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Albright News
“Our Future is in Our Past”
Number 19
November 2014
MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR
The W. F. Albright Institute of
Archaeological Research
founded in 1900, is a non-profit,
scientific and educational
organization, affiliated with
the American Schools of
Oriental Research.
Sidnie White Crawford, Chair
Sharon Herbert, President
J. P. Dessel, Vice President
John Spencer, Treasurer
Susan Cohen, Secretary
Matthew J. Adams, Director
Dear Friends,
What an exciting and busy year this has been for the Albright Institute! On June 30, 2014, our
distinguished Director, Sy Gitin, stepped down from the position he held for thirty-four years. Last
November at the ASOR Annual meeting, more than two hundred Albright Trustees, current and
past Albright Fellows, ASOR members, family, friends and colleagues gathered in the Liberty
Ballroom of the Sheraton Baltimore City Center for a “Roast and Toast” Celebration in honor of Sy
and to wish him well in his retirement. This past May, I was pleased to represent the Board of
Trustees at the Albright as Sy’s friends and colleagues from Israel and the Palestinian Authority paid
tribute to his many accomplishments in making the Institute the outstanding research institute it is
today. Hostel Manager Nadia Bandak presented Sy with a gift from the staff, while Helena Flusfeder,
Assistant to the Director, read a poem in his honor. I presented Sy with a second Festschrift, Material
Culture Matters, which contained contributions from past Fellows of the Institute. Of course, the
delicious food prepared by Hisham M’Farreh and his able assistants was a highlight of the afternoon.
As Dorot Professor and Director Emeritus of the Institute, Sy is now hard at work in his office in the
Wright Lab, finishing the publications of the Miqne excavations and more.
Continued on page 2 – Message from the President
Albright News
Lydie T. Shufro, Editor
Albright News is published by the
W. F. Albright Institute of
International Collaborative Levantine Ceramic Workshop
Twenty presenters and 56 participants attended the one-day workshop organized by
Albright Trustee Andrea Berlin, James R. Wiseman Chair in Classical archaeology,
Boston University. It was held on March 10, 2014 at the Institute.
Archaeological Research (AIAR)
P. O. Box 19096
91190 Jerusalem, Israel
Tel: (972-2) 628-8956
Fax: (972-2) 626-4424
[email protected]
United States Office:
Sam Cardillo, Comptroller
Albright Institute
P. O. Box 40151
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Tel: 215-238-1540
[email protected]
www.aiar.org
©2014 The Albright Institute
Kneeling (l-r): Joe Uziel, Shlomit Bechar, Andrea Berlin, Adi Eliyahu-Behar, Edna Stern
Standing (l-r): Nava Panitz-Cohen, Paula Waiman-Barak, Ortal Harush, Itzick Shai, Anat Cohen-Weinberger,
Liora Freud, David Ben Shlomo, Matthew Spigelman, Anastasia Shapiro, Yona Waksmann, Peter Stone,
Takuzo Onozuka, Barak Monnickendam-Givon
Continued from page 1 – Message from the President
Our new director, Matt Adams, began his tenure with great
enthusiasm and has already received his “trial by fire,” when the
most recent conflict between Israel and Hamas broke out in July.
Although some rockets fell on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and
there were demonstrations in East Jerusalem, the Albright
remained secure and the staff and fellows continued their work.
However, several excavations in the south of the country had to
shut down, and their staffs appealed to the Albright for
assistance. Matt was able to provide lab space and, in some cases,
helped to relocate volunteers to other digs further north. As Matt
said at the time, we were reminded what a central role the
Albright plays in American excavations in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, in the United States, the Board of Trustees
decided to honor long-time Trustee (and editor of this
Newsletter) Lydie Shufro with a fellowship in her name. In
record time and in total secrecy, Lydie’s family, led by her son
Nick, and the Albright Board raised over $71,000 to endow the
Lydie T. Shufro Summer Fellowship, which will be offered for the
first time in 2015. I traveled to New York City in September to
attend a brunch in Lydie’s honor, where I presented her with a
framed announcement of the newly endowed fellowship. It was
the first time I have ever seen Lydie rendered speechless! I was
joined at the brunch by Director Emeritus Sy Gitin, Trustees Lee
Seeman and Dan Wolk, former Albright Fellow Annie Caubet,
former CAARI Director Stuart Swiny, as well as by several
members of Lydie’s family and friends.
As the Albright enters a new era under the able leadership of
Matt Adams and the trustees, I want to thank you, our friends,
for your continuing support of our mission. The Albright could
not survive and thrive without your help. Please consider making
a contribution before the end of the year. The Albright is a
501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, and your gift is fully taxdeductible. Checks can be sent to Sam Cardillo, Ass’t Treasurer,
AIAR, P. O. Box 40151, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Thank you for
your generosity.
Sidnie White Crawford
IN THE SHOES OF GIANTS
With my appointment as the 51st Director of the
Albright, my name joins a long list of past directors, some
with big names – William F. Albright, Nelson Glueck,
William G. Dever – individuals who have made significant
contributions in the field of ancient Near Eastern and Biblical
studies, and who, as Directors, carried out the important
mission of the Institute. When I first started, I was frequently
asked: “how will you manage to fill such big shoes?” I
answered: “I’ll bring my own.” I like to forge my own path,
but the head of the trail was well marked, thanks to my
predecessors.
It is only “on the shoulders of giants..,.” so the metaphor
goes, that we might see farther than our predecessors. The
metaphor reminds us of the debt that we owe to those who
came before us, but also suggests that we have the
responsibility to look farther and in new ways to expand
upon their achievements in order to create new heights from
which our own successors will look.
In many ways, the challenge of taking over the
directorship of the Albright is to live up to the dualism in the
metaphor. The very existence and long-term success of the
Institute has been due to the achievements of former directors
and trustees. My predecessor, the happily retired Sy Gitin,
held the position for 34 years. Not only is he a giant in his
own field, but during his tenure he also built enormously
upon the foundations of earlier directors to create a unique
world-renowned international fellowship program, and one
of the largest in the region. My challenge is to keep that
momentum alive while new research tools and theoretical
frameworks continue to propel the mission of the Institute
forward so that it is always on the cutting edge as it has been
for over a century.
When I received word of my appointment (over a year
before taking over), I threw myself into studying the Institute,
its history, budgets, local laws, in fact anything that I thought
could provide information and help with carrying out my
position. I showed up on June 1st 2014 with the excitement
and energy to take on the challenges facing the Institute in the
21st century. My very first challenge came within about a
month, and it wasn’t one that I had studied for.
In June, a series of events in the West Bank and Jerusalem
resulted in increased tensions in the region, and riots and
other incidents of property damage and personal injury broke
out in areas surrounding the Albright. By early July this chain
of events led to increased rocket attacks into Israel from Gaza,
especially into southern towns such as Ashkelon. And then
the calls started coming in. North American excavation
directors working at sites within range of the rocket attacks
turned to the Albright for advice and assistance in relocating
their teams out of harm’s way.
Daniel Master of the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon
was among the first to call. Through the Albright’s network,
THE W. F. ALBRIGHT INSTITUTE
WELCOMES ITS NEW DIRECTOR
The Trustees and Staff of the W. F. Albright Institute
congratulate the new Director of the Institute,
Dr. Matthew J. Adams, and extend a very warm
welcome to him and his family to Jerusalem.
(l-r): Atticus, Margaret, Cyrus and Matt Adams
Continued on page 36 – In The Shoes
2
Al-Quds University at the Ecole Biblique; and the third, “The
Ancient World: A Global Account” at the Albright Institute.
More than 540 participants attended the lectures, receptions,
luncheons and dinners. His presentations not only attracted
scholars and students in ancient Near Eastern Studies, but also
brought to the series researchers in geography, anthropology and
sociology, who helped to generate a broader question-andanswer period that stimulated people to think “outside the box.”
NEWS FROM JERUSALEM
Three significant events took place during the 2013-14
academic year: the Ninth Trude Dothan Lectureship in
Ancient Near Eastern Studies; the International
Collaborative Levantine Ceramic Workshop; and the
Schwarmafest marking Director Gitin’s retirement.
More than three thousand members of the local academic
community, including sixty-six Albright Fellows attended
seventy-six events featured in the program.
For the first time in many years, the Institute’s budget had
a surplus due to the generosity of the Trustees and Friends of
the Albright. Funds from other sources were raised to
prevent the possibility of a deficit in 2014/15, the first year
of the tenure of the new Director, Matthew Adams. And
Fellow Trustees, family and friends secretly contributed funds
to endow the Lydie T. Shufro Summer Research Fellowship
in honor of long-time Trustee Lydie Shufro.
Program – Seventy-six events included 14 workshops, 6
lectures, 2 reports, 6 appointees evenings with guests scholars,
17 local field trips with visits to 39 sites, a field trip to Jordan,
8 Institutional visits, 9 social events including a schwarmafest,
3 lectures at Al Quds University, and attendance at 5
conferences. This year’s sixty-six Albright doctoral and postdoctoral fellows represented a wide diversity of national,
ethnic, and religious backgrounds. Of the 40 men and 26
women, 27 were Americans, 13 Israelis, 7 Palestinians, 5
U.S./Israeli dual citizens, 4 Chinese citizens, 3 British/Israeli
dual citizens, 2 British subjects, and 1 each from Canada,
France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain.
The International Collaborative Levantine Ceramic
Workshop, a one-day workshop organized by ANDREA
BERLIN, James R. Wiseman Chair in Classical Archaeology,
Boston University, current Albright Trustee and former
Albright National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow.
There were 20 presenters and 56 participants. The project is
devoted to pottery produced in the Levant from the beginning
of ceramic production c. 5500 B.C.E. through the early 20th
century C.E. The goal is to create an accessible scholarly web
site for information about ceramic wares, shapes, dates, origins,
production sites, distribution, and scientific analyses. The
Jerusalem Workshop was devoted to the study of Petro-fabrics
and wares of the Bronze and Iron Ages, and Petro-fabrics and
wares of the Persian-Medieval Periods.
With the website and workshop, the project is intended to
change the dynamic of scholarly communication among
Levantine archaeologists.
Special Events – The Ninth Trude Dothan Lectureship in
Ancient Near Eastern Studies. PROFESSOR IAN MORRIS,
the Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics and
Professor of History at Stanford University gave three lectures:
“War! What is it Good For? 50,000 Years of Conflict and the
Fate of Human Society” at the Hebrew University; the second,
“Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: The Evolution of
Human Values” which was held under the auspices of
Trude Dothan Lectureship Ian Morris
Al Quds University at the Ecole Biblique
Front row (l-r): Prof. Trude Dothan, Bashar Abu Shamisa, Mohammad Akqaimari,
Mahmud Rabah, Muhamad Rushdi, Dalia Irjub Back row (l-r): Prof. Sy Gitin,
Sufian D’es, Taqy Aldeen Faruon, Ahmad Shakarna, Mohammad Jradat,
Dr. Ibrahim Abu Aemar, Prof. Ian Morris, Prof. Sari Nusseibeh,
Dr. Lusi Nusseibeh, Aiman Nafea, Haitham Radaida, Nabel Arasa, Alaa Alkaraki
The Schwarmafest in honor of Director Gitin’s
retirement was held at the end of the academic year. Over 150
members of the academic community attended. Director
GITIN welcomed the participants and expressed his
appreciation for their support over the past 34 years, which
represented a significant contribution to the development and
success of the Albright’s program.
Program Highlights – Lectures were given by DAVID
HENDIN, Adjunct Curator at the American Numismatic
Society on “Economics, History and Money in Judaea and
Early Christianity”; by JOSEPH PATRICH, Professor of the
Department of Classical Archaeology and BENNY
ARUBAS, Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University on
“Revisiting the Herodium Mausoleum. Is this Herod’s Tomb.”
Reports were given by EREZ BEN-YOSEF, Lecturer,
Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern
Studies, Tel Aviv University on “New Excavations at Slaves’
Hill, Timna: Revolutionizing a 50-year Consensus”; and by
UZI LEIBNER, Head of the Classical Archaeology
Division, Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University on:
“The Debate over the Dating of the `Galilean’ Synagogues:
New Light from the Excavations at Khirbet Hamam, Eastern
Galilee.” Workshops were conducted by National
Endowment for the Humanities Fellows CHRISTOPHER
ROLLSTON on “Royal Assassinations in the Ancient Near
East”; YORKE ROWAN on “New Data on the Chalcolithic
Period: Marj Rabba and the Galilee Prehistory Project”;
LINDA MEIBERG on “The Philistines and their Neighbors
in the Iron Age I: A Study of Cultural Interaction through
Stylistic and Petrographic Analyses of Philistine Decorated
Continued on page 4 – News from Jerusalem
3
Continued from page 3 – News from Jerusalem
Pottery; and by ANN KILLEBREW on “Tel Miqne-Ekron
During the Late Bronze Age” by Seymour Gitin
Distinguished Professors ZIONY ZEVIT on “Seeing
God(s) in Temples, the Heavens, and in Model Shrines: A
Problem in Ancient Metaphysics” and ANATOLY
KHAZANOV on “Eurasian Steppe Nomads in the Military
History of the Near East”; by Annual Professor TZVI
ABUSCH on “Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals,” by
Glassman Holland Research Fellow KRZYSZTOF
NOWICKI on “Migrations or Acculturations? Relationship
between Settlement Changes in the Aegean and the Levant
during the Chalcolithic/Early Bronze (3800-3000 BC) and the
Late Bronze/Early Iron Age (1200-1000 BC) Transition”; by
Educational and Cultural Affairs Fellow ANDREA CREEL
on “Desert Devotions: Ritual Deposition, Storage and
Disposal in the Iron Age Wilderness of the Southern Levant”;
by Noble Group Fellows YUHONG WU on “Who is Who
in the UR III Dynasty”; by DONG XIA YUAN on “Pagan
Monotheism in the Late Ancient and Early Islamic Near East”;
by HAIHUA TIAN on “ Polytheism and Monothesim:
Reading the First Commandment in the Chinese Context”;
and by YINGLAN ZHANG on “The Comparative Study of
the Origins of Calvary in the Ancient Near East, Mongolia and
China.”
Guests at the Appointees’ Evening with a Guest Scholar:
GIDEON
AVNI,
Head
of
Excavations and Surveys of the Israel
Antiquities Authority;
Gideon Avni
Jean and
and IAN MORRIS,
Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics
and Professor of History, Stanford
University as part of the Trude
Dothan Lectureship in Ancient Near
Eastern Studies program (see on
above).
Ian Morris
Social events included the reception for Albright
Appointees at the Director’s home hosted by CHERIE and
SY GITIN and highlighted by Cherie’s homemade baked
delights and exquisite savory dips;
ISRAEL LEVINE, Professor of Jewish
History and Archaeology at the
Hebrew University,
Israel Levine
Reception at the Director’s house.
Front row (l-r): Noa Gabbay, Karen Stern Gabbay, Ella Roden, Michal Chafets
Gitin, Abigail Roden Second row (l-r): Ezra Gabbay, Hisham M'farrah, Cherie
Gitin, Nawal Ibtisam Rsheid, Nadia Bandak, Claire Pfann Third row (l-r):
Shulamit Miller, Laura Wright, Helena Flusfeder, Haihua Tian, Malka
Hershkovitz, Andrea Creel, Norma Franklin, Debbie Cassuto, Anna de Vincenz,
Yorke Rowan, Eric Mitchell, Dong Xia Yuan Fourth row (l-r): Rona Avissar, Rafi
Lewis, Edward Greenstein, Lutfi Mussa, Zion Zevit Fifth row (l-r): Shimon
Gibson, Steve Pfann, Charlie Roden, Baruch Brandl, guest
ALEXANDER FANTALKIN, Lecturer
in Archaeology, Department of
Archaeology and Ancient Near
Eastern Civilizations, Tel Aviv
University;
and
the
annual
Thanksgiving luncheon for
Albright Fellows and guests
for
which
Albright
chef HISHAM M’FARREH
outdid himself once again
with his homemade za’atar
rolls with cheese, and his
succulent turkey with all of
the traditional trimmings.
