Hamza Benattia, Department of Prehistory and Archaeology, University of Barcelona; Project Director
Despite over a century of archaeological investigation in northwest Africa, the Bronze Age (c. 3rd to 1st millennia BC) remains one of the most enigmatic periods of its later Prehistory. Since 2021, the Kach Kouch Archaeological Project team, primarily comprising PhD and undergraduate students from the National Institute of Archaeology and Heritage of Morocco (INSAP) and other countries, has made significant contributions, through excavation and survey, to the understanding of this hitherto mysterious period.
Excavations at Stehat 1.
Surveying the valley of Stehat.
Thanks to the support of a Stevan B. Dana Grant, the Kach Kouch Team continued in 2023 and early 2024 the research in northwestern Morocco’s Rif mountains. Extensive survey and targeted excavation along the valleys of Oued Laou and Stehat led to the identification of 5 previously undocumented sites. These newly discovered sites attest a more stable settled occupation in this region than previously thought, spanning from the Late Prehistory to the Early Mauretanian Period (from c. 2200-400BC), a signature unprecedent for non-Nilotic North Africa.
Excavations at Stehat 2.
Excavating at Stehat 3, part of Kach Kouch Project, Morocco.
Contrary to prior assumptions, our research demonstrates that settled occupation in this region stems from social and economic dynamics within local North African communities since at least 2200 BC, rather than being a result of later interactions with Phoenician communities. Furthermore, while our conclusions are preliminary and require cautious discussion, initial findings suggest that, despite the settlement of Phoenician communities along the northern Moroccan coast from the 8th century BC onwards, local cultural traditions persisted in the inner valleys of the western Rif, Morocco, until the 6-5th centuries BC. As observed in similar colonial contexts, this seems to be related with a long process of negotiation, involving resistance and assimilation of new cultural practices among local communities.
Surveying the valley of Oued Laou.
Working on materials at the lab.
This new data challenges prevailing narratives and underscores the importance of reevaluating colonial biases that have shaped scholarly discourse on North African archaeology. While our research has provided valuable insights, it represents only the beginning of a broader investigation. Many questions remain unanswered, motivating us to continue our work in the years ahead. It is our hope that through archaeological research we will further contribute to a deeper understanding of northwest Africa’s role in the prehistory of the Mediterranean, a narrative long overlooked and that for far too many years has gone unrecognized.
Beyond scientific research, the team thoroughly enjoyed this amazing field season as it provided an opportunity for collaboration among young researchers from Morocco and other countries. The season was replete with unforgettable experiences, laughter and delicious Moroccan cuisine!
Khirbat Iskandar (translated as “ruins of Alexander”) is an archaeological site in the Madaba governorate, located on the northern bank of the Wadi al-Wala. Despite the name, the site has no proved connection with Alexander “the Great” because it is a 3ha fortified site whose occupation dates back to the Early Bronze Age (EBA). Even the term khirbat is questionable because the site is a true tell (an artificial mound in Arabic). The site is just 6 km north from Dhiban and it is located on a strategic crossing point where the slopes on the northern and southern bank of the wadi are not so steep and drop off gently until the waterway. For this reason, a modern road that connects Madaba and Dhiban runs near the site. The modern viability follows the same path of the Roman via Nova Traianathat was established on the ancient Iron Age road known as the King’s Highway.
The archaeological investigation of Khirbat Iskandar started in the 1980s, and each season produced important data about the settlement patterns and the human activities in this area of the Southern Levant where the EBA patterns of settlement are still subject to deeper investigation compared to Cisjordan. The 2023 field season at Khirbat Iskandar was different from a typical excavation season. In the current vision of archaeology, preservation and sustainable promotion of archaeological sites are added to the tasks that archaeologists must accomplish. In addition, a broader interest on the landscape surrounding the sites is another fixpoint of modern archaeological research. So, this year the team efforts were focused on the survey and conservation in three core areas: the southern and eastern roadcut sections of Khirbat Iskandar, the northern terrace along the wadi terrace to its south, and the hill of Umm el-Idham on the northwest.
