Monthly Archives: December 2024

FOA Webinar: Geoff Emberling

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FRIENDS OF ASOR WEBINARS

Archaeology and Heritage During the Civil War in Sudan: What Can We Do?

Friends of ASOR present the next webinar of the 2024-2025 season on January 8, 2025, at 7:00 pm EST, presented by Dr. Geoff Emberling. This webinar will be free and open to the public. Registration through Zoom (with a valid email address) is required. This webinar will be recorded and all registrants will be sent a recording link in the days following the webinar.

Archaeologists are moving away from the colonial past of the discipline and are increasingly finding ways of engaging and collaborating with the communities where we work. Since 2016, the University of Michigan archaeological project in northern Sudan that Dr. Emberling co-directs has been conducting research at important sites of the ancient empire of Kush, first at the royal pyramid cemetery of Kushite kings and queens at El-Kurru (ca. 850-350 BCE) and more recently at the major urban center at Jebel Barkal (ancient Napata). Their work has come to be highly collaborative and engages extensively with local communities.

This talk is not primarily about those excavations. Rather, it will discuss what has happened in Sudan since the outbreak of war in the country in April 2023 with a particular focus on heritage. It will provide an overview of the conflict, discuss real (and imagined) threats to museums, sites, and monuments, and discuss the wide range of responses by the Sudanese government, Sudanese scholars, international institutions, and foreign-based archaeologists. It will also focus on the work done with communities and colleagues at El-Kurru and Jebel Barkal.

Collaborative relationships developed by the teams and others working in Sudan have made it possible in some cases to continue to work together on on-site management and protection and community engagement, even at a time of unimaginable struggle and hardship in the country. This work has raised the question of whether it is unethical to be focusing on heritage when people are suffering. However, Dr. Emberling and his team have found that through collaborative work (and flexible and generous funding), they are able to provide direct support to a large number of people to continue their archaeological work. This provides meaning and purpose for their archaeological colleagues, while their community engagement activities offer opportunities for local residents and refugees to relax, connect, and even have some fun in the midst of a dire situation. It turns out that heritage is always about people.

Geoff Emberling is an archaeologist and museum curator at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan whose work has focused on the ancient Middle East and Northeast Africa. He is also a longtime ASOR member. He directed excavations at Tell Brak in northeastern Syria until 2004 and then took a position as Museum Director and Chief Curator at what is now the Institute for the Study of Ancient Civilizations (ISAC) at the University of Chicago. While there, he supervised an exhibit on the looting of museums and sites in Iraq around the 2003 US-led invasion.

At that time, he also began his work in northern Sudan (ancient Nubia), first supervising a permanent gallery on ancient Nubia at ISAC and then co-directing a University of Chicago project that contributed to archaeological salvage of the Merowe Dam at the 4th Cataract of the Nile. Since 2013, he has co-directed University of Michigan projects in Sudan, first at the royal pyramid cemetery of ancient Kush known as El-Kurru, and most recently at the Kushite urban center of Jebel Barkal (ancient Napata).

His more recent work has prioritized collaborative and community-engaged work with local professional colleagues and community members in Sudan, including site protection, conservation of monuments, and community education. This approach has prepared him and his team to continue to contribute to work at these sites as well as their protection during the current war in Sudan, which started in April 2023.

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2024 Tigris Travel Grants for Scholars from Iraq

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2024 ANNUAL MEETING TIGRIS TRAVEL GRANTS

This was the first year of the Tigris Travel Grant program which supports Annual Meeting participation for scholars from Iraq and its Kurdistan Region. These grants, made possible through the generosity of Kiersten Neumann, covered the cost of flights to the Annual Meeting as well as accommodation in the ASOR hotel. The three scholars who received grants share their experiences at the meeting in Boston. 

I was the last passenger!

 

Mustfaa Al-Hussainy presenting on the Ottoman houses of Basra.

Mustfaa Al-Hussainy, Head of Basra’s State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH)

I received a call from my friend Jaafar Jotheri at 13:30 on November 15th, the same day I travelled to the US through Najaf Airport; he told me that the American Embassy in Baghdad had finally given us the visa. As I live in Basra, 600 km south of Baghdad, I asked him to pick up my passport to save time and make it to Najaf Airport rather than going to Baghdad and then to Najaf. I arrived at Najaf airport at the last minute, and the boarding person welcomed me and said, “You are the last passenger” as I did the check-in just 5 minutes before closing the desk. However, I felt relieved once I arrived at Boston and said, “This is the city of dreams and research achievement.”  After enjoying the opening ceremony in the evening, meeting and greeting old friends, and making new ones, I gave my talk on the morning of the first day of the academic programme. My talk was about reviving the old Basra, where I presented the hard work of UNESCO and the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) in reconstructing and preserving the Ottoman houses in Basra and supporting the local Museum of Basra. I was impressed with the many attendees and the questions I received. I thanked ASOR, TARII, and the Tigris Travel Grant Program for helping me make it to the US for the first time and giving me the platform to speak about my project. As everyone knows, Iraqi archaeologists have no funding to travel and participate in international conferences.

 

Mustfaa Al-Hussainy meeting with Barbara Porter.

After finishing my talk, I did my best to attend talks related to Iraq, as there were so many. I was impressed by the high quality of the work, the multidisciplinary nature of the projects, and the sophisticated methodology of research that the international teams were implementing in Iraq. At the same time, while I was listening to these talks, I was trying to ask myself and anyone sitting close to me in the meeting several questions. Why were the presentations about Iraqi archaeology in English, not in Arabic? Why were they presenting their significant findings in the US, instead of  Iraq? Why were there no Iraqi scholars co-authoring their papers? Why aren’t these excavations and survey technologies shared with the Iraqis? Why were there no plans or ideas for these local knowledge or public engagement projects? I have been constantly thinking about establishing an Iraqi archaeology school, following in the footsteps of the first Iraqi archaeologists, Taha Baqir and Fouad Safar. This school would be an umbrella under which all Iraqi archaeologists would meet to study and analyze our civilization with an Iraqi eye and opinion based on Iraqi ethnography because, quite simply, similar societies produce similar cultures.