Alexander Fantalkin
GUNNAR LEHMANN, Professor of
Bible, Archaeology and Ancient Near
Eastern
Studies,
Ben-Gurion
University;
Hisham M’Farreh
Gunnar Lehmann
Continued on page 5 – News from Jerusalem
4
Continued from page 4 – News from Jerusalem
Local field trips included those to the City of David,
the Mt. Zion Excavations, Tel Azeka, Khirbet Qeiyafa, the
Israel Antiquities Authority Beth Shemesh Archives, Tel
Dan and Hazor, Tiberias, Megiddo, Caesarea, Marj Rabba,
Tel Dor, the Center for Nautical and Regional Archaeology
at Dor, the Glasshouse Museum at Kibbutz Nasholim, the
Reuben and Edith Hecht Museum in Haifa, the Israel
Museum Archaeology Wing and specifically, the exhibition
“Herod the Great: The King’s Final Journey”; Lachish,
Gezer, Burna, and to the following sites in the Negev:
Avdat, Shivta, Timna and Mamshit; Khirbet el Mafjar,
Herodion, Ramat Rachel, the Western Wall tunnels,
Qumran, the Bible Lands Museum, the Pontifical Biblical
Institute, Arad, Beersheva, Aroer, the Jewish Quarter
Excavations and the Ophel.
The field trip abroad was to Jordan (see report elsewhere
in the newsletter).
Visit to Tel Dan
Sitting (l-r): Andrea Creel Standing (l-r): Haihua Tian, Ross Voss, Nadia Bandak,
Laura Wright, Jonathan Wylie, Ziony Zevit, Dong Xia Yuan, Ann Zimo
Tel Gezer High Place
(l-r): Ziony Zevit, Ann Zimo, Andrea Creel, Laura Wright, Yuhong Wu,
Sam Wolff, Gaby Barkay
Rockefeller Museum
Front row (l-r): Eric Mitchell, Laura Wright, Andrea Creel, Susan Rotroff,
Sam Wolff, Haihua Tian Back row (l-r): Chris McKinny, Dong Xia Yuan,
Jozef Malik
Khirbet el Mafjar: Hisham’s Palace
Standing (l-r): Yorke Rowan, M. Frolich, Min Zaho, Haihua Tian, Nathaniel
Bennett, Rachel and Ziony Zevit, Donald Whitcomb, Andrea Creel, Laura Wright,
Ann Zimo, Andrew Seligman Back row: Yuri Stoyanov, Ann Killebrew, Linda
Meiberg, Mark Giacobbe
Visit to the Bible Lands Museum
Front row (l-r): Andrea Creel, Laura Wright, Krzysztof Nowiciki, Yinglan Zhang,
Ashley Arico, Linda Meiberg, Susan Rotroff, Haihua Tian, Min Zhao
Back row: Dong Xia Yuan, Jonathan Wylie, Irina and Anatoly Khazanov
Continued on page 6 – News from Jerusalem
5
Continued from page 5 – News from Jerusalem
The Outreach Program – Lectures at Al-Quds
University were given by National Endowment for the
Humanities Fellows, YORKE ROWAN, who spoke on “ In
the Land of Conjecture: New Discoveries at Maitlands Mesda
and Wisad Pools in the Eastern Badia of Jordan”; and by
CHRISTOPHER ROLLSTON on “The Origins of Writing
in the Ancient Near East.” AIAR Senior Research Fellow,
MORAG KERSEL, who is also an ACOR-CAORC PostGraduate Fellow and Assistant Professor in the Department of
Anthropology, DePaul University gave a lecture on “The Price
of Pots: Demand for Early Bronze Age Artifacts from the
Dead Sea Plain in the Antiquities Market Place of Israel.”
DAVID HENDIN, Curator,
American Numismatic Society, videotaped a lecture “Palestine and the
Roman Coins of Syria-Palaestina”, in
addition to his lecture on “Economics,
History and Money in Judaea and Early
Christianity mentioned above in the
Program Highlights.
Staff – Munira Said, long-time Albright Institute
Secretary and Administrative Consultant, who began working
at the Albright in 1967 when it was still ASOR, died on
March 18, 2014. She was 88 years old. She was buried in the
pastoral city of Taibe, near Beit El, her family’s birthplace on
Wednesday, March 20. The service was held at St. George’s
Greek Orthodox Church in Taibe and Munira was laid to rest
in the family crypt next to her brother, Sami. Sy and Cherie
Gitin and eight Albright Staff members and Fellows, together
with Munira’s family and friends attended the funeral.
Facility – A library review was held over a period of 4
days by guest librarian Dan Mack, Interim Director of
Collection Management and Special Collections at the
McKeldin Library of the University of Maryland to assess
the management and collection policy of the Albright
library. The meetings were held with the three Albright
librarians, President Sharon Herbert and Director-elect Matt
Adams. Arrangements were also made for Dan to meet with
the librarians at the Rockefeller Museum, the Ecole Biblique
and the Hebrew University, and to tour the old city, the Israel
Museum and Yad Vashem. To improve the efficiency of the
library, two updated library programs were purchased,
funded by Trustee Lydie Shufro. BookWhere is used in the
cataloguing process to access OPACS (Online Catalogues)
and for Z39 .50 retrieval in order to download suitable
catalogue records (in MARC format) to our library system –
Liberty 3. MARC MAGICIAN is used to adapt and edit
imported records to fit the Albright cataloguing standards.
In addition, the Albright’s servers were backed up on
Cloud. Due to the heavy snowfall, more than twenty
broken branches, some 15 meters above the ground, were
removed at a cost of over $2,500. The possibility of a
serious earthquake is becoming a concern, and the Israeli
Civil Defense Unit has published instructions on what to do
in the event of a quake. This information has been shared
with the Fellows.
Fundraising – Even though the US government’s
sequester had a negative impact on the budget with a
reduction in funding for ECA Fellowships, there was a small
surplus, thanks to the generosity of Trustees and friends of the
Albright. Long-time Trustee Gene Grant made a gift of
$100,000 in honor of Director Gitin. Two contributions were
given in support of the Albright staff: $20,000 from an
anonymous source, and $10,000 from former Trustee and
member of the Friends of the Albright, Marian Scheuer Sofaer
and her husband Abe. A contribution of $2,500 was received
from Albright Trustee Linda Feinstone’s Archaeological Tours
Israel Group, following the group’s visit to the Albright, where
the Director conducted a tour of the facility and gave a lecture
on the results of the Tel Miqne-Ekron excavations. Under the
supervision of Lydie Shufro, Chair of the Development
Committee, $12,500 was raised through an appeal in the
Albright Newsletter. The Alumni Campaign organized by
Trustee Norma Dever raised $2,500 toward the purchase of a
state-of-the-art, multi-task Xerox machine to replace the
David Hendin
Lectures at Other Institutions were given by NEH
Fellow YORKE ROWAN at the University of the Holy
Land on “In the ‘Land of Conjecture’: New Discoveries in
the Badia of Eastern Jordan.” NEH Fellow
CHRISTOPHER ROLLSTON gave four presentations:
“Judean Foreign Policy in the Eighth Century BCE:
Epigraphic Evidence for Political Engagement with the
Great Empires” at Emory University, for the Symposium
“Eighth Century Judah and Its Neighbors: A Symposium in
Honor of Oded Borowski”; “A New Moabite Inscription
from Tall Ataruz: An Inscribed Pedestal from the 9th century
BCE” at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; “New
Epigraphic Finds in Israel and Their Significance” at the
University of the Holy Land, Jerusalem; and “Protocols and
Procedures for a Responsible Approach to Inscriptions from
the Antiquities Market,” given at DePaul University School
of Law, for the Symposium “Restitution and Repatriation:
The Return of Cultural Objects.” AIAR Senior Fellow and
former National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow,
KAREN STERN gave two presentations on “Methods to
their Madness? Mortuary Graffiti of Jews and their
Neighbors in the Late Ancient Levant” in the conference,
“Scribbling through History: Graffiti of Ancient Egypt and
its Neighbors” at Oxford University; and “Caves, Carvings
and Cultural Connections: Recovering the Forgotten Jews of
the Ancient Mediterranean” for the graduate and faculty
seminar, Recanati School of Maritime Studies at the
University of Haifa. AIAR Senior Fellow, SUSAN
ROTROFF presented a paper, “Hausmann’s Workshop on
Delos” at the International Association for Research on
Pottery of the Hellenistic Period in Berlin. Presentations at
the Annual ASOR Meetings in Baltimore included those
by five stipended and 12 Associate Fellows.
Continued on page 7 – News from Jerusalem
6
Continued from page 6– News from Jerusalem
antiquated copying machine. Two new library-cataloguing
programs were funded by a $1,225 contribution obtained
with Trustee Lydie Shufro’s help. Thanks to former Director
Bill Dever an anonymous donor gave $1,370 for the
purchase of library books. In addition, over $138,300 was
raised to preclude the possibility of a deficit in 2014/15,
the first year of the tenure of the new Director Matthew
Adams. The Museum of the Bible donated $96,000 for
support of the library; Thomas Tisch contributed $25,000,
the Dorot Foundation $10,000, the Brooks Foundation
$1,000 and “Ernie’s” friends raised $4,046 in memory of
Ernie S. Frerichs for a total of $40,046 to support the Ernest
S. Frerichs Fellowship Program. In addition, the Dorot
Foundation donated $40,000 to the endowment of the Ernest
S. Frerichs Fellows Program. And former Albright Fellows
Wu Xin contributed $2,100 and Luo Xinhui $200 in honor
of Director Gitin. Albright Trustees, family members and
friends raised over $71,000 to endow the Lydie T. Shufro
Summer Research Fellowship in honor of long-time Trustee
and Chair of Development Lydie Shufro.
Excavation and Publication Projects – The Albright
continued its assistance to 11 of the 31 ASOR-affiliated
and AIAR-Assisted Excavation and Publication Projects,
including: Akko (A. Killebrew), Ashkelon (L. Stager and
D. Master), Hesi Regional Project (J. Blakely and J. Hardin),
Jaffa (A. Burke), Marj Rabba –Har ha-Sha’avi west (Y. Rowan
and M. Kersel), Qana (T. McCollough), Sepphoris Ein
Zippori (E. and C. Meyers, and J.P. Dessel), Tel RegevSouthern Plain of Akko (C. Aznar), Tel Gezer (S. Ortiz and S.
Wolff ), Tell Taannek (N. Lapp and H. Salem), and Tel Zeitah
(R. Tappy). This included arranging for the drawing, inking,
and photography of pottery and objects, pottery restoration,
storage facilities, excavation licenses and other excavationrelated logistics.
Director’s Publications – Books Published – Gezer VI: The
Objects from Phases I and II, by Garth Gilmour, eds. J. D. Seger,
W. G. Dever, and S. Gitin. Contributions include those by the
late R. Bullard, W.G. Dever, H. D. Lance and J. D. Seger; as
well as by D.T. Ariel, D. Barag, Z. Gotesman, C. Herrmann,
O. Keel, S. A. Rosen, and M. Spaer, ANGSBA X, Winona
Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Articles in Press – Two New Cultic
Inscriptions from Ekron (with S. Ahituv) – Festschrift for the
late Avigdor Hurowitz, Beersheva: Ben-Gurion University of
the Negev. Books Partially in Press – Tel Miqne-Ekron – Report
of the 1985-95 Excavations Field IV (Lower) – The Elite Zone
Iron Age I and II, ed. S. Gitin: Part 1: The Iron Age I Early
Philistine City, T. Dothan, Y. Garfinkel, and S. Gitin; Part 2:
The Iron Age II C Late Philistine City, S. Gitin, T. Dothan and
Y. Garfinkel; Part 3A: Appendices and Indices, Iron Age I-II,
Early and Late Philistine Cities, S. Gitin, T. Dothan and Y.
Garfinkel; Part 3B: The Iron Age I-II, Early and Late
Philistine Cities, Plans and Sections, S. Gitin, T. Dothan, and
Y. Garfinkel, Tel Miqne-Ekron Final Field Report Series, nos.
9/1, 9/2, 9/3A and 9/3B, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns (the
Harvard Semitic Museum, in association with the Albright
Institute and the Hebrew University). The Ancient Pottery of
Israel and its Neighbors, Iron Age I through the Hellenistic Period,
editor, S. Gitin, sponsored by the Israel Exploration Society, the
Albright Institute, the Israel Antiquities Authority and the
American Schools of Oriental Research. Books in preparation
– Tel Miqne-Ekron Report of the 1994-95 Excavations in Field IV
(Upper), Iron Age II, the Neo-Assyrian Type Temple Complex, S.
Ortiz, S. Gitin and T. Dothan, ed. S. Gitin, Final Field Report
Series 10, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns (the Harvard Semitic
Museum, in association with the Albright Institute and the
Hebrew University). The Ancient Pottery of Israel and Its
Neighbors, two volumes, The Middle and Late Bronze Ages and
The Neolithic through the Early Bronze Age, editor, S. Gitin,
sponsored by the Israel Exploration Society, the Albright
Institute, the Israel Antiquities Authority and the American
Schools of Oriental Research. Contributions by the Director
and Albright Appointees have been submitted to the
publication, which is in preparation Recent Advances in
Islamic Archaeology: A Seminar on the Archaeology of Levantine
Society in the Islamic periods, eds. Katia Cytryn-Silverman and
Kristoffer Damgaard, Chicago: O-I, University of Chicago. The
seminar was held under the auspices of the Albright Institute
and participants included Albright appointees past and present.
Books in electronic distribution by the Logos Bible Software
Company – Tel-Miqne Ekron Excavations1995-96 Field INE
East Slope: Iron Age I (Early Philistine Period) M. Meehl, T.
Dothan, and S. Gitin Ekron Final Report Series 8, Jerusalem:
Albright Institute and Hebrew University.
Internship Program with the Hebrew University’s Rothberg
School for Overseas Students coordinated by Helena Flusfeder.
This year, the Albright had five interns. MARNE TAYLOR, a
BA student of Biological Anthropology at George Washington
University did an internship with NEH Fellow Christopher
Rollston. BLAIR HEIDKAMP, a BA student in Archaeology
and Art History at the College of Wooster in Ohio and GABI
BORENSTEIN, a BA student in Anthropological Archaeology
at Columbia University interned with NEH Fellow Yorke
Rowan. ALEX COHEN, a BA student in Anthropology and
Philosophy from the University of California, Santa Barbara,
worked with ECA Fellow Laura Wright, and JENNIFER
MAIDRAND, a BA student in Business Management with a
focus on Biblical Studies at Azusa Pacific University interned
with Ernest S. Frerichs Fellow Deborah Cassuto.
Final Comments – In my penultimate NEWS FROM
JERUSALEM in November, 2013, I thanked those who have
helped to make the NEWSLETTER and the Albright
program a success. In this, my final contribution to the
NEWSLETTER, I want to extend my gratitude to the
Albright Associate Fellows, who have contributed so much in
enhancing the Institute’s Fellowship Program. Their
participation in the weekly workshops, seminars and other
programs, their mentorship of the Albright stipended Fellows,
and their guiding of the Albright’s field trips have broadened
the experience of the stipended Fellows and helped to create a
dynamic and viable academic community.
Continued on page 36 – News from Jerusalem
7
CELEBRATING DIRECTOR SY GITIN
SCHWARMAFEST
After a hiatus of a few years, the Schwarmafest was back with a sizzle to toast and honor Director Sy Gitin on the eve of his
retirement after a thirty-four-year tenure. Family, friends, current and past Fellows, staff, colleagues from local and overseas
universities and research institutions, came from near and far to congratulate Sy and Cherie on leading the Institute through
the good times and the sometimes rough patches. On May 23rd, a beautiful and sunny spring day, more than one hundred fifty
people gathered in the freshly painted and beautifully decorated Kershaw courtyard around tables laden with an endless varieties
of salads, desserts, and cold beverages, and to enjoy the delicious shwarma prepared by Chef Hisham M’Farreh.
Sidnie White Crawford, Chair of the AIAR Board of Trustees, expressed the gratitude of the Albright Trustees for the
Director’s role and vision in transforming the Institute into a world-renowned international American institution during his
long tenure. She presented him with the second festschrift in his honor with contributions by former Albright Fellows –
Material Culture Matters: Essays on the Archaeology of the Southern Levant in Honor of Seymour Gitin. Helena Flusfeder, the
Assistant to the Director, expressed the appreciation of the staff in a rhyming poem “Not a Roast and Toast”. Nadia Bandak,
the Institute’s Secretary presented him with a desk set, gift from the staff.
Of course Sy will not be going far, only across the courtyard to his new office in the Wright Lab, where, thanks to his newly
found abundance of free time, he will be able to work on and complete several publication projects.
Yorke Rowan
Sidnie White Crawford presenting Sy with the second Festchrift in his honor
Listening to the speeches:
(l-r): Hertzl Ben-Gur, Sarah Sussman, Haihua Tian, Rachael Arenstein,
Yinglan Zhang, Walter Zanger, Shimon Gibson, Claire Pfann, Israel Ephal,
Imad Muna.
