Call for DEI Task Force Nominations

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CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: ASOR’S DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION TASK FORCE

[/vc_column_text][mk_divider][vc_wp_text]ASOR seeks volunteers for a Task Force on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). This Task Force will be comprised of 10-12 ASOR members to be selected by Oct. 1, 2020. We will ask the Task Force to present a preliminary report on next steps directions to take at the spring 2021 Board of Trustees’ meeting. The Task Force will work with ASOR leadership and the Chairs Coordinating Council (CCC) in helping revise the ASOR Strategic Plan. The full charge to the Task Force is posted on the ASOR web site. The summary charge is as follows:

We archaeologists, ancient historians, and philologists who make up the professional membership of ASOR study the origins, growth, and transformations of systemically unequal social orders in the past, and we have a duty to use our knowledge to fight the perpetuation of oppressive systems in the present. To that end, the Task Force on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion will seek out methods and recommend programs through which ASOR can recruit and support Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) members by (1) identifying partners in community organizations and institutions; (2) creating fundraising initiatives for scholarships that promote BIPOC participation at meetings and in the field; (3) recommending sensitivity training programs for ASOR leadership; and (4) collaborating with all ASOR committees and leadership to integrate these objectives across all areas of our new strategic plan.

Those interested in serving on the task force should contact the Chair, Erin Darby (edarby1@utk.edu). We hope to have the task force determined by Oct. 1, 2020.[/vc_wp_text][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(170,170,170,0.01)” width=”1/6″ css=”.vc_custom_1496684098866{margin-right: 5px !important;margin-bottom: 20px !important;border-right-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 10px !important;padding-left: 10px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;border-right-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;border-bottom-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;}”][vc_wp_posts title=”BROWSE THE NEWS ARCHIVE” number=”4″][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(170,170,170,0.01)” width=”1/6″ css=”.vc_custom_1496684008271{margin-right: 10px !important;margin-bottom: 30px !important;border-right-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;border-right-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;border-bottom-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;}”][vc_column_text] [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

ASOR Project Directors Zoom Meeting: Oct. 1

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ASOR PROJECT DIRECTORS ZOOM MEETING

[/vc_column_text][mk_divider][vc_wp_text]Following a summer of minimal-to-no fieldwork for almost all ASOR projects, the Chair of the Committee on Archaeological Research and Policy, Steve Falconer, is convening ASOR-affiliated archaeological project directors and the directors of ASOR’s affiliated centers (ACOR, AIAR, and CAARI) to discuss fieldwork prospects for 2021. The Center Directors and other colleagues will briefly summarize the prospects for 2021 fieldwork in Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. This meeting is designed to help directors discuss the challenges of planning fieldwork in the current environment (travel restrictions, COVID-19 safety measures, etc.). The overseas research Center Directors will provide perspectives from within their respective countries. The goal is to offer project directors a place to share their experiences, questions, and concerns for fieldwork moving forward.

The meeting is scheduled for October 1 at 12:00 PM EDT.

If you are interested in participating in this Zoom meeting, please contact Marta Ostovich (programs@asor.org). The meeting will be recorded and made available to all who are interested. By participating in the meeting, you agree to ASOR recording the session.

We hope this will be the first in a series of meetings and discussions for ASOR members on 2021 fieldwork.[/vc_wp_text][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(170,170,170,0.01)” width=”1/6″ css=”.vc_custom_1496684098866{margin-right: 5px !important;margin-bottom: 20px !important;border-right-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 10px !important;padding-left: 10px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;border-right-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;border-bottom-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;}”][vc_wp_posts title=”BROWSE THE NEWS ARCHIVE” number=”4″][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(170,170,170,0.01)” width=”1/6″ css=”.vc_custom_1496684008271{margin-right: 10px !important;margin-bottom: 30px !important;border-right-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;border-right-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;border-bottom-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;}”][vc_column_text] [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Fellowship Report: Avary Taylor

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A RETURN TO ANCIENT LAGASH

Avary Taylor, 2019 P. E. MacAllister Excavation Fellowship Recipient[/vc_column_text][mk_divider][vc_wp_text]

Avary Taylor collecting geophysical data with Bartington magnetometer.