Hasan Ahmed Qasim Berwary, Executive Chairman of Kurdistan Archaeology Organization (KAO)

I wanted to take a moment to convey our sincere gratitude for the recent conference. We truly feel privileged to participate actively in ASOR and believe the event was an outstanding success, spanning various aspects of archaeology and heritage. The work ASOR does in safeguarding antiquities and preserving cultural heritage is of immense value to humanity, and we want you to know how much we appreciate your dedication to this vital mission. We’re already looking forward to future opportunities to contribute, bringing even more discoveries and activities to the fields of heritage and antiquities.  Once again, thank you for your unwavering support and guidance. We wholeheartedly support the remarkable work you continue to accomplish in this domain.

My first trip to the US

Jaafar Jotheri, Professor in Landscape Archaeology, University of Al-Qadisiyah, Iraq

 

Jaafar Jotheri presenting his research on Iraq’s western desert.

Although I have been a member of ASOR for 11 years, this was my first trip to  the US and my first time participating in the ASOR annual meeting in person. Two things are challenging for any Iraqi scholar when it comes to attending a conference in the US; one is the complicated process of getting a US visa, and the second is covering the expenses. As for the visa, the American Embassy in Baghdad is not prioritizing visa applications for attending scientific conferences, and that is why it took me three months to process my visa, which was given to me a few hours before my flight to the US. Thanks to the exceptional efforts of TARII in helping me get my visa application considered. As for travel expenses, our Iraqi educational and research institutions are mainly designed for teaching, not research. I always describe them as large schools where there is no funding for conducting research or for traveling to present research at international conferences. Thanks to the Tigris Travel Grant Program for covering my expenses, without which I would not have been able to travel to the US even if I had a visa.

As for my experience at the ASOR meeting, I was impressed with the remarkable organization and coordination of hundreds of talks within only three days.  I was also impressed with the multidisciplinary subjects, and the number of publishing houses and journals. I met so many people that I knew or who knew me via social media.  I felt that I was made welcome wherever I was talking with someone I knew or someone I just met. The staff and  ASOR leadership found time for me despite their busy schedule. They expressed their warm welcome, promised to attend my talk, and kept their promise.  I presented the preliminary findings of my research project in the Iraqi western desert that ASOR funded with a Mesopotamian Fellowship. I started by thanking them for the support, as at the beginning,  it was hard to convince anyone that there should be something new in the desert worth researching and funding.  I must say that after my work in the desert, several research and funding bodies, such as the British Institute for the Study of Iraq (BISI), Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa (EAMENA), and The International Association for the Study of Arabia (IASA) started focusing on the area and funding projects in it. I should mention that I made the most of my visit to the US as I visited Baltimore to give a talk at Johns Hopkins University on my recent findings about the ancient irrigation system in southern Mesopotamia. Thanks to Michael Harrower of the Department of Near Eastern Studies for organizing and covering the expenses.

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Table of Contents for Maarav 28.1-2 (2024)

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Table of Contents for Maarav 28.1-2 (2024)

You can receive Maarav(and other ASOR publications) through an ASOR Membership.
Please e-mail the Membership office if you have any questions.

Pp. 1-56: “The First Tablet of the Ugaritic KrtText, Column II, Lines 4–5: Reading and Reconstruction” by Tommaso Bacci, Tyler J. Harris, Jaeseok Heo, Dennis Pardee, and Alexis Wolf

This article introduces a new reconstruction and critical reading of two partially-damaged lines (4–5), from Tablet I, Column II of the Ugaritic Krt Text (RS 2.[003]+). The first section of this article outlines the lengthy history of previously-offered readings and restorations of these lines. The second section provides a detailed epigraphic analysis and reconstruction, based on new photos of the tablet. Following the proposed reconstruction, the third section offers a philological analysis, including vocalization and translation of relevant portions. The fourth and final section of the article explores pertinent literary considerations around the proposed reconstruction, demonstrating how these lines fit lexically and thematically within the immediate passage and the broader story. This article’s new proposal underscores the significance of Krt’s first refusal of an offer of wealth and precious items after the loss of his household (I 52–II 3)—a key motif that recurs twice more within the KrtEpic (III 33–37; VI 22–27). The holistic approach to reconstruction utilized herein centers around the distribution of terms related to the concepts of “house(hold)” and “progeny/family,” illuminating the poetic techniques used in Krt’s request for a bride, as instructed by the god ʾIlu, and its pivotal role in the unfolding narrative.

ASOR Members with online access: log into ASOR’s Online Portal here. Once logged in, click the JOURNALS tab in the top navigation bar. From here you may select which journal you would like to read. If you have online access, you will see your selected journal’s current issue Table of Contents. Click on the “Current Issue” button and you will then be redirected to the University of Chicago Press’s (UCP) platform to immediately start reading any issue of your choice. Tutorials for how to log in to the Online Portal as well as how to navigate to the Portal Journals page can be found here.

Pp. 57-88: “‘And I Deported ʾAriʾēl, Its Leader, from There’: Line 12 of the Mesha Inscription in Light of Shared Scribal Practices in Moab and Ancient South Arabia,” by Mario Tafferner

Translating the phrase wʾšb . mšm . ʾt . ʾrʾl . dwdh in line 12 of the Mesha Inscription remains problematic. This essay goes beyond previous approaches to interpreting this clause by comparing it to related instances of formulaic language usage in the Old Sabaic royal summary inscription RES 3945/3946. The resulting anaylsis illuminates several aspects of the Moabite phrase: the verbal root underlying the form wʾšb, the type of object represented by ʾrʾl . dwdh, and the identity with which it is associated within the framework of the inscription’s rhetoric. The essay concludes that wʾšb . mšm . ʾt . ʾrʾl . dwdh likely communicates the deportation of a human being that the writers of the account presented as either Israelite or closely associated therewith.