(l-r) Isam Awwad, Beatrice St Laurent, Gideon Avni, Miriam Rosen Ayalon,
Donald Whitcomb, Shimon Gibson
Staff:
l-r Sarah Sussman, Diane Steigler, Nadia Bandak, Helena Flusfeder , Nawal
Ibitsam Irsheid, Hisham M’Farreh, Sy Gitin, Maher M’Farreh, Ashraf Hanna,
Nouha Khalil Ibrahim
Ready for Schwarma?
Front (l-r): Nadia Bandak, Maher M’Farreh
Back (l-r): Sy Gitin, Mirian Rosen Ayalon, Katia Cytryn-Silverman, Ofer Bar Yosef
8
The Gitin Clan
(l-r): Deborah Cassuto, Dafna Ben-Tor
(l-r) Charley Roden, Michal Chafets Gitin, Abigail and
Ella Roden, Cherie and Sy Gitin, Ariel, Noam, Ayala,
Adam Gitin.
Everything looks so good!
“ROAST AND TOAST” CELEBRATION IN BALTIMORE
On Friday November 22nd, 2013 Albright Trustees and Fellows, ASOR members, colleagues and friends gathered for a
“Toast and Roast Celebration” in honor of retiring Albright Director Sy Gitin. The event was held in the Liberty Ballroom of
the Sheraton Baltimore City Center Hotel, filled to capacity by a very enthusiastic audience.
Invited “roasters” were Sidnie Crawford, Susan Ackerman, Dan Wolk and Joe Seger who read his poem “The Life of Sy”,
Bill Dever and Norma Dever. Barry Gittlen, Steve Ortiz and Mark Smith gave a combined Power Point presentation and John
Spencer presented Sy with the mock-up for the cover for the second Gitin Festschrift Material Culture Matters: Essays on the
Archaeology of the Southern Levant in Honor of Seymour Gitin. Several people from the audience also took part spontaneously,
among them Larry Herr, Claire Pfann, Louise Hitchcock, Mary Ellen Lane, Stuart Swiny, Herschel Shanks, and Annie Caubet.
Talya Gitin, Sy’s daughter, was most entertaining, sharing “deep, dark” family secrets.
Sy, seated next to his wife Cherie, was obviously enjoying the roasting and toasting. He was most gracious in his response.
The event was organized by Lydie Shufro and funded by private contributions. Mark Smith and Lydie Shufro coordinated
the two-hour long program.
The Roasters and Toasters
(l-r): William G. Dever Barry Gittlen, Mark Smith, Norma Dever,
Sy Gitin, John Spencer, Lydie Shufro, Sidnie W. Crawford, Joe D. Seger,
Susan Ackerman
photo courtesy ASOR
Clockwise: Herschel Shanks, Talya Gitin, Barry Gitten, Lydie Shufro, Lee Seeman,
Cherie Gitin, Sy Gitin, William G. Dever. Peeking in background behind Sy Gitin
& Bill Dever: John Spencer, Sidnie White Crawford.
Photo courtesy ASOR
9
SY GITIN’S LEGACY
To Sy
Not A “Roast and Toast”
When a scholar retires from a life-long profession of
service to a discipline, it is appropriate to reflect on what
one’s legacy might be.
Sy Gitin, who still has many years of productivity
ahead of him, will be remembered first of all for his
remarkable record of more than 30 years as the Director
of the Albright Institute in Jerusalem. There he was an
able administrator, an indefatigable fund-raiser, and a
visionary scholar who made the Institute a hub of
international teamwork and research in archaeology. He
put the Albright on the map, while all the other foreign
archaeological institutes were closing. At the same time,
Sy matured into a major player in Israeli archaeology
through his own fieldwork research and publication. He
became the best-informed non-Israeli archaeologist on
the scene, literally “the eyes and ears” on which the rest
of us depended to keep up with a burgeoning discipline.
That affected me on my many trips back, as well as my
many doctoral students who spent time in residence at
the Albright. Thus Sy will be remembered as a major
scholar and collaborator in archaeological research.
Perhaps more memorable, more long-lasting will be
Sy’s legacy as a mentor to more than two generations of
younger archaeologists – not only North American, but
European and even Asian scholars. The roster of those
who passed through the Albright Institute in his 34
years as Director is a virtual Who’s Who of hundreds of
scholars in archaeology, Biblical studies, and Ancient
Near Eastern history. Many are now pivotal figures
themselves. And what is most remarkable is that Sy has
fostered the work of others so selflessly, without
counting the cost in terms of his own time and energy.
In a field notorious for ego-promotion, Sy stands out for
his modesty and his single-minded dedication to the
larger discipline. That legacy will be perpetuated for
many years by two generations of archaeologists who
came under Sy’s influence in their formative years.
Although this is not a Roast and Toast
And we don’t want to actually boast
But our Director has been here for 34 years
Building up the Place with blood, sweat and tears.
Morning, noon and night he toiled
And truth be told, his employees are loyal.
Until the Albright Started to Flourish
With a Super staff who helped to nourish
The many Fellows and guests who hailed from far
and near
And bid the Director, Sy, good cheer.
He can always be found working 24/7
And to Fellows and staff, he seems to be in heaven
Surrounded by hundreds of papers and books
He can scare young scholars with a very gruff look
But one after another they come for advice
About how to pursue their dreams or put them on ice.
He has written thousands of letters of recommendations
For eager young Fellows who want to reach a station
In life, to be lecturers and professors in the various
halls of fame
But truth be told, they cannot be blamed.
Since the profession is very tricky and there are not
many Devers and Albrights
And many of them have to content themselves with
all nights.
Reading and studying, pacing back and forth, they
remember the inscription
That was found at Tel Miqne and try to avoid friction
With other young scholars all vying to climb
The steps in the ladder of life and also to make a dime.
William G. Dever
But our story has now come to an end, or not
As our Director retires to the Wright Lab to jot
Down many volumes of filed reports, research and
other tomes
Which in the course of time should be an incredible boon.
Helena Flusfeder,
Assistant to the Director
10
W.F. ALBRIGHT INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH
APPOINTEES, RESIDENTS AND STAFF, 2013-2014
Back Row (l–r): Director Sy Gitin, Cherie Gitin, Housekeeping Staff Nuha Khalil, Gardener Faiz Khalaf,
Groundsman Lutfi Mussa, Maintenance Staff Ashraf Hanna, Chef Hisham M’farreh, Research Fellows
Ross Voss, Rona Avissar, Senior Fellow Anna de Vincenz, former Noble Group Fellow Bo Zhang, Research
Fellow Ann Zimo, Hebrew University intern Jennifer Maidrand, former Albright Fellow Robert Schick,
Senior Fellow Yuri Stoyanov, Librarian Kate Masliansky.
Middle row (l–r): Senior Fellows Karen Stern, Norma Franklin, Post-Doctoral Fellow Rafi Lewis,
former Albright Fellow Beatrice St Laurent, Research Fellow Baruch Brandl, Senior Fellow Stephen Pfann,
Noble Group Fellows Dong Xiu Yuan, Haihua Tian, Yinglan Zhang, Research Fellows Jonathon Wylie,
Daniel Fisher, former Albright Fellow Austin (Chad) Hill, Research Fellow Joshua Walton, Senior Fellows
Eliot Braun, Gerald Finkielsztejn, Miqne Staff Rachel Ben-Dov and Alexandra Drenka, Library
Computerization Staff Diana Steigler.
Front row (l–r): Kitchen and Housekeeping Staff Nawal Ibtisam Irsheid, Assistant to the Director
Helena Flusfeder, Institute Manager Nadia Bandak, Ernest S. Frerichs Fellow/Program Coordinator
Deborah Cassuto, R. and E. Hecht Fellow Shulamit Miller, Educational and Cultural Affairs Fellow
Laura Wright, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow Ann Killebrew, Annual Professor
Tzvi Abusch, Martha Tolpin, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellows Yorke Rowan,
Linda Meiberg, Educational and Cultural Affairs Fellow Andrea Creel, Senior Fellow Susan Rotroff, Research
Fellow Malka Hershkovitz, Senior Fellow Trude Dothan.
Appointees and staff not in photo: Seymour Gitin Distinguished Professors Ziony Zevit,
Anatoly Khazanov, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow Christopher Rollston, Noble Group
Fellow Yuhong Wu, Glassman Holland Research Fellow Krzysztof Nowicki, George A. Barton Fellow
Ashley Arico; Chief Librarian Sarah Sussman.
11
southern Levant were completely unrelated to changes in
settlement patterns in the Aegean. More work is needed,
however, to coordinate these changes in the Levant and southern
Anatolia, and to construct a more detailed sequence of
settlement history for the entire coastal region of the eastern
Mediterranean.
A second important result of my research is the conclusion
that several new features of the early Cretan Bronze Age find
parallels not in the Chalcolithic, but in the EB I Levant.
Comparisons between the EB I periods in the Levant and in
Crete make more sense, as regards accepted chronology – the
end of this period in the Levant is contemporary with its
beginning in the Aegean.
The second part of my project addressed issues related to the
origins of the so-called Sea Peoples. Among the most
controversial points in this discussion were hypothetical links
between the Philistines and the Aegean (or even Crete). The
differences between scholars defending alternative
interpretations of the Sea Peoples phenomenon depend on their
approach to the issue of identification of people on the basis of
their material culture. My approach to the subject was of a
different character, and I focused on searching for new
settlement-related evidence that might bring answers to the
questions concerning the problems of political collapse, social
crisis, and settlement decline in the last decades of the 13th
century BC, and the subsequent settlement relocation around
1200 BC. This problem has been almost entirely ignored by the
scholars who defended the acculturation rather than migrations
hypotheses for the explanation of the changes in the eastern
Mediterranean in the 12th century BC.
Field investigations in Crete carried out for the last thirty
years have demonstrated that an unprecedented settlementsystem collapse near the end of the 13th century BC was
connected to large-scale movements of people within the
Aegean, and may have affected the areas further to the east
(Anatolia, Cyprus, and the Levant; see the results summarized in
my book, Defensible Sites in Crete, ca 1200–800 BC, [2000]).
Some of the people who were responsible for the destruction and
instability were local Aegean groups and their appearance in
Cyprus was connected with the political and social collapse
across the region, rather than with the flourishing trade and
“attractiveness” of their culture, as some scholars have proposed.
My research carried out at the Albright Institute this year
aimed at updating my knowledge of recently published evidence
from the Levant, and to confront this evidence with new
observations from recent work in the Aegean.
Most of my research was conducted in the Albright Library,
but I also benefited enormously from field trips, which allowed
me to learn more about the landscape and settlement
distribution within it (one of the main foci of my investigations
in the Aegean) in different periods. A number of lectures,
excellently guided tours to museums and historical monuments
in Jerusalem, and even more numerous individual discussions
with other fellows and visiting scholars have certainly stimulated
my future research and ideas regarding comparative studies
between different people and areas.
Due to space limitations, all Fellows reports cannot be published in
Albright News. All reports will appear on the Albright website
www.albright.org
MIGRATIONS OR ACCULTURATIONS? THE
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SETTLEMENT CHANGES IN
THE AEGEAN AND THE LEVANT DURING THE
CHALCOLITHIC/EARLY BRONZE (3800-3000 BC)
AND THE LATE BRONZE/EARLY IRON AGE
(1200-1000 BC) TRANSITIONS
My research project focused on two problems
in the broad context of ongoing studies of
settlement history in Crete, which have only been
preliminarily touched upon in the past by other
scholars. That is, the problems of hypothetical
links between historical events and cultural
processes in the Aegean and the Levant during
Krzysztof
two
different transitional periods: the
Nowicki
Chalcolithic/Early Bronze (3800-3000 BC) and
the Late Bronze/Early Iron Age (1200-1000 BC).
The Chalcolithic/Early Bronze transition is characterized by
increasing concern about security in the Aegean, leading to the
relocation of settlements, and followed by the establishment of
many new settlements showing little or no continuity from the
earlier period. These “new” settlers, who appeared in Crete
around the middle of the fourth millennium BC, brought with
them numerous new elements of material culture, advanced
technology, and complex social organization. Some of these
innovations have been interpreted as being of Anatolian or
Levantine origin. That the west Anatolian people played an
important role in the transition between the Final Neolithic and
Early Bronze in the Aegean is clear, but the direct links between
particular groups of people represented by archaeological
“cultures,” especially located far away from each other, are
difficult to prove.
However, there are some elements in the material culture and
settlement organization of EB I Crete (3100–2700 BC) that are
different from those known in other Aegean regions, and have
no known parallels in the neighboring coastal area of West
Anatolia. These elements undoubtedly have some “flavor” of the
Levantine character. The question as to whether they were
brought to Crete by people coming directly from the Levant or
were common features of Near Eastern cultures widely
distributed throughout the East Mediterranean, was one of the
most important issues that I examined during my research
fellowship in the Albright.
After three months of study, I am now able to clarify some
points of this issue. My first remark concerns the hypothesis by
R. Koehl that Ghassulian “colonists” arrived on Crete and
introduced characteristic Cretan EB I features, namely, tholos
tombs, pithoi with relief decoration, and dark-on-light painted
pottery. This hypothesis should be rejected. According to most
accepted chronological systems, the end of Ghassulian culture
(3800/3700 BC) is much earlier than the beginning of EB I in
Crete (3100/3000 BC). For these two phenomena to be linked
together, considerable changes in the chronology of the regions
would be required. However, rejecting this hypothesis of direct
influence does not mean that the processes of decline of the
Chalcolithic cultures and the emergence of EB I societies in the
Krzysztof Nowicki, Polish Academy of Sciences
Glassman Holland Research Fellow
12
to be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. The data, detailed
analysis and narrative text will appear as components in the final
excavation report of Field INW/SW: The Acropolis Excavation
(edited by S. Gitin). The interpretive chapter in this final report will
also integrate the results from the summit with those excavated in
the sondage, including a previously unpublished statistical study of
Strata IX–VIII Late Bronze Age pottery from the east slope
(sondage) of Field INE.
I take this opportunity to thank AIAR director, Sy Gitin, for his
encouragement and support of this project. I greatly appreciate his
input and guidance throughout the process. Special thanks are due
to Rachel Ben-Dov, who worked tirelessly on the sorting and
mending of the Late Bronze Age assemblages. This project would
not have been possible without her expert contribution. I am
especially grateful to the AIAR office, administrative, library,
kitchen and hostel staff, for their loyal service, kindness and
generosity throughout my stay at the Albright Institute. My
fellowship was greatly enhanced by the fellows residing at the
Albright during the 2014 spring semester. It was a pleasure to share
this experience with them and I will remember fondly our lively
dinner conversations and their friendship.
TEL MIQNE-EKRON DURING THE
LATE BRONZE AGE:
FIELD INW/SW – THE ACROPOLIS SUMMIT
Fourteen seasons of excavation at Tel Miqne
(1981 – 1996), under the direction of Professors
Trude Dothan and Seymour Gitin, uncovered a
series of superimposed settlements spanning the
Middle Bronze, Late Bronze, and Iron I–II
periods. Identified with Philistine Ekron, one of
the five “pentapolis” cities mentioned in Joshua
Ann E. Killebrew 13:3, the site is situated on the southern coastal
plain of the modern state of Israel at the interface of Philistia’s
eastern border with Judah.
Due to the extensive scope of these excavations, which revealed
an uninterrupted occupational sequence spanning the 17th –7th
centuries BCE, Tel Miqne-Ekron is an unparalleled source of
information regarding the Late Bronze Age in the southern coastal
plain, the transition to the Iron Age, and nearly six centuries of
Philistine settlement at the site. Based on the various soundings on
the mound, Late Bronze Age Ekron – the topic of this research
project, was a modest settlement confined to ca. 10 acres of the
northeast acropolis. The most impressive Late Bronze Age remains,
a seven-room complex dating to the end of the 13th century, were
documented on the acropolis summit. This structure, which
included numerous in situ storage jars, complete with carbonized
remains of food commodities such as grain and even figs, suggested
that these rooms most likely formed part of a centralized storage
facility for Late Bronze Age Ekron. Following the pattern of many
late 13th century Late Bronze Age sites in the eastern
Mediterranean, this complex was destroyed in a massive
conflagration. The pottery repertoire of this structure, together with
ceramics associated with earlier Late Bronze Age strata and the postdestruction assemblages from the summit, comprised the focus of
my Tel Miqne-Ekron Late Bronze Age pottery research project as a
National Endowment of the Humanities fellow at the Albright
Institute of Archaeological Research this year.