The P. E. MacAllister Excavation Fellowship financially supported my travel to the site of al-Hiba, Iraq (ancient Lagash) in March and April of 2019 to take part in the Lagash Archaeological Project (LAP). The team—composed of faculty, researchers, and graduate students from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Cambridge, the Università di Pisa, and the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage of Iraq, as well as myself, a fifth-year PhD candidate in the Near Eastern Studies Department at Johns Hopkins University—surveyed and excavated the site, which had not been revisited since 1990.

Tell al-Hiba is located in the Dhi Qar Province of southern Iraq. The site was briefly excavated by Robert Koldewey in 1887, but it was not until six campaigns led by teams from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University undertaken in the mid- and late-twentieth century that the importance of the site was fully realized. Lagash was one of the earliest cities in the world and was a dominating power in Sumer during the third millennium BCE. The third millennium is characterized by major cultural and political changes. During the Early Dynastic Period, which is named after the earliest evidence for dynastic rule in Mesopotamia, dynastic kings ruled over city-states that emerged in southern Iraq and shared a common, Sumerian identity. Al-Hiba is a significant site in the study of early urbanism in the ancient world. During this period, the city of Lagash grew as large as 600 hectares and competed with other Sumerian city-states.

Area H photograph with excavated kilns immediately below surface.

The 2019 field season at al-Hiba was highly successful and produced many exciting finds, including evidence of a monumental city wall and a royal cone of king Enmetena. The season was focused around surface collection surveys, remote sensing (drone photography and geophysics surveys), and excavations in Area G, a previously opened area with extensive Early Dynastic I levels and a monumental curving wall, and the newly opened Area H, an industrial zone.

My time at Lagash was spent excavating, collecting geophysical data with a magnetometer, and cataloging and analyzing ceramics. I proudly was able to beat many personal bests on the magnetometer, and the team successfully covered a truly massive area of the site during survey and remote sensing. After excavating during the day, I would help catalogue ceramics and I became intimately familiar with the hundreds of beaker sherds that the team excavated this season.

During the team’s days off, we were able to travel to neighboring southern Iraq sites, such as Tell al-Muqayyar (ancient Ur), where we were fortunate enough to experience a massive dust storm immediately followed by a rain storm. Despite how it may sound, this was truly a special experience; pictures of the site, and particularly of the ziggurat, are captured on bright, sunny days. Experiencing the site in more extreme weather provided me with an important alternative view of Ur than many scholars have access to. The team was also able to visit the newly opened Basra Museum, which housed many wonderful Mesopotamian objects within its beautiful building.

Drone flying above sunset landscape of Lagash.

Avary Taylor is a PhD candidate in Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Taylor is an art historian who specializes in the art of the Neo-Assyrian Period. His in-progress dissertation, “The ‘Thing’ About the Palace: A Posthumanist Biography of the Northwest Palace,” seeks to understand the life of a Neo-Assyrian palace, not as a constructed result reflecting human agency and will, but as an autonomous being itself. The dissertation engages with posthumanist theories to explore the proposition that the role of humans is secondary to the “thing.” Taylor is also involved in several archaeological projects in addition to al-Hiba, such as Kurd Qaburstan (Johns Hopkins University).[/vc_wp_text][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(170,170,170,0.01)” width=”1/6″ css=”.vc_custom_1496684098866{margin-right: 5px !important;margin-bottom: 20px !important;border-right-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 10px !important;padding-left: 10px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;border-right-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;border-bottom-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;}”][vc_wp_posts title=”BROWSE THE NEWS ARCHIVE” number=”4″][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(170,170,170,0.01)” width=”1/6″ css=”.vc_custom_1496684008271{margin-right: 10px !important;margin-bottom: 30px !important;border-right-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;border-right-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;border-bottom-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;}”][vc_column_text] [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]