ASOR Members with online access: log into ASOR’s Online Portal here. Once logged in, click the JOURNALS tab in the top navigation bar. From here you may select which journal you would like to read. If you have online access, you will see your selected journal’s current issue Table of Contents. Click on the “Current Issue” button and you will then be redirected to the University of Chicago Press’s (UCP) platform to immediately start reading any issue of your choice. Tutorials for how to log in to the Online Portal as well as how to navigate to the Portal Journals page can be found here.

Pp. 89-95: “Beth-Shemesh East and the lmlkStamped Jar handles: A Rejoinder,” by Lily Singer-Avitz and Yehuda Govrin

The present rejoinder discusses the article published recently in this journal by Gross, Wrathall, Koch, and Lipschits and its conclusions. Their article reviews the lmlk stamped handles found in a limited area of the large-scale salvage excavations conducted during the years 2018–2020 to the east of Tel Beth-Shemesh. According to these partial data they reconstruct the chronology and history of the site. In this rejoinder we present a different set of chronological data as obtained from all the excavation areas which requires another historical reconstruction.

ASOR Members with online access: log into ASOR’s Online Portal here. Once logged in, click the JOURNALS tab in the top navigation bar. From here you may select which journal you would like to read. If you have online access, you will see your selected journal’s current issue Table of Contents. Click on the “Current Issue” button and you will then be redirected to the University of Chicago Press’s (UCP) platform to immediately start reading any issue of your choice. Tutorials for how to log in to the Online Portal as well as how to navigate to the Portal Journals page can be found here.

Pp. 97-142: “A Reedition of Three Palmyrene Funerary Busts at the Barracco Museum in Rome (PAT 1064, 1065, 1759),” by Ali Kesserwani, Jeremy M. Hutton, and Konstantin M. Klein

The Museo Barracco di scultura antica (Barracco Museum of Ancient Sculpture, Rome, Italy) houses three Palmyrene funerary busts (PAT 1064, 1065, 1759). In this study, we analyze all three reliefs, providing discussions of their iconographic features, onomastics and prosopography, and script-styles, with particularly detailed descriptions attending the latter. We confirm prior readings and make additional observations regarding the subjects’ professional and social identities.

ASOR Members with online access: log into ASOR’s Online Portal here. Once logged in, click the JOURNALS tab in the top navigation bar. From here you may select which journal you would like to read. If you have online access, you will see your selected journal’s current issue Table of Contents. Click on the “Current Issue” button and you will then be redirected to the University of Chicago Press’s (UCP) platform to immediately start reading any issue of your choice. Tutorials for how to log in to the Online Portal as well as how to navigate to the Portal Journals page can be found here.

Pp. 143-172: “A Scroll of One’s Own? Scribal, Philological, and Literary Aspects of 4QIsak (4Q64),” by Noam Mizrahi

The paper offers a new investigation of a fragmentary Isaiahscroll from Qumran Cave 4, 4QIsak (4Q64), which contains Isa 28:26–29:9. A new material reconstruction of the surviving fragments leads to a detailed evaluation of the scribal properties of the manuscript. The philological analysis of its text vis-à-vis the MT and the other textual witnesses takes into consideration the literary structure and rhetorical design of the prophetic units, leading to some conclusions concerning the nature of this specific scribal artifact and its place within the textual history of Isaiah.

ASOR Members with online access: log into ASOR’s Online Portal here. Once logged in, click the JOURNALS tab in the top navigation bar. From here you may select which journal you would like to read. If you have online access, you will see your selected journal’s current issue Table of Contents. Click on the “Current Issue” button and you will then be redirected to the University of Chicago Press’s (UCP) platform to immediately start reading any issue of your choice. Tutorials for how to log in to the Online Portal as well as how to navigate to the Portal Journals page can be found here.

Pp. 173-218: “A Tale Twice Told—Between Variants and Versions in the Transmission of Mandaic Spells,” by Matthew Morgenstern

In contrast to Mandaic magic spells that have survived in epigraphic sources dating from the fifth to seventh centuries which show considerable literary variation, those attested in manuscript sources—the earliest surviving example of which was copied in the seventeenth century—mostly preserve only a single recension of each spell. One rare exception is a spell that has been incorporated in a longer and shorter recension into two different collections of formulae, Šap̄ta ḏ-Pašar Haršia “The Scroll of the Exorcism of Sorceries” and Šap̄ta ḏ-Mihla ḏ-Sidma ḏ-Sahria u-Kibša ḏ-Daiuia (Pašar Mihla) “The Scroll of Salt, the Restraint of Sahirs and the Subduing of Devs(The Exorcism of Salt).” This article presents an editio princeps of both recensions of this spell with a translation and brief philological notes and emphasizes the importance of examining all available textual witnesses and establishing the relationship between them when such an edition is produced. It is shown that where the two traditions of transmission of this spell are parallel, some of the textual variants appear to reflect slightly different versions of the text that were incorporated into the two collections, while others have probably arisen at a later stage in the transmission of each collection.

ASOR Members with online access: log into ASOR’s Online Portal here. Once logged in, click the JOURNALS tab in the top navigation bar. From here you may select which journal you would like to read. If you have online access, you will see your selected journal’s current issue Table of Contents. Click on the “Current Issue” button and you will then be redirected to the University of Chicago Press’s (UCP) platform to immediately start reading any issue of your choice. Tutorials for how to log in to the Online Portal as well as how to navigate to the Portal Journals page can be found here.

