2026 LIST OF APPROVED SESSIONS AND WORKSHOPS
Chicago & Hybrid: November 18-21
ASOR’s 2026 Annual Meeting will take place November 18-21 at the Hilton Chicago. The meeting in November will be hybrid with both virtual and in-person participation in a similar format to the 2025 Annual Meeting.
All sessions and workshops will be able to include both in-person presentations in Chicago and virtual presentations online via Zoom. This is subject to change as the meeting develops.
Paper and workshop presentation proposals may be submitted per the instructions on the Call for Papers from February 15 – March 15.
ASOR Standing Sessions
- Ancient Climate and Environmental Archaeology
- Ancient Inscriptions
- Approaches to Dress and the Body
- Archaeology and Biblical Studies
- Archaeology and History of Feasting and Foodways
- Archaeology of Anatolia
- Archaeology of Arabia
- Archaeology of the Black Sea and the Caucasus
- Archaeology of the Late Antique and Byzantine Near East
- Archaeology of Cyprus
- Archaeology of Egypt
- Archaeology of Iran
- Archaeology of Islamic Society
- Archaeology of Israel
- Archaeology of Jordan
- The Archaeology of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq
- Archaeology of Lebanon
- Archaeology of Mesopotamia
- Archaeology of the Near East: Bronze and Iron Ages
- Archaeology of the Near East: The Classical Periods
- Archaeology of the Southern Levant
- Archaeology of Syria
- Art Historical Approaches to the Near East
- Bioarchaeology in the Near East
- Cultural Heritage: Preservation, Presentation, and Management
- Digital Archaeology and History
- Gender in the Ancient Near East
- History of Archaeology
- Interdisciplinary Approaches to Seals, Sealing Practices, and Administration
- Isotopic Investigations in the Ancient Near East and Caucasus
- Landscapes of Settlement in the Ancient Near East
- Maritime Archaeology
- Pop Culture and Near Eastern Archaeology
- Prehistoric Archaeology
- Reports on Current Excavations—ASOR Affiliated and Non-ASOR Affiliated
- Recent Work in the Archaeological Sciences
- Theoretical and Anthropological Approaches to the Near East
Member-Organized Sessions and Workshops Approved for the 2026 Academic Program
*Sessions (and workshops, when feasible) will be offered as part of the hybrid program with virtual and in-person participation unless otherwise noted. This is subject to change as the meeting develops.
- Abusing the Past, Responding to the Present: Pseudo-Archaeologies and the Public Trust
- Africa in the Ancient World
- The Age of Transitions: Imperial Successions and Local Transformations in the First Millennium BCE
- Ancient Languages and Linguistics
- Ancient Mesopotamia – A Social History. Methods for Reconstructing Lived Worlds
- Archaeologies of Memory
- Archaeology of Religion in the Levant during the Second and First Millennia BCE
- Archaeology of Rural Communities: Landscape Approaches
- The Archaeology of the Kingdom of Judah
- The Archaeology of the Lands of Alalakh
- Art, Archaeology, and History of Central Asia
- Biblical Texts in Cultural Context
- Bring in the Crowds (Workshop)
- Computational Methods and Simulations in the Near Eastern Archaeology
- Digging Up Data: A Showcase of Ongoing Digital Scholarship Projects (Workshop)
- Dwelling in the Past: Scales of Settlement, Time, and Society in Anatolia
- The Field Still Is Not Safe: Confronting Cultures of Harassment on Archaeological Field Projects (Workshop)
- Flipping the Script: Museum Reinterpretations in Practice (Workshop)
- The Future of Ancient West Asia Collections in Museums (Workshop)
- Gardens of the Mediterranean, the Ancient Near East and Beyond
- How to Prepare for When Disaster Strikes (Workshop)
- Intangible Cultural Heritage: Bridging the Past and the Present
- Interconnectivity and Exchange with Northeast Africa
- Jerusalem and the Archaeology of a Sacred City
- The LCP Handbook Series: Eastern Sigillata A (ESA)
- The Medieval Village (Workshop)
- Negotiating Elites: Strategies of Elite Practices and Consumption as Reactions to Political Dynamics
- New Approaches to Ancient Animals
- Petra and the Kingdom & Influences of the Nabataeans
- Provenance and Middle Eastern Collections
- Publishing Scholarship of the Ancient World in the Mid 21st Century (Workshop)
- The Region of Aqaba in La Longue Durée (Workshop)
- Re-imagining the Final Excavation Report: Exploring New Approaches to Publishing Archaeological Data (Workshop)
- The Sampling Trilemma: Balancing Conservation, Curation, and Research (Workshop)
- Teaching with The Ancient Near East Today (Workshop)
- Tell en-Naṣbeh at 100 Years: Past, Present, and Future
- Towards a Working Ancient Economy
- Use and Reuse of Tombs in the Theban Necropolis
- Urbanism and Polities in the Bronze and Iron Age Levant
- Violence in the Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible (Workshop)
- What’s Up With That?: Museum Objects that Defy Interpretation (Workshop)
Descriptions of Sessions & Workshops
Sessions and workshops will be offered as part of the hybrid program with virtual and in-person participation unless otherwise noted. This is subject to change as the meeting develops.
ASOR Standing Sessions
Ancient Climate and Environmental Archaeology
Session Chairs: Brita Lorentzen, University of Georgia; Kathleen Forste, Brown University
Description: This session accepts papers that examine past human resource (flora and fauna) uses and human/environment interactions in the ancient Near East.
Session Chairs: Andrew Burlingame, Wheaton College; Jana Matuszak, University of Chicago
Description: This session focuses on epigraphic material from the ancient Middle East, North Africa, and the eastern Mediterranean. Proposals may include new readings of previously published inscriptions or preliminary presentations of new epigraphic discoveries, as well as submissions that situate written artifacts in their social contexts and/or engage broader theoretical questions.
Approaches to Dress and the Body
Session Chairs: Krystal Pierce, Brigham Young University; Sarah Costello, University of Houston – Clear Lake
Description: Traces of practices relating to dress and the body are present in many ways in the archaeological, textual, and visual records of the ancient world, from the physical remains of dressed bodies, to images depicting them, to texts describing such aspects as textile production and sumptuary customs. Previous scholarship has provided useful typological frameworks but has often viewed these objects as static trappings of status and gender. The goal of this session is to illuminate the dynamic role of dress and the body in the performance and construction of aspects of individual and social identity, and to encourage collaborative dialogue within the study of dress and the body in antiquity.
Archaeology and Biblical Studies
Session Chair: Stephen Cook, Virginia Theological Seminary; Alison Acker Gruseke, Williams College
Description: This session is meant to explore the intersections between History, Archaeology, and the Judeo-Christian Bible and related texts.
Archaeology and History of Feasting and Foodways
Session Chair: Kara Larson, University of Michigan
Description: The Archaeology and History of Feasting and Foodways session addresses the production, distribution, and consumption of food and drink. Insofar as foodways touch upon almost every aspect of the human experience—from agricultural technology, to economy and trade, to nutrition and cuisine, to the function of the household and its members, to religious acts of eating and worship—we welcome submissions from diverse perspectives and from the full spectrum of our field’s geography and chronology.
Session Chairs: Nancy Amelia Highcock, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford; Oya Topçuoğlu, Northwestern University
Description: This session is open to research on the archaeology of Anatolia, which may include, but is not limited to: current fieldwork, material and visual culture, and new theoretical and methodological approaches in the wider field. Papers that address current cultural heritage initiatives and public engagement are especially welcome and we encourage contributions from colleagues in the early stages of their career.
Session Chair: Jennifer Swerida, University of Pennsylvania
Description: This session seeks contributions covering a wide spatio-temporal swath from the Paleolithic to the present centered on the Arabian Peninsula but including neighboring areas such as the Horn of Africa, East Africa, and South Asia. Contributions might be tied to the region thematically (e.g. pastoral nomadism, domesticates, or agricultural strategies), methodologically (e.g. Landscape archaeology, or satellite imagery technologies) or through ancient contacts such as trade along the Red Sea, Persian/Arabian Gulf or Indian Ocean.
Archaeology of the Black Sea and the Caucasus
Session Chairs: Michael Zimmerman, Bridgewater State University; Misha Elashvili, Bridgewater State University
Description: This session is open to papers that concern the archaeology of the Black Sea and Eurasia.
Archaeology of the Late Antique and Byzantine Near East
Session Chair: Mark Schuler, Concordia University
Description: This session invites papers exploring fieldwork, material culture, and/or theoretical/methodological perspectives on the transformational phase of the Roman Empire (Late Antique) or the empire centered in Constantinople (Byzantine) that emerged after the geopolitical, social, and religious changes of the seventh century. The session particularly seeks papers that look beyond modern national borders.
