MARCH MADNESS CHALLENGE 2022: WE FILLED THE POTS!
ASOR’s 2022 March Madness Challenge was a success and we “filled the pots” for The Levantine Ceramics Project (LCP)! We met our goal of $10,000 for the ongoing maintenance and hosting of the LCP— an ASOR open-access publication. This incredible resource has been an ASOR publication since 2016. The LCP is an open, interactive website focused on ceramics produced in the Levant from the Neolithic era through the Ottoman period. Thanks to the generosity of three ASOR donors, we received a $5,000 challenge gift that has been fully earned by raising another $5,000 for a total of $10,570 in March to keep the LCP running!
Thank you to each and every one of the donors, members, and Friends of ASOR who helped “fill the pots” for the LCP!
The LCP’s mission
The LCP, an ASOR open-access publication and research project, is a sustainable research tool designed to pull the study of archaeological ceramics into the 21st century.
Why ceramics? Because they comprise the most abundant category of remains found throughout the Near East, and because every excavator must contend with identifying and publishing them, yet the mode by which that is done has not changed in a substantive way since William Flinders Petrie began working in 1880. Constant excavation since then has created unthinkable quantities of data, all disseminated via print (and now digitized versions of print) publications. Print is excellent for many things – but it is remarkably ill-suited for fast exchange of information, collaborative study, and especially the rapid recording of new or changing ideas. Archaeology is a field that is always in a mode of discovery; we need tools that can keep up, that allow us to bring new material into dialogue with that long known, are easy to use, foster sharing, and enable us to readily learn from one other. The LCP is such a tool.
The LCP inspires new questions, and gives us the tools to answer them: Hard borders, civil wars, intractable terrain – these are facts on the ground across the landscapes of the Levant. Swaths of territory that are invisible or inaccessible today were zones of habitation and connection in the past. Archaeological survey and fieldwork fill in the blanks, allow us to see what was, imagine different realities. This is why we pursue such work; this is one of the best rationales for its value now and in the future. The LCP helps deliver on that lofty promise. Four examples of regions, activities, lives able to be seen, mapped, and linked to a wider world via pottery on the LCP:
- the eastern desert of Egypt: >200 vessels from 25+ already on the LCP with another 1000+ from 200 sites, thanks to integration with the EU/CNRS Desert Networks Project (scheduled for submission this summer).
- the Hauran of southern Syria: >1000 vessels from 50+ sites, dating from 1200 BCE-200 CE, from the Lajāʾ survey (2003–2009), the Qarrāṣa excavations (2008–2011), plus published and unpublished data from the French Archaeological Mission to Southern Syria, thanks to Jérôme Rohmer’s 2020 Hauran VI. D’Aram à Rome. La Syrie du Sud de l’âge due Fer à l’annexion romaine (XIIe siècle av. J.-C. – Ier siècle apr. J.C.).
- Rough Cilicia, Turkey: ~200 vessels from 40+ sites, from Nicholas Rauh’s Rough Cilicia Archaeological Survey Project (1996-2011).
- the maritime networks linking northern and southern Cyprus with the northern Levant: 400+ vessels dating from the Middle Bronze – Iron Ages, from Cyprus and sites in Cilicia and coastal Syria, including 250+ vessels from Tell Tweini in northern Syria, excavated by the University of Leuven from 1999-2007.
The LCP advances ASOR Strategic Plan and Goals by providing easy and open access to new information: The LCP provides quick access to new finds and current ideas, and helps American researchers connect with foreign scholars. Most LCP contributors are based in Europe, Turkey, Cyprus, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and Egypt, and are affiliated with foreign research universities or institutes. Not all users are are members of ASOR, yet their enthusiastic embrace of the LCP helps ASOR members stay abreast of work they would otherwise have a hard time accessing or even knowing about in the first place. Keeping the LCP free and open access is critical; if there was a members-only access policy, we would lose the input of most of these foreign contributors. The LCP provides assistance for ASOR-affiliated excavators: LCP interns work with ASOR-affiliated excavators to prepare and submit their pottery to the site. Using the LCP, interns also regularly make connections with material from other sites that excavators had not known about. This has the double benefit of deepening knowledge from excavated material as well as disseminating new information to scholars and students around the world.
The LCP brings disparate, hard-to-find data together, able to be mapped, studied, arranged and re-arranged for connections, ideas, insights. It is worth emphasizing that much of this material crosses borders and links regions that are currently impassible. All appear on the LCP thanks to ASOR’s neutrality as an American-based organization. In this way, ASOR helps frame a vision of the Levant that rises above the current political fray, and enables a new generation to ask and answer new questions, to understand the past – and perhaps therefore also the future – in different ways.
Read More About The Levantine Ceramics Project (LCP)
ASOR’s Annual March Madness Challenge continues! This year we are “filling” a different need: supporting the ongoing cost and maintenance of 
The LCP, an ASOR open-access publication and research project, is a sustainable research tool designed to pull the study of archaeological ceramics into the 21st century.
ACOR: Awarded to Øystein LaBianca, Trustee, Representative to ASOR Board of Trustees, ACOR.
The Charles U. Harris Service Award. This award is given in recognition of long term and/or special service as an ASOR officer or Trustee (one award is given annually).
The P. E. MacAllister Field Archaeology Award. This award honors an archaeologist who, during his/her career, has made outstanding contributions to ancient Near Eastern and eastern Mediterranean archaeology (one award is given annually).
Awarded to Hanan Charaf, Assistant Professor, Department of Art and Archaeology, Lebanese University; former editor of the Archaeological Report Series
Awarded to Kate Grossman, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, North Carolina State University; outgoing Chair of the CAP Fellowship Subcommittee
Awarded to Heather McKee, former ASOR Treasurer
Mentorship is a key component of the Summer Stipend Program. To continue support beyond the summer, we are also starting a mentorship program that pairs Summer Stipend students with ASOR members. The goal here is to encourage the next generation of ASOR scholars by connecting them with a supportive network that offers sound professional advice, and encourages participation on ASOR-affiliated excavation projects and in the Annual Meeting.
This ambitious, expedited campaign is made possible by a 2:1 leadership pledge of $150,000 by Trustee Carolyn Midkiff Strange. We can reach our goal by raising $75,000. Every dollar contributed (up to $75,000) will be matched with two dollars. A contribution of $100, will be matched with $200; a gift of $5,000, will be matched with $10,000; and so forth.
Caesarea Maritima Excavations in the Old City 1989-2003