The Society for Biblical Literature (SBL), along with the American Oriental Society (AOS) and the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), endorse a proposal to establish a school in Palestine as an overseas research center. SBL initiates the concept in a circular in 1895, which gains the pledge of 11 institutions.
Under the name the “American School of Oriental Study and Research in Palestine,” the organization was born.
Since the end of the 19th century, the American Schools of Oriental Research has been at the forefront of American research efforts in the Near East. Founded in 1900, the American School of Oriental Study and Research in Palestine established its first headquarters in a hotel room in Jerusalem. Charles C. Torrey, an Old Testament scholar at Yale University, served as director for that year. Twenty-one colleges, universities, and theological schools chartered ASOR, while three organizations (the Archaeological Institute of America, the Society for Biblical Literature, and the American Oriental Society) helped oversee its creation.
Under Torrey's leadership, ASOR’s first excavation began at the tombs at Sidon, and its first grant was awarded.
In 1906, under Annual Director Benjamin Bacon, the school's headquarters were moved outside the Old City to 6 Ethiopia Street.
Image: Doorway of house at 6 Ethiopia Street, Jaffa.
In 1908, another move was made to a house opposite the German Archaeological Institute. In 1909, Director Robert Harper purchased land for the building in Jerusalem. He purchased a vacant property between the Ecole Biblique and Saint George's Cathedral to provide for a permanent residence for the institute. However, the outbreak of World War I in 1914 and the Ottoman Empire’s entry into the war led the director, James Montgomery, to close the school. The school continued to rent space through 1924.
Excavations were underway at Samaria with George Reisner at the helm. Reisner introduced his pioneering excavation and recording techniques to Palestinian archaeology, beginning systematic excavations in the region.
ASOR reopened in Jerusalem and published the first volume of the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (BASOR); an interdisciplinary English-language forum for scholars worldwide in subjects relating to the archaeology and history of the ancient Near Eastern world. The first Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research and the second volume of BASOR were published that same year, a propitious beginning for the young school.
William Foxwell Albright was appointed ASOR’s first long-term director in Jerusalem.
Image: The Jerusalem property in 1920 on which the ASOR School was later constructed.
ASOR is formally incorporated in the U.S. and James A. Montgomery of the University of Pennsylvania is named its first President. With the imminent addition of another school in Baghdad, the organization changes its name to “American Schools of Oriental Research.”
Under Albright's leadership, archaeological and other activities expanded, and he secured the school's future in ways that had not been possible before. In 1922, he led the school's fellows in excavations at Tell el-Fûl, just north of Jerusalem. The following year, he directed work at the four mounds of Malhah, southwest of Jerusalem. During this time, one of the senior fellows at the school, Melvin Grove Kyle—President of Xenia Theological Seminary (later Pittsburgh Theological Seminary)—formed a close friendship with Albright.
Kyle raised funds to support another modest excavation project, and together they chose the site of Tell Beit Mirsim. Between 1926 and 1932, they conducted four excavation seasons at the site. Thanks to Albright's scholarly skill, the project became one of the period’s most significant excavations and established his reputation as a leading archaeologist. He published the final reports in the ASOR Annuals, setting new standards for the field, particularly in ceramic chronology.
ASOR adopts the Egyptian ankh hieroglyph, the symbol of life, containing within it the Babylonian dinger, the eight-pointed star formed by four cuneiform wedges, signifying deity.
ASOR's second center, the Baghdad School, is founded.
Construction on building completed and ASOR moves into the facility. Later named the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, this facility would house 10 rooms for students and visiting scholars.
Image 1: The front of the Albright building and left wing nearing completion.
Image 2: The rear of the building with unfinished right wing in the foreground.
Seasons start at Tell Beit Mirsim, chosen by Albright and senior fellow Melvin Grove Kyle, as an initially modest excavation project that turned into one of the most significant excavations of the period.
Image: Tell Beit Mirsim staff in 1932: Standing (left to right) William Gad (surveyor), Cyrus Gordon (ASOR Baghdad), Henry Detweiler (architect), John Bright (Union Seminary), W.F. Stinespring (Yale University), Rev. Eugene Liggit (Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminar), Rev. Vernon Broyles (Union Seminary), Aage Schmidt (Danish Shiloh Expedition), Front row (left to right) James L. Kelso (Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary), W.F. Albright (Johns Hopkins University), Melvin G. Kyle (Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary), Nelson Glueck (ASOR).
Nelson Glueck succeeds Millar Burrows as Annual Director of ASOR.
Image: Millar Burrows with ASOR vehicle in Jerusalem, July 1936.
The Biblical Archaeologist was inaugurated by G.E. Wright as its editor. Its first editorial board consisted of W.F. Albright (Johns Hopkins), Millar Burrows (Yale), and E.A. Speiser (University of Pennsylvania). It was to be published quarterly at an initial subscription price of 50 cents per year.
Journal of Cuneiform Studies is founded by Director Albrecht Goetze.
The Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts are brought to ASOR for identification and authentication.
Image: Dead Sea Scrolls research was to occupy many scholars at the Jerusalem School through to the end of the century. Prominent among these is John Strugnell of Harvard University, seen here studying the ancient text 4Q394 as an Albright Institute National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow in 1981-2.
During the Suez conflict in 1956, staff were evacuated from the Jerusalem School but returned shortly thereafter.
ASOR scholars were involved in the long-term excavation at Sardis, in western Türkiye.
In 1965, the ASOR presidency and leadership in the U.S. passed from the hands of A. Henry Detweiler to G. Ernest Wright of Harvard. The new ASOR office was located in Boston at Harvard Semitic Museum.
The school in Jerusalem, which was in peril of being sold amid political and military tensions in the city, is determined as unsold as the buyer’s check to Annual Director John Marks was never cashed and the buyer had stopped payment. The property was turned over to the American Consulate General for temporary use while the ASOR Executive Committee contemplated the property’s future.
The Six-Day War in 1967 prompted the evacuation of the Jerusalem school yet again. The war left the Jerusalem School under Israeli control. The American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR) was founded in 1968 in Amman, Jordan, to allow American scholars access to other countries in the region. In 1968, ASOR's operations moved to the U.S. Program activities also continued in Jerusalem at the newly named W. F. Albright Institute, but the focus was radically altered. Casey was succeeded as director by David Noel Freedman in 1968-1970 and by Robert J. Bull in 1970-1971, after which William Dever began a four-year term (1971-1975). Freedman and Dever had both been involved in major excavation projects in Israel proper, Freedman at Ashdod and Dever at Gezer, so connections were quickly reestablished within Israeli professional circles. At the same time, some limited follow-up work from the School was continued at West Bank sites including Shechem, Ai, and Taanach, where Americans had previously excavated. The decade of new field projects commenced at Caesarea, Tell Jemmeh, Tell Hesi, Tell Halif (Lahav), Khirbet Shema, Meiron, Tell Anafa, and elsewhere.
The Baghdad School closes due to political tensions and becomes the Committee on Mesopotamian Civilization.
ASOR has three affiliated overseas research centers, 92 member institutions, and more than 1,500 individual members. We communicate news of the latest research findings through our journals, books, lectures, and annual meeting. We award dozens of fellowships for fieldwork in the eastern Mediterranean each year. Today, we continue to build on more than a century of work and follow our historic mission of promoting scholarship on and understanding of the eastern Mediterranean and Near East. ASOR is a scholar-directed, non-profit society including individual members and a consortium of institutions dedicated to Near Eastern archaeology. ASOR continues to be a dynamic group of professionals with an unparalleled record of success in reawakening the Middle East’s past, making unearthed antiquities speak eloquently.
ASOR’S MISSION STATEMENT
Founded in 1900, ASOR is a non-profit 501©3 organization dedicated to the archaeology of the Near East. ASOR’s mission is to initiate, encourage, and support research into, and public understanding of, the peoples and cultures of the Near East from the earliest times.
By fostering original research, archaeological excavations, and exploration. By encouraging scholarship in the basic languages, cultural histories, and traditions of the Near Eastern world. By promoting the educational goals of Near Eastern studies disciplines and advocating high academic standards in teaching and interdisciplinary research. By maintaining an active program of timely dissemination of research results and conclusions. And by offering educational opportunities in Near Eastern history and archaeology to undergraduates and graduates in North American colleges and universities, and through outreach activities to the general public
A new center is created in Amman, Jordan, to allow scholars to continue working on both sides of the Jordan River. The center is incorporated under the named the American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR).
ASOR starts its sponsorship of a series of excavations, financed with U.S. federal funds, at Punic and Roman Carthage. ASOR sponsors a new center nearby, the Carthage Research Institute, as a base for the excavation and survey work at the site.
The Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI) in Nicosia was formally established.
Image: The CAARI building, with its flowering “Bottle Brush” tree in the foreground, and the “Camel’s Foot” tree behind.
Establishment of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC) was led by Elizabeth Moynihan, who would become ASOR’s first chair of the board of trustees (1984-1986).
Image: ASOR Trustee Elizabeth Moynihan (left) with President James A. Sauer in front of the new ASOR administration office in Philadelphia in 1983.
William G. Dever, former director of the AIAR in Jerusalem, became ASOR’s Second Vice President for Archaeological Policy, and expanded ASOR-affiliated projects through a program that pursued higher standards of timely publication and fieldwork.
Image: In the summer of 1984, the ASOR CAP tour of Middle East excavations visited 45 field projects in Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Cyprus. At the Tall al-Umeiri base camp, tour members examine the object registration system with Madaba Plains Project Director Lawrence Geraty (left) and Umeiri Registrar E.E. Platt (center). Tour members (left to right) include AIAR Vice President Carol Meyers, ASOR First Vice President Eric Meyers, ASOR Second Vice President William Dever and ASOR President James Sauer.