Session Chairs: Kevin Fisher, University of British Columbia; Catherine Kearns, University of Chicago
Description: This session focuses on current archaeological research in Cyprus from prehistory to the modern period. Topics may include reports on archaeological fieldwork and survey, artifactual studies, as well as more focused methodological or theoretical discussions. Papers that address current debates and issues are especially welcome.
Session Chairs: Danielle Candelora, College of the Holy Cross; Jeffrey Newman, University of California, Los Angeles
Description: This session is open to research on all areas related to the archaeology of Egypt, including current and past fieldwork, material culture, textual sources, religious or social aspects, international relations, art, and history.
Session Chair: Kyle Gregory Olson, Washington University in St. Louis
Description: This session explores the archaeology of Iran.
Archaeology of Islamic Society
Session Chairs: Ian W. N. Jones, New York University; Tasha Vorderstrasse, University of Chicago
Description: This session explores the archaeology of Islamic society.
Session Chair: Zachary Thomas, Australian Catholic University; Charles Wilson, University of Chicago
Description: This session seeks submissions in all areas of the archaeology of Israel: Current fieldwork and discoveries; new insights on past excavations; history, policy and methodology of the archaeology of Israel.
Session Chairs: Monique Roddy, Walla Walla University; Craig Tyson, Deyouville; and Stephanie Selover, University of Washington
Description: This session is open to any research from any period relating to the archaeology of Jordan. The session is open to papers on recent fieldwork, synthetic analyses of multiple field seasons, as well as any area of current archaeological research focused on Jordan.
The Archaeology of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq
Session Chairs: Petra M. Creamer, Emory University; Elise J. Laugier, Utah State University
Description: This session highlights research on all aspects of history and archaeology focused on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and adjacent areas.
Session Chairs: Hanan Charaf, Lebanese University; Nadine Panayot, American University of Beirut; Helen Dixon, East Carolina University
Description: This session is focused on current archaeological research in Lebanon, including the results of fieldwork and/or other research projects. It welcomes papers on any aspect of Lebanon’s archaeology and cultural heritage, regardless of the period. Additionally, the session invites contributions addressing the critical need for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage sites and museums in Lebanon, particularly in light of recent crises and emerging threats.
Session Chair: Lucas Proctor, J.W. Goethe University Frankfurt; Glynnis Maynard, Cambridge University
Description: This session seeks submissions in all areas illuminated by archaeology that relate to the material, social, and religious culture, history and international relations, and texts of ancient Mesopotamia.
Archaeology of the Near East: Bronze and Iron Ages
Session Chair: J. P. Dessel, University of Tennessee
Description: This session is open to papers that concern the Near East in the Bronze and Iron Ages.
Archaeology of the Near East: The Classical Periods
Session Chairs: Simeon Ehrlich, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Robyn Le Blanc, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Description: This session is open to papers that concern the Near East in the Classical periods.
Archaeology of the Southern Levant
Session Chair: Sarah Richardson, North Carolina State University
Description: The focus of this session is on current archaeological fieldwork in the southern Levant.
Session Chair: Kathryn Grossman, North Carolina State University
Description: This session is concerned with all areas of Syria that are illuminated by archaeology.
These include a discussion of recent archaeological excavations, history, religion, society, and texts.
Art Historical Approaches to the Near East
Session Chairs: Bianca Hand, University of California, Davis; Miriam Said, Tufts University
Description: This session welcomes submissions that present innovative analyses of any facet of Near Eastern artistic production or visual culture.
Bioarchaeology in the Near East
Session Chairs: Sarah Schrader, Leiden University; Rose Campbell, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Luskin Center for History and Policy
Description: This session welcomes papers that present bioarchaeological research conducted in the Near East. Papers that pose new questions and/or explore new methods are encouraged.
Cultural Heritage: Preservation, Presentation, and Management
Session Chairs: Jessica R. Robkin, University of Central Florida; Nancy Serwint, Arizona State University; Barbara Anglisz, Independent Researcher
Description: This session explores theory and practice in the areas of archaeological site and collections conservation, presentation, education, and management. Discussion of community-engaged projects is especially welcome.
Digital Archaeology and History
Session Chairs: Leigh Anne Lieberman, Princeton University; Matthew Howland, Wichita State University
Description: This session will present papers that describe significant advances in or interesting applications of the digital humanities. Topics may include public digital initiatives, 3D scanning and modelling, spatial analysis (GIS and remote sensing), social network analysis, textual analysis, textual geographies, digital storytelling, data management etc. In addition to methodological topics, the session also welcomes papers that focus on broader debates in the digital humanities.
Gender in the Ancient Near East
Session Chairs: Avary Taylor, Yale University; Kelsie Ehalt, University of Michigan
Description: This session pertains to on-going archaeological, art historical, and/or anthropological work and research into the construction and expression of gender in antiquity, ancient women/womanhood, masculinities (hegemonic and otherwise), Queer Theory, and the engendering of ancient objects and spaces.
Session Chairs: Leticia R. Rodriguez, University of Houston; Caitlin Clerkin, Harvard Art Museums
Description: Papers in this session examine the history of the disciplines of biblical archaeology and Near Eastern archaeology.
Interdisciplinary Approaches to Seals, Sealing Practices, and Administration
Session Chair: Pınar Durgun, The Morgan Library and Museum
Description: This session invites submissions touching on any aspect of glyptic studies. Papers may approach seals and sealings as object, text, and/or image, and rely on multiple strands of evidence. Applied methodologies from a variety of disciplines are encouraged. While seals and sealings form the core subject of investigation for this session, papers that rely on a wide range of comparative objects are welcome. Glyptic-related topics covering the full geographical and chronological horizon of the ancient Near East are considered
Isotopic Investigations in the Ancient Near East and Caucasus
Session Chairs: Kara Larson, University of Michigan
Description: Biogeochemical research on the human condition in the ancient past is a rapidly growing field. Isotopic investigations targeting questions about climate change, human mobility, animal trade, herding strategies, crop management, diet and subsistence, and infant-feeding practices in the broader ancient Near East have increased in number over the past decade. However, biogeochemical techniques and understandings continue to develop and be re-evaluated, necessitating venues for scholarly exchange, comparison, and discussion. The objective of this session is to encourage a dialogue among researchers conducting and using biogeochemical techniques in the region, integrating analytical methods with social and historical questions. In consecutive years the session will incorporate the results of most recent and ongoing research in the region with methodological advances in techniques and approaches, in tandem with the developing agenda of the “Archaeological Isotopes Working Group” Business Meetings.
Landscapes of Settlement in the Ancient Near East
Session Chair: George Pierce, Brigham Young University
Description: This session brings together scholars investigating regional-scale problems of settlement history and archaeological landscapes across the ancient Near East. Research presented in the session is linked methodologically through the use of regional survey, remote sensing, and environmental studies to document ancient settlements, communication routes, field systems and other evidence of human activity that is inscribed in the landscape. Session participants are especially encouraged to offer analyses of these regional archaeological data that explore political, economic, and cultural aspects of ancient settlement systems as well as their dynamic interaction with the natural environment.
Session Chairs: Tzveta Manolova, Université Libre de Bruxelles; Traci Andrews, Texas A&M
Description: This session welcomes papers that concern marine archaeology in terms of methods, practices, and case studies in areas throughout the Near East.
Pop Culture and Near Eastern Archaeology
Session Chairs: Michael Zimmerman, Bridgewater State University; Debra Trusty, University of Iowa
Description: The papers in this session represent a multidisciplinary discussion of approaches to the study of archaeology of the Near East with a focus on archaeological and historical education through storytelling – movies, television, digital and analog games (“archaeogaming”), immersive experiences, escape rooms, virtual reality, and in news media. This session aims to present a diverse array of topics about archaeology and pop culture, including stereotypes, misconceptions, and pseudoarchaeology in media, as well as more positive interactions between Near Eastern archaeology and media, including the use of tools found in pop culture for research, education, community engagement, and heritage management.
Session Chairs: Austin “Chad” Hill, University of Pennsylvania; Blair Heidkamp, University of Texas, Austin
Description: This session is open to papers that concern the prehistoric Near East, particularly in the Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Chalcolithic.n.
Recent Work in the Archaeological Sciences
Session Chairs: Alyssa V. Pietraszek, University of Haifa; Hannah M. Herrick; Simon Fraser University
Description: This session welcomes papers that apply one or more archaeological sciences, broadly defined, to investigate aspects of the ancient world.