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2024 Dana Grant Report: Modeling Punic Space at Motya

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Aerial view of the island of Motya, Sicily, Italy.

2024 Dana Grant Report: Modeling Punic Space at Motya

Jason Herrmann, University of Pennsylvania and Paola Sconzo, University of Palermo

Ancient Motya (modern Isola San Pantaleo, Sicily, Italy), founded in the late 8th century BCE by Phoenician wayfarers, was a significant hub in the central Mediterranean, serving as a crucial point of contact between Carthage and Sicily at the city’s height in the 5th century BCE. Unlike many other Phoenician-Punic urban centers, Motya has remained largely undisturbed by subsequent occupations, offering archaeologists a rare and valuable opportunity to study Punic urban planning in its original context.

Since 2017, we have been conducting comprehensive geophysical surveys on the island for the Space and Identity at Ancient Motya project. Our goal is to map the layout of the city’s structures and to use their configuration to interpret Motya’s social organization and expressions of ethnic identity. This project is a collaboration between the University of Palermo and the Penn Museum and operates as a subproject under the University of Palermo Archaeological Mission to Motya, with the support of the Superintendency for Cultural and Environmental Heritage of Trapani.

View of Motya
Fig. 1. Motya was situated on an island in the Marsala Stagnone in western Sicily. By the 5th century BCE, the fortified city of Motya covered the entire island and was connected to the Sicilian mainland by a causeway, now submerged and visible in the foreground of the above image.
Students and team members on the boat to site.
Fig. 2. Many students and team members were housed on the Sicilian mainland and traveled by boat to and from Motya daily for fieldwork.

Thanks to the support of the ASOR Stevan B. Dana Grant, our multidisciplinary project was able to continue with the assistance of an international team of eleven students from the University of Palermo and the University of Pennsylvania. These students contributed to both the geophysical survey and the ongoing excavations carried out toward two primary objectives. The first was to expand the geophysical survey coverage beyond the areas that were accessible for magnetic gradiometry in previous years. To this end, ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and electrical soil resistance helped to document subsurface features where vegetation or other surface conditions made magnetic gradiometry unfeasible.

Our second goal was to further investigate ambiguous features observed in the magnetic gradiometry that required additional clarification. One area of particular interest was a depression in the northeast sector of the island where magnetic data were inconclusive. Here we employed GPR, a technique that measures how radio waves are reflected off changes in the textures of buried materials. Preliminary results show that, unlike the rest of the island, this area was not covered with streets and houses during Motya’s urban expansion, suggesting that it was reserved for some special purpose.

Excavation of Motya's fortification wall.
Fig. 3. Excavation continued in protected contexts adjacent to the Motya’s fortification wall where early 6th and 7th century contexts are preserved.
Team members in pit revealed by magnetic gradiometry data.
Fig. 4. Features observed in the geophysical data from previous seasons were verified through test excavations, including a deep pit that was visible in the magnetic gradiometry data and seemed to date to the early 6th and 7th centuries BCE. From left: Prof. Giuseppe Minunno, Helen Wong and Sarah Maria Messina.

We were also interested in determining the depths of key features across the island to aid the development of a digital reconstruction of the ancient city and landscape. For this, we combined GPR with electrical soil resistance, a method that measures the ease with which an electrical current travels in sediments, to measure the depth of streets that had been previously mapped in the magnetic data. Unlike magnetic gradiometry, GPR and electrical resistance data allow for precise estimation of the depths of the observed features, providing critical information for reconstructing the ancient city’s layout.

We thank ASOR and the Stevan B. Dana project grant for enabling broad student participation in our 2024 field season. Because of this support, we have been able to come closer to a complete map of Motya’s ancient urban plan with geophysical survey and have been able to verify some of the features we observed in the geophysical data through excavation. This information, supported by data from aerial surveys, surface collection, and legacy excavations is enabling us to develop detailed interpretations of the use of space for multiple phases of the life of ancient Motya, and establish a strong foundation for future work on this island site.

Conducting ground-penetrating radar survey
Fig. 5. Ground-penetrating radar surveys were carried out on areas where we wanted to confirm our interpretations of the magnetic data or where other geophysical surveys would not be effective because of the surface conditions. From left: Helen Wong and Mary Elizabeth Alexander.

Learn more on the project’s website.

Follow the Mozia Project and UPenn’s Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials on Instagram.

Read about applying for a 2025 ASOR Project Grant. 

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Fieldwork Report: Nate Welch

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A Short Month in Iraq

Nate Welch, 2024 Steinmetz Fellowship Recipient

The project I was able to join this season is titled “Rural Landscapes of Iron Age Imperial Mesopotamia” or RLIIM for short. The project was spearheaded and directed by Dr. Petra Creamer with the assistant director and my professor being Dr. Kyra Kaercher. These very talented women have been on this project for several seasons prior to my arrival and have an impressive systematic approach to excavating the several trenches held within the site.

I am not an archaeologist but a biologist, however I did learn the importance of proper technique. An example that comes to mind is the pickaxe. The pointed end is preferred as damage will be minimal compared to the blunt crushing end. Archaeology is destructive in nature and cannot easily be undone. That statement rung in my ears the entire time I was in Iraq and knowing that helped me cope with the meticulous digging taking place day in and day out.

What broke up the monotony of digging was the discovery of ceramic sherds, bone, spindle whorls and various other items. The ceramics were coming up by the bucketful with over 10,000 pieces by the end of the short season. These sherds were then painstakingly cleaned, analyzed and categorized by the team. This was how the majority of the days were spent however my true calling came when the farmers harvested their grain. With the fields cut down we were now able to collect magnetometry data.