A part of the team worked at the roadcut where trimming activities were carried out on two exposed sections section to obtain new data from the stratigraphy, while conservation activities were implemented at the Early Bronze Ag fortifications at the south-east edge of the site. The same team carried out the survey of the wadi terrace nearby. The rest of the team carried out the survey and some probes on the top of the Umm el-Idam hill. As a young archaeologist specializing in landscape archaeology, this past season I was assigned a number of important tasks that required both technical skills and topographical expertise. My duties as survey leader assistant were related to organize the survey with the survey leader Tucker Deady, a PhD student at the University of Toronto, and manage the geodatabase that we had set up in the months before the fieldwork season. The organization of a complete and user friendly geodatabase is an important step for survey operations, so we dedicated a lot of time to it to prepare for the season. On the field, surveying was my main activity during a typical workday, and that is one the most interesting part of my work because it helps me to understand how archaeological features combine with the landscape.
During this season, I was also in charge of producing the photogrammetric record of the probes and the road cut sections. Therefore, sometimes I also worked on the acquisition of the photographic dataset and measurements with a total station to produce a 3D model of the endangered southern and southeast sectors of the site of Khirbat Iskandar. On such days, I would join the survey team for the rest of the day after completing my work on photogrammetry. To take the photographic dataset as first operation in the morning is an important step because it allowed me to take advantage of the best light before the sun rises. In fact, direct sunlight provides uneven lighting around an object and casts hard shadows, this can lead to errors during the photo processing or produce a bad quality texture. So, it is necessary for us to take photo when the light is diffused, like cloudy days or during the sunset/sunrise.
Personally, I consider this task a necessary step of my work and I am proud of the results I obtained. The use of new technology as photogrammetry in the collection and elaboration of data is an important step, necessary in most of modern survey operations. All the 3D models we produced are scaled; this allows us to take remote measurements and have a three-dimensional point of view over the subject without being in the field and all in one file. In few words: scholars can virtually come back to the site whenever they want.
After the lunch break my work restarted in the afternoon. Usually in the second part of the day I worked on the processing of data we collected in the morning; this operation consists most of the time in the massive data entry into our geodatabase. Maybe this part of the work is a bit boring compared to the fieldwork but it is necessary and it so exciting to see the results of all our hard work summarized on maps that show us a big picture. When we took photographic data for photogrammetry, I used to work on the elaboration of the 3D model with appropriate software such as Metashape. Usually this process is mostly automatized except for the uploading of photos and coordinates collected with the total station. It can be time consuming just in case of problems, for example the presence of one or more bad photograms in the dataset, bad light or other technical issues that can be resolved with a bit of human work. When a 3D model was completed I produced some orthophotos, which will be necessary to generate floor plans or frontal elevations through the use of other software as Autocad.
The life of a young landscape archaeologist is exciting and the beauty of the Jordanian landscape makes it like a dream. Sometimes when I see the landscape of the Wadi el-Wala from the hill of Umm el-Idham, with a 360° view over Khirbat Iskandar, I feel like I’m in timeless place where the essence of the EBA is still alive in the air. Working there with this incredible international team was an amazing experience and I can’t wait to return to the site in the future to continue studying and living this astonishing place.
Nicola Lanzaro obtained his BA degree in Eastern Archaeology at L’Orientale University of Naples. He is currently a MA student at the Sapienza University of Rome. He is currently member of two missions in Levant: the Lebanese-Italian Project in the Region of Tyre, Lebanon (from 2022) and the Archaeological Expedition to Khirbet Iskander, Jordan (from 2023). Nicola’s areas of interest include landscape archaeology, GIS, and the Early Bronze Age routes of the Southern Levant.
Want to help more students and early career archaeologists get into the field? Donate to the cause today by selecting “Student Support” as your gift purpose!
This year ASOR is awarding more than $250,000 in fellowships, scholarships, and grants! This extraordinary commitment to support fieldwork and research has been made possible by you, our members and donors, who have established endowments or made an
nual contributions to these programs.
Each year, ASOR sponsors many Fieldwork Scholarships for students and volunteers to take part in ASOR Affiliated Projects. Currently, there are funds to provide scholarships for 40 students, but with your help,
we aim to raise $6,000 to send three additional students into the field during Summer 2024.
You may also make a designated gift by choosing any category from the drop-down menu on the donations module.
We owe so much to our generous members; even a small donation of just $10 can add up to make a big difference. 100% of your gift will go towards Fieldwork Scholarships for students. Keep track of our March Fellowship Madness 2024 donation progress here!
Please spread the word and don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions (e-mail or call [703-789-9233]).