Reports on Current Excavations—ASOR Affiliated & Non-ASOR Affiliated
Session Chair: TBD – Open Call for Session Chairs: Application Form
Description: This session is for excavation reports from projects with or without ASOR/CAP affiliation
Theoretical and Anthropological Approaches to the Near East
Session Chair: Matthew Winter, University of Arizona
Description: This session welcomes papers that deal explicitly with theoretical and anthropological approaches to ancient Near Eastern and eastern Mediterranean art and archaeology.
Member-Organized Sessions and Workshops approved for the 2026 Academic Program
*Sessions (and workshops, when feasible) will be offered as part of the hybrid program with virtual and in-person participation unless otherwise noted. This is subject to change as the meeting develops.
Abusing the Past, Responding to the Present: Pseudo-Archaeologies and the Public Trust
Session Chairs: Leah Nieman, Brown University; Sandra Blakely, Emory University
Description: Though the practice of archaeology is dedicated to the production of knowledge about the past, all too often archaeological data are used to spin narratives that reveal more about the motivations of their modern creators. These narratives—from ancient aliens to lost cities, prehistoric technologies, and apocalyptic predictions—are not innocent: they direct the material traces of the past to a wide range of ends, including nationalist ideologies, racist, sexist, and ableist agendas, and conspiracy theories. An engagement with these misappropriations allows us to reflect upon the responsibility of ancient studies fields for public education, conservation, and indigenous rights. This session seeks to go beyond merely identifying such abuses to foster a discussion of how we confront them as scholars, educators, and students of history, and how we might redirect the cultural energy they generate to a renewed enthusiasm, in the public sphere, for scientific, methodologically rigorous, and critically transparent explorations of the material remains of ancient cultures.
This session invites contributions that address the impact of harmful tropes in (pseudo)archaeology and offer insights into approaches that scholars are using to address them. We define “abuses of the past” broadly and welcome presentations highlighting any form of engagement with such rhetoric, such as classroom pedagogy, social media campaigns, and research into archaeogaming. Together, we will consider what responsibility academic have for confronting secondary (ab)uses of their work and begin to build a toolkit for doing so.
Session Chairs: Brenda J. Baker, Arizona State University; Michele R. Buzon, Purdue University
Description: This session, co-sponsored by the American-Sudanese Archaeological Research Center, builds on the successful Reintegrating Africa in the Ancient World workshop. This session allows paper contributions on the archaeology, bioarchaeology, and history of northeast Africa, engaging with a specific theme each year to highlight the rich prehistory and history of ancient Sudan and the greater northeast Africa region. The session welcomes work on a range of ancient northeast African cultures, including but not limited to Nubia (Kush), Aksum, Garamantes, and Egypt. Themes addressed are designed to have relevance in the modern world.
In the first year (2024), we consider conflict and its consequences in both the past and present. What evidence is there for conflict in the region through time? What impact did/does conflict have on the local populace? What is the variability in interactions? The second year (2025) focuses on mobility and migration into, within, and out of Africa. Different methods for reconstructing population movements, such as funerary behavior, artifact distributions, paleogenomics, and isotope analyses, are considered. How might various methods be integrated to investigate identity? What circumstances may result in different mobility patterns? The third year (2026) emphasizes identity and community through time. How does identity manifest through time? What factors affect identity and formation of communities? How does archaeology contribute to community and identity formation in the present?
Ancient Languages and Linguistics
Session Chairs: Victoria Almansa-Villatoro, Yale University; Brendan Hainline, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Description: This session invites papers engaging in a broad spectrum of topics related to ancient languages and linguistics. Submissions may focus on grammatical, lexicological, or phonological evidence, or draw from a range of textual and archaeological sources. We also encourage contributions that move beyond traditional linguistic analysis to explore the meaning and function of language in its ancient contexts. Regardless of the chosen approach, presentations should use language as a medium to better our understanding of the people who spoke it in ancient times.
Language and Place (2025) In this first of two thematically paired years, we especially invite submissions exploring the interaction between language and place. We welcome methodologies and approaches that account for the location of a language in space, such as dialect geography and wave models of language change. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, geographic dialects, dialect continuums, contact and borrowing between neighboring languages, areal features, etymologies of toponyms, and cross-cultural communication and the use of diplomatic languages.
Language and People (2026) In this second of two thematically paired years, we invite submissions from scholars exploring how the study of language can illuminate the lives, experiences, and relationships of people across the ancient world. We welcome methodological and theoretical approaches that integrate insights from linguistics, social theory, semiotics, and communication. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, power asymmetry in communication, the creation of prestige and identity dialects, the use of language to transmit emotions, reconstructing worldviews and discourses through semantic ranges and etymologies, persuasive rhetoric and narrative storytelling, speaking and the power of the word, the role of body language, and theoretical approaches to the materiality of language.
The Age of Transitions: Imperial Successions and Local Transformations in the First Millennium BCE
Session Chairs: Roi Sabar, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Avraham Mashiach, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Description: The rise of imperial hegemony during the first millennium BCE stands as one of the most transformative phenomena in the history of the Ancient Near East, profoundly reshaping the political, economic, and socio-religious landscapes of the region. Initiated by the Neo-Assyrian expansion in the 8th century BCE, this era witnessed the dissolution of long-standing local polities and their integration into vast, centralized imperial framework. This trajectory was subsequently maintained and further extended through a sequence of imperial successions, as authority was assumed by the Neo-Babylonian, Achaemenid, Macedonian, Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires. As empires rose and fell, each transition brought about a complex “changing of hands” that manifested differently across diverse regions and populations.
How did these shifts impact the daily lives and material culture of subject populations? Where can we identify continuity in imperial administration versus radical breaks in policy? What were the drivers behind these shifts, and how did local strategies of negotiation manifest in the archaeological and historical record? This session seeks to address such questions and explore the mechanics of imperial transitions through both archaeological and historical lenses. We invite papers presenting diverse perspectives on this topic, including the presentation of recent archaeological discoveries, discussions of specific case studies, or broad synthetic treatments concerning the nature of imperial successions. The session encourages a diachronic approach, covering the Near Eastern and Levantine spheres from the late Iron Age through the Late Hellenistic period.
Ancient Mesopotamia – A Social History. Methods for Reconstructing Lived Worlds
Session Chairs: Steven Garfinkle, Western Washington University; Jana Mynářová, Charles University
Description: The “social history” of Mesopotamia is often reconstructed using data sets not primarily created to document everyday life, such as administrative archives, legal records, burial evidence, landscape surveys, and unevenly preserved urban contexts. This three-year session offers historians, archaeologists, philologists, and other specialists in ancient Mesopotamian society a methodological forum to present their approaches to reconstructing social relations, and life experiences from partial, biased, and multi-level evidence. Contributions emphasize method rather than the presentation of new textual corpora or archaeological excavations within three consecutive annual themes. We welcome contributions that integrate textual and material datasets, use replicable digital or quantitative workflows, or demonstrate how theories alter the definition of, and approaches to, evidence and explanation. Each year will conclude with a discussion aimed at identifying transferable tools, common pitfalls, and opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration within Mesopotamian social history.
Year 1 From Archives to Actors
The first year will focus on methodological approaches to transitioning from cuneiform documents to social actors, while avoiding the merging of institutions into biographies. Contributions will emphasize prosopography and record-keeping as analytical procedures, addressing topics such as how identity is determined in cases of homonyms, patronyms, titles, and mobility; how households, work groups, and networks of dependencies are reconstructed from administrative and legal records; and how scribal routines, archival practices, and documentation biases shape what can be known. The main goal is to reach clear and comparable conclusions across projects.
Year 2 From Spaces to Communities
Year 3 From Bodies and Things to Inequality and Life-Course
Session Chairs: Janling Fu, Harvard University; Tate Paulette, North Carolina State University
Description: This session seeks to continue building a robust, theoretically innovative, and empirically grounded conversation about the topic of memory across the sub-disciplines of ancient Near Eastern studies. During the previous three years, the session brought together specialists working all over the geographical and chronological spectrum to explore memory through three intertwined themes: space, place, and the built environment (2022); things, bodies, and assemblages (2023); and events, rituals, and routines (2024). Building on the momentum of these lively sessions and the connections that they fostered, the session will now approach memory through three new themes that, once again, seek to open up new perspectives and encourage dialogue among those working with archaeological, art historical, and/or written evidence. In the first year (2025), we consider memory as an instrument of inclusion and exclusion. For the second year (2026), we explore memory through the poles of stasis and change. In the third year (2027), we situate memory at the junction of trauma and healing. It is hoped that this continued, multi-disciplinary engagement with the topic of memory will encourage scholars of the ancient world to seek out and interrogate evidence for the complex intermingling of past and present and the many different modes of remembering and forgetting.