During my tenure at the Albright, and with the invaluable
assistance of Rachel Ben-Dov, the Late Bronze pottery from the
summit was sorted, restored, processed, documented and sent for
drawing. Essential to this project was access to the Tel Miqne-Ekron
pottery, stored on the Albright grounds, and to the original field
diaries, archived in the AIAR library. Preliminary results from this
study reveal that the chronological extent of Late Bronze Age
occupation spans the entire period (mid-16th – early 12th century
BCE). The Late Bronze Age destruction on the summit was
followed by a post-destruction re-occupation of the area, which
continued the Late Bronze Age tradition. Unlike the excavations of
the nearby eastern sondage, where an uninterrupted occupational
sequence continued into the Iron I period (Strata VIII-V), the
summit experienced a gap in settlement during much of the 12th
century (Stratum VII). This missing phase of early Philistine
occupation on the summit is characterized in the sondage and
elsewhere on the tell by the appearance of large quantities of
monochrome Aegean-Style pottery, variously termed “Philistine 1”
or Mycenaean IIIC, and its associated assemblages. Following this
lacuna in settlement on the summit of the mound, Stratum VI (late
12th – early 11th centuries) activities resumed on the summit,
represented by pits, which cut through and disturbed the earlier
Late Bronze Age strata.
The results of this research project will form the basis for an
article (in preparation) on the Late Bronze Age at Tel Miqne-Ekron,
Ann E. Killebrew, The Pennsylvania State University
National Endowment of the Humanities Fellow
CONTINUITY & DISCONTINUITY IN THE LB
IIB/IRON I TRANSITION:
A STUDY OF GLYPTIC TECHNOLOGY AND
ICONOGRAPHY
During the early 20th century, the transition
between the Late Bronze IIB and Iron I was
characterized as one of discontinuity, based
primarily upon the biblical model of Israelite
emergence and Philistine arrival. On the
Philistine coastal plain, changes in ceramics,
textile technology, and cooking traditions
Laura Wright
accompanied the Philistine arrival on the
southern Levantine coast. Imports decreased markedly both
inland and along the coast, indicating a breakdown in trade
between the southern Levant and neighboring regions. Early
archaeological research firmly established that discontinuity
across this transition within multiple corpora of material culture.
However, there was also continuity, which early archaeologists
indirectly described. Albright’s ceramic typology, for example,
noted ceramic forms that developed continuously across this
transition.1 Recent studies of ceramic technology have told an
increasingly complex story of continuity co-existing with
discontinuity during this transition.2 Even when forms show
continuous development from the Late Bronze Age, new
technological traditions underlie apparent continuity.3
With this complex story in mind, I focused on the glyptic
corpus of the LB IIB and Iron I. Although seals tend to be used
for lengthy periods as heirloom objects, certain seals from Iron I
contexts can be securely dated. New typological forms, like the
conoid and pyramidal stamp seal, appear during the transition
from the LB IIB to the Iron I. When these stamp seals are found
in Iron I contexts, the form provides the terminus post quem and
the context the terminus ante quem. These securely dated seals
show the rise of a new iconographic tradition. As a result, the
narrative of discontinuity has been dominant when discussing
the locally produced glyptics of the southern Levant.
Continued on page 14– Wright
13
Continued from page 13– Wright
their backgrounds and projects and introducing them to the
facilities and people who could assist them in their research.
Concurrently, I continued work on my dissertation, "The
Fabric of Society: Textile Production Workshops in the
Southern Levant – a Case Study from Iron Age Tell esSafi/Gath," which deals with the identification of textile
workshop contexts in the archaeological record. Despite the
absence of organic materials found at archaeological sites, we
cannot ignore the fact that textiles played various roles in the
quotidian activities of ancient cultures, particularly in the
economic and social realms of society.
While organic materials associated with textiles are rarely
found in archaeological excavations, it is possible to identify
where textile production was carried out, based on the remains
of tools and architectural features associated with such activities
discovered in situ. For example, the ubiquitous caches of loom
weights discovered throughout the region, predominantly in
the Iron Age, denote the locations where warp-weighted looms
had once stood and imply that weaving had once been
performed here.
As part of my research, I prepared and presented a paper,
entitled “Modes of Textile Production in Cultic Contexts in the
Southern Levant: Studying the Juxtaposition of Textile
Production and Cult” at a conference on “Textiles and Cult in
the Mediterranean Area in the First Millennium B.C.” hosted
by the Danish National Research Centre for Textile Research at
the University of Copenhagen (CTR) and the Nationalmuseet.
This paper, which will be published in the conference
proceedings, deals with the association of textile production
with cultic contexts. Early textual evidence describes the use of
cloth as offerings in cultic contexts, for adorning the
sanctuaries, for priestly vestments and for the ceremonial
dressing of cult statues.
The necessity for cloth in ceremonial rites consequently
generated the establishment of textile production workshops
within cultic compounds. In addition to providing the fabrics
needed for religious rites, these workshops would have been able
to supplement the cultic center’s revenue by producing surplus
cloth for external commercial trade. However, when examining
past societies, the archaeological evidence for this connection is
challenging, since the actual textiles have not survived. In their
absence, we must rely on the discovery of the textile production
tools in situ which have endured, specifically, clusters of loom
weights, juxtaposed with cultic artifacts and/or within
architecture, in order to elucidate the relationship between cult
and textile production.
In numerous excavations throughout the southern Levant,
loom weights have been discovered in Iron Age temple or cultic
contexts supporting some sort of association between ritual
activities and cloth preparation. The recent excavations at Tell
es-Safi/Gath, which have unearthed an exceptional quantity of
loom weights found in different modes of cultic contexts, reveal
differing associations between weaving and cult. For example,
an early 10th century BCE context associated with a temple
complex (similar to one at Tel Qasile) in which it appears that
small-scale weaving was conducted in a separate side room. Also,
there are at least two additional areas of large-scale textile
production associated with unique cultic objects at the site.
During my tenure as the Frerichs Fellow, I have been able to
compile a database and study hundreds of loom weights from
Tell es-Safi/Gath, as well as from Tel Miqne-Ekron
Othmar Keel, however, rightfully noted the need to examine
the Late Bronze Age and Iron I glyptic corpus for continuity as
well as discontinuity.
This study fills this lacuna. Using a digital microscope, I
examined the technology and iconography of around 900
glyptic items from collections at the Rockefeller Museum, the
Israel Antiquity Authority’s Beth Shemesh storage facility, the
École Biblique, and several current excavations. Through firsthand microscopic observation, I was able to establish certain
probable and possible criteria for identifying local production of
glyptics in the LB II and Iron I. I am now in the process of
compiling and establishing regional trends within those locally
produced glyptics from the LB II and Iron I.
Regional trends in the LB IIB are emerging which show a
higher level of elite emulation of Egyptian material culture in areas
with a high concentration of genuine, imported Egyptian material
culture. In the Iron I, Egyptianizing glyptics continue to be
produced locally in the southern Levantine coastal plain among
the regions where Philistine material culture is found. These
Egyptianizing seals from the Iron I are hybrid artifacts that may
mix local forms with Egyptianizing technology and iconography.
These regional trends will be further explored over the next year
as I complete my dissertation.
I am grateful for the ideal environment of the Albright. It
permitted me to work on my dissertation as well as the
publication of the Iron I stamp seals of Ashkelon and another
Neo-Assyrian seal found during a survey of Sebastiye. Sy’s eversteady hand leading the Albright creates a collegial environment
where junior scholars are welcomed as colleagues into the
archaeological community of Jerusalem.
Laura Wright, Johns Hopkins University
1
William F. Albright, TBM I, §55.
Ann Killebrew, “Ceramic Craft and Technology during the Late Bronze and Early Iron
Ages: The Relationship between Pottery, Technology Style and Cultural Diversity”
(Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 1998).
3
Daniel Master, “Home Cooking at Ashkelon in the Bronze and Iron Ages,” in On
Cooking Pots, Drinking Cups, Loomweights and Ethnicity in Bronze Age Cyprus and
Neighbouring Regions: An International Archaeological Symposium Held in Nicosia 6th –
7th (ed. Vassos Karageorghis and Ourania Kouka; Nicosia: The A. G. Leventis
Foundation, 2011), 257-264.
4
Othmar Keel, “Früheisenzeitliche Glyptik in Palästina/Israel,” in Studien zu den
Stempelsiegeln aus Palästina/Israel. Band III: Die Frühe Eisenzeit ein Workshop (ed.
Othmar Keel, Menakhem Shuval and Christoph Uehlinger; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck
and Ruprecht, 1990), 331-421: 337.
2
THE FABRIC OF SOCIETY: TEXTILE PRODUCTION
WORKSHOPS IN THE SOUTHERN LEVANT – A CASE
STUDY FROM IRON AGE TELL ES-SAFI/GATH
During the academic year (2013-2014), I served
as the Ernest S. Frerichs Fellow/Program
Coordinator and assisted the AIAR Director, Sy
Gitin in compiling and implementing a full
program of field trips, lectures, dinners with
guest scholars, the fellows' trip abroad to Jordan,
and fellows' workshops. A highlight of the
Deborah Cassuto program was the three-day Trude Dothan
Lectureship in Ancient Near Eastern Studies
during which Professor Ian Morris of Stanford University
presented three lectures for the Hebrew University, Al-Quds
University and the Albright Institute. On a personal level, I
enjoyed meeting and getting to know the fellows, learning about
Continued on page 15– Cassuto
14
Continued from page 14– Cassuto
(supplementing the work previously done by Orit Shamir of the
Israel Antiquities Authority), and a small Philistine cultic site in
Nahal Patish. In this part of my research, I was assisted by
Jennifer Maidrand, a young undergraduate student from Azusa
Pacific University through the internship program of the
Rothberg International School of the Hebrew University. I have
been able to instruct her on the warp-weighted loom and on
ancient textile production and her enthusiasm has turned
otherwise tedious work into a pleasurable experience.
I look forward to meeting the new fellows and working with
the new director on the academic program while continuing the
work on my dissertation as the Frerichs Fellow for the academic
year 2014-2015.
Deborah Cassuto, Bar-Ilan University
For the Levantine periphery (e.g., Israel, Judah, Syria, Lebanon,
Philistia, Ammon, Moab), there is often an additional facet that
contributes to severe internal tensions: namely, the power centers
(Mesopotamia and Egypt) often attempted to assert and
maintain hegemony over the Levantine kingdoms. Indeed,
sometimes both Mesopotamia and Egypt pressured Israel or
Judah simultaneously, for example, in Judah during the few
decades prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE.
We have substantial textual data from the ancient Near East (in
Egyptian, Akkadian, Hittite, and Northwest Semitic, including in
the Hebrew Bible) about the national, regional, and international
socio-politico world. Therefore, it is productive to analyze the
totality of the data in a synthetic fashion so as to limn more clearly
the nexus of factors that constitute the Sitz im Leben of royal
assassinations. Because of my own interest in, and emphasis on the
Hebrew Bible and Northwest Semitics, I have focused most heavily
on royal assassinations in Israel and Judah, especially on the role that
international politics and pressure played in some of these
assassinations.
Naturally, the subject of kingship and queenship in the ancient
Near East, as well as assumptions about divine patronage that were
standard components of kingship language (e.g., Yahweh’s support
of King David of Israel, Yahweh’s removal of support from King
Saul, Hadad of Sikanu’s support of Hadyithi, or Marduk’s support
of Cyrus the Great), are important components of the discussion.
“Royal apologia” was often a correlative of the complex sociopolitico-religio nexus as well. That is, royals often considered it sage
to employ apologia to justify both their rise to the throne (especially
in the cases of real or perceived usurpation) and their retention of it
(arguably the case for the Israelite King David and Idrimi of
Alalakh). This, too, is a foundational component of the equation
and so also part of the material with which I am engaging.
At this juncture, a word of thanks is very much in order. For four
and a half months, I was privileged to be able to reside and work at
the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, focusing on
the subject of royal assassinations, as well as to put some of the
finishing touches on my monograph on the (long) history of textual
forgeries. I am deeply grateful to the National Endowment for the
Humanities for funding this research, to the Albright for its sterling
library resources, and to all the wonderful, helpful, and collegial
administrators, staff, and fellows at the Albright. Paramount among
this group are the Director Seymour Gitin and Assistant to the
Director Helena Flusfeder, Chief Librarian Sarah Sussman, and
Institute Manager Nadia Bandak. Of course, the cuisine of Chef
Hisham M’Farreh was consistently exquisite, rounding out the
totality of the Albright experience in a marvelous way. In addition, I
am very grateful to my research assistant, Marne Taylor of the
Rothberg School of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and George
Washington University for all of her work. During the coming
months, I hope to put the finishing touches on this monograph
focusing on ‘Royal Assassination in the Hebrew Bible and the
Ancient Near East,’ and it will be with a strong sense of a great
debt I owe to all at the Albright that I do so.
Ernest S. Frerichs Fellow/Program Coordinator
ROYAL ASSASSINATION IN THE HEBREW BIBLE
AND THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST: A BRIEF SYNOPSIS
Royal assassinations were not particularly rare
events in the ancient world. Indeed, within
ancient historical and literary sources one reads
fairly often about the assassination of a king, a
queen, a prince, a princess, a royal governor, and,
at times, multiple members of an entire royal
family. I am not referring to the death of a royal
personage in a pitched battle against an enemy,
Christopher A.
Rollston
but rather to the death of a royal family member
in a plot, or some sort of coup. Among the most famous of the
royal assassinations in the great power centers of the ancient Near
East were the assassinations of the Assyrian Kings TukultiNinurta I and Sennacherib, the Egyptian King Ramesses III in
the Harem Conspiracy, and the Hittite Kings Murshili I and
Zidanta I. The gruesome beheading of Qarni-Lim of Andarig
surely falls under the same rubric.
Royal assassinations occurred in the Levant as well, with the
assassination of a governor of Tyre mentioned in the Amarna
Letters, and, of course, the assassination of King Eglon of Moab
in the Book of Judges. Other biblical assassinations include Saul’s
son King Ish-ba‘al (who was also later assassinated at the literary
level, his name being changed from Ish-Ba‘al, “man of the lord”
to Ish-bosheth, “man of shame”). In the Northern Kingdom of
Israel, Kings Nadab, Elah, Shalum, Pekahiah, Pekah, and Queen
Jezebel were all assassinated. In Judah, Queen Athaliah and Kings
Joash and Amaziah, and the Judean Governor Gedaliah were all
victims of similar fates. As was the Syrian King Ben-Hadad who
was assassinated in the coup of Hazael. Some might wish to put
David’s son Absalom on this list as well. Of course, on an
ancillary note, many generals in the literature are said to have
suffered similar fates, with biblical narratives, for example,
mentioning the deaths of Sisera, Abner, Joab, and Judith’s
Holofernes. Xerxes I and II, and Darius III, Philip of Macedon,
Seleucus I and Antiochus II of Syria, and Ptolemy VII of Egypt
also died at the hands of assassins and this is still only a brief
selection. It seems that life in antiquity could be rather sanguine
(in the etymological sense of the term) for the royals.
Violent internal struggles within a royal court are sometimes
the precipitating factor for royal assassinations, with brothers
killing brothers, fathers killing sons, sons killing fathers, wives
killing husbands, husbands killing wives. Regional conflicts can
sometimes be the most significant contributing factor to a coup.
Christopher A. Rollston,
Tel Aviv University/George Washington University
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow
15
the Septuagint was translated in the third and second centuries
BCE, backread into historical periods unaware of them and
untroubled by their absence.
Part of resolving the problem involves reading literally texts
that have been interpreted figuratively for more than two
millennia.
Most of my research during the year that I spent at the
Albright centered on:
(a) tracing the history of God sightings and belief in the
corporeality of God in texts from the Iron Age through the late
Middle Ages and the beginning of modern thought in the
sixteenth century;
(b) understanding how “knowledge” about the corporeality of
YHWH, who was usually invisible, was accounted for in the
literary blueprints of the desert Tabernacle and Solomon's temple
known from the Bible; and how the corporeality of deities was
addressed in fixed Iron Age temples and cult sites, and in portable
model shrines excavated in Israel and elsewhere in the Levant;
(c) writing a commentary of sorts on the published results of
excavations at Kuntillet Ajrud, an eighth century BCE religious
center in the eastern Sinai Peninsula, where an inscription
identifies a painted figure comprised of a lion-like head atop a
human body as YHWH. The juxtaposition of inscription and
drawing compels the following question: Is this what came to
mind when ancient Israelites thought of themselves as created
“in the likeness like the image” of God (Gen 1: 26)?