I had learned of the process from my professor in my first archaeology course, however I had no hands-on experience until now. Walking with the contraption strapped to a backpack felt almost natural after the first day however I know those who were able to watch from a distance would argue otherwise. The idea was simple, walk back and forth in 20-meter increments for hours while keeping the instrument as steady as possible. The practice was a little more difficult with uneven terrain and spiky vegetation stabbing into your feet and legs all while trying to stay in step with the timer which beeped every time you should have gone one meter exactly. I haven’t even mentioned the fact that there was no shade, and temperatures would be near the 100-degree Fahrenheit mark. With all this in mind the director did an excellent job ensuring nobody would become a casualty of heat illness.

It is appropriate now to confess that I loved every day I got to spend there and all the work that went into the project. My back and knees aching were small prices to pay, and I would gladly do it again. I personally love the busy work that the ceramics and tedious digging provided because physical labor is what I do best. By nature, I am somewhat of an introvert and this opportunity allowed me to step out of my comfort zone and interact with people from all over the world.

I have done this before when I joined the Marines, however I had never been to Iraq, and I can say that my presumptions of the area were entirely incorrect. The people were very friendly, the food was great and there was so much to do and explore such as Shanidar Cave which we were able to tour. I understand I kept this report rather vague, but it sums up the journey quite well and I am the type of person that doesn’t like to disclose too much because it is not my project, and the truly exciting things should come from the director when she publishes her reports.

I’ve always been interested in history and tied in with that is archeology which made this experience all the better. I hope more opportunities like this will arise for me, but I fear my dog won’t let me leave so easily next time.

Want to help more students and early career archaeologists get into the field? Donate to the cause today by selecting “Fieldwork Scholarships” as your gift purpose!

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Table of Contents for Near Eastern Archaeology 87.4 (2024)

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Table of Contents for Near Eastern Archaeology 87.4 (December 2024)

You can receive NEA (and other ASOR publications) through an ASOR Membership.
Please e-mail the Membership office if you have any questions.

Pp. 220–230: “Dealing with and Analyzing Legacy Data: An Interdisciplinary, GIS-based Approach to Study the French Excavations at Enkomi (Cyprus),” by Enrico De Benedictis and Francesca Meneghetti

This article focuses on using GIS to analyze legacy data from the French excavations at the Late Bronze Age site of Enkomi (Cyprus). Despite being a major site for the protohistory of the island, its excavations were never fully published, while the only available publications are partial and nonorganic. Given their unreliable nature, scholarship can only partially use the results of the French mission. However, our multidisciplinary approach that uses GIS, archival data, and museum archaeology may contribute to bringing back these data again by removing the reasons that caused their dismissal. We tackle the issues of legacy data related to the site, its archaeological documentation and study, followed by the interdisciplinary methodology adopted and a case study from Quarter 3 East of Enkomi that confirms the validity of the method proposed.

ASOR Members with online access: log into ASOR’s Online Portal here. Once logged in, click the JOURNALS tab in the top navigation bar. Tutorials for how to log in to the Online Portal as well as how to navigate to the Portal Journals page can be found here.

Pp. 232-242: “A Reconstruction of the Niche in Building 7050 at Hazor,” by Jennie Ebeling and Laura Mazow

In this article we offer new evidence in support of the function of Building 7050 at Tel Hazor as a temple. One criterion the excavators use to argue its function as a palace is a clay installation they describe as a “bathtub” or “bathtub-like structure” built into the rear niche of the building. Our analysis, however, suggests a storage function is more likely. We then offer a new reconstruction of Building 7050 and the features in the rear niche, including the storage bin, a previously ignored stone base, and a bench, proposing their ritual significance. We further demonstrate the architectural parallels between Building 7050 and Hazor’s Orthostat Temple in Stratum 1B, with which Building 7050 is contemporary. This new analysis of Building 7050 contributes to our understanding of the religious landscape of the Late Bronze Age Levant.

ASOR Members with online access: log into ASOR’s Online Portal here. Once logged in, click the JOURNALS tab in the top navigation bar. Tutorials for how to log in to the Online Portal as well as how to navigate to the Portal Journals page can be found here.

Pp. 244-250: “Two Unpublished Pot Marks of Dynasty 3 from the Necropolis of Beit Khallaf (Abydos, Egypt),” by Ilaria Incordino

This article introduces two previously unknown pot marks on ceramics from the Third Dynasty (ca. 2686–2613 BCE) necropolis of Beit Khallaf (Abydos, Egypt). The analysis and publication of the funerary equipment of the five burials from this site is the main objective of a wider project that dealt more generally with the chronological problems of this period. The documentation of the funerary equipment of the tombs from Beit Khallaf, (mostly unpublished) focuses on a better understanding of the characteristics of grave goods of mastabas from the Early Dynastic period, and on the possibility that the main burial of the site, tomb K1, may be considered a royal tomb.

ASOR Members with online access: log into ASOR’s Online Portal here. Once logged in, click the JOURNALS tab in the top navigation bar. Tutorials for how to log in to the Online Portal as well as how to navigate to the Portal Journals page can be found here.

Pp. 252-263: “The Petroglyphs of Qeydu Valley in Teymare, Central Iran: New Findings, Stylistic Analysis, and Relative Dating,” by Ebrahim Karimi and Hassan Gharagouzloo

Situated within the Teymare region, Qeydu Valley comprises one of the largest concentrations of petroglyphs in central Iran. The fieldwork conducted by the authors resulted in the identification of a large number of petroglyphs that had not been previously identified. The previously reported sites were also reidentified and systematically recorded. Some abstract markings in Qeydu resemble those known as Tamgas in Central Asian and Mongolian rock art. Stylistic features of the petroglyphs are analyzed, and relative dating approaches suggest that some engravings were made during the Islamic and historical periods.

ASOR Members with online access: log into ASOR’s Online Portal here. Once logged in, click the JOURNALS tab in the top navigation bar. Tutorials for how to log in to the Online Portal as well as how to navigate to the Portal Journals page can be found here.

