Stunning military victories made Israeli general Moshe Dayan an iconic figure on the international stage, but his reputation for looting antiquities is little known outside the country where his myth was born.

Across three decades until his death in 1981, Dayan, of the trademark eye patch, established a vast collection of antiquities acquired through illicit excavations. He also traded in archaeological finds in Israel and abroad, antiquities experts say.

"Moshe Dayan didn't deal in archaeology. He dealt in antiquities plundering," said Uzi Dahari, deputy director of the Israel Antiquities Authority. "He was a criminal. He knew he was breaking the law. He knew that all his activity was against the law, and he did it nevertheless."

The Holy Land is a treasure trove for antiquities collectors - and plunderers.

"There are 30,000 antiquities sites. Every hilltop has antiquities, and, of course, you can't put guards on each hilltop," said Amir Ganor, head of the robbery prevention unit at the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Various books and news reports have related how Dayan, aided by children, robbers, soldiers and military equipment, poached excavations for private gain.

The best known of Dayan's "collecting expeditions" - and one he wasn't able to deny - occurred near Tel Aviv in 1968. There, he was badly injured in a landslide while robbing a burial cave and hospitalized for three weeks, recalls Raz Kletter, an Israeli archaeologist who researched Dayan's exploits for a 2003 article in the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures.

Nor did he limit his activities to Israel proper, taking advantage of his positions in the military to extend his trajectory to territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Dayan served as defense minister from 1967 until 1974.

"Probably most of Dayan's looting was done in areas conquered after 1967 and under his own military rule," Kletter wrote. "There he faced no democratic institutions to oppose him."

Dayan's extensive collection, which he housed in his Tel Aviv-area home, included pottery, stone heads, ossuaries, Byzantine gravestones and Roman sarcophagi, antiquities experts said.

He also acknowledged having an ancient Egyptian stone slab ferried by Israeli military helicopter from Egypt's Sinai desert during Israel's 1956 Sinai war, which he commanded as military chief of staff, Kletter wrote in his article. That and other finds were later returned to the site "to avoid an international scandal," Kletter noted.

Dahari recounted that Dayan would also shop for antiquities in the markets of the Old City of Jerusalem or in Jaffa near Tel Aviv.

"If he saw something, first he would tell the bodyguards, 'Take it and put it in my car,'" Dahari said. "Then he would go to the storeowner and ask, 'How much did it cost you?' Not how much does it cost, but how much did it cost you.

"Then, if the seller said, for instance, 100 liras ... he would take out 10 checks, and write 10 lira on each," Dahari said, referring to Israel's now-defunct currency. "The storeowners never redeemed them, but sold them at 100 liras apiece to tourists for his signature. Moshe Dayan never paid a penny."

Although antiquities experts and ordinary citizens questioned Dayan's activities, at times filing complaints, the military hero turned lawmaker and Cabinet minister was never investigated.

"He was so strong that people refused to complain or testify against him; or the allegations were abolished on some irrelevant pretense," Kletter wrote. In some cases, he was protected by the statute of limitations.

"He was above the law because he was Moshe Dayan," Dahari said. "The law didn't interest him."

After Dayan's death, his wife, Rachel, sold his collection to the Israel Museum for $1 million, he said.

Critics have faulted the state for first allowing Dayan to plunder, then paying top dollar for his collection of plundered finds.

Rachel Dayan "sold it, and that's her business," said Yael Dayan, whose mother was Moshe Dayan's first wife, Ruth. "If I were in her place, I would have donated it."