Dr. Irit Ziffer is curator of the Ceramics and Nehushtan pavilions at the Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv. She trained in archaeology and ancient Near Eastern cultures at Tel Aviv University, and received her PhD in ancient Near Eastern art. Her PhD thesis Metamorphosis of Ancient Near Eastern Metaphors of Rulership: the Towel, the flower and the Cup examined images of the ruler and his surrounding in visual and textual sources. Her interests concentrate on art-historical issues, material culture and crafts as well as technologies, ancient and modern.

Between 1976-1979, 1981-1982 she was member of the Aphek-Antipatris excavations expedition of the Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University. She taught at the Department of Archaeology and ancient Near Eastern Cultures, Tel Aviv University.  In 2006 she became member of the Israel Exploration Society council.

During 2007-2008 she was Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Art History at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in 2012-13 a guest scholar at Scholion Interdisciplinary Research Center, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Select publications at https://independent.academia.edu/IritZiffer