Archaeology of Religion in the Levant during the Second and First Millennia BCE
Session Chairs: Alice Mandell, Johns Hopkins University; Jeremy Smoak, University of California, Los Angeles
Description: The Archaeology of Religion in the Levant during the Second and First millennia BCE is aiming at fostering a scholarly stage for an interdisciplinary discussion on a wide range of approaches, perspectives, and interpretative frameworks of religion and its materiality. We encourage papers covering aspects of religion, such as belief, ritual, cosmology, and ontology, based on studies of material remains as well as their reflection in textual and pictorial sources.
Archaeology of Rural Communities: Landscape Approaches
Session Chair: Helena Roth, Humboldt University of Berlin
Description: Over the past two years, this session series has examined rural communities as key agents in long-term social and cultural processes. The first year focused on social structure and organization in rural communities, highlighting household composition, production systems, and local networks. The second year shifted attention to cultic practices, exploring ritual behavior, sacred spaces, and the role of religion in shaping rural life. Building on these foundations, the third session (2026) proposes a third thematic focus: a landscape approach to the archaeology of rural communities.
This session explores how rural communities were embedded within, shaped by, and actively transformed their landscapes. Rather than treating rural sites as isolated units or peripheral to urban centers, a landscape perspective emphasizes spatial organization, mobility, resource exploitation, visibility, and connectivity across micro-regions. Papers are invited that examine the dynamic relationships between communities and their physical, economic, and symbolic environments.
Chronologically, the session spans a broad temporal framework, from the strictly rural communities of the Early Bronze Age IA and the Intermediate Bronze Age, and into the increasingly hierarchical rural landscapes of the Iron Age. By bringing together case studies from different periods and regions, the session aims to illuminate continuities and transformations in rural social formations across the longue durée.
The Archaeology of the Kingdom of Judah
Session Chair: Michael G Hasel, Southern Adventist University
Description: Theme: Yosef Garfinkel has just retired as Yigael Yadin Chair in the Archaeology of Israel at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His impressive scientific work has led to 37 published volumes varying in scope archaeologically, chronologically, geographically, and thematically. In this session we wish to celebrate his recent magnum opus, “The Archaeology of the Kingdom of Judah” (SBL, 2025), which serves as a synthesis and state-of-the-art evaluation of the most current data on Judah. In this session, scholars and friends who have excavated in the region will examine, evaluate, or respond to this work reflecting on the selected subject from their own expertise and perspective.
The Archaeology of the Lands of Alalakh
Session Chairs: Murat Akar, Hatay Mustafa Kemal University; Müge Bulu, Ankara University; Tara Ingman, Koç University
Description: Connecting Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and the Levant, the Amuq Valley of Hatay holds a unique position in the archaeology and archaeological history of Western Asia thanks to the previous pioneering research conducted in the region. A growing body of diverse datasets over recent years from multi-proxy excavations and surveys centered around Tell Atchana, the capital city of the Kingdom of Mukish in the 2nd millennium BC, allows for a deeper exploration of state-building strategies and imperial practices in the valley and its environs. The projects studying the lands of Alalakh, gathered together in this session, expand beyond site-specific research to examine broader human-environment entanglements in the Bronze Age. Undisturbed sediment coring provides a comprehensive paleo-climate record, and the exposure of well-preserved late 3rd and early 2nd millennium contexts at Toprakhisar Höyük, in tandem with the exploration of monumental-scale ritual architecture at Kızılkaya Ridge, further expand this discussion into peripheral production and ritual landscape transformation. The recent excavations at Tell Atchana have discovered a new corpus of cuneiform tablets and seal impressions from a stratigraphically well-defined Late Bronze Age context. Advancements in research topics such as craft production, archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, and ancient genomic studies expand our understanding of the valley as a marginal zone of interactions defined not only through things in transit but also from the lense of human mobility. This session brings together a network of multi-disciplinary scholars to present a model of archaeological research that has the potential to shift the direction of Bronze Age studies onto new paths.
Art, Archaeology, and History of Central Asia
Session Chairs: Harrison Morin, University of Chicago; Mitchell Allen, University of California, Berkeley
Description: This session is dedicated to the presentation of new and ongoing research concerning the art, archaeology, and history of Central Asia from prehistory to the present. Contributions may focus on a wide array of topics geographically tied to the region such as the presentation of findings from a recent season of fieldwork, intensive artifactual, textual, and art historical studies, or broader methodological or theoretical discussion relating to Central Asia’s history and archaeology. Papers concerning the cultural heritage of Central Asian countries are especially welcome.
Biblical Texts in Cultural Context
Session Chairs: Christine Palmer, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary; Kristine Garroway, Hebrew Union College
Description: This session explores the biblical text within its ancient Near Eastern cultural and intellectual environment. Our aim is to provide a forum for collaboration and scholarship across disciplines that contextualizes the Bible in the broader world of the ancient Near East through the three overarching themes of memory construction, ethnicity and identity formation, and biblical ritual. We invite contributions that utilize a variety of approaches — archaeological (material culture), philological (comparative literature), and iconographic (visual exegesis) — to explore biblical texts as cultural products and ‘textual artifacts’ of ancient Israel. A secondary aim is to pursue publication of the themed papers presented in the three-year session.
The first year of this multi-year session will focus on memory construction. We welcome papers that consider social memory through texts and inscriptions, monumentality, and embodied practices. The topic for year two (2025) will be ethnicity and identity formation, inviting scholarship on conceptualizations of self and the other that intersect with the biblical text. The final year (2026) will be dedicated to biblical ritual in light of ritual spaces, personnel, and practices of the ancient Near East.
Bring in the Crowds (Workshop)
Session Chairs: Emily Miller Bonney, California State University Fullerton; Leann Pace, Wake Forest University
Description: Shane Bobrycki’s 2024 book, The Crowd in the Middle Ages, reveals previously invisible agglomerations of people across medieval Europe. Some were spontaneous (open) crowds and others formed for a specific purpose (closed). If Bobrycki found evidence for crowds at a time when the population was sparse and scattered, then we also ought to be able to identify the presence of crowds at other times in antiquity including the Bronze and Iron Ages in the greater Mediterranean Basin and beyond. Yet archaeological and historical reconstructions of ancient communities are often bereft of crowds even though elites relied on the presence of the populace to assert and maintain authority and wealth.
In this workshop we investigate evidence both material and textual for the presence of crowds. Possible questions include whether crowds were viewed positively or negatively? Does architecture indicate an interest in accommodating or constraining crowds of different types? Do painted or relief renderings inform our understanding of the presence and the roles of crowds? How did people regard or use crowding? Do crowds exist in the world of the dead, like Iron Age tombs or Early Bronze charnel houses?
We exclude depictions or textual references to groups of enslaved people or prisoners of war as these involved compelled presence instead of voluntary presence. Presenters should focus on a single image or text to make their case, and presentations will be limited to six minutes and six slides to enable robust discussion at the end of the workshop.
Computational Methods and Simulations in the Near Eastern Archaeology
Session Chair: Bülent Arıkan, Istanbul Technical University
Description: The use of computers has gone beyond the standard practices of digitizing data and assessing various patterns (i.e., land use, site distribution, etc.) in archaeology. Powerful computers are now widely available and ever-increasing volume of digital data available for researchers allow younger generations of archaeologists to develop new methods of research. This session aims to bring a new perspective into archaeological research by inviting contributors to discuss their methods and results in computational methods towards simulating archaeological societies of the Near East. The session welcomes purely methodological or theoretical topics, while it is always more interesting to the audience to observe how methods and theoretical frameworks are applied to case studies. The simulations may focus on human-environment interactions, land use patterns, adaptive decision-making, trade relationships, technological innovations, and so on.
Digging Up Data: A Showcase of Ongoing Digital Scholarship Projects (Workshop)
Session Chair: Melissa S. Cradic, Alexandria Archive Institute/Open Context/Badè Museum of Archaeology/University at Albany SUNY
Description: Digging Up Data: Turning an Idea into Digital Scholarship is a professional development and digital humanities mentorship program created and sponsored jointly by ASOR’s Early Career Scholars Committee and The Alexandria Archive Institute/Open Context. After four years of successfully supporting development of early career researchers’ digital projects, Digging Up Data is launching a new phase: this year’s program initiates a peer mentorship model for incoming researchers early in their projects and builds a sustainable working group for digital scholars in more advanced project stages. This next generation of the program fosters a network of program alumni whose projects represent a range of digital methodologies and approaches that have allowed them to develop skills and practices around data literacy and digital storytelling. These seasoned members partner with new cohort members who work on related projects to provide a strong network of support, accountability, and peer mentorship. This workshop showcases a range of new work being done in the digital humanities, focusing on the possibilities and challenges of entering into this ever-widening circle of practice. The session will highlight scholars’ individual projects, including the process of building and troubleshooting their projects; storytelling for and in collaboration with multiple publics; and the practical steps needed to realize an idea in an engaging and feasible way. Workshop participants will benefit from the panelists’ discussion of their projects’ successes and failures, have an opportunity to interrogate digital tools and methods, and be encouraged to network with other early career scholars interested in digital scholarship.