Pp. 264-275: “Ancient Cave Habitation of Kuy-e Keyvan, Azna, East Central Zagros, Iran,” by Behzad Hoseyni Sarbisheh, Samer Nazari, and Fatemeh Zeynali Khaledabadi

In 2018, parts of an underground building were unearthed during excavations at Kuy-e Keyvan, located in the city of Azna, Lorestan province, Iran. The site was destroyed and leveled in considerable portions as part of the city’s urban development plan. Work commenced on an archaeological rescue project to identify the architectural spaces, prepare a plan, and investigate the site function in June 2019. It covered an area larger than one and a half hectares and yielded twenty-five spaces—containing rooms and communication pathways—with pottery sherds, bones, and metal artifacts dating to the Parthian, Sassanid, and early–mid Islamic periods. The use of these underground structures is unknown, but the location of underground structures beneath the Kuy-e Keyvan site, along with the existence of rooms and corridors where pottery has been discovered, suggest that they served as a residential and shelter area. However, it is possible that some underground structures served a (temporary?) religious purpose.

ASOR Members with online access: log into ASOR’s Online Portal here. Once logged in, click the JOURNALS tab in the top navigation bar. Tutorials for how to log in to the Online Portal as well as how to navigate to the Portal Journals page can be found here.

Pp. 276-285: “An Incised Decorated Bone Inlay from the Hittite Empire Period Found at Boğazköy/Hattusa,” by Andreas Schachner

During new excavations carried out since 2022 on the B¨y¨kkale Northwest Slope, which connects the two poles of the Hittite capital Hattusa—the palace area on B¨y¨kkale and the Lower Town—a unique ivory inlay was found in 2023. The antithetical depiction shows a sphinx and a lion in front of a tree of life. Per numerous iconographic details, this find provides unprecedented first-hand insights into the cultural relations between the states in the eastern Mediterranean, Anatolia, the Aegean, and Mycenae in the Late Bronze Age. As this piece can be well dated to the late phase of the Hittite Empire, both iconographically and through radiocarbon dating, it provides unexpected evidence for the integration of the Hittite heartland into this network of relationships as well as to the end of the Late Bronze Age international network of states.

ASOR Members with online access: log into ASOR’s Online Portal here. Once logged in, click the JOURNALS tab in the top navigation bar. Tutorials for how to log in to the Online Portal as well as how to navigate to the Portal Journals page can be found here.

Pp. 286-292: “Shared Motifs among Neighbors: Small-Scale Objects, Hegemony, and Cultural Influence in the Late Bronze and Iron Age Levant,” by Shane M. Thompson

This article examines the presence of small-scale objects (i.e., pottery, scarabs, seals, etc.) in the Late Bronze and Iron Age Levant as a means by which to measure the impact of foreign rule on the nonelites. It concludes that these objects are not useful to discussions of Assyrian, Egyptian, or Hittite hegemony, but rather that they are additional support for the interconnectivity of the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. In fact, these objects are expected to appear in the archaeological record of neighbors. This article, then, cautions against using material culture, especially small-scale material culture, as a means by which to draw large conclusions.

ASOR Members with online access: log into ASOR’s Online Portal here. Once logged in, click the JOURNALS tab in the top navigation bar. Tutorials for how to log in to the Online Portal as well as how to navigate to the Portal Journals page can be found here.

Pp. 294-299: “A Late Period Model Block Headrest from the Northeastern Nile Delta,” by Nicky Nielsen

Headrests made from various materials and in a variety of shapes were used throughout the pharaonic civilisation and across social classes. Aside from their functionality in life, headrests formed a core component of funerary assemblages. During the Late period, the full-size functional headrests were replaced (or augmented) in private tombs assemblages by smaller amuletic and model headrests. This article presents a newly discovered rare type of model block headrest carved from limestone and found at the site of Tell Nabasha in the northeastern Nile Delta. The argument is made that the model headrest was carved during the fourth century BCE from limestone gathered from a disused temple structure at the site, and that the artifact was intended for deposition within the large Late period necropolis also associated with Tell Nabasha.

ASOR Members with online access: log into ASOR’s Online Portal here. Once logged in, click the JOURNALS tab in the top navigation bar. Tutorials for how to log in to the Online Portal as well as how to navigate to the Portal Journals page can be found here.

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2024—Impact of ASOR Fellowships and Grants

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Banner showing images of students doing archaeological fieldwork.

2024—IMPACT OF ASOR FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS

See how ASOR supported our members in the field in 2024 with more than $250,000 in scholarships, fellowships, and grants. ASOR provided $30,000 in membership and annual meeting scholarships, and $220,000 in fieldwork participation scholarships, research fellowships, and project grants.

Click on the PDFs below to read about how each ASOR fund impacted the research of students and scholars in 2024.

Scholarships for Fieldwork Participation:

BIPOC Fieldwork Scholarships (PDF)
Eric and Carol Meyers Fieldwork Scholarships (PDF)
Shirlee Meyers/G. Ernest Wright Fieldwork Scholarships (PDF)
Harva L. Sheeler Fieldwork Scholarships (PDF)
Steinmetz Fieldwork Scholarships (PDF)
Stevan B. Dana Fieldwork and AM Scholarships (PDF)
Strange-Midkiff Fieldwork Scholarships (PDF)

Grants for Archaeological Projects:

Joe D. Seger Project Grants (PDF)
Stevan B. Dana Project Grants (PDF)
Shepard Urgent Actions Grants (PDF)

 

Research Fellowships for Members:

Study of Collections Fellowships (PDF)

Thank you, ASOR donors, for continuing to support ASOR members’ research and for encouraging young scholars in the field.

