2027 LIST OF APPROVED SESSIONS AND WORKSHOPS
Arlington & Hybrid: November 17-20
ASOR’s 2026 Annual Meeting will take place November 17-20 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City. The meeting in November will be hybrid with both virtual and in-person participation in a similar format to the 2026 Annual Meeting.
All sessions and workshops will be able to include both in-person presentations in Arlington 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 2027 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.
- Ancient Mesopotamia – A Social History. Methods for Reconstructing Lived Worlds
- Archaeologies of Memory
- Art, Archaeology, and History of Central Asia
- Biblical Texts in Cultural Context – postponed for 2027
- 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)
- The Future of Ancient West Asian Collections in Museums (Workshop) – Postponed for 2027
- Gardens of the Mediterranean, the Ancient Near East and Beyond
- The LCP Handbook Series: Eastern Sigillata A (ESA)
- The Sampling Trilemma: Balancing Conservation, Curation, and Research (Workshop)
- Violence in the Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible
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: TBD
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, D’Youville University; 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 Chair: Simeon Ehrlich, Georgia State University
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 (CANCELLED in 2026)
Session Chairs: Kara Larson, University of Michigan; Geoffrey M. Hedges-Knyrim, University of Connecticut
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 (CANCELLED in 2026)
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 Chair: Michael Zimmerman, Bridgewater State University
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 2027 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Future of Ancient West Asian 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 (2027), 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.
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 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.
Violence in the Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible
Session Chairs: Anthony SooHoo, Pontifical Biblical Institute (Rome); 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.