Dwelling in the Past: Scales of Settlement, Time, and Society in Anatolia
Session Chairs: N. İlgi Gerçek, Bilkent University; Müge Durusu-Tanrıöver, Temple University
Description: From the intimate rhythms of households to the complexities of urban centers and landscapes, studying habitation offers a multidimensional view of how communities engaged with one another and their surroundings across multiple temporal, spatial, and social scales. This session explores the concept of dwelling as an individual and/or collective practice that imbues spaces with meaning. Anatolia and its closely neighboring regions present rich bodies of evidence in the longue durée (from the Neolithic to the present) that inform broader discussions on the diverse relationships which past communities established with spaces, structures, monuments, places, and landscapes.
Planned as the second of a tripartite series in which we approach the theme of dwelling in a descending scale of analysis (from landscapes to towns and cities and to houses and neighborhoods), our 2026 session will focus on the towns, cities, and urban communities as agents of human perception, experience, and interaction.
For 2026, we invite archaeological and/or text- or image-based studies from the Neolithic to the present in Anatolia and closely neighboring regions that discuss towns and cities not as passive backdrops to human activity but as active, inhabited, and socially constructed urban environments. In addition to topics focusing on tangible and quantifiable practices such as economic production, urban planning, or resource extraction, we also wish to encourage contributions that tackle questions regarding urban communities, place-making, and ritual, which may be more ephemeral and resistant to measurement.
The Field Still Is Not Safe: Confronting Cultures of Harassment on Archaeological Field Projects (Workshop)
Session Chairs: Karlene Shippelhoute, Johns Hopkins University; Avary Taylor, Yale University
Description: In the five years since Barbara Voss’ 2021 articles “Documenting Cultures of Harassment in Archaeology” and “Disrupting Cultures of Harassment in Archaeology,” concerns about safety, accountability, and inclusion remain central to archaeological fieldwork. Recent data, such as Beth Alpert Nakhai’s 2024 Survey on Field Safety, demonstrate the persistence of harassment in field projects, highlighting the need for sustained, constructive dialogue. This workshop seeks to provide a structured forum for collective discussion on fieldwork practices in order to better address both persistent challenges and best practices.
The workshop’s first year (2026) will examine the conditions that shape safe or unsafe fieldwork environments. We invite papers that consider how harassment affects participation and retention in field projects; how power dynamics and reporting structures influence responses to misconduct; and how policies such as ASOR’s Policy on Professional Conduct and the Code of Conduct for Fieldwork, as well as policies of peer organizations, are implemented.
Building on the papers and discussion undertaken in the workshop’s first year, the second year (2027) will shift toward collaborative, solution-oriented discussion. Papers will suggest data-based approaches to strengthening accountability, proposing concrete measures for preventing harassment, and developing support for those affected by it.
This workshop, sponsored by the Carolyn Midkiff Strange Committee on Growth, Innovation, and Visibility (GIV), directly aligns with the GIV Committee’s commitments to advance ASOR’s rich legacy of research and to cultivate welcoming spaces for members, affiliates, and local partners.
Voss, Barbara L. “Documenting Cultures of Harassment in Archaeology: A Review and Analysis of Quantitative and Qualitative Research Studies.” American Antiquity 86, no. 2 (2021): 244–60.
Voss, Barbara L. “Disrupting Cultures of Harassment in Archaeology: Social-Environmental and Trauma-Informed Approaches to Disciplinary Transformation.” American Antiquity 86, no.3 (2021): 1–18.
Flipping the Script: Museum Reinterpretations in Practice (Workshop)
Session Chairs: Kiersten Neumann, University of Chicago; Katherine Blanchard, Penn Museum
Description: Public-facing museum displays are often reinterpreted and reimagined, but the behind-the-scenes work of scrutinizing and updating collections records often lags behind—by decades, if not centuries. An object entered as a “stand” in 1925 is likely still a “stand” in 2025, even when new scholarship, comparanda, and searchable digital collections support a more accurate identification (e.g., “incense burner” or “censer”) that earlier excavators or registrars could not recognize or may have overlooked.
This museum-professional–led workshop invites participants to share brief case studies that show how work with legacy collections can generate new knowledge and renewed access for research, teaching, and public engagement. The workshop will feature rapid 5–8 minute “micro-stories” (one object or small group) highlighting reidentification, context recovery, and documentation breakthroughs, alongside candid lessons learned when confronting missing metadata, outdated terminology, or institutional constraints.
The chairs will then facilitate a discussion on strategic, respectful ways to revise earlier interpretations while preserving an archival record of prior understandings and acknowledging earlier labor. Participants will exchange methods for documenting interpretive change in catalog systems and communicating it to audiences and stakeholders who may assume labels are written in stone, the museum working with a single authorative voice. We will also identify approaches for encouraging others to engage with the overflow of pieces in long-forgotten boxes and sealed cabinets. After the meeting, the chairs will synthesize contributions into a one-page “Legacy Collections Field Guide” for sharing in a future outlet.
The Future of Ancient West Asia Collections in Museums (Workshop)
Session Chair: Pınar Durgun, The Morgan Library and Museum
Description: Many departments and museums with ancient Western Asian collections are or will be going through renovations and interpretive updates. This workshop aims to bring together museum professionals and scholars to exchange ideas and brainstorm on the presentation of AWA collections in museums today and in the future. Following the discussions in the Museum Professionals roundtable and the Museums and Social Justice session at ASOR, the need for a working group around best practices and blindspots has become apparent. The idea of this workshop is to discuss issues that museums with AWA collections are concerned with including (but not limited to) languages, diverse perspectives, multivocality, labels, citation practices, accessibility, provenance, restitution and repatriation, community curation and engagement, interactivity, digital approaches, ethics, and political issues.
The first year of the workshop aims to discuss ongoing renovation projects and their outcomes. In the second year the discussion will center around what is missing and what can be done to recognize and respond to the blind spots in the presentation of collections. As a result of these two year discussions, in the third year (2026), the workshop will center big picture ideas on the future directions of AWA collections. The overall goal is to prepare a “AWA collections-museum best practices” document for ASOR consideration.
Gardens of the Mediterranean, the Ancient Near East, and Beyond
Session Chair: Rona Shani Evyasaf, Technion Israel
Description: Ancient gardens traditionally were a niche area of scholarly study, but the field has burgeoned in recent decades. With the current turn to environmental issues, labor, and lived experience, gardens and designed landscapes offer rich evidence for archaeological investigation, reexamination of texts, and the visual record. Earlier ASOR sessions introduced a wide scope of topics, offering insights into current directions.
This three-year arc focuses on three key topics at the leading edge of scholarship today, deepening thematic focus, and advancing new perspectives. It provides a framework for broadening participation, welcoming contributions from archaeology, environmental studies, architecture, landscape history, and social archaeology. The session encourages papers on gardens from diverse cultures and time periods.
Year One (2026): Methods and Technologies presents developing methods for recovering evidence for ancient gardens and their reconstruction. Contributions may address archaeological approaches to identifying gardens, excavation strategies, engineering technologies used to construct and sustain gardens, and comparable research.
Year Two (2027): Daily Life and Human Experience explores gardens of daily life and human experience of the garden. Papers may consider gardens as components of the household, relations between urban and extra-urban green spaces, religious practices, sensory experience, and social functions; gardens associated with death and remembrance; and symbolic meanings of plants in quotidian life.
Year Three (2028): Modern Imagination examines ancient gardens in the modern imagination. Topics include the reconstruction of gardens in museums and archaeological parks; the ancient garden as a dramatic setting or idealized paradise in literature; and opportunities and challenges for virtual reality.
How to Prepare for When Disaster Strikes (Workshop)
Session Chairs: Alexandria Albano, Independent scholar; Tashia Dare, Independent scholar
Description: Cultural heritage managers and heritage-centered institutions have many challenges to contend with daily in the current world with one specific challenge: the risk of disasters.
