Ronny Reich (born 1947) is an Israeli archaeologist, excavator and scholar of the ancient remains of Jerusalem. Education Reich studied archaeology and geography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His MA thesis (supervised by Prof. Yigael Yadin) dealt with Assyrian architecture in Palestine (the Land of Israel), about which he later published several articles (concerning Ayelet HaShahar, Tel Hazor, the "Sealed Karum of Egypt", Beth-Zur, Tell Jemme, Ramat Rachel, Tel Megiddo and Buseira). His participation in excavations in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, carried out between 1969 and 1978 and directed by Nahman Avigad, caused a shift in his scientific interests, from the Iron Age to the Early Roman period. He completed his Ph.D. thesis, "Miqva'ot (Jewish Ritual Baths) in Eretz Israel in the Second Temple and the Mishnah and Talmud periods", in 1990 under the supervision of Profs. Nachman Avigad and Lee I. Levine. The thesis is based on discoveries made during these digs. It turned out to be a groundbreaking study of a subject never before studied from an archaeological perspective. Employment Between 1978 and 1995 Reich worked for the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums (IDAM) as director of its scientific archives. In 1978 (before PCs were extant) he started the process of archiving archaeological information on the mainframe of the Ministry of Education and Culture. The first files he documented were of declared archaeological sites and lists of excavations. In 1986 he briefly served as the District Archaeologist of Israel's Central District. When Amir Drori took office as director general of IDAM, Reich assisted him in turning the department into an independent governmental authority, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). Excavations and main discoveries In 1989 Reich returned to archaeological field work, carried out at various Jerusalem sites: Burials from the late Iron Age/Israelite period and the Byzantine period in Mamillah, located just outside Jaffa Gate. This excavation unearthed a mass grave of the Christian Byzantine population massacred during the Sassanid sack of Jerusalem in 614. Other discoveries include an extramural complex of Byzantine buildings with a thermae, and a segment of the western city wall from the Ayyubid period. Between 1994 and 1996, in collaboration with Yakov Billig, Reich exposed a long segment of the stone paved road along the western wall of the Herodian Temple Mount, under Robinson's Arch. With Yuval Baruch, he exposed an area near the southern Temple Mount