Although I have managed to integrate some conclusions that I
reached during my time at the Albright into a forthcoming
publication, the bulk of my research will be written up during the
coming academic year for publication beginning, perhaps, in 2015.
SEEING GOD(S) IN TEMPLES, THE HEAVENS,
AND IN MODEL SHRINES:
A PROBLEM IN ANCIENT METAPHYSICS
In the 21st century, we have access to two types
of texts written by ancient Israelites. The first
consists of anthologies of poems, collections of
worldly
observations
and
aphorisms,
historiographic writings, and extended ethnonarratives. These were curated and ended up – as
a result of processes understood but darkly, in a
Ziony Zevit
collection, the Hebrew Bible. We also have
official inscriptions, some generated by ancient higher-ups for
public display, and others by lower-downs, members of the
ancient bureaucracy, for more restricted, “inner-departmental”
needs. A few contain the proper name YHWH.
Not one of these compositions may be read as if written to
prove the reality of YHWH. Their authors presupposed
YHWH’s reality.
Consequently, when YHWH is the grammatical subject of
sentences in narratives or the subject or object of legal and ritual
prescriptions, or when he is addressed in absentia in a poem,
contemporary readers understand that the ancient authors were
completely unselfconscious about what they wrote. Israelite
compositions address reality as they perceived it, basing their
knowledge on experience and on what had been transmitted to
them by prior generations: parents, grandparents, tribal elders,
and perhaps by wandering storytellers. The more learned and
“scroll-ish” of them may have read of events past in chronicles
kept in temple or palace archives. Their thought-world, the
cultural bubble within which they lived and wrote and made
sense of their private and collective lives, is best described from
a modern perspective as both mythopoeic and realistic. It was
realistically mythopoeic. It provided the tangible sense of reality
within which they lived their religion.
Whatever the contents of their thought-world, it was a
logically constructed world that they were able to explain. It was
much like our thought-world, only different. They knew that
the earth was flat and that the sun rises and sets; that rain comes
from waters beyond the firmament that is beyond the heavens,
and that all dead people – good and bad, friend and foe,
continue to exist in Sheol. I consider discovering some of the
contents of their thought-world an interesting and worthwhile
undertaking.
My research as a Seymour Gitin Distinguished Professor
during the 2013-2014 academic year is part of a large project:
“Seeing God(s) in Temples, the Heavens, and in Model Shrines:
A Problem in Ancient Metaphysics.” This project focuses on
notions about the corporeality and hence the occasional
visibility of gods, including YHWH, in various places. Although
not frequent, reports of god sightings are attested in ancient
Near Eastern texts as well as in the Bible.
What makes “Seeing God(s)” somewhat difficult is the fact
that philosophical theology in Christianity and in Judaism starts
out with an axiom that God is immaterial and hence
incorporeal. Were the opposite true, as medieval thinkers
realized, then God could not be eternal, the ground of all being,
and therefore not immutable, omnipresent, omnipotent, and
omniscient. The “problem” to which my project’s title alludes
and that has to be resolved is that various formulations of these
ideas that define deity have been retrojected into the Bible since
Ziony Zevit, American Jewish University, Los Angeles
Seymour Gitin Distinguished Professor
BIBLICAL MONOTHEISM AND TRANSLATING
THE FIRST COMMANDMENT IN THE
CHINESE CONTEXT
Archaeology plays a significant social scientific
role in understanding the world of the Bible.
During my tenure as a Noble Group Fellow at the
Albright Institute, I had a great opportunity to
look closely at the Land of the Bible through a
number of field trips to a variety of archaeological
sites related to the religion of ancient Israel. The
Haihua Tian
Hebrew Bible provides a basic narrative for
understanding our perception of monotheism. From the account
in the Bible, however, it is obvious that monotheism was not the
first belief system expressed by man. There are many traces of
polytheism in the Bible. The patriarchal groups had no knowledge
of YHWH and worshipped the "god of the father." Gradually,
Yahwism, a local cult in the southern desert, was integrated with
the attributes and functions of the god El, a chief of the Canaanite
pantheon. During the First Temple period, YHWH was the
exclusive national deity of the people of Israel as reflected in the
First Commandment (Exod.20:3; Deut.5:7) and the Shema
(Deut.6:4), texts that do not deny the existence of other gods.
Monolatrous Yahwism has changed over time. With the
religious reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah, YHWH’s sanctuary was
exclusively the Jerusalem Temple. The rise of the Neo-Assyrian and
Babylonian empires led to serious religious reflection on Yahweh’s
power over different nations. In 587 BCE, the Babylonians
16
Continued on page 17 – Tian
Continued from page 16– Tian
destroyed the Jerusalem Temple and resettled the Israelite political
and religious elites. The Judahite exiles experienced a deep and
painful crisis in Yahwism: they no longer lived in the place of
Yahweh, and the temple of their god YHWH lay in ruins in
Jerusalem. Yet Marduk and other gods, “objects of wood and stone”
were worshipped throughout Babylonia. With the loss of identity as
a nation, Yahwism was plunged into a crisis, which changed Israel's
understanding of the national god, the universe and themselves.
The prophet Deutero-Isaiah, who lived in Babylonia in the second
half of the 6th century BCE, gave Yahwism a universal expression
in absolute terms, and biblical monotheism was born.
However such monotheism was not accepted immediately by
the Jewish community. Many exiles had adopted Babylonian gods.
During the time of the Persian Empire, Jewish leaders emphasized
the transcendent and universal character of YHWH, which made
this concept of God increasingly general. The Jewish community
from Elephantine (5th century BCE), for example, regarded
YHWH as the God of Heaven. Meanwhile, the sacrifice of animals
to the Jerusalem Temple, which was a strictly limited and empty
aniconism, became the norm. By the 1st century BCE, the name
YHWH could no longer be pronounced and did not appear in the
late biblical literature of the Persian or Hellenistic periods. The
destruction of the Herodian Temple in 70 C.E. meant the end of
Yahwism. Judaism was now a religion of universal monotheism.
The biblical God originated in ancient western Asia, but
worship of YHWH “took a detour” to Europe and America
before it was brought back to Asia in the 19th century. Thus, it
is interesting that when the biblical God reached China and other
Asian countries in the form of Christianity through
contemporary missionary activities, very little of the original
western Asian characteristics remained. Instead, this deity evolved
under the auspices of western Christians to meet the needs of
Western culture and the Church. In the Chinese context, with its
great varieties of religious traditions, the theological and
ideological presuppositions of translators have greatly shaped the
reading of the First Commandment. The cultic statement, “not
putting other gods before me” has been translated into a
decidedly monotheistic statement: “you shalt have no other gods
besides me.” Moreover, there is the issue of equating the Western
image of “dragon” with the Chinese notion of “long.” The former
is the great sea-monster in ancient western Asian mythology, but
the latter is a symbol of a beneficial mythical animal, bringing
power and prosperity to humankind. However, the mismatch of
the western “dragon” in the Bible with the Chinese “long” has
given rise to discourses on the demonization of Chinese culture
and the subversion of the other as not only pagan, but ultimately
evil and satanic. This issue alone has had a great cultural impact
on western conceptions of Chinese civilization.
The German Egyptologist Jan Assmann argues for the
concept of the Mosaic distinction, which is the distinction
between truth and falsehood in religion, between one true god
and many false gods, true doctrine and false doctrine,
knowledge and ignorance, belief and disbelief. The highly
differentiated members of polytheistic pantheons easily lend
themselves to cross-cultural translation. Thus, translatability
means that the deities are explicitly identified with one
another. The translatability of God, however, was blocked by
the Mosaic distinction because false gods can not be
translated. Violence is inherent in the exclusion of other gods.
In a cross-cultural context with polytheistic tradition, if the
biblical God is against Chinese culture, which was demonized
as the dragon, translatability of a monotheistic God was not
attained, as God was lost in the Chinese translation.
I would like to give special thanks to the Albright Institute
and the Noble Group for establishing a fellowship for Chinese
scholars and giving me this great opportunity to study in
Jerusalem. I am really honored. Thanks to the Fellows for their
companionship, friendship, and scholarship during my stay. I
have had a wonderful time, with a lot of beautiful memories.
Haihua Tian, Sichuan University
Noble Group Fellow
CORPUS OF MESOPOTAMIAN
ANTI-WITCHCRAFT RITUALS
I was in residence at the Albright Institute in
Jerusalem from January – May, 2014 as the Annual
Professor. During my stay, I continued to work on
the preparation of critical editions and studies of
Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals. But I
should preface my report on this work with a few
words of introduction about Mesopotamian
Tzvi Abusch
magic and witchcraft and about the ancient
literature that centers upon such concerns.
Among the most important sources for understanding the
cultures and systems of thought of the ancient world is a large body
of magical and medical texts written in the Sumerian and Akkadian
languages. Over the course of some 2500 years (ca. 2600-100
BCE), numerous cuneiform texts written in both the Sumerian and
Akkadian languages refer to personal crisis and individual suffering.
By and large, the most important sources detailing ways to cope
with illness, danger, and personal difficulties are the various types of
texts that describe symptoms, provide etiological or descriptive
diagnoses, and prescribe ways to deal with evil and suffering. These
treatments include medical therapies, ritual prescriptions, and oral
rites (prayers and incantations). Procedural texts prescribe the
treatment of problems either by means of various ritual or
ceremonial therapies (a-sipu-tu) or by means of traditional herbal
therapy (asûtu).
Most magical and medical texts treat one or another of the
principal agencies of evil. Some of these agencies are: gods, demons,
ghosts, tutelary gods, witches, evil omens, curses, and sins. One
especially significant branch of this magical and medical literature
centers upon witchcraft. Mesopotamian anti-witchcraft literature
attributes misfortune and ill-health to the machinations of a special
class of people designated as witches and prescribes the various
ceremonies, devices, and treatments for dispelling witchcraft,
destroying the witch, and protecting and curing the patient.
This literature makes explicit some of the understandings of
human life and of the supernatural that underlie the
Mesopotamian cuneiform tradition. Mesopotamian antiwitchcraft literature includes a large body of very significant and
interesting prayers, incantations, magical rituals, and medical
prescriptions. This very important body of magical texts from
early antiquity sheds invaluable light on many aspects of ancient
life and thought and helps us to understand the development of
later literary (e.g., biblical psalms of lamentation, Greek and Latin
defixiones), social, and intellectual forms. I should add that the
witch was generally viewed as female, and for this reason, the texts
are invaluable for the study of attitudes toward women and gender
construction in ancient Mesopotamia.
Continued on page 18– Abusch
17
Continued from page 17– Abusch
understand the interactions between the agricultural and
nomadic civilizations of the Eurasian continents.
Archaeological evidence has revealed that people in northern
China learned about horse-riding at the beginning of the First
Millennium BCE. According to historical documents, in 307
BCE, King Wuling of the Zhao state ordered his army to dress in
nomadic fashion and learn how to fight on horseback. This event
has been regarded as the origin of cavalry troops in China.
The earliest archaeological evidence of cavalry in China is
represented by two clay figurines unearthed in a tomb (M28057)
from the late Warring States Period (ca. 350-300 BCE). Another
significant discovery was that of the 116 life-sized terra-cotta
cavalry figures of Terracotta Warriors and Horses unearthed in
Burial Pit 2 in the mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shihuangdi.
These archaeological findings indicate that cavalry had become
an indispensable military unit by the end of the Warring State
Period in China, and played an important role in the wars
resulting in a united China (236-221 BCE). During the Western
Han Period (202 BCE-8 CE), frequent confrontations with the
nomadic Xiongnus in the northern and northwestern frontiers
forced the Emperors of the Han Dynasty to establish massive
cavalry units. Furthermore, in the 3rd to 4th centuries CE, the
stirrup was invented and subsequently used in ancient China.
It seems that horse-riding started in the ancient Near East
quite early, although some scholars have asserted that cavalry was
not in existence before the 9th century BCE. Studies of Assyrian
reliefs and texts by scholars suggest that cavalry emerged in
Assyria during the early 9th century BCE, probably as the result
of the need to counterattack nomadic invasions. By the end of
the 8th century BCE, the Assyrians themselves had more cavalry
than chariots. The Assyrians introduced the “martingale” collar,
an important innovation which helped riders keep control of
their horses while shooting.
A few preliminary observations can be drawn here from a
comparative study of the origins of cavalry in the ancient Near
East and China:
1. Cavalry in ancient China probably originated as a result of
influences from the Mongolian steppes; another direction of
influences came from the Altai Mountains in the northwestern
part of China. Among the reasons for the creation of cavalry were
also probably the large-scale climate changes during this period.
2. Although, as stated above, cavalry appeared in the Near East
as early as the 9th century BCE, much earlier than in ancient
China, there is actually no connection between the two and cavalry
from the Near East did not influence the cavalry of ancient China.
3. Based on my comparative study, I conclude that nomadic
tribes on their northern frontiers influenced the creation of cavalry
in both the ancient Near East and China. The riding tactics of the
Scythians and the Cimmerians probably forced the Assyrians to
adopt cavalry, and the same thing happened in ancient China.
Repeated invasions by nomadic Mongolian tribes forced the kings
in China to change their warfare tactics and they adopted the
cavalry. Having to defend against nomadic invasions was one of
the most important motivations contributing to the origins of
cavalry in the ancient Near East and China.
4. After the creation of a special cavalry unit, the peoples of the
ancient Near East and China made some innovations to the
equine equipment in order to control their horses during fighting.
The “martingale” collar was probably an innovation of the Near
East, and stirrups were invented in ancient China.
The corpus is divided into two major parts: a) the Maqlû
(“Burning”) series, the longest and most important magical antiwitchcraft ritual from Mesopotamia (which I am editing by
myself ); b) the Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft
Rituals (which I am editing together with Daniel Schwemer,
Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Würzburg) includes
all other magical and medical texts against witchcraft.
a) Maqlû. During my stay at the AIAR, I completed and
submitted: 1) A volume for the SBL Writings from the Ancient
World series: The Witchcraft Series Maqlû: Transcription and
Translation. This volume contains a transcription of the full text of
Maqlû with notes, a translation, and detailed introduction. 2) A
volume for students in the State Archives of Assyria, Cuneiform
Texts series, Maqlû: A Student Edition and Selected Commentary
containing an edition of the Maqlû standard text in transliteration
together with the cuneiform text. This volume will also provide
both historical/critical and exegetical commentaries on selected
incantations. These commentaries will draw upon and synthesize
the many individual studies that I previously published.
I continued to work on The Magical Ceremony Maqlû: A Critical
Edition (Ancient Magic and Divination; Leiden: Brill), which will
contain the main edition of Maqlû. I reviewed and made some last
minute corrections to the synoptic edition (“score”), revised the
bibliography of sources, and drafted the preface. I hope that this
volume will be submitted to the publisher by the end of June, 2014.
b) Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals. Some
of my time was spent working on the textual editions of the
second volume of the Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-witchcraft
Rituals (CMAwR). CMAwR will be published as three volumes in
the series Ancient Magic and Divination 8/1-3 (Leiden: Brill).
The first volume was published as Abusch/Schwemer, Corpus of
Mesopotamian Anti-witchcraft Rituals, volume 1 (AMD 8/1;
Leiden: Brill, 2011) (xiv, 484 pp., 134 pls.). A draft of the second
volume should be ready by March, 2015, and the final revised
version will be submitted to the publisher in 2016. I will return to
Würzburg to work there (with my collaborator and two postdoctoral researchers) on the volume in summer 2014 (and again
in 2015-2016 for a longer period).
In addition to my work on Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft
Rituals, I completed and submitted two articles (“Cultures in
Contact: Ancient Near Eastern and Jewish Magic,” in The
Handbook of Jewish Magic, eds. Siam Bhayro and Ortal-Paz Saar,
Leiden, Brill.; “Speaking to God(s). Prayers and Incantations” in
Mesopotamia in the Ancient World: Impact, Continuities, Parallels.
vol. 7, eds. Robert Rollinger and Erik van Dongen, Münster:
Ugarit-Verlag, 2014); drafted a third article (“Fortune and
Misfortune of the Individual: Some Observations on the Sufferer’s
Plaint in Ludlul be-l ne-meqi II 12-32”); revised the introduction to a
volume on the Gilgamesh epic; and read proofs of two articles.