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2024 Annual Meeting Recap

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ASOR 2024 Annual Meeting Recap

Boston and Hybrid | November 20-23

ASOR held its second hybrid meeting last month, November 20-23, at the Hilton Boston Park Plaza and online. More than 1,000 people were registered for the meeting with approximately 850 attending in Boston.

The hybrid format of the meeting offered a way for attendees in Boston and online to share their research on an international platform. There were more than 600 paper, poster, and workshop presentations given on the academic program. ASOR’s Annual Meeting Mobile App (powered by Guidebook) provided means for in-person and virtual attendees to connect and to build personalized schedules.

If you attended the 2024 Annual Meeting in Boston or online, please complete the 2024 Annual Meeting Evaluation to provide valuable feedback that will be considered as we plan for 2025 and beyond.

Read on for a summary of the 2024 Annual Meeting, including features from the academic program, the business schedule, special events, and the 2024 ASOR Honors & Awards.

The 2024 Hybrid ASOR Annual Meeting opened on Wednesday, November 20, with the Plenary Address by Dr. Fikri Kulakoğlu (Professor of Archaeology at Ankara University and director of the Kültepe excavations since 2006) titled, Transition from Early Bronze Age to Middle Bronze Age at Kültepe: Architecture, Figurines and Seals. The presentation generated a lot of discussion and enthusiasm which continued throughout the evening at the Welcome Reception. View the Opening Remarks from ASOR’s Executive Director and President, as well as the Plenary Address by Dr. Fikri Kulakoğlu here.

ASOR provided laptops for each meeting room so that presentations could be pre-loaded and tested and Zoom connections were set-up in advance.

The sessions, workshops, and posters on the academic program took place Thursday-Saturday, November 21-23, over 127 time-slots with presenters representing 32 countries. The Poster Session featured 30 projects shared in Boston, as well a virtual poster gallery. Online attendees could join sessions and workshops via Zoom from the 2024 ASOR Online Schedule. Session and workshop organizers were supported by assistants who were trained to facilitate the hybrid logistics of the meeting.

The recorded content of the Annual Meeting is being edited and will be available to registered attendees via the ASOR Online Portal / 2024 Online Schedule through July of 2025. Registration include access to past Annual Meeting content in the ASOR Online Library. Register for the 2025 ASOR Annual Meeting or purchase access to the ASOR Online Library in the ASOR Online Portal.

The Exhibit Hall at the Hilton Boston Park Plaza included publishers, book sellers, an antiquarian, and booths by 2024 Annual Meeting sponsors, Chicago University Press (Platinum Sponsor), ISD (Platinum Sponsor), and Kiosk (Silver Sponsor). Attendees browsed the exhibits on the centrally located Mezzanine foyer between sessions and during sponsored coffee breaks.

Attendees in Boston enjoyed several special events at the Hilton Boston Park Plaza, as well as complimentary access to the Museum of Fine Arts and the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East. Events at the Hilton Boston Park Plaza included the Early Career Scholars brown-bag lunch panel, Roundtable Discussions, and the Exhibit Raffle. Receptions were hosted during the event by ASOR, the W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research (AIAR), and the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI). The Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East (HMANE)  hosted a private reception for ASOR attendees on Saturday evening after the meeting ended.

ASOR would like to thank everyone who participated and contributed to the success of the 2024 Annual Meeting. Please enjoy some of the memorable moments captured in the photo album below, and we hope you will continue to enjoy the recorded content from the meeting through June 2025.

Please mark your calendars for ASOR’s 2025 Annual Meeting at the Hilton Boston Park Plaza and online, November 19–22. The Call for Member-Organized Session & Workshop proposals will be open from December 15, 2024 – January 15, 2025.

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2024 ASOR Honors & Awards

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Interior courtyard of the Museum of Menorca, Spain.

2024 ASOR HONORS & AWARDS

Each year at the Annual Meeting, ASOR recognizes individuals who have performed outstanding service for the organization, those who have published exceptional academic work, and those who made significant contributions to our field. The following award recipients were honored at the 2024 Annual Meeting in Boston and during the Members’ Meeting on November 22nd. Awards were presented by Lynn Welton, co-chair of ASOR’s Honors and Awards Committee.

The Richard J. Scheuer Medal. This award honors an individual who has provided truly outstanding, long-term support and service contributions to ASOR (this medal is awarded when such an individual is identified).

Awarded posthumously to Carolyn Midkiff Strange and James F. Strange, for their exceptional contributions and service to ASOR over many decades (presented to James R. Strange).

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).

Awarded to Ann-Marie Knoblauch, Associate Professor of Art History and Director of the School of Visual Arts, Virginia Tech, for her work as ASOR Secretary, as well as her previous years of Board service.

The P. E. MacAllister Field Archaeology Award. This award honors an archaeologist who, during his/her/their career, has made outstanding contributions to ancient Near Eastern and eastern Mediterranean archaeology (one award is given annually).

Awarded to Sturt W. Manning, Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences in Classics, Cornell University, for his impactful contributions to the archaeology of Cyprus and the wider Near East and Eastern Mediterranean.

Community Engagement and Public Outreach Award. This award recognizes individuals, teams, and organizations who have initiated outstanding educational, informational, or practical projects (including but not limited to classes, programs, exhibits, resources, events, and platforms) with the goal of making subjects and information about the ancient world accessible to wider (particularly non-academic) audiences.

Awarded to the ELRAP (Edom Lowlands Regional Archaeology Project) Jordan Sketchfab Team, including Matthew D. Howland, Brady Liss, Ian W.N. Jones, Anthony Tamberino, Mohammad Najjar, and Thomas E. Levy, for their development of pioneering digital resources and platforms intended to present the archaeology of the Faynan region of Jordan to the general public.

ASOR Membership Service Award. This award recognizes individuals who have made special contributions on behalf of the ASOR membership, through committee, editorial, or office services.

Awarded to: Kevin McGeough, Professor of Archaeology, University of Lethbridge, for his work as Chair of the Publications Committee.