The environment and climate are rapidly changing. The frequency and strength of natural disasters, especially flooding, drought, and wildfires is greater and poses a significant threat to the overall well-being of communities and to heritage collections and sites. However, natural disasters are not the only kind of disaster that a society as a whole and the cultural heritage professional community should prepare for. A disaster can be a result of a human-made/non-natural disasters such as a ruptured pipe due to age or cold temperatures, damage from explosions such as from a gas leak, chemicals combusting, or a human-made explosive device, or looting and theft.
The aim of the workshop is to help heritage professionals and cultural institutions be better prepared and be resilient in the face of a disaster. To that end, a panel of disaster preparedness experts and heritage professionals with firsthand experience with safeguarding collections during a disaster will give presentations. They will provide guidance and insight into developing a disaster plan or strengthening an existing one, implementing a plan, preparing for the unexpected, mitigation measures, and potential resources to help safeguard collections and sites. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss, brainstorm, and collaborate during the workshop.
Intangible Cultural Heritage: Bridging the Past and the Present
Session Chairs: Yaroub Al Obaidi, Duquesne University; Jessica R. Robkin, University of Central Florida
Description: On behalf of ASOR’s Cultural Heritage Committee, this session examines the significance of intangible cultural heritage—stories, songs, music, and traditions—in shaping cultural identity and safeguarding heritage sites. While archaeological research has traditionally focused on material culture, this session emphasizes the need to integrate intangible heritage into both scholarly interpretation and cultural heritage management strategies. Drawing on examples from the Middle East and North Africa region, we will explore how the transmission of intangible heritage contrasts with material culture, as well as how narratives evolve when digitized or archived. Key themes include ethical considerations in digital preservation, accessibility for diverse audiences, and the role of communal storytelling in heritage protection. Papers may highlight how shared narratives transcend cultural boundaries while reflecting unique local contexts, and how these narratives can inform archaeological interpretation and site stewardship. The discussion also addresses innovative strategies for communicating heritage in times of conflict and fostering connections between communities and institutions. By centering untold stories and inclusive practices, this session seeks to advance ASOR’s commitment to cultural engagement and sustainable heritage management.
Interconnectivity and Exchange with Northeast Africa
Session Chairs: Iman Nagy, University of California, Los Angeles; Annissa Malvoisin, The Brooklyn Museum
Description: Northeast Africa played a pivotal role in the ancient world, actively participating in and shaping major networks of trade and exchange. Its strategic location, bridging West/Central Africa with the Indian Ocean and Red Sea trade networks, and its proximity to the Near East and Southern Europe, fostered an extraordinary level of interconnectivity. This led to the exchange of motifs, ideologies, and economic practices. The region’s diverse inter-regional resources and the integration of multicultural traditions are evident not only in archaeological findings but also in belief systems and iconography. This session is dedicated to exploring these intricate networks and relationships, extending from Northeast Africa to its surrounding regions, both near and distant.
We welcome contributions that investigate intercultural relationships, encompassing more than just economic networks or ideological spheres, but also including long-distance trade and the exchange of technologies over long time spans. Our goal is to stimulate dialogue among various schools of thought, both methodological and theoretical, to deepen our understanding of Northeast Africa’s role as a crucial intersection in the global networks of the ancient world
Jerusalem and the Archaeology of a Sacred City
Session Chairs: Yuval Gadot, Tel-Aviv University; Yiftah Shalev, Israel Antiquities Authority
Description: This session wishes to explore the sacred past and present of Jerusalem as it is revealed and manifested through the archaeology of the city and its surroundings. Jerusalem, a city that is sacred for all three major monotheistic religions, is a place where the past is ever present in the current sanctified landscape. From its inception and until nowadays, Jerusalem’s natural and urban landscapes were dotted with landmarks, buildings, and burial places, each of them commemorating an event or a figure and serving ritualistic needs. As such, these places were webbed within a wider narrative regarding the city’s place and within different nations’ pasts. Furthermore, the sacred has always been intertwined with the economy, politics, and social realia, thus shaping and being shaped by all those aspects.
Aspects of architecture, landscape archaeology, archaeology of the senses, pilgrimage, temple-related economy, ritualistic objects, and all other manifestations of the sacred within the archaeology of the city will be presented and discussed. We also welcome presentations related to heritage management in today’s contested city: how to conduct research in a place that is actively being worshiped and visited by tourists?
The first year (2024) focuses on studies aiming at identifying the personal experience expressions of worshipers and pilgrims who visited Jerusalem’s holy places throughout the ages. During the second year (2025) we will explore how the city was physically, economically, and symbolically shaped by sacred sites. The focus of the third year (2026) will be the interface between heritage and worship.
The LCP Handbook Series: Eastern Sigillata A (ESA)
Session Chairs: Andrea Berlin, Boston University; Nicole Constantine, Stanford University
Description: The Levantine Ceramics Project launched in 2011, and with ongoing support from ASOR, has become a lively, digital, open-access resource for the pottery of the ancient and medieval Mediterranean and Near East. The website is ever-growing, with more than 20,000 ceramic vessels uploaded by hundreds of scholars working around the globe. In 2025, the LCP launched a handbook series, which will draw on this abundant data to produce a user-friendly set of resources for excavators and students. These will appear as joint open-access e-books and traditional print books published by Lockwood Press. The handbooks will serve as easy-to-use guides for pottery identification as well as provide updated discussions of classes of pottery that are fundamental to our understanding of the past. Both the handbooks and the ASOR sessions dedicated to their topics will further the LCP’s mission of providing a venue for collaborative, open-access ceramic research.
The 2026 session will focus on Eastern Sigillata A (ESA), the first mass-market table ware of antiquity. ESA was hugely popular among consumers across the eastern Mediterranean from Late Hellenistic through mid-Roman times (late 2nd c. BCE – mid-2nd c. CE); its style launched a trend for lustrous red table vessels that would last for centuries. The LCP Handbook to ESA offers a fully illustrated guide to all forms, syntheses of published scholarship on chronology and production history, and reflections on changing fashions in table settings – with every example linked to the LCP. The 2026 ASOR session aims to continue the conversation that the handbook begins by providing a platform to move beyond the vessels themselves to deeper consideration of broader trends in production, distribution, and everyday use.
The 2025 session was dedicated to the Late Roman Amphora 1 (LRA1), and the 2027 session will focus on ceramic wares of Jordan from the Early Bronze Age through the late Medieval era.
The Medieval Village (Workshop)
Session Chair: Debra Foran, Wilfrid Laurier University
Description: Village life has recently become a focus of research for many archaeologists studying the Middle Ages in the eastern Mediterranean. Research into the Byzantine and Islamic periods has traditionally focused on large urban centres and monumental buildings; however, much like archaeologists studying other periods of antiquity in the region, medieval scholars are increasingly interested in what was happening in rural areas and how this reflects broader regional trends. By examining topics such as landscape, agricultural activities, resource management, economic exchange, centralized production, and religious activity, scholars hope to create a more comprehensive picture of the medieval village.
Participants in this workshop will be encouraged to use archaeological data from current excavations to explore the importance of the medieval village. This workshop would provide participants with the opportunity to share the analyses from their own research, while also comparing their results with similar data sets from contemporary sites. This forum will hopefully lead to a discussion of the role of the village within broader regional networks and highlight the persistence and resilience of village life within the medieval landscape.
Negotiating Elites: Strategies of Elite Practices and Consumption as Reactions to Political Dynamics
Session Chair: Reli Avisar, Tel Aviv University and Haifa University
Description: Elites are engaged in constant negotiation, using practices and objects to maintain, assert, and recalibrate their social position and rank. While this dynamic is most visible in moments of political change, examining elite strategies across different political landscapes, whether stable, transitional, or transformative, reveals enduring social habits and adaptive patterns. This session explores how elites adopted, abandoned, or transformed practices related to luxury consumption, including high-value objects and socially charged activities such as conspicuous food consumption and burial customs, within varied political contexts across the ancient Near East and Eastern Mediterranean in antiquity.
We invite papers that investigate how material culture, stylistic choices, and embodied practices were mobilized to assert legitimacy, maintain influence, or reposition elite identities. Topics may include access to luxury goods, reconfigured trade networks, selective adoption of imperial forms, the politics of aesthetics and display, and the use of prestigious objects and practices to mediate relationships between local, regional, and imperial actors.
Bringing together archaeological, historical, and theoretical perspectives, the session aims to show how elites used both objects and practices as flexible tools for navigating diverse political realities, and how comparing strategies across contexts illuminates shifting modes of elite behavior.