Dar Ben Gacem Fellowship Report: ASOR Punic Project—3D Modeling of Stelae and Cippi from Carthage
Brien Garnand, Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, Leiden University
As we approach the 100th and 50th anniversaries of American excavations at the Precinct of Tinnit and Ba’l in Carthage (the so-called “tophet”), and with publication eminent for the final report from the ASOR Punic Project excavations, I have been preparing 3D models—both full-scale printed replicas of individual stelae and a scale model of the entire American sector—in anticipation of a commemorative exhibition. Although there have been dozens of excavations at “tophet” sites across the Mediterranean, we lack publication of final reports with precise contexts. My efforts during this fellowship represent early, tentative steps to remedy this deficit.
The scale model of the site will represent just the Regulus-Salammbô sector (Fig.1), the precise location of both the excavations of F. W. Kelsey / University of Michigan (1925) and of L. E. Stager / ASOR Punic Project (1975-1979). Total station readings taken in the early 2000s have allowed me to correct the Kelsey-Michigan blueprint plans and the Stager-ASOR field-note plans, but the Kelsey blueprint of stelae inside the Roman vault has yet to be corrected because they lay outside of the total station’s range.
Fig.1. Site plan combining the blueprints of Kelsey-Michigan excavations (grey) with plans from the field notes of the Stager-ASOR excavations (black, blue, red), both within the same Regulus-Salammbô sector of the precinct dedicated to Tinnit and Ba‘l in Carthage (modified from Garnand & Greene 2023: 157, map 4). Note that the alignment of the Roman vault is imprecise.
My goals during Dar Ben Gacem fellowship included initial negotiations to make hardware-based scans (Artec Spider) of limestone stelae in museum storerooms as well as actually making preliminary scans using software-based methods (Polycam) of sandstone cippi in the open-air museum at the precinct itself. You can follow the progress at our on-line workspace and on Sketchfab. The former methods will be reserved for those stelae in the Musee national de Carthage and in the Musee du Bardo, currently unavailable while they undergo inventory during museum renovations. I was able, however, to meet with museum curators and colleagues in the INP to make plans for the future. Once scanned, many stelae from American excavations can be replaced back into their precise contexts based upon the archival plans and upon annotated photographs that correspond to those plans (Fig.2).
During the fellowship, I was able to stitch together a rough scan of stelae and cippi still in situ, and these stone artifacts and other landmarks will serve as reference points for alignment, e.g. point D in the archival photo (Fig.2) and point C in the plan (Fig.1) relate to key points on my stitched Polycam model (Fig.3). Since I did not have permission to scan stela imbedded inside the Roman foundation vault, for now just the openings in the vault can be roughly aligned with the site plan at points A and B in anticipation of future scanning. While hardware-based scanning can be prohibitively expensive, my preliminary software-based scans required only a LiDAR equipped iPhone 14 Pro. For the moment, however, the hardware-based system does provide higher quality results.
Since I held the inaugural Dar Ben Gacem fellowship, I should offer a preview for future fellows. My hosts provided multiple opportunities to network with Tunisian scholars, US Embassy attaches, and visiting artists, as well as opportunities for conversation with other guests during meals, while the well-appointed scholar apartment provided a refuge for quiet study. This carefully restored beylic official’s residence has a conference room, in nearly continual use, where I presented a hands-on workshop about Polycam. I compared the iconography of stelae that I was scanning to the decorative repertoire of the residence itself (Fig.4). The Dar Ben Gacem has served as a sort of laboratory for the restoration of buildings in the medina of Tunis, so 3D-scanning of interior spaces and architectural details offered a readily transferrable technology that allows for accurate assessment and reconstruction.
Fig.4. Punic iconography from Mactar (Bardo Cb-989) compared to the decorative repertoire of Dar Ben Gacem—the floret (left) and the lunar crescent (right).
As for the food, simply note that Jamie Oliver picked up tips on Tunisian cuisine while cooking in the Dar Ben Gacem kitchen (Jamie Cooks the MediterraneanS01E02 @20:35-26:00). For an entire month, at each breakfast and dinner, I got to sample authentic fare (Fig.5).
Fig.5. Instagram-worthy fare (from L to R): mechouia, shakshuka, couscous, omek houria, lahmet thon.
