Atiqot Editorial Board, receives a notice for every action conducted via the web-based submission system. The Series Editor is responsible for ensuring the quality and format of all supplemental materials submitted for publication and may contact the authors if those do not meet the journal's requirements. The Series Editor also ensures that the articles submitted for publication are compiled according to the journal's Guidelines to Contributors and overviews the process of language editing conducted by IAA or freelance Language Editors. The Series Editor must approve all edited articles before they are published on the journal website. The Series Editor is responsible for uploading all articles to the journal volume and sending notices to all authors that their article has been published.

Editorial Advisory Board. The ‘Atiqot Editorial Advisory Board is appointed by the Editorial Board to assist editorial tasks. It consists of 13 international members, who are committed to a ten-year term. Members of the Editorial Advisory Board are senior researchers from different institutions from Israel and abroad. Members of the Advisory Board are approached periodically with questions regarding topics of interest, reviewers, and ethical issues that may arise following the review or editing process of an article. The Advisory Board meets annually (through online meetings) to discuss upcoming topics and other academic-related issues.

Language Editors. ‘Atiqot Language Editors are either IAA employees working for the IAA Publications Department, or freelance editors contracted as Language Editors to edit two–three articles per volume. All Language Editors of ‘Atiqot are professional, experienced certified editors, who also have at least an M.A. degree, but usually a Ph.D., in archaeology or related studies. All editors are fully trained by the IAA Publications Department and act on its behalf. Once an article is accepted for publication in the journal, the Head of the Editorial Board or the Series Editor will send the Language Editors the accepted version of the article, including its supplemental content. Language Editors must adhere to the editorial policies of the journal and conform to the journal's Guidelines. Language Editors are not authorized to access the journal's website submission system, and the editing process is conducted offline, in WORD files, using Track Changes in a manner that the author can clearly see the editor's corrections, suggestions and comments. The editorial process is supervised by the Series Editor; only when articles are approved to meet the journal's standards of language and style, or are fixed to do so, are the editors subject to payment. Editors whose articles do not meet the journal's standards are removed from the Editors List and are not assigned any further articles submitted to the journal. If misconduct or conflict of interest are traced, Language Editors must contact the Series Editor and request an inquiry (see below).

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Peer Review Process

‘Atiqot maintains a double anonymous peer-review process, which is supervised by the Head of the Editorial Board through a web-based submission system. Each submitted research article is assigned by the Head of the Editorial Board to a Managing Editor, one of the members of the Editorial Board, based on their field of expertise. The Managing Editor is responsible for selecting reviewers for the article under consideration. A reviewer may be chosen from the system's growing List of Reviewers; a Managing Editor may add new reviewers to the list. The Managing Editor must make sure to avoid assigning reviewers that may have conflicts of interest (see below).

A Managing Editor, in consultation with the Series Editor or Head of the Editorial Board, may reject a paper, or ask for its revision, before initiating a peer-review process, for example, when an article is deemed unsuitable for the journal's aim and scope, if the article is not written according to the journal's Guidelines, if academic content is poor, if language is poor or if the article does not comply with a volume's theme. The Managing Editor must share this decision with the other members of the Editorial Board to make sure that the decision is reached in a fair and unbiased way. This decision is delivered to the author; if relevant, the author will have the option to revise the article to meet the journal's theme, language and style. Occasionally, the Editorial Board will recommend that an article be resubmitted to another volume of the journal.

Reviewers are selected from Israel and abroad, based on their field of expertise and knowledge of the topic of the volume and article content. The journal actively promotes international peer reviewing to ensure broad scholarly representation but occasionally, given the narrow field of the discipline, Editorial Board members may act as reviewers as well (see below). Our reviewers are all Ph.D. academics, affiliated with the IAA or universities in Israel and abroad; occasionally, independent scholars may serve as reviewers. In their submission, authors may indicate up to two names of opposed reviewers.

Reviewers are first approached by a letter sent through the web-based submission system asking if they will consent to review an article for the journal. In this letter, the reviewers are informed of the timeframe (45 days) and they must declare that they have no conflict of interest and that they are capable of producing an unbiased review. Once the reviewers accept this letter, a PDF file of the article is automatically sent to them, including abstract and keywords, and supplementary material (e.g., maps, charts, tables, plans, figures). Reviewers who do not meet the review timeframe, or whose review is of low quality, are reconsidered by the Editorial Board and upon decision, may be removed from the List of Reviewers. In such cases, other reviewers may be approached, while notifying the authors.

