"He went out looking for the Ark of the Covenant and came back with a completely different discovery"
Haaretz's somewhat misleading headline on Israel Finkelstein's excavations at Kiriath-Jearim (Deir el-Azar) with Thomas Römer & Christophe Nicolle https://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/television/.premium-MAGAZINE-1.9301302

Finkelstein has insisted he didn't go to Kiriath-Jearim to find the Ark itself, but is interested in later traditions concerning the Ark.
Of course, when you claim *1 large wall* is evidence of an 8th-century BCE shrine to the Ark story . . . https://twitter.com/MichaelDPress/status/901987322291523584

It turns out biblical archaeologists are obsessed with the Ark of the Covenant. Finkelstein's dig is just one of *three separate excavations* in Israel and the West Bank claiming to find remains related to the Ark in recent years. https://twitter.com/MichaelDPress/status/1207033083230347270

Finkelstein may insist he wasn't looking for the Ark and didn't find it, but his sensationalist claims are partly responsible for these misleading headlines . . . and now his dig is the subject of a documentary called "Following the Ark of the Covenant"

Just keep all this in mind next time you want to make fun of, say, Museum of the Bible for claiming that archaeologists are looking for the Ark of the Covenant.

Haaretz has now published an English-language version of the article, with a very different headline: https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium.MAGAZINE-one-man-s-quest-for-the-ark-of-the-covenant-led-to-a-completely-different-find-1.9305352

In the past, Finkelstein has said -- or has been reported to believe -- that a wall he found at Tel Kiriath-Jearim (Deir el-Azar) was part of a shrine commemorating the Ark narrative.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/biblical-site-tied-to-ark-of-the-covenant-unearthed-at-convent-in-central-israel/

Now Haaretz reports that what Finkelstein & his co-directors found -- or what the documentary shows they found -- is "a ritual site where it’s believed the ark was likely placed"
Who believes this exactly? The excavators?

We also see Finkelstein insist yet again that he's really a historian.

An archaeologist who finds a wall and claims he found a shrine commemorating the story of the Ark of the Covenant, or the place where it actually rested(!), is really . . . a historian?