Finally, the situation of the residence within the medina means that one can easily explore the UNESCO World Heritage Site just across the threshold. The INP, libraries, and other cultural resources are steps away (particularly resources for medieval and early-modern Tunis), with Carthage accessible via public transit and other archaeological sites within range of a day trip.
ASOR-Affiliated Morocco Project Publishes Evidence About Bronze Age North Africa
Media Release February 20, 2025
ASOR-affiliated archaeology project finds new evidence of earliest farming in NW Africa
ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A new study in the journal Antiquity presents the first evidence of a Bronze Age-era farming settlement in the northwest Maghreb following an ASOR-affiliated excavation in Kach Kouch, Morocco.
The study, titled “Rethinking late prehistoric Mediterranean Africa: architecture, farming and materiality at Kach Kouch, Morocco,” was published on February 17 in the journal Antiquity by Cambridge University Press. Authors Hamza Benattia, Youssef Bokbot, Jorge Onrubia-Pintado and the rest of the Kach Kouch Archaeological Project team, primarily comprising students from the National Institute of Archaeology and Heritage of Morocco (INSAP), have been conducting excavations and surveys at Kach Kouch, Morocco since 2021 to further the understanding of this hitherto little-known period. They revealed in the Antiquity study the remains of a settlement occupied from 1300 to 600 BCE that was a farming economy before the arrival of the Phoenician conquest.
The team’s research demonstrated that settled occupation in this region stems from social and economic dynamics within local North African communities since at least 2200 BCE, rather than being a result of later interactions with Phoenician communities. Despite the settlement of Phoenician communities along the northern Moroccan coast from the eighth century BCE onwards, local cultural traditions persisted in the inner valleys of the western Rif, Morocco, until the sixth to fifth centuries BCE.
The Kach Kouch settlement practiced animal husbandry and crop cultivation, with crops being processed and stored on site, based on the published findings. Farming, herding, building, and material culture continued from the eighth to seventh centuries BCE to further emphasize the “primary role played by local communities in shaping the social, cultural and economic dynamics of the emergent Moroccan Bronze Age and subsequent Early Mauretanian period” at Kach Kouch, according to the study.
Thanks to the support of an ASOR Stevan B. Dana Grant, the Kach Kouch team continued the research in northwestern Morocco’s Rif mountains in 2023 and early 2024. Extensive survey and targeted excavation along the valleys of Oued Laou and Stehat identified five previously undocumented sites. The newly discovered sites attest to a more stable settled occupation in the region than previously thought, spanning from the Late Prehistory to the Early Mauretanian Period (from c. 2200-400BC), a novel signature for non-Nilotic North Africa.
The publication’s findings stimulate interest in the overlooked region and encourage new narratives in the scholarly discourse on North African archaeology.
About ASOR
The American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to initiate, encourage, and support research into, and public understanding of, the history and cultures of the Near East and wider Mediterranean world, from the earliest times. ASOR fosters original research, archaeological excavations, and explorations; encourages scholarship in the Near East’s basic languages, cultural histories, and traditions; builds support for Near Eastern studies; and advocates high academic standards. ASOR is apolitical and has no religious affiliation.
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The American Society of Overseas Research The James F. Strange Center 209 Commerce Street Alexandria, VA 22314 E-mail: info@asor.org Telephone: 703-789-9229
Mid-way through excavation, the highest point of the site can be seen in the background near where the Cappadocia Gate and the Palatial Complex are located.
Welcome to Kerkenes, a sprawling Iron Age site located in central Anatolia. This megacity is mysterious as it is vast; Kerkenes was only briefly inhabited for less than a century, before a battle and catastrophic fire caused it to become abandoned. Although the site has been suggested to be that of which Herodotus identifies as Pteria, this description is unconfirmed, and much is left to be learned about the city and its former inhabitants.
Here I joined the ASOR-affiliated Kerkenes Project with the University of Central Florida, where I started my PhD this year working with Kerkenes project director Dr. Scott Branting. Despite a sobering earthquake and busy election season in Turkey preluding our excavation, this year’s field season took place from May until July 2023. Thanks to the generous support of the P.E. MacAllister Fieldwork Scholarship, I was fortunate to participate in an advantageous initial season on the site before starting my PhD program.
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The drone (somewhere up in the sky) and GPS in action.