Once completed, reviews are uploaded by the reviewers to the web-based submission system, stating their decision concerning an article: accept; accept with minor corrections; accept with major corrections; reject. Their decision is posted on the submission page and may be seen only by the Managing Editor, Head of the Editorial Board and Series Editor. The Managing Editor is responsible for monitoring the quality of the peer review, making sure that the comments are clear, honorable and not offensive in any way. If the Managing Editor feels that a review is not pertinent or respectful to the author, the review will be concealed from the author while remaining in the system for record. In certain cases, the Managing Editor may provide feedback to reviewers.

Once the reviews are uploaded to the submission system, an email is automatically sent to the author with the reviewers' decisions and a link to the reviews. The author is asked to respond to the reviewers’ comments in a professional manner and return the revised article within 30 days, including a letter explaining the revisions made. Authors should inform the Managing Editor if they choose not to respond to a reviewer's comments after receiving a conditional acceptance. In this case, the acceptance or rejection of the article will be considered by the Editorial Board; if a decision cannot be reached, the article will be sent to a third reviewer for final decision. Ultimately, a decision about a manuscript is made by the Managing Editor.

In their evaluation, reviewers are asked to consider whether a manuscript raises concerns regarding research and publication ethics issues (e.g., plagiarism, fabrication, falsification or redundant publication). If the two reviewers supply contradicting decisions, e.g., one recommends to accept the article and the other to reject it, the Managing Editor will consult with the Editorial Board. Given that there is no suspicion of Conflict of Interest or bias on the part of any one of the reviewers, a third reviewer may be sought, and the decision will be made based on the third reviewer's observation. The final editorial decision and reasons for this are communicated to the authors through the submission system.

In the case that a paper is rejected, the Managing Editor will notify the author through the submission system. If an author wishes to appeal, he must contact the Head of the Editorial Board and ask that the decision be reconsidered. This will be brought before the Editorial Board; however, its members are not obliged to overturn their decision.

The processing of the Excavation Reports included in each volume of ‘Atiqot is separate from the that of the research articles described above. The Excavation Reports are submitted by IAA archaeologists to the Publications Department office and undergo a double anonymous peer-review process supervised by the IAA Head of the Scientific Evaluation Branch. This process is similar to the one discussed above; however, due to the large capacity of manuscripts and supplementary materials that comprise the excavation report, these are sent for evaluation via email or other Transfer Software (e.g., JumboMail, WeTransfer).

Beginning with Volume 120 (April 2026), the publication timeframes of all published articles are stated on the left corner of the first page of the PDF article, including the date of submission, revision, acceptance and publication. It is noteworthy that the timeframes for Excavation Reports are much longer than those of the research articles (five years on average), due to their large capacity, the involvement of many authors and the complexity of the data.

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Editor as Author/Reader in Own Journal

Our journal publishes articles spanning a large and varied scope of periods and research topics, while limited to the geographic area of the Land of Israel. Our Editorial Board comprises some of the most renowned scholars in their field and as such, are welcome to submit articles to our journal and occasionally act as anonymous peer reviewers. To prevent conflict of interest, we maintain that articles written by our editors will not exceed 20% of the articles published in a given volume. It is noteworthy that articles submitted by members of our Editorial Board undergo the same transparent and rigorous double anonymous peer-review process as all other submissions.

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Handling Allegations of Misconduct

The ‘Atiqot Editorial Board, supervised by the Head of the Editorial Board and the Editor in Chief, will handle any ethics issues, review allegations, and, where necessary, initiate a formal assessment.

Authors. The treatment of authors and their submissions is confidential and confined to the members of the journal's Editorial Board alone. If an academic work is suspected of misconduct by a reviewer or an editor, the Managing Editor should contact the authors and allow them to respond to the concerns. These concerns are further shared with the Head of the Editorial Board and the Editor in Chief, who may decide to initiate a formal assessment. If misconduct is confirmed, the author is informed and the article rejected. A two-year embargo will be imposed on the author regarding submissions to the journal.