New Approaches to Ancient Animals
Session Chairs: Christine Mikeska, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Theo Kassebaum, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Description: Building on the momentum of the inaugural session at ASOR 2024, we invite papers that apply innovative theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of ancient animals in Southwest Asia, North Africa, and the Mediterranean. Recent theoretical approaches emphasizing multispecies relationships and non-anthropocentric perspectives have revealed that animals are central to shaping human social worlds. This session therefore invites presenters to take animals and their social relationships seriously, critically approaching archaeological assemblages, texts, and iconography as tools to reimagine the more-than-human past. While the study of ancient animals is traditionally approached through an economic or ecological lens, focusing on the utility of animals to their human counterpart, this session seeks to bring together new perspectives on the lives of animals in the ancient past to broaden our understanding of ancient multispecies worlds. This session also seeks to address the siloization of knowledge dissemination that results from long held disciplinary boundaries that divide ancient animal studies. Therefore, we invite papers that rethink approaches to ancient animals from a wide variety of perspectives, including (but not limited to) zooarchaeology, history and philology, and art history. We also encourage interdisciplinary papers that bring these perspectives together. In 2025, this session is organized around the theme of rethinking animal bodies and boundaries. In 2026, the theme will be rethinking animal agencies and autonomy.
Petra and the Kingdom & Influences of the Nabataeans
Session Chairs: Cynthia Finlayson, LAPIS: Archaeology & Cultural Heritage Foundation; Anna Accettola, Hamilton College
Description: The Nabataean Kingdom with capitals at Petra and later Bostra/Bosra was not only the first Arab Kingdom recognized by modern scholars but also one of the most important cultures of the ancient Near East from at least the Hellenistic through the Byzantine Period (if not before) even after its annexation by Rome in CE 106. Nabataean caravans linked three continents with marine shipping emporia as far as Rome, islands of the Eastern Mediterranean, and the maritime trade the length of the Red Sea and beyond. Renown as masters of desert agriculture with complex water control and containment systems, the Nabataeans still influence communities in Jordan, Southern Syria, and Arabia today via their water engineered systems. This Session calls for papers associated not only with ongoing excavations and surveys of the Petra Region, but also papers that address Nabataean epigraphy, water management and agriculture, and Nabataean influences on a wider international front from Rome to Yemen as well as the trade routes to India and China. Additionally, the Nabataean relationships with neighboring kingdoms is of special interest. Since this is a specialized topic we accept a wide variety of the above papers in each of the three year sessions and do not wish to limit each session to a particular theme.
Provenance and Middle Eastern Collections
Session Chairs: Sophia Slotwiner-Nie, Yale Babylonian Collection; Jana Matuszak , University of Chicago
Description: Provenance is a rapidly developing field in museums, archaeology, the broader academic world, and the public sphere. Responsible scholarship and museum practice now necessitate the application of provenance research. This session considers topics related to provenance and collecting histories of Middle Eastern antiquities. The aim of this session is to initiate a more focused discussion on provenance and its significance in the field of museum studies as well as the archaeological and philological study of the Middle East. Papers that consider approaches, object stories, themes in the field, and history of collecting are encouraged.
Publishing Scholarship of the Ancient World in the Mid 21st Century (Workshop)
Session Chair: William Caraher, University of North Dakota
Description: The 21st century has seen nearly seismic shifts in academic publishing. The rising costs of books and subscriptions have taxed academic institutions. OA mandates, new publishing technologies, the rise of analytics (i10, H-index, journal rankings, etc.), and changing standards have challenged traditional practices. Growing awareness of citational politics, ethical considerations surrounding for-profit publishers, and persistent concerns regarding the transparency, effectiveness, and labor cost of peer review pose further challenges to authors, editors, publishers, and professional organizations as they (we) seek to navigate the current landscape.
Coordinated by the ASOR Committee on Publications (COP), the goal of this workshop is to create space for conversation about ASOR’s current and future publishing practices. Panelists will offer brief considerations of a range of topics, including:
Strategies and potential impacts for adopting open access models in ASOR’s publishing; Best practices for digital documentation, and for curating and sharing archaeological data; Navigating the challenges and opportunities afforded by generative AI; Opportunities to reimagine publication to promote meaningful collaboration, recognition for contributions, and new approaches to understanding.
Ample time will be reserved for discussion to allow members to share their perspectives and suggestions about how ASOR’s venues and practices can meet changing present and future disciplinary and institutional needs.
The contributors to this workshop include: Eric Kansa (COP co-chair) and Ann Killebrew on “hybrid digital/narrative publishing, Jennie Ebeling (ARS editor) on the future of the site report, William Caraher (AASOR editor) on new models of scholarly publishing, and Andrea Berlin (LCP) on publishing open, digital data.
The Region of Aqaba in La Longue Durée (Workshop)
Session Chairs: Joseph A. Greene, Harvard University; Erin Darby, University of Tennessee-Knoxville
Description: The region of Aqaba is a remote landscape with scant resources, but it has been settled for millennia. We know the names, dates and places of some of these settlements—Roman-Byzantine Aila, early Islamic Ayla, medieval Jazirat Faroun, Ottoman Aqaba. There are archaeological ruins with local names, Chalcolithic Tall al-Magass and Hujayrat al-Ghuzlan, Iron Age Timna and Tell el-Kheleifeh, Nabataean-Byzantine Khirbet al-Khalde in Wadi Yitum. Others survive only as names—“Ezion-Geber,” “Elah”—lost now except to memory.
The Aqaba region was a node through which a vast, long-lived network of connections flowed east to west, south to north, linking the Nile valley and Mediterranean with inner Arabia by way of the Negev and the Arabah, the Red Sea to Greater Syria by way of the King’s Highway through the Transjordan highlands. Under Islam, it was a station on the Hajj route from Egypt and Bilad as-Sham to Mecca and Medina.
Better understanding the patterns of shifting settlement in the region and of the historical, economic, and environmental processes that shaped these patterns will reveal more clearly the role it played in the recurring exchanges of artifacts and ideas across the ancient, medieval, and early modern Near East.
This is an exploratory workshop for 2026 only which invites proposals for 8–10 minute presentations bearing on region of Aqaba from a range of perspectives—archaeological, historical, environmental—in various periods. The organizers wish to stimulate discussion and, if warranted by sufficient interest, organize a future session for further collaboration.
Re-imagining the Final Excavation Report: Exploring New Approaches to Publishing Archaeological Data (Workshop)
Session Chairs: Ann E. Killebrew, Pennsylvania State University; Eric Kansa, Open Context; Sarah Kansa, Open Context
Description: As the volume of excavated archaeological data continues to expand, alongside rising publication costs and the limitations of traditional print formats for final excavation reports, there is an urgent need to rethink and innovate how we integrate and share archaeological data. This workshop will explore new publication avenues and address the following questions:
- How can we create a viable publication format that not only provides accessible narrative summaries but also accommodates the integration of diverse data assemblages and facilitates the reconstruction of archaeological contexts?
- Is “hybrid” publication—combining elements of conventional narratives with structured data—a feasible strategy? What characteristics would make it successful?
- What are the economic implications for publishers and data service providers?
- What role do emerging AI technologies and services play in data curation and its integration into the final publication?
The Sampling Trilemma: Balancing Conservation, Curation, and Research (Workshop)
Session Chairs: Anna Eirich, Israel Antiquities Authority; Adrienne Ganor, Israel Antiquities Authority; Erez Ben-Yosef, Tel Aviv University
Description: Scientific sampling of archaeological objects has become both indispensable and increasingly contentious. Advances in archaeometry, biomolecular archaeology, and materials science now routinely depend on destructive or semi-destructive analyses. At the same time, archaeologists, conservators, and curators carry heightened responsibility for preserving artifacts as cultural heritage and as long-term national or institutional collections. This workshop addresses what we term the Sampling Trilemma: the structural tension between research imperatives, conservation ethics, and collection or treasury stewardship. We aim to provide an interdisciplinary forum for critical discussion, policy-oriented thinking, and the development of shared principles and best practices for sampling decisions in archaeology. Conceived as a two-year thematic workshop, year one (2026) will focus on sampling versus conservation, and year two (2027) on sampling versus curation (treasury, collections, and museums), fostering cumulative debate and sustained engagement with this unresolved problem.