Kerkenes is located in central Anatolia, in the province of Yozgat. This year the Kerkenes team was lucky to be among the first to experience the opening of the new high-speed rail system that now runs from Ankara to Yozgat (yes, the same name as the province), a city within an hour of the field site. I find the Kerkenes Project unique on account of the variety of research methods and experts that collaborate on the single site. This year we conducted geophysical surveys, drone surveys, and excavation in the field, in addition to ongoing material analysis carried out by conservators, zooarchaeologists, paleobotanists, and ceramicists in the nearby compound’s facilities. Digitalization of previous years’ finds is carried out in any spare time the team has, creating a valuable archive of 3D data about the site.
The timing of the field season in Kerkenes is particularly suited to the wide range of surveys and research that is conducted there. Weather in the first few weeks of the season is typically wet and rainy, the moist ground conducive to resistivity surveys. Perhaps thanks in part to El Niño, we had an unusually rainy year that allowed for resistivity to carry on into nearly mid-June. As the spring rain cleared up, excavation began on Urban Block 8, a section of the city located along the northern edge of the city wall. This block is one of the longest-excavated sections of the site and has yielded valuable data concerning urban development and planning of the city and its perimeter defensive wall.
Over June and July, the excavation team successfully excavated new rooms of this block, providing the project with more data that will help us understand the purposes of the specific structures in Urban Block 8. Based upon the 2022 season’s excavation in adjoining rooms of the block, we anticipated the need for accompanying zooarchaeologist researchers to develop a system by which to differentiate bone fragments from ivory in the field. This system expedited the identification process of many materials and made our work in the trench more efficient.
The project’s trusty all-terrain transportation.
Sure enough, this summer’s excavation yielded data which will help us understand the functionality of Urban Block 8’s structures, in addition to the potential diet, animal husbandry practices, storage systems, and art production of the urban block’s residents. Many materials found in Urban Block 8 this year showed evidence of contact with extreme temperatures, serving as further evidence of the reach and intensity of the destructive fire that enveloped the city. The team conducted wet sieving and flotation on many soil samples from this year’s trench, but due to the large volume of soil collected, work from 2023 samples will continue into next year and keep us very busy!
Finds from previous years of the Kerkenes project can be viewed by the public at the nearby Yozgat Museum, as well as in Ankara at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. The Kerkenes site will continue to be a source of incredible information about the central Anatolian Iron Age and ancient megacities. Recent work on the site investigates urban planning, pedestrian modeling, and shared social spaces that can be applied to cities anywhere, ancient or modern. I look forward to joining the project in the coming years during my doctoral program to help uncover more of this incredible field site.
Annalise Whalen is a PhD student at the University of Central Florida, where she focuses on digital archaeology of the Middle East. She earned her MTS from Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, and received her BA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.You can find Annalise Whalen on Twitter @AnnaliseWhalen
For more information about the Kerkenes Project visit:
[/vc_wp_text][mk_divider][vc_wp_text]Want to help more students and early career archaeologists get into the field? Donate to the cause today by selecting “Student Support” as your gift purpose!
2023 Harris Grant Report: Polatlı Landscape Archaeology and Survey Project (PLAS), Turkey
The ASOR Charles Harris Project Grant enabled us to expand our area coverage in Polatlı Landscape Archaeology and Survey Project (PLAS), resulting in the documentation of 19 new sites in the 2023 season.
A taste of the Polatlı landscapes, as seen from the top of Hıdırşeyh Höyük.
PLAS is a regional survey that explores the city of Polatlı in the province of Ankara in central Anatolia. We employ a combination of regional and site-based survey techniques to locate sites, to understand their landscape context, to construct their site biographies, and to study their material culture through a sample surface collection. While survey work is inherently diachronic, our dominant focus has always been on the Bronze and Iron Ages to be able to understand the changes this region experienced under Hittite imperialism by focusing on before, during, and after the reach of the Hittite Empire to this region.
The major research objective for PLAS is to trace the imperial strategies of the Hittite Empire along its under-investigated western border. Our survey area neighbors the eastern bank of the Sakarya River. The scarce mentions of this significant river in Hittite texts paint a picture of liminality and suggest that crossing this river towards the west meant leaving the Hittite core region. While Polatlı is home to the long-term excavations at the Phrygian capital Gordion—a freshly minted UNESCO World Heritage site—regional work in this area has been scarce, and rarely targeted the Bronze Age past.