Tzvi Abusch, Brandeis University
Annual Professor
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE ORIGINS OF
CAVALRY IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST AND CHINA
Yinglan Zhang
Cavalry was one of the dominant military forces in
ancient times. Since its creation, it has played an
important role in warfare, and has also had a
profound influence on the formation and
evolution of civilizations in Europe and Asia. In
this context, a comparative study of the origins of
cavalry in the Near East and China will help us to
Yinglan Zhang, Shaanxi Provincial Office of Cultural Heritage, China
Noble Group Fellow
18
I also participated in several very stimulating workshops by
other scholars at the Albright Institute and gave a paper myself
on “Eurasian Steppe Nomads in the Military History of the
Near East (before the Arab conquests). In addition, my residence
at the AIAR provided me with an opportunity to participate in
a seminar on migrations in medieval Eurasia given at the
Hebrew University. I also had very fruitful discussions and
consultations with several scholars, especially with Amihai
Mazar, Gideon Shelah, Reuven Amitai, Ronnie Ellenblum, and
Michal Biran. Mazar and Shelah kindly provided me with an
opportunity to study some unpublished archaeological materials
relevant to my research.
I am most grateful for this excellent opportunity to pursue my
research in Jerusalem and to the entire staff of the Albright
Institute for making my stay comfortable and fruitful.
EUROPEAN STEPPE NOMADS IN THE MILITARY
HISTORY OF THE NEAR EAST
During my residence at the Albright Institute as a
Seymour Gitin Distinguished Professor (January
2-April 8, 2014), I worked on my research
project, “Eurasian Steppe Nomads in the Military
History of the Near East.” The project was aimed
at studying the influence of these steppe nomads
on the military organization, warfare, and
Anatoly
weaponry of Iran, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, the
Khazanov
Levant, Egypt, and some adjacent regions from
the 8th century BCE until the middle of the second millennium
CE. While at the AIAR, I have focused my research on inquiring
how, and to what extent the steppe nomads influenced mounted
warfare of the various countries in the region. In this regard, I
have written the preliminary drafts of two articles with the
intention of submitting them for publication no later than the
end of this year.
The goal of the first article was to single out the main
historical periods in which the steppe nomads exerted influence
on warfare in the Near East, to define the main characteristic
features of those periods, and to explain their peculiarities.
Tentatively, the specific periods in question are the AssyrianNeo-Babylonian (7th-6th centuries BCE), the Achaemenid
(6th-4th centuries BCE), the Parthian-Sassanian (3rd century
BCE-7th century CE), the Early Arab (7th-8th centuries CE),
the Abbasid (8th-11th centuries CE), the Seljuk (the 11th- 13th
centuries CE), and the Mongol periods (the 13th-14th centuries
CE). I argue that the introduction, development, and changes in
mounted warfare in the region may serve as the main criteria for
this periodization. I further argue that changes in mounted
warfare in the Near East, in addition to military factors, were
also connected with both external and internal socio-political
factors and should be perceived in specific cultural contexts.
The second article deals with the emergence and further
development of a specific kind of heavy cavalry which, following
ancient Greek tradition, is usually called cataphract. In my
opinion, the main goal of cataphracts was to fight Greek and
Roman heavy infantries. The cataphracts emerged in western
parts of the Eurasian steppes in the last centuries BCE, and were
then brought to the Near East by the Parni, a nomadic people of
Central Asian origin, undergoing further developments in
Parthian and Sassanian Iran. Although the cataphract cavalry
was adopted by a number of other countries, only in Iran did it
become the main military force in the Parthian and Sassanian
periods. Later, that cavalry ceased to exist mainly for three
reasons. First, it was very expensive; second, eventually it became
overspecialized; and third, in medieval times, there was no
strong heavy infantry in any Near Eastern country and therefore,
no need for it. In addition, the invention of new types of bows
and arrowheads made distance shooting and fighting more
efficient. Correspondingly, the division of cavalries of steppe
nomads, as well as of Near Eastern countries into light and heavy
types became much less rigid. Medieval cavalries in both regions
were less heavily armored and more multifunctional than
cataphracts. The Crusaders were an exception but their cavalry
did not and could not have a long-lasting effect on the military
art of Near Eastern countries.
Anatoly Khazanov, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Seymour Gitin Distinguished Professor
HOT-OFF-THE-PRESS
Material Culture Matters
Essays on the Archaeology of
the Southern Levant in Honor of Seymour Gitin
edited by
John R. Spencer, Robert A. Mullins, and Aaron Brody
The volume is the second Festschrift published to
commemorate Seymour Gitin’s Silver Jubilee as Director
of the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research
in Jerusalem. Essays by past Albright Fellows help expand
our knowledge base of the southern Levant and show that
“Material Culture Matters”.
Published on behalf of the
W. F. Albright Institute of Archeology
by Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Indiana 2014.
Pp. xxii + 321 including illustrations. English. Cloth
ISBN: 978-1-57506-298-3 List Price: $59.50
http://www.eisenbrauns.com/item/SPEMATERI
19
Our third stop was Jerash, another of the great Decapolis
cities of the Roman period. Jerash, which was inhabited from
the Bronze Age and reached its peak during the first century
CE. Hadrian’s Arch, the hippodrome, two immense temples,
the oval Forum, the colonnaded street and the city walls have
all been preserved, making Jerash an impressive site to visit.
We spent the next two nights at the American Center of
Oriental Research (ACOR) in Amman where we were received
by Dr. Barbara Porter, the Director. The next day, we traveled
to the palace at Iraq el Amir, briefly stopping on the way to see
the famous Tobiad caves. The palace consisted of two stories of
local stone, excavated and restored by a French team. Qasr el‘Abd, ‘palace of the slave,’ was the home of an administrator in
the Hasmonian period who served as a tax collector.
Two leopard reliefs bear spouts through which water flowed
into an artificial lake below the palace. On the way to the new
Jordan Museum in Amman, we passed the large theater with
the smaller odeon and a large agora before it. The museum
houses exhibits on the earliest settlements in the region through
late antiquity including specialized exhibits on agriculture,
households and building techniques, as well as paleographic
finds including the renowned Copper Scroll from Qumran.
THE ALBRIGHT INSTITUTE FELLOWS’
STUDY TOUR OF JORDAN
MARCH 23-27, 2014
On Sunday, March 23rd, eleven Fellows, Tzvi Abusch,
Laura Wright, Andrea Creel, Dong Xiu Yuan, Hiahua Tian,
Yuhong Wu, Yinglan Zhang, joined by Martha Tolpin, Esther
Eshel, Dalit Rom Shiloni and myself, crossed the border at
Beth Shean and met our guides and driver and drove off to our
first stop, Pella (Tabaqat Fahl). This site has the longest
continuous occupational history in Jordan, from 7000 BCE.
Pella, mentioned in the Amarna letters of the 14th century
BCE, was the most important city of the Roman Decapolis and
is a key site for understanding the Islamic period, the Umayyad
through Abbasid occupations. On the eastern summit of the
site, Tell Husn, excavations revealed six phases of a
superimposed Middle Bronze and Early Iron Age temples, as
well as substantial imports from Egypt and Cyprus suggestive
of the significant role Pella had played in international trade.
Our second stop was Umm Qays, the Roman Decapolis
city of Gadara. In the Hellenistic-Roman period the city had
three gates, as well as a Cardo and the Decumanus, theaters,
nympheon, and temples. The structures are mostly made of
basalt, which comes from the Golan Heights, and the
Yarmuk, while the marble is imported. The name Umm Qays
means ‘checkpoint.’
The Jordan Museum
(l-r) Dalit Rom Shiloni, Yinglan Zhang, Dong Xiu Yuan, Martha Tolpin, Tzvi
Abusch, Yuhong Wu, Andrea Creel, Esther Eshel.
We then travelled to the Citadel that overlooks the Roman
Theater. The temple here was probably dedicated to Hercules
who was the main god of the city.
The earliest structure was a small Ammonite temple
dedicated to the Ammonite god Melqan above which is the
larger Roman temple to Hercules.
Umm Qays.
(l-r): Haihua Tian, Nuwar Jodeh, Mohammad Najjar, Dalit Rom Shiloni,
Martha Tolpin, Tzvi Abusch, Andrea Creel, Esther Eshel, Laura Wright, Yuhong
Wu, Dong Xiu Yuan and Yinglan Zhang.
Jerash.
(l-r): Andrea Creel, Laura Wright, Haihua Tian, Martha Tolpin, Tzvi Abusch,
Yinglan Zhang, Esther Eshel, Dalit Rom Shiloni, Nuwar Jodeh, Dong Xiu Yuan
and Yuhong Wu.
Amman:
The Roman Theater, Odeon and Agora
20
We returned to ACOR for lunch with the ACOR Fellows,
followed by a tour of the facilities led by ACOR Director
Barbara Porter, including the archaeology labs where work has
been carried out on the Petra Papyri. We then had a free
evening in Amman. I attended the opening of the "Traditional
Textile Craft – An Intangible Cultural Heritage?" Workshop at
the Jordan Museum, hosted by the museum and the Centre for
Textile Research in Copenhagen, while some of the other
participants went to explore the city and experience the various
local cuisines.
On day 3 we left ACOR and Amman to visit Mt. Nebo,
Madaba and Kerak. Mt. Nebo, situated along the Roman road
from Amman to Jericho, was adopted by the Byzantines. Two
elaborate mosaics on display were part of the foundation of
nearby churches. Madaba, not far from here, was known as a
mosaic center where artisans were instructed in the art.
In Madaba, we visited the famous mosaic Madaba Map. It
is the earliest known map of the region dating to the 6th
century CE. The church has a Greek orientation, and was a
landmark for pilgrims to the Holy Land, showing the area
from Sinai to Jerusalem, the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, Lake
Tiberias and the Mediterranean Sea.
Boats are depicted in the
Dead Sea with people
collecting salt. Names of
the tribes of Israel are
written in Greek, as well as
the regions of Moab,
Arnon, Sinai, Mt. Sinai,
the Nile delta and
Jerusalem are all delineated
on the mosaic floor of the
church. The original map
included all of the lands
mentioned in the Bible –
the Land of Israel, Jordan,
Egypt, Sinai and Lebanon
but when the church was
Madaba:
expanded in 1884 parts of
The Mosaic Map 6th cent. C. E.
the map were destroyed.
We then drove to Dhiban, along the King's Highway, on the
way we passed Khirbat Iskander, an Early Bronze Age IV
fortified tell. Dhiban, an Iron Age fortress. The site has been
part of an ongoing project, partially co-directed by two former
Albright Fellows, Danielle S. Fatkin (Knox College), and
Benjamin W. Porter (University of California, Berkeley), since
2004, and although the site has not been well preserved, we
could identify the fortifications. It was here that apparently the
Mesha Stele was found. We stopped to read a brief section of
the translation of the stele, a copy of which we have in the
Albright courtyard.
Passing through the Valley of Arnon and Wadi Mujib, we
stopped to look over the dam. Khirbat Balu‘a and Khirbat elMudana were pointed out to us and then we descended c. 200
meters into the wadi.
Wadi Mujib
(l-r ): Dong Xiu Yuan and Yinglan Zhang
On our way to Kerak, we had the unique opportunity to
spot the rare black irises in bloom that usually appear earlier in
the season; however, the late rains most likely coaxed them to
bloom in March. Kerak was a fortified Crusader fortress that
was later settled by the Ayyubids and the Mamluks. Built as a
chateau in 1142 CE by Pagan, Fulk of Jerusalem's butler, it
was the second largest chateau in the region and is estimated
to have had approximately 5,000 people living here at one
time. Overlooking the Dead Sea, the castle was besieged four
times by Salah ed Din until it finally fell in 1189 CE. The site
is well-preserved and excavations had exposed a large kitchen,
and bakery among numerous other functional rooms.
We arrived in Petra and to our hotel, the Petra Palace in
time for dinner and a goodnight’s sleep before our grand visit
to Petra the next day.
On Day 4, we walked from our hotel the brief distance to
the entrance of Petra, which was the Nabatean capital in the late
2nd century BCE. The valley leading to Petra is the Wadi Musa.
We first visited the funerary tombs, or Black Jin, nearest the
entrance, bearing the earliest Nabatean inscriptions. The cubic
shape is sacred and representative of deities in the Nabatean and
early Arabic cultures, only later through contact and integration
with western cultures, such as the Greeks and Romans, did their
deities, eg. Dushara, begin to have human forms.
The architecture is influenced by Assyrian and Egyptian
styles, for example, the Obelisk Tomb with Greek influences
as well.
Petra:
Nabatean tombs along the way to the Siq
Continued on page 22– Jordan Tour
21
Continued from page 21– Jordan Tour
Our next stop was the Byzantine church with its beautiful
mosaics, excavated by an ACOR team and where the famous
papyri were discovered, which are being analyzed at ACOR. The
papyri were personal documents from the 6th century CE and
were accidentally discovered during the construction of a shelter
over the mosaic floor. The carbonized scrolls were almost thrown
away until one of the workers at the site noticed the writings on
the scrolls. The work done on these scrolls at ACOR has changed
our understanding of church life in the late Byzantine period.
We then had free time to visit the other tombs, including
the Palace Tomb that is estimated to have been five stories high
and was constructed in a Greek style possibly for Rabel II Soter
(ar-Rabil), the last ruler of the kingdom of Nabataea, who
ruled from 70 to 106 CE.
The Siq, the long narrow entrance to the main area of the
site, once had an arched entrance, the bases of which can still
be seen today. It is paved in large flagstones and, at various
points, betyls are situated along the route, some empty, some
with cubic forms and some with human-like images. One is of
the goddess of fertility, Atargatus, bearing an inscription.
Petra:
Laura Wright examining a betyl in the Siq
Petra originated as a sacred pilgrimage site. Pilgrimages
ended in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE. One of the most
impressive structures at Petra is the Treasury. Although the
nature of the structure remains unclear, whether it was a
mausoleum or a temple, some scholars hold that it was an
unfinished tomb built sometime between the 1st century BCE
and the 1st century CE for Aretus IV, the Nabatean King, who
loved Greek culture and ruled between the 9 BCE - 40 CE The
motifs include images of deities such as Isis (goddess of
fertility), Nike, and Amazons (to protect the dead). It was
called the Treasury by the local tribes who believed that the
Egyptian Pharaoh buried his treasure here.
Petra:
The Palace Tomb
On Day 5, we left Petra to make our way to the Allenby Bridge
and drove past the impressive Shobak Castle. It predates the
fortress at Karak and was built by Baldwin I, King of Jerusalem, in
order to protect the southeast borders of his kingdom of Jerusalem.
We also stopped to look out over the Dana Nature Reserve and
Dana Village on our descent to the Dead Sea along the Fifa Road.
We saw the new Museum at the Lowest Point on Earth at Ghor esSafi, where there is an exhibit of archaeological finds from the
earliest settlements in the region to modern-day traditions.
Driving along the length of the Dead Sea, we could identify
Masada, Ein Gedi, and Qumran, on the western side while
observing the unique landscape on the eastern side which
included the Jordanian "Lot's Wife" pillar, and the impressive
Wadi Mujib which divides the regions of Moab and Edom.
Towards the end, we recognized the towers of Augusta
Victoria and the Hebrew University and headed home to the
Albright Institute after an instructive, enjoyable and fascinating
five days in Jordan.
We were very fortunate throughout the tour of Jordan to have
as our guide, archaeologist Mohammad Najjar and local tour guide
Nuwar Jodeh from whom we learned a great deal not only about
the archaeology of Jordan but about its land, history and people.
Petra: The Theater
(l-r) Esther Eshel, Dalit Rom Shiloni, Mohammad Najjar, Martha Tolpin,
Tzvi Abusch, Haihua Tian.
We walked past more tombs, and the theater on our way to
the temples, where we visited the Temple of the Winged Lions.
This is an ACOR project, jointly with the Department of
Antiquities of Jordan, and the Petra Archaeological Park. The
Temple of the Winged Lions was apparently built in the second
century BCE; it was dedicated to Isis and Wesaris/Allat. The
capitals of the corners were lions hence the name. In 2009,
ACOR conducted a study of the site with the intention of
preserving and reconstructing the site. This is one of three large
temples at Petra; the largest one was excavated by Martha
Joukowsky of Brown University. The third temple is to Dushara.
Deborah Cassuto
Ernest S. Frerichs Fellow/Program Coordinator, 2013-2014
Photos: courtesy Deborah Cassuto
22
continued throughout my tenure. Ernie’s visits to the
Albright were always memorable. I remember well those
delightful evenings of sing-a-longs, when Ernie would play
any tune on the piano that we would suggest or hum. I also
remember the strength of character that he and his wife Sarah
displayed, when faced with family tragedy. It is that
personality trait that impressed me the most – the fact that
Ernie could carry on under the most trying and difficult of
circumstances.