 

 

 

 

 

Awarded to Jane DeRose Evans, Professor of Roman Art and Archaeology and Chair of Art History, Temple University, for her work as Chair of the Cultural Heritage Committee.

 

 

 

 

 

Awarded to Tiffany Earley-Spadoni, Associate Professor of History, University of Central Florida, for her work as co-chair of the Early Career Scholars Committee.

The W. F. Albright Service Award. This award honors an individual who has shown special support or made outstanding service contributions to one of the overseas centers (AIAR, CAARI), or to one of the overseas committees – the Baghdad Committee and the Damascus Committee. This award is given when such an individual is identified.

Awarded to Nadia Bandak, Finance Manager at AIAR, Hisham M’Farreh, Chef and Kitchen Manager at AIAR, and Photoulla Christodoulou, Housekeeper at CAARI. Nadia and Hisham are celebrating 30 years of service at AIAR, and Photoulla is retiring next year after nearly 40 years of service at CAARI.

The G. Ernest Wright Award. This award is given to the editor/author 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).

Awarded to Glenn M. Schwartz, Whiting Professor of Archaeology, Johns Hopkins University, for Animals, Ancestors, and Ritual in Early Bronze Age Syria: An Elite Mortuary Complex from Umm el-Marra, from Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press.

The Frank Moore Cross Award. 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).

Awarded to Karen Radner (Alexander von Humboldt Chair of Ancient History of the Near and Middle East, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München), Nadine Moeller (Professor of Egyptian Archaeology, Yale University), and D.T. Potts (Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and History, ISAW, New York University), for editing the five-volume The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East, from Oxford University Press.

The Nancy Lapp Popular Book Award. This award is presented to the author/editor of a book published in the last two years that offers a new synthesis of archaeological or textual evidence intended to reach an audience of scholars as well as students and the broader public (one award is given annually).

Awarded to Eckart Frahm, John M. Musser Professor of Assyriology, Yale University, for Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World’s First Empire, from Basic Books.

The Joy Ungerleider Poster Award. This award is conferred upon the author(s) of the poster presenting the results of a study about ancient Near Eastern societies in a clear, legible fashion using original graphic content. Subject matter may be based in archaeological sciences, history, anthropology, epigraphy, ethnography, heritage or other scholarly approaches to understanding ancient people in the areas covered by ASOR (one award is given annually).

Awarded to Helen C. Wong, University of Pennsylvania, and Erin M. Brantmayer, University of Texas, Austin, for the poster: “The Boundaries of Death: Outlining Mortuary Landscapes at Jebel Khalid.”

Student Paper Award. This award is conferred upon the author(s) of a paper presented during the Annual Meeting that conveys the results of a study about ancient Near Eastern and wider Mediterranean societies in a clear, understandable, and convincing fashion. The first author and presenter of the paper must be a registered student at the time of presentation in order to be eligible for consideration for this award.

Awarded to Nicole Constantine, Stanford University, for her paper “Materializing Ptolemaic Power: Ruler Cult and Festival in the Hellenistic Mediterranean”.

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Collections Fellowship Report: Jennie Ebeling

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2024 Study of Collections Fellowship Report

Jennie Ebeling, University of Evansville

Fig 1: Outside the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA.

In recent decades, many archaeologists who research Bronze and Iron Age sites in the southern Levant have shifted their focus from investigating historical questions to asking more anthropological ones. Household archaeology approaches can be applied not only to ongoing excavation projects, but also to legacy collections, as has been demonstrated by studies that have utilized the rich artifact assemblages from Iron Age Tell en-Nasbeh (biblical Mizpah). William Frederic Badè of the Pacific School of Religion (PSR) in Berkeley, CA directed excavations at Tell en-Nasbeh, Palestine for five seasons between 1926 and 1935 on behalf of PSR and ASOR and brought some of the excavated artifacts to Berkeley through partage in the 1930s. While many of the artifacts in the collection have been published or made available through Open Context, some 150 ground stone artifacts in the Badè Museum of Biblical Archaeology at PSR have never been assessed by a stone artifact specialist and published. In summer 2024, I was awarded an ASOR Collections Fellowship to study the mortars, stone vessels, handstones, pestles, grinders, scrapers, weights, sling stones, and other stone artifacts in the collection to learn how this these artifacts can contribute to our understanding of daily life activities at Tell en-Nasbeh in the first half of the first millennium BCE.

Fig 2: Studying the collection of scoria scrapers in the storeroom.

During a ten-day research period in June 2024, I examined all of the ground stone artifacts kept in the Badè Museum storeroom. In addition to assessing, measuring, sketching,and photographing each object, I searched the publications, photographs, and original field ledgers and artifact cards for all available documentation of them. While the collection primarily comprises small, complete objects –most of them handheld processors made of limestone, flint, and other materials available locally –several fragments of large and more specialized objects are among the assemblage along with artifacts made of basalt that were probably brought from Galilee or farther north. Particularly interesting is a small collection of tools made of scoria, a highly vesicular volcanic rock. While similar artifacts are known from other Iron Age sites in the region, their functions are not completely understood. One object was described as a “foot scraper” in McCown’s Tell en-Nasbeh I apparently on the basis of ethnographic information: they “are supposed to have been used to rub the thick and sometimes painful callouses from the soles of the peasant’s feet” (1947: 250). Other artifacts were likely used in food processing and other activities. Ongoing research of this material will offer more insights into the function of household spaces at Tell en-Nasbeh during the Iron Age. I would like to thank Aaron Brody, Director of the Badè Museum of Biblical Archaeology, for his help and encouragement and ASOR for making this research possible.

Fig 3: A handstone and grinding slab set on display in the Badè Museum of Biblical Archaeology.

Read more about applying for a 2025 Study of Collections Fellowship here. 

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