A group from the PLAS 2022 team walking transects at the site of Örenler Mevkii.
A melting pot yielded from the site of Karayavşan Höyük. Some metal slag still preserved inside can be seen in the top view above.
Our work since 2019 revealed a dense Early Bronze Age occupation in the region. Access to, and control of, metal ores and metalworking technologies seem to be a driving force for this settlement surge, as demonstrated by metal slags and vessels related to metalworking that were yielded from our third millennium BCE sites. Polatlı seems to have suffered from the catastrophic end of the Early Bronze Age that is visible elsewhere in Anatolia, as one third of these sites do not continue into the Middle Bronze Age. The Middle Bronze Age landscape is, however, still one of continuity, as every site occupied in the early second millennium BCE was also occupied in the Early Bronze Age. The full impact of the Hittite Empire is felt in the Late Bronze Age, manifested with three new foundations that exhibit close ties to the core region of the empire to the east in terms of their material assemblage. Following the end of the Bronze Age, the Iron Age of the region looks much different, as it is no longer on the borderlands of an empire but is the center of the Phrygian kingdom.
The Charles Harris Grant enabled us to substantially increase our coverage in 2023. Polatlı is a large city, and having one home base is not enough to be able to access its various landscapes. Through ASOR’s generous support, we were able to temporarily relocate to work in the southern areas of Polatlı we could not work before. We discovered 19 new sites, substantially increasing our dataset and putting the results of our previous seasons to test. As this was our last season for this first phase of the PLAS project, we are grateful to ASOR for helping us expand our research area for better understanding the borderland dynamics in this region.
Müge Durusu-Tanriover, Director of PLAS
(Temple University and Bilkent University)
Learn more about the Polatlı Landscape Archaeology and Survey Project (PLAS) on their website or their Instagram!
John Rinks, 2023 Stevan B. Dana Fieldwork Scholarship Recipient
When I was a young boy, I dug holes in my parent’s backyard. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t expecting to find anything. I just liked to dig. I also read books about pirates and buried treasure. When asked, I would say my plan when I grew up was to find pirate treasure buried on remote Caribbean islands.
John holding two tourias.
Being a volunteer on an excavation in Israel is the grownup version of that young boy’s dream. Spoiler alert: the experience surpassed my expectations, and I am obsessed with it.
Going on “a dig” starts way before the long plane ride. For me, it meant going to the gym every day after work to get (and stay) in shape. I’m 63-years old, with a desk job, and didn’t want to be that “old guy”. I wanted to pull my weight and show the young grad students what hard work looks like. To wield a pickaxe and turia tirelessly for extended hours in 95-degree F heat. To “bucket-chain” over 1,000 buckets of dirt out of the excavation area every day without breaking a sweat (that’s an exaggeration – I sweated plenty).
Not everyone on the dig team started out as gung-ho as me. Some of the college kids didn’t have manual labor experience. But it didn’t take long for them to ramp up. It’s pretty awesome to see twenty-something guys and gals quickly learn how to dig. How hard can it be? Of course, anybody can “dig”. What I’m talking about is next level. Like, listening to the sound the pickaxe head makes when it hits the ground. Or feeling that difference flow up through the shaft handle to your hands. Was that soft dirt, hard dirt, mudbrick, pottery, stone, or an artifact? I’m totally serious. It’s a real thing.
One surprise is the focus of the dig director and supervisors at my site to make everyone’s experience a great one. Volunteers get training, mentoring, and meaningful assignments. First timers are not relegated to menial tasks. One of my roommates was in his thirties and has a desk job like me back in the States. He used his entire three weeks of annual vacation time to be a volunteer on the dig. He loved it.
John in his square with dig director Dr. Shlomit Bechar.
John inspecting a stone mace head he uncovered.
John standing above his
square after 6 weeks of digging.
There are side benefits too. Being on a dig isn’t just that three week or six-week session. It turns into a life experience. Not just the memory aspect of it. It can motivate you to care more about your physical condition and health. You make friends from all over the world and stay in contact on social media. It makes you more interesting to your family and friends, having unique stories to tell and pictures to share. If you read the Bible or history books it gives you “I was there” pictures in your mind of the real thing.