Ernie was always there to help the Albright both in good
times and bad, and he was there to help Trude and me when
we initiated the Tel Miqne-Ekron excavation project, the first
joint American-Israeli archaeological program. During all of
these years, I, like so many others, thought of Ernie as one of
the constants in our lives, someone who gave good advice and
who could always be relied on to provide a sense of stability.
What I will miss the most are the phone conversations we
had. Speaking every week even during the last few months of
his terminal illness, he expressed his concern for the welfare
of the Albright, sharing his thoughts and wisdom, from
which we will benefit for years to come.
Ernie was a mensch, one of the Lamed Vav-nicks – that is,
according to Jewish tradition, one of the 36 righteous people
without whom the world could not exist. All those who knew
and loved him will sorely feel his absence.
YEHI ZICHRO BARUCH – May his memory be for
a blessing!
Seymour Gitin
IN MEMORIAM
ERNEST S. FRERICHS
APRIL 30, 1925 – NOVEMBER 11, 2013
ERNEST S. (ERNIE) FRERICHS, a good friend and
supporter of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological
Research, the American Schools of Oriental Research, and
the Israel Exploration Society passed away on 11 November,
2013 in Providence, Rhode Island, at the age of 88.
A student at Brown University in 1942, Ernie Frerichs
served from 1943–1946 in the U.S. Army and was awarded
the Bronze Star for his service in the battle for France. He
completed his B.A. at Brown University in 1948, an M.A. in
government at the Harvard Graduate School in 1949, an
S.T.B. degree from the Boston University School of Theology
in 1952, and a Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible at the Boston
University Graduate School in 1957.
Ernie Frerichs joined the faculty of Brown University in
1953 as an instructor in biblical literature. While serving as
Chairman of the Department of Religious Studies from
1964–1970, he was appointed Professor in 1966. He also was
Dean of the Brown University Graduate School from
1976–1982, and Director of the Program in Judaic Studies
from 1985–1995. He was a Trustee of the Albright Institute
in Jerusalem from 1974 until the year he died, and President
of the Institute from 1976–1982. He was also the National
Director of Volunteer and Consortium Relationships for the
Tel Miqne-Ekron Excavation and Publications Project for 14
field seasons, co-sponsored by the Albright Institute and the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
His field of scholarship was the Hebrew Bible and the
history of biblical interpretation. He edited, co-edited or
authored 16 books and numerous articles.
Throughout his career, Ernie held important positions in
numerous professional circles in the U.S., including the
Association of Jewish Studies, the Center for Jewish History,
the Woodrow Wilson and the Mellon Humanities Fellowship
programs.
In 1995, he was invited to become Executive Director of
the Dorot Foundation, later assuming its presidency. Under
his guidance, the foundation expanded its support of Jewish
higher education, as reflected in the endowment of
professional chairs in Judaic Studies, and for the Dorot
Fellowship Program in Israel.
Characteristic of Ernie’s personality were the traits of
modesty, humility, compassion and gentleness, as epitomized
in the title of his festschrift – Hesed-ve-Emet (Scholars Press,
1998). He was equally at home in Jewish and Christian
circles, and will be remembered for his passion in helping
others no matter the circumstances.
Ernie was my mentor and friend. When I was appointed
Albright Director in 1980, he came to Jerusalem and spent
two weeks introducing me to my new responsibilities. From
this experience grew a warm personal relationship, which
23
IN MEMORIAM
FOURTEENTH ANNUAL
SEAN W. DEVER MEMORIAL PRIZE
1926 – 2014
2015 CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Munira Said, long-time Albright Institute Secretary and
Administrative Consultant, who began working at the
Albright in 1967 when it was still ASOR, died on March 18,
2014. She was 88 years old. She was buried in the pastoral
city of Taibe, near Beit El, her family’s birthplace on
Wednesday, March 20. The service was held at St. George’s
Greek Orthodox Church in Taibe and Munira was laid to rest
in the family crypt next to her brother, Sami. Sy and Cherie
Gitin and eight Albright Staff members and Fellows, together
with Munira’s family and friends attended the funeral.
From 1967, and throughout my tenure until her
retirement in 1994, Munira Said served as the Institute
Secretary. Munira had been one of ASOR’s and Albright’s
most dedicated employees. She provided the important
aspect of continuity as several short-term directors came and
went before my own tenure. At times by necessity she oversaw
or did virtually every job at the School. She was responsible
for introducing the computerization of accounts. Most
importantly, Munira contributed to the open atmosphere of
the Institute, helping foster better contact between Israeli,
Palestinian and foreign scholars. After her retirement, Munira
returned to the Albright, working part-time. She was a
regular participant in all of the Albright’s activities. She
constantly engaged Albright Fellows, discussing with them
their various topics, helping them with their Arabic, and
inviting them for tea in her home. Munira was the epitome
of the ASOR/Albright tradition of hospitality.
The William F. Albright Institute of Archaeological
Research in Jerusalem announces the 2015 Sean W. Dever
Memorial Prize call for papers. This prize provides $650 for
the best published article or paper presented at a conference
by a Ph.D. candidate in Syro-Palestinian or biblical
archaeology. Authors may be of any nationality, but the
articles or papers must be in English. Co-written or copresented pieces may be submitted if all the authors or
presenters are doctoral candidates; the prize, if awarded, will
be divided equally among authors/presenters.
All submissions (in .pdf only) must include the authors’
academic affiliation, mailing and email addresses, and phone
number. Submission of conference papers must include the
name and location of the conference and the date when the
paper was presented. Submission of published papers must
include full bibliographic citation.
Submissions must be received by December 31, 2014.
Announcement of the prize will be made on Sean’s birthday,
March 9, 2015.
E-mail PDF of paper to:
Mr. Sam Cardillo: [email protected].
MUNIRA SAID
The Sean W. Dever Memorial Prize was established in 2001 by
Professor William G. Dever and Mrs. Norma Dever, in memory
of their son Sean.
NEW ALBRIGHT WEBSITE:
www.aiar.org
This is one of the many notes the Albright received
from Munira’s family.
“Albright has always been Munira's second home
and all of you are family to her, we thank you for your
loyalty and love to her. Once again, please accept our
sincerest thanks to everyone at Albright and to so
many others whose names I may never know, for
being there for Munira, for looking after her while
she was there amongst you and for your genuine
concern during her final days. On her last day
everyone from our family bid her farewell and sure
enough Albright was there as her family. I am
honored indeed to try to convey the sincerest thank
you words on behalf of Munira, simply thanks Sy,
thanks to everyone at Albright.
Sincerely,
Jubran Said and Family.”
The Albright is pleased to announce
the release of its new website at
www.aiar.org
The site features regularly updated information on the
Institute’s history, fellowships, annual program, and
research initiatives. Visitors can now pay for Albright
services, make contributions, and purchase publications
on the new web store on the site.
Please also visit and like the Albright’s Facebook page
www.facebook.com/AlbrightInstitute
to stay current on Albright news.
We wish to thank Trustees David Rosenstein and Lydie
Shufro who funded the project; Lydie Shufro who worked
on the redesign of the website; Director Emeritus Sy Gitin
who provided up-to-date background information; and
Director Matt Adams who helped in the final stages and
launched the new website. Systems Librarian Diana
Steigler will maintain the site.
We all have lost a good friend, and one whose absence will
be sorely felt.
Sy Gitin
24
HONOR ROLL
2013-2014
Annual Appeal
• Over $100,000
Eugene M. Grant
Sidnie White Crawford
Jane Elizabeth Harrison
Jody Machiela
• $25,000 to $49,999
Green Foundation –
Stuart Shikiar
Gary Summers
In honor of Lydie Shufro
Alice & Thomas Tisch
John Spencer
In memory of
Dan Wolk
Ernest S. Frerichs
Wu Xin
In honor of Sy Gitin
• $5,000 to $24,999
Anonymous
Linda Feinstone
•
Mark Lanier
• $500 to $999
David Rosenstein
Andrea Berlin
Marian Sofaer –
Scott Bucking
Koret Foundation
Joan Branham
Lee Seeman
Aaron Brody
Lydie T. Shufro
Susan Cohen
Ray Willey
Patty Gerstenblith
Robert Haak
• $1,000 to $4,999
Sharon Herbert
Susan Ackerman
Norma Kershaw
Elizabeth Bloch-Smith
Norma Kershaw
Brooks Foundation
In honor of Sy Gitin
Ellen & Nirmal
Norma Kershaw
Chattergee
InInhonor
Shufro
honorofofLydie
Lydie
Shufro
Gary Knoppers
Theodore Lewis
Peter Machinist
Carol Meyers
Ouyang Xiaoli
Benjamin Saidel
Haihua Tian
& Min Zhao
Ed Wright
$100 to $499
Jeff Anderson
Jeff Blakely
Oded Borowski
Vivian Bull
Wilfred Bunge
Thomas David
R. Doermann
Ann Esse
Flegenheimer Family
In memory of
Arnold Flegenheimer
Barry Gittlen
Ed Greenstein
Theodore Hiebert
A. Jones
Lisa Kahn
John Kampen
H. Koester
Herbert Krosney
George Landes
Albert Leonard
O’Dell
Benjamin Porter
In memory of Munira
Susana Rast
A. Rotter
Jeremy Rutter
Herschel Shanks
In honor of Norma Dever
Mark Smith
James Schryver
Joe Seger
Phyllis Trible
Andy Vaughn
Jane Waldbaum
Stephen Wyrick
Luo Xinhui
In honor of Sy Gitin
• Up to $99
Susan Ackerman
In honor of
Sidnie Crawford
Susan Ackerman
In honor of J. P. Dessel
Susan Ackerman
In honor of Lydie Shufro
Aaron Brody
De Hoff
Larry Gerraty
Gordon Ginnings
Darrell H. Lance
Beth Nakhai
Joe & Mary Saba
R. Saley
Daniella Saltz
J. Schneider
Catherine Wellikoff
Designated Gifts
Endowment:
Gitin Roast and Toast Celebration – Baltimore
Ernest S. Frerichs Fellowship Program:
Dorot Foundation
Matthew J. Adams
Sidnie Crawford
Linda Feinstone
Sharon Herbert
Lydie T. Shufro Summer Fellowship:
See list of contributors on page 26
National Endowment
for the Humanities
Lydie Shufro
Library
Fellowships:
Bill Dever
Paul Fitzpatrick
Glassman Holland Fellowship:
Joan Holland and Eli Glassman
Carol and Eric Meyers Fellowship
Ann Killebrew
Lydie Shufro
Other Funds were raised by:
Norma Dever, in response to the
Alumni Annual Appeal, which she chairs.
Lydie Shufro, Chair of Development, in response to
invitation to “Become a Friend of the Albright”
published in Albright News.
Ernest S. Frerichs Fellowship Program –
Memorial Gifts
Richard Ballou
Steven Kaplan
Alfred Bettencourt
Gary Knoppers
Carol & Eric Meyers
Joel Braude
Charles Primus
Brown University
Lydie Shufro
Jane A. Desforges
John R. Vigneau
Sy Gitin
Dan Wolk
Talya Gitin
Artie & Martha Joukowski
25
We are pleased to announce the new
Lydie T. Shufro
Summer Research Fellowship
FRIENDS OF THE ALBRIGHT
I wish to become a “Friend of the Albright” in
support of the ongoing activities and programs of
the Institute, and of the important role of the
Albright as a premier center of American
scholarship.
in honor of
long-time Trustee
Lydie Shufro
Endowed with contributions from
Albright Trustees, Family and Friends.
Annual Membership Categories
$3,000 award for one month during the summer.
Stipend – $1,922; room and
half-board at the Institute – $1,078.
Open to doctoral, post-doctoral, and
senior scholars of all nationalities.
Student. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . to $49
Associate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $50 to $249
Friend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $250 to $499
Director’s Circle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $500 to $999
http://www.aiar.org/available-fellowships/
President’s Council . . . . . . . . . . . $1,000 to $2,500
Special Gifts . . . information available upon request
Contributors to the Endowment
in Honor of the
Lydie T. Shufro Summer Fellowship
Enclosed is my tax deductible annual
contribution in the category
of: _________________________________
Susan Ackerman, Matt Adams, Pauline Albenda, Wally Aufrecht,
Vivian & Norman Belmonte, Andrea Berlin, Monique Birenbaum,
Brauna Hartzell & Jeff Blakely, Wendy & Howard Blank, Dora &
Lev Bogorad, Oded Borowski, Joan Branham, Ossi & Baruch
Brandl, Aaron Brody, Scott Bucking, Betty & Orlando Cabrera,
Sam Cardillo, Annie Caubet, Scott Chambers, Susan Cohen, Dan
Crawford, Sidnie White Crawford, Pamela Davenport, J. P. Dessel,
Norma Dever, Dorot Foundation, Sheila & Harvey Dulin, Linda
Feinstone, Christie & Hank Flum, Patty Gerstenblith, Cherie & Sy
Gitin, David Glasser, Eugene Grant, Edward Greenstein, Jonathan
Greer, Robert Haak, Baruch Halpern, Kenneth Hamma, Sharon
Herbert, Hadi & Miguel Herstein, Marcia Jacobs, Linda & Steven
Jarvis, Adam & George Kahan, Maureen Kaplan, Vassos
Karageorghis, Sandra Katz, Zita & Richard Kenigsman, Gary
Knoppers, Rosalie Kornblau, Mark Lanier, Douglas Lehman, Stuart
Lewis, Alice & Peter Machinist, Jodi Magness, Diane & Alain
Masson, Denise May, Robert Merrillees, Joyce & Jim Mitchell,
Farzad & Beth Alpert-Nakhai, Beth & Steve Ortiz, Jonathan &
Jeannette Rosen, Edna Sachar, Carol Sager, Debbie & Claude
Sairan, Benjamin Saidel, Lee Seeman, Joe Seger, Hershel Shanks,
Susan & Martin Sherwin, Stuart Shikiar, Helen Shufro, Jenny,
Bryce, Jacob & Greg Shufro, Jennifer, Julia & Nick Shufro, Norma
Jean Shufro, Zachary Shufro, Marion & Ed Shulman, Adrienne &
Joey Silverstein, Mark & Liz Smith, Marian & Abraham Sofaer,
John Spencer, Beatrice St Laurent, David Stronach, Laina & Stuart
Swiny, Jeanne & Charlie Unternahrer, Andy Vaughn, Mucki
Weidtman, Malcolm Hewitt Wiener, Ray Willey, Elena Wilsey,
Peggy & Bill Wise, Dan Wolk, Ed Wright, Marc Zand, Ziony Zevit.
Name: ______________________________
Address: ____________________________
City________________________________
State____________ Zip code___________
Become a “Friend of the Albright” today!
Please make check payable to the
“AIAR/Friends of the Albright” and mail to:
Sam Cardillo, Comptroller
Albright Institute of Archaeological Research
P. O. Box 40151 • Philadelphia, PA 19106
or make a contribution on-line at:
www.aiar.org/contribute
The W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research –
AIAR – is a private, non-profit educational research institution
registered as a tax-exempt 501©3 organization in the United States.
All contributions are tax deductible.
26
ALUMNI NEWS
ALUMNI ANNUAL APPEAL
CONGRATULATIONS TO:
“KEEPING BOOKS AND FELLOWS
HEALTYH AND HAPPY”
• Matthew J. Adams, Educational and Cultural Affairs Fellow
(2008-2009) on his appointment as Dorot Director of the
Albright Institute; and on the publication of his articles
“Ground-Penetrating Radar and Electromagnetic
Archaeogeophysical Investigations at the Roman Legionary
Camp at Legio, Israel” (with J. Pincus, T. DeSmet, and
Y. Tepper) in Archaeological Prospection; “The Great Temple of
Early Bronze I Megiddo” (with I. Finkelstein, and
D. Ussishkin) in American Journal of Archaeology 118/2; “New
Evidence for the Rise of a Complex Society in the Late Fourth
Millennium at Tel Megiddo East in the Jezreel Valley” (with
J. David, R. Homsher, and M. E. Cohen) in Near Eastern
Archaeology 77/1; “Flint Knapping and the Early Bronze Age I
Temple of Megiddo, Israel: Some Aspects of the Organization
of Late Prehistoric Cult” (with R. Shimelmitz) in the Journal of
Mediterranean Archaeology 27/1; “Excavations at the Camp of
the Roman Sixth Ferrata Legion in Israel” (with J. David, and
Y. Tepper), Biblical Archaeology Society, Bible History
Daily website: http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/
biblical-sites-places/biblical-archaeology-sites/legio/; “Digital
Archaeological Fieldwork and the Jezreel Valley Regional
Project, Israel” (with A. Prins, M. Ashley, and R. S. Homsher)
in Near Eastern Archaeology 77/3; “On the Shoulders of
Giants: A New Director at the Albright Institute” in Biblical
Archaeology Review Nov/Dec 2014.