Teaching with The Ancient Near East Today (Workshop)
Session Chairs: Elise A. Friedland, George Washington University; Jessica Nitschke, The Ancient Near East Today Editor, ASOR
Description: This workshop seeks to support both the outreach mission of ASOR and the pedagogical needs of its professional members who teach undergraduate students by focusing on The Ancient Near East Today (ANE Today) and its use in college curricula. ANE Today offers ideal material for college courses, both through its Substack newsletter (https://ancientneareasttoday.substack.com/) and the feature articles on its main platform (https://www.anetoday.org). Both resources are free, easily found online, and are accessible. Feature articles are aimed at non-specialists and therefore able to deliver real scholarship in a shorter format that is written in readable prose, while the newsletter shares a curated selection of the latest stories, news, blogs, videos, and podcasts. Participants and panelists will brainstorm and share ideas for using ANE Today in undergraduate courses with the aim of providing models for how to integrate these articles into various commonly offered courses. Participants will also have the opportunity to provide feedback to the current ANE Today Editor and ASOR staff both on content and user interface for the ANE Today website. In addition, this workshop will consider the possibility of future expansion of ANE Today as an educational resource to include different types of content (e.g., ebooks, videos, virtual exhibits).
Tell en-Naṣbeh at 100 Years: Past, Present, and Future
Session Chairs: Jeffrey R. Zorn, Cornell University; Aaron Brody, Pacific School of Religion
Description: W.F. Badè of Pacific School of Religion excavated Tell en-Naṣbeh, a 3.2 ha site 12 km north of Jerusalem, in five seasons between 1926 and 1935. This was one of the earliest projects associated with ASOR and the recently constructed American School in Jerusalem. Badè’s team uncovered over half the tell, revealing large stretches of domestic architecture, monumental fortifications, and tombs both on the site and in surrounding cemeteries. These include remains of the Early Bronze Age I and from the Iron Age I down to the Roman period. Especially important finds come from Iron Age II into the Persian period. The excavation results were published in 1947 by a team led by C.C. McCown and J.C. Wampler.
The story of the Tell en-Naṣbeh excavations did not end with the 1947 report. Subsequent studies of the excavation results documented a stratum of the Babylonian–Persian periods, the settlement’s participation in international trade, its role in understanding daily life, and the role of the state in Iron Age Judah, while recent studies of the excavation’s archives have demonstrated the important roles played by Middle Eastern staff members in excavating and recording the site’s remains during the colonialist era of the British Mandate in Palestine. Even in these fraught times, work on the excavation results and archives from Tell en-Naṣbeh continues, including not only publishing previously unpublished or under-published materials but also in conserving and preserving the records and artifacts for future generations of scholars and making them available online. Celebrate 100 years of Tell en-Naṣbeh!
Towards a Working Ancient Economy
Session Chairs: Andrew Deloucas, Harvard University; Taha Yurttas, Harvard University; Eric Aupperle, Harvard University
Description: The first history we have is arguably an economic one: a record rooted in the practical concerns of administration, resource allocation, and labor management. The need to control and quantify goods was a driving force not only for accounting technology but for the development of institutions. Written and material records provide unparalleled clarity in documenting chains of production and distribution networks. As such, the study of ancient economic history offers a window into a past that can encompass all strata of society.
This member-organized session invites papers on ancient economy based on written, material, and visual sources in any imaginable combination. This includes examinations of traditional sources of economic information (written accounts, sealing hierarchies, spatial analyses) as well as wider discussions of the social, legal, and political context of economy. The session embraces a wide geographic area, welcoming papers from Greater Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia and the Aegean, North Africa, the Caucasus, the Gulf, Central Asia, and beyond. Possible topics include trade networks, economic crises, labor history, debt, and civic institutions.
Use and Reuse of Tombs in the Theban Necropolis
Session Chair: Lauren Dogaer, University College Oxford
Description: This session focuses on tomb (re)use in the Theban necropolis (Luxor) during the Pharaonic and Graeco-Roman periods, with particular attention to the use of space, patterns of access, and changing ritual practices over time. Tombs are approached not as static monuments but as spaces that were repeatedly accessed, modified, and re-activated through ongoing interaction. Contributions are invited that consider how tombs were accessed and used by different social actors, especially family members of the deceased and mortuary priests, for practices of commemoration such as offerings, visits, and family banquets during festivals.
A second focus of the session is spatial organization within the necropolis. We welcome approaches that examine how the placement of new tombs, secondary burials, and offering locations (re-)shaped the social memory and commemoration of earlier tomb owners. In addition, submissions may explore how the addition of tombs and burial shafts altered movement through the necropolis, redirected ritual pathways, and affected visibility and perceived proximity to sacred or prestigious locations, including processional routes or particular tombs.
Submissions may focus on individual tombs, groups of tombs, or clusters of individuals sharing specific titles (e.g. royal, clerical, or administrative), provided that they address issues of access and commemoration, visibility and proximity, and/or spatial change within the necropolis.
We invite contributions employing archaeological, textual, and/or spatial approaches that reassess the Theban necropolis as a dynamic ritual environment shaped by ongoing use and reuse.
Urbanism and Polities in the Bronze and Iron Age Levant
Session Chairs: Omer Sergi, Tel Aviv University; Daniel Master, Wheaton College; Karen Covello-Paran, Israel Antiquities Authority
Description: Urbanism and urban centers were at the heart of political and economic life during the Bronze and Iron Ages, and throughout most of this time, they constituted the basic socio-political unit of the Levant. Urban centers throughout the Levant flourished and demised in the shadow of imperial forces from Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Egypt. Yet, there are profound differences between urbanism in the northern and the southern Levant. Moreover, the face of urbanism changed in the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, bringing about new socio-political formations, at least in the southern and central Levant, which are mostly thought of in terms of territorial polities. This session aims to discuss and ponder the formation and demise of Levantine urbanism within its socio-historical context. These session will call for papers discussing the changing faces of Levantine urbanism during the Bronze and Iron Ages, and how these were related to the formation of Levantine polities. It aims to scrutinize the relations between urban landscape and political hegemony, but also between the urban centers and their rural hinterlands. Thus, we hope to provide a holistic view of Levantine urbanism from its very inception. We intend to dedicate the first year (2024) to discuss the formation of the urban landscape of the Middle Bronze Age and its impact on socio-political life in the Levant. Special attention will also be given to the formation of “Canaan” as a concept of social belonging. The second year (2025) will be dedicated to discussing Levantine urbanism under the empires of the Late Bronze Age (Mittani, Hittites, Egypt), and the third year (2026) will be dedicated to discussing the changing face of urbanism in the world of the Iron Age kin-based territorial polities.
Violence in the Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible (Workshop)
Session Chair: Megan Cifarelli, Manhattanville College
Description: While violence is a phenomenon common to the societies and cultures of the ancient Near East, including those of the Hebrew Bible, relatively little comparative analysis has been carried out among the various disciplines. The aim of this three year session is to stimulate conversation and collaboration among biblical scholars, Assyriologists, Egyptologists, and other specialists of the ancient Near East by focusing on the topic of violence in its various manifestations (i.e., interpersonal, communal, ritual, symbolic, gendered, structural, instrumental, post-mortem, surplus) in the archaeological, textual, and visual evidence from prehistory to the Hellenistic period. We also welcome submissions that consider the entanglement of contemporary imperialism, violence, historiography, and archaeology.
The first year of this session (Boston, 2025) focused broadly on the problem of studying violence in antiquity, given our limited access to the realia of ancient life. How was violence experienced materially and somatically, and how were these experiences mediated in text and art? Presenters were invited to explore the socio-political and religious functions of violence, noting especially the patterns observed across the cultures of the ancient Near East.
The second year (Chicago, 2026) will address the question, “How did ancient societies understand their own violence and the violence they experienced at the hand of others?” Finally, papers analyzing stories or representations involving human or divine violence or narratives accompanying the remembering of acts of violence, either to legitimize or problematize it, are welcome. Thus, the third session (Arlington, 2027) will focus on cultural memory as a response to violence against individuals and communities.
What’s Up With That?: Museum Objects that Defy Interpretation (Workshop)
Session Chairs: Carl Walsh, New York University; Ashley Arico, Art Institute of Chicago; Jen Thum, Harvard Art Museums
Description: All museums have *that questionable object.* Maybe it’s banished to the depths of storage, or has been on view for some time amid raised eyebrows. In this workshop, researchers and museum professionals will present puzzling objects from museum collections, in the hopes of getting some answers from our community of scholars. Each participant will present what is known about their unusual object(s) and what they hope to elucidate. Research questions may explore authenticity or provenance, seek comparanda from other cultures, or engage in new ways with the material aspects of objects.
Each presentation will be followed by a brief group discussion including both participants and attendees. The panel as a whole will conclude with a broader discussion about topics such as the complexities of stewarding objects whose authenticity and histories are unclear and the importance of studying fakes. Bring your niche knowledge and detective skills and see if you can help us solve one of these mysteries!
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