Did we find cool stuff? Of course. Ancient walls and plastered floors – from thousands of years ago. A 3,500-year-old bronze axe head. Ceramic jugs and bowls. A pottery sherd with an Egyptian hieroglyph. A cylinder seal. Large threshold stones leading into a temple – carved from volcanic basalt. And on and on.
One of my favorite pictures from this summer at Tel Hazor Lower City is of me standing above the “hole” I helped dig in six weeks. By itself, the picture isn’t amazing. But when I tell the people I show it to that we started at ground level in the year 2023, and six weeks and nine feet later it was the year 1750 BC more than 3,700 years ago – it becomes amazing! Lots of people like movies and books about time travel; sitting comfortably watching a movie or reading a book. I was there. I touched the stones and artifacts. I time traveled. Words cannot adequately express this phenomenon. You’ll just have to go to a dig one of these summers and see for yourself.
Today I’m writing this report back home in Colorado. When I finish it, I’ll be heading to the fitness gym to work out because the countdown app on my phone says 299 days from now I will be flying from Denver to Tel Aviv because I’m going back. I can hardly wait to see what our team is going to find next summer. Maybe I’ll see you there.
John Rinks is development director at a large Christian high school in Denver, Colorado. Prior to that he was an economics teacher for 18 years and in the defense industry for 15 years in southern California. John is married and has three children and eight grandchildren.
For more information about the Hazor Lower City Excavations visit:
The Honors and Awards Committee seeks nominations to serve on the G. Ernest Wright Book Award and Frank Moore Cross Book Award sub-committees. ASOR invites nominations, including self-nominations, from ASOR members who are interested in being considered by the committee for these openings. Committee members will serve a three-year term with the possibility of two consecutive terms. Nominees must fill out the online form by February 23, 2024. The Honors and Awards Committee takes responsibility for determining the awardees for the three book awards, the field archaeology award, the “best poster” and “best student paper” awards, and the multiple membership service awards that ASOR gives annually; conducting the awards ceremony during the Members’ Meeting at the ASOR Annual Meeting; and discussing and advising the ASOR Board of Trustees about ASOR’s awards, including recommending to the Board the creation of new awards as deemed appropriate.
One candidate is sought for the G. Ernest Wright Award sub-committee. This award is given to the author/editor of the most substantial volume(s) dealing with archaeological material, excavation reports and material culture from the ancient Near East and Eastern Mediterranean. This work must be the result of original research published within the past two years. (One award is given annually.) This candidate will also serve on the Joy Ungerleider poster sub-committee.
One candidate is sought for the Frank Moore Cross Award sub-committee. This award is presented to the author/editor of the most substantial volume(s) related to the history and/or religion of the ancient Near East and Eastern Mediterranean. Primary consideration will be given to historical, epigraphic, textual, and comparative literary studies; or to works that advance and/or evaluate new methodological approaches to the literary record(s). This work must be the result of original research published during the past two years. (One award is given annually.) This candidate will also serve on the Student Paper Award sub-committee.
Preference will be given to candidates who complement the research specialities of the existing committee members.
In order to receive full consideration by the committee the online form must be submitted by noon EST on February 23, 2024. For questions and concerns, please contact Marta Ostovich (programs@asor.org)
Find One — Fund One: 2024 ASOR Scholarships and Grants
This year ASOR is awarding more than $250,000 in fellowships, scholarships, and grants! This extraordinary commitment to our members has been made possible by you, our members and donors, who have established endowments or made annual contributions to these programs.
We invite you to FIND ONE (a scholarship, fellowship, or grant) or to help FUND ONE (designated gifts to enable us to award even more, or unrestricted gifts to help with the costs of administering and distributing the awards).
Syeda Sukena Zehra working with the Gadachrili Gora Regional Archaeological Project Expedition in Georgia.
The deadline to apply for fieldwork participation scholarships and grants is a little over a month away (February 26 for grants, February 28 for scholarships). We invite you to apply and to share the word through your social media and other networks (please share this post).
Ashley Jemmott excavating at Tel Abel Beth Maacah.
ASOR is able to provide these scholarships with the partnership of you, our many members and donors. You are enabling ASOR to establish new scholarships and grants through endowed funds, but your annual support (i.e., gifts this year) will allow ASOR to send more eager students and early career scholars into the field. Please support archaeology’s next generation by making a gift today and selecting “Excavation Scholarships” as the designation for your gift. You may also make a designated gift by choosing any category from the drop-down menu on the donations module.
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