Editors. If an editor is suspected of misconduct, the Series Editor should be immediately notified. The Series Editor will contact the editor asking for a response to the concerns. These concerns are further handled by the Head of the Editorial Board and the Editor in Chief, who may decide to share them with the IAA Legal Adviser. If misconduct is proven, the editor will be removed from the Editors List.

Reviewers. If there is alleged or suspected misconduct on behalf of a reviewer—such as a breach of confidentiality, non-declaration of conflicts of interest, inappropriate use of confidential material, or delay of peer-review for competitive advantage—the Managing Editor should contact the reviewer asking for a response to the concerns. These concerns are further handled by the Head of the Editorial Board, who may decide to share them with the IAA Legal Adviser; in such cases, it may be necessary to disclose the reviewer’s name to a third party. If misconduct is proven, the reviewer will be removed from the Reviewers' List.

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Conflicts of Interest (COI)

Authors, Managing Editors and Reviewers must declare conflicts before submitting or handling an article. Any interests, relationships, or activities that may influence their research or professional judgment must be shared with the Head of the Editorial Board. Conflicts of interest may include but are not limited to advisor–student or mentor–trainee relationships; family or close personal relationships; collaboration on research grants, projects, or funded initiatives.

Authors. When submitting a paper for publication in ‘Atiqot, an author must sign an online statement on the submission system confirming that no conflicts of interest exist. Authors must declare any relevant financial and non-financial conflicts of interest.

Managing Editors. Managing Editors acting on behalf of the Editorial Board may not participate in decisions concerning articles in which they have a conflict of interest, for example, if they have co-authored papers in the past two years, or if they have a personal relationship with the authors. If a COI is encountered, the article will be reassigned to another member of the Editorial Board.

Reviewers. Reviewers that consent to reviewing an article through the web-based submission system must agree to treat the disclosed article and supplementary material in confidence. Reviewers must decline an offer to read an article in which they may have a Conflict of Interest, for example, if they have collaborated with the authors, share an advisor–student relationship, or if they have a personal relationship with the authors. If a COI is encountered after the reviewer completes his evaluation of the article, the article will be reassigned to another reviewer. Managing Editors should contact the reviewer's institution if plagiarism is suspected or if there is evidence that the paper was shared without permission.

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Data

Where available, datasets must be cited using persistent identifiers, such as DOIs.

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Post-Publication

Generally, ‘Atiqot will not allow the correction of literature or supplemental materials following an article's publication. To this end, authors should work with the Language or Series Editor to carefully proof-read their work prior to its final publication. If errors or omissions are discovered post-publication, authors should respond appropriately and attempt to answer questions and supply clarification or additional details where needed. All post-publication corrections must be approved by the Editorial Board.

If genuine errors, which do not render a research work invalid, are encountered post-publication—pointed out by readers, authors or editors—the online version of the paper will be corrected by the Series Editor, with the date of correction and reason for revision indicated on the landing page (HTML) of the article. If an error renders a work or substantial parts of it invalid, the Editorial Board may recommend its retraction. In such cases, the author will be notified and given an opportunity to respond. If an article is retracted, the date and reason for retraction will be stated on the landing page (HTML) of the article; the PDF file of the retracted article will remain accessible with a watermark and retraction notice to maintain the scholarly record.

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Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools

‘Atiqot will not accept any AI generated articles. Authors may use AI tools for language refining, editing and translation, as well as to produce images, graphs or tables, given that the author clearly states the use of such tools and to what extent. Authors who use AI tools in the collection and analysis of data, must disclose in the article section describing Materials and Methods which AI tools were used and how.

All submitted articles are screened using digital tools to assess the use of AI-generated content in manuscript preparation and to detect potential plagiarism.

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Metadata and Discoverability

All ‘Atiqot articles are assigned a DOI Number once uploaded to the DC publication platform. The DOIs are assigned through a sponsored subscription with CROSSREF. The DOI No. appears on the landing page of each article and is included in the "recommended citation." It also appears on the cover page of the automatically generated cover page of the PDF file of the article. The metadata of the article appears on the landing page of each article, comprising English abstracts and keywords, which are also included in the PDF of the article.

‘Atiqot is indexed by JSTOR, EBSCO, ProQuest and Elsevier.

The journal website does not support ORCID yet; however, authors may include a link to their ORCID in Footnote 1 of their article, after their affiliation.

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