Dear Alumni,
I thank all of you who contributed to last year’s
Alumni campaign. Your generous contributions
helped fund the purchase of a state-of-the-art
multi-tasking copying machine that translates
documents into pdf copies and sends the copies
directly to the Fellows computers. It also scans
documents and slides, and does much more.
As always, the purpose of the Annual Alumni
Campaign is to identify and help fund an item
that would help resident Fellows in their research,
or enhance their quality of life at the Institute.
The aging two air conditioning/heating units
in the library stopped working this summer. They
are vital not only to the comfort of Fellows and
visitors in the hot summer months and the cold
winters, but also are essential for maintaining both
temperature and humidity at the proper levels for
book preservation and the long-term health of our
paper library resources.
So the theme of this year’s campaign is
“Keeping Books and Fellows
Healthy and Happy”
I am grateful for your past support and hope that
you will contribute as generously as you can to the
2014-2015 Annual Alumni Campaign. Please
send your check made out to Albright
Institute/Alumni Campaign to Sam Cardillo,
Comptroller, P. O. Box 40151, Philadelphia, PA
19106, or visit the Albright Institute on-line store
on our website www.aiar.org/contributions to
make a contribution on line.
• Jeff Anderson, Senior Fellow (2012-2013) on the publication
of his book The Blessing and the Curse – Trajectories in the
Theology of the Old Testament, Eugene, OR: Cascade Books.
• Walter E. Aufrecht, Senior Fellow (1983-1984), Annual
Professor (1985-1986), Senior Fellow (1990-1992), former
Trustee and current Honorary Trustee on the publication of
the book which he edited with Jo Ann Hackett “An Eye for
Form,” Epigraphic Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross,
Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.
• Carolina Aznar, Research Fellow (2001-2002), National
Endowment for the Humanities Fellow (2005-2006) and Senior
Fellow (2013-2014) on her marriage to Pablo Stöger in Madrid.
Sincerely yours,
Norma Dever, Chair Alumni Annual Appeal
• Fabrizio Benente, Getty Research Exchange Fellow (20102011) on his appointment as Director of the Archaeological
and City Museum of Sestri Levante; and of the
Archaeological Museum of Castiglione Chiavarese in
Genoa, Italy.
The W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research –
AIAR – is registered as a tax-exempt 501©3 organization
in the United States. All contributions are tax deductible.
• David Ben-Shlomo, Research Fellow (2001-2006), PostDoctoral Fellow (2008-2011) and Senior Fellow (20112014), on the publication of his article “A Study of the
Production of Iron Age Clay Figurines from Jerusalem”
(with Erin D. Darby née Kuhns) in Tel Aviv: Journal of the
Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University Volume 41/2.
Please visit our website today
www.aiar.org
Continued on page 28 – Alumni News
27
Continued from page 27– Alumni News
• Andrea Berlin, Samuel H. Kress Fellow (1984-1985),
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow (20102011) and current Albright Trustee on the publication of her
articles “Herod the Tastemaker” in Near Eastern Archaeology
77/2; “Dining In State: The Table Wares from the PersianHellenistic Administrative Building at Kedesh” (with S. C.
Herbert and P. Stone) in Pottery, Peoples, and Places. Study and
Interpretation of Late Hellenistic Pottery, eds. P. Guldager Bilde
and M. L. Lawall, Aarhus: Aarhus University Press; “Tel
Kedesh” (with S. C. Herbert) in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the
Bible and Archaeology. ed. D. Master, New York: Oxford
University Press; The Jewish Study Bible, which she edited
with Z. Brettler, New York: Oxford University Press; and for
her reviews of The Roman Temple Complex at Horvat Omrit: An
Interim Report, eds. J. Andrew Overman and D. N. Schowalter.
BAR International Series 2205, Oxford, Archaeopress: 2011 in
the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 369;
and on initiating the Levantine Ceramics Project and its
companion website www.levantineceramics.org, an online
international collaborative website that enables scholars to
submit and search for information about ceramics produced in
the Levant, i.e., parts of modern Turkey, Syria, Cyprus,
Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, and Egypt – from antiquity
through modern times.
• Eliot Braun, Senior Fellow (2005-2014) and National
Endowment for the Humanities Fellow (2011-2012) on the
publication of his volume Early Megiddo on the East Slope (the
“Megiddo Stages”): A Report on the Early Occupation of the East
Slope of Megiddo (Results of the Oriental Institute’s Excavations,
1925-1933) (with D. Ilan, O. Marder, Y. Braun, and
S. Shalev), Oriental Institute Publications 139, Chicago:
Oriental Institute; and of his articles “Reflections on the
Context of a Late Dynasty 0 Egyptian Colony in the Southern
Levant: Interpreting some evidence of Nilotic Material
Culture at Select Sites in the Southern Levant (ca. 3150 BCE
– ca. 2950 BCE)” in The Nile Delta as a Centre of Cultural
Interactions between Upper Egypt and the Southern Levant in the
4th millennium BC., Proceedings of the conference held in the
Poznan Archaeological Museum, Poznan, Poland, 21-22 June
2013, ed. A. Maczynska, Studies in African Archaeology, 13,
Poznan: Poznan Archaeological Museum; “A Note on
Relations between the Southern Levant and Egypt during
Early Dynasty 0” in Egypt and the Levant XXII/XXIII; “The
Late Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age I Transition in the
Southern Levant: Determining Continuity and Discontinuity
or ‘Mind the Gap’” (with V. Roux); and “Aspects of
Radiocarbon Determinations and the Dating of the
Transition from the Chalcolithic Period to Early Bronze Age I
in the Southern Levant” (with J. Regev, E. C. M. van den
Brink, E. Boaretto and S. Bar) in Paléorient 39/1.
• Nicholas Blackwell, Educational and Cultural Affairs
Fellow (2011-2012) and Joanie Gidas Blackwell on the birth
of their daughter, Penelope Joan Blackwell in Athens; and on
the publication of his article “Making the Lion Gate Relief
at Mycenae: Tool Marks and Foreign Influence” in American
Journal of Archaeology 118/3.
• Aaron Brody, George A. Barton Fellow (1992-1993), Dorot
Foundation Fellow (1993-1994), United States Information
Agency Junior Research Fellow (1995-1996) and current
Albright Trustee on the publication of his review of A. YasurLandau The Philistines and Aegean Migration at the End of the
Late Bronze Age, Cambridge; Cambridge University Press,
2014 in Journal of Near Eastern Studies 73/1.
• Hanswulf Bloedhorn, Senior Fellow (1999-2004) on the
publication of his monographs The Archaeology of Jerusalem
from the Origins through the Ottoman Period (with K. Galor),
New Haven: Yale University Press; and Die antike Synagoge
(with F. G. Hüttenmeister), Tokyo: Kyobunkwan Inc.
• Mariusz Burdajewicz, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow (20002001), (2006-2007) and Glassman Holland Research Fellow
(2009-2010) on the award of a research grant from the
National Research Centre (NCN) for his work on "The
Complex of the so-called North-west Church in Hippos
(Sussita), Palaestina Secunda.”
• Oded Borowski, Annual Professor (1987-1988), Dorot
Research Professor (1991-1992), Annual Professor (19951996), Senior Fellow (1998-1999), Annual Professor (20052006), Senior Fellow (2010-2011) and current Albright
Trustee on the publication of his article “Daily Life in
Biblical Times” in The Jewish Study Bible, eds. A. Berlin and
Z. Brettler, New York: Oxford University Press.
• Aaron Burke, Annual Professor (2009-2010) on the publication
of his review of A. Maeir “In the Midst of the Jordan”: The Jordan
Valley during the Middle Bronze Age (circa 2000-1500 BCE):
Archaeological and Historical Correlates – Contributions to the
Chronology of the Eastern Mediterranean, XXVI, Austrian
Academy of Sciences Press, 2010 in the Bulletin of the American
Schools of Oriental Research 370.
• Baruch Brandl, Research Fellow (1997-2014) on the
publication of his articles “Beth-Shemesh and Sellopoulo: Two
Commemorative Scarabs of Amenhotep III and their
Contribution to Aegean Chronology” in Annual of the British
School at Athens 108; “Erani, Tel” in Encyclopedia of The Bible
and its Reception, Vol. 7, eds. D. C. Allison et al., Berlin: De
Gruyter; “Three Canaanite Design Scarabs, One Egyptian
Obsidian Scarab and One Syrian Cylinder Seal from A Burial
Cave near Ras ‘Ali, in Nahal Zippori” in 'Atiqot 78;
“Anepigraphic Decorated Bulla” in The Excavations of Maresha
Subterranean Complex 57: The ‘Heliodorus’ Cave, ed. I. Stern,
BAR International Series 2652, Oxford: Archaepress.
• Annie Caubet, Glassman Holland Research Fellow (20102011) on the award of a 6-month Andrew W. Mellon Senior
Fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a research
project on ancient near eastern faience and vitreous materials.
• Jeffrey Chadwick, Senior Fellow (2003-2004) (2006-2014)
on his promotion to Full Professor of Religious Education/
Bible & Jewish Studies at the Utah campus of Brigham
Young University.
Continued on page 29 – Alumni News
28
Continued from page 28 – Alumni News
• James Charlesworth, Thayer Fellow (1968) and Annual
Professor (1998-1999) for the production of Walking
Through the Land of the Bible: Historical 3-D Adventure; the
publication of his volume co-edited with B. Rhea and
P. Pokorny, Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions,
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; and his articles therein “The
Second Princeton-Prague Symposium: Jesus Research and
Methodologies”; “Should Specialists in Jesus Research
Include Psychobiography?”; “Transmitting Traditions”,
“Reconstructing First-Century Galilee: Reflections on Ten
Major Problems” (with M. Aviam); and “With the Ancients:
Hearing Voices That were Silenced” (with L. M. McDonald
and B.A. Jurgen); the publication of his volume coedited
with L. M. McDonald and B. A. Jurgen, Sacra Scriptura:
How “Non-Canonical” Texts Functioned in Early Judaism and
Early Christianity, T&T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts in
Contexts and Related Studies 20, London and New York:
T&T Clark; and his articles therein “The Fluid Borders of
the Canon and “Apocrypha” and “The Odes of Solomon:
Their Relation to Scripture and the Canon in Early
Christianity”; and his article “An Unknown Dead Sea Scroll
and Speculations Focused on the Vorlage of Deuteronomy
27:4” in H-W Kuhn Festschrift, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Qa’aqir and Be’er Resisim, ed. W. G. Dever, Winona Lake, IN:
Eisenbrauns; and of her reviews of C. Meyers, Rediscovering
Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2013, in Religion 44/3; of R. Albertz and R.
Schmitt, Family and Household Religion in Ancient Israel,
Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012, in Bulletin of the
American Schools of Oriental Research 371; and on the film,
which she produced, directed, and edited, Traditional Bread
Making in Northern Jordan.
• Diana Edelman, Miqne-Ekron Staff Member (1994-1996)
on the publication of her article “Othering, Selfing,
‘Boundarying’ and ‘Crossing-Boundarying’ as Interwoven
with Socially Shared Memories: Some Observations” in
Imagining the Other and Constructing Israelite Identity in the
Early Second Temple Period (which she edited with E. Ben
Zvi), Bloomsbury: T & T Clark.
• John Franklin, Annual Professor (2011-2012) on the
publication of his articles “Ethnicity and Musical Identity in
the Lyric Landscape of Early Cyprus” in Greek and Roman
Musical Studies 2; “Divinized Instruments and Divine
Communication in Mesopotamia” in Music & Ritual:
Bridging Material & Living Cultures, ed., R. Jiménez
Pasalodos, Berlin: Ekho Verlag; “Greek Epic and Kypriaka:
Why ‘Cyprus Matters’” in Studies of the Jewish Music
Research Centre. Vol. 8: Sounds from the Past: Music in the
Ancient Near East and Mediterranean Worlds, eds. Y. Maurey,
E. Seroussi, J. Goodnick-Westenholz, Jerusalem.
• Benjamin Dolinka, Ernest S. Frerichs Fellow (2006-2008)
on his award of an ASOR Travel Grant from the Israel
Antiquities Authority to present a paper at the ASOR
Annual Meeting in Baltimore.
• Marcin Czarnowicz, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow (20092010) on the publication of his article “Erani C Pottery in
Egypt” in The Nile Delta as a Centre of Cultural Interactions
between Upper Egypt and the Southern Levant in the 4th
millennium BC. ed. A. Maczynska, Poznan: Poznan
Archaeological Museum.
• Yosef Garfinkel, Grant/Miqne Fellow (1989-1990),
Research Fellow (1990-1991), Bloomingdale Foundation
Fellow (1991-1992) and Post-Doctoral Fellow (1997-1999)
on the publication of his article “Triglyphs and Recessed
Doorframes on a Building Model from Khirbet Qeiyafa:
New Light on Two Technical Terms in the Biblical
Descriptions of Solomon’s Palace and Temple” (with
M. Mumcuoglu) in Israel Exploration Journal 63/2.
• Andrew Davis, Samuel H. Kress Fellow (2007-2008) on his
appointment as Assistant Professor of Old Testament at the
Boston College School of Theology and Ministry; and on
the publication of his book Tel Dan in its Northern Cultic
Context, Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.
• Patty Gerstenblith, former Albright President and Sam
Gordon on the birth of their grandson, Nathan Joel Harris,
son of Jennifer Gordon and Tobias Harris.
• William G. Dever, former Albright Director on the
publication of his volume Excavations at the Early Bronze IV
Sites of Jebel Qa`aqir and Be’er Resisim, Studies in the
Archaeology and History of the Levant, Harvard Semitic
Museum Publications, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.
• Shimon Gibson, Post-Doctoral Fellow (1996-2002) and
Senior Fellow (2002-2014) on the publication of his article
“A Note on an Iron Age Four-Horned Altar from Tel
Dothan” (with T. Kennedy and J. Kramer) in Palestine
Exploration Quarterly 145/4.
• Jennie Ebeling, Research (Fulbright Hayes) Fellow (19981999) for receiving Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award at
the University of Evansville; and the Charles U. Harris Service
Award from the American Schools of Oriental Research; and
on the publication of her articles “The Ground Stone” in
Excavations at Tel Zahara (2006-2009): Final Report. The
Hellenistic and Roman Strata, ed. S. L. Cohen, Oxford:
Archaeopress; “Infancy, Childhood, Adulthood, Old Age,
Bronze and Iron Age” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible
and Archaeology, ed. D. Master. Oxford: Oxford University
Press; “Appendix IIG: The Ground Stone Artifacts from Be’er
Resisim” in Excavations at the Early Bronze IV Sites of Jebel
• Garth Gilmour, Research Fellow (1990-1991), George A.
Barton Fellow (1994-1995) and Senior Fellow (2000-2006)
(2007-2014) on the publication of the volume Gezer VI –
The Objects from Phases I and II (1964-1974) (with
contributions by R. G. Bullard, W. G. Dever, H. D. Lance,
and J. D. Seger) Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns; and to the
following Albright Fellows/Alumni for their contributions
to this volume: Donald Ariel, Educational and Cultural
Affairs Fellow (2004-2005) “Appendix G: Stamped
Amphora Handles from the American Excavations at
Continued on page 30 – Alumni News
29
Continued from page 29 – Alumni News
Gezer”; Steven Rosen, Post-Doctoral Fellow (1985-1986)
and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow (19861987) ”The Chipped Stone Collection from the Gezer
Fields” (with Z. Gotesman).
Country Fellow (1994-1995), National Endowment for the
Humanities Fellow (1999), United States Information Agency
Junior Research Fellow (2000), Senior Fellow (2003-2004),
Educational and Cultural Affairs Fellow (2007-2008) and
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow (20132014) and Morag M. Kersel, Educational and Cultural
Affairs Fellow (2003-2004), “New Perspectives on the
Chalcolithic Period in Galilee: Investigations at the Site of
Marj Rabba”; Benjamin Adam Saidel, United States
Information Agency Junior Research Fellow (1993-1994),
George A. Barton Fellow (1998-1999), Post-Doctoral Fellow
(1999-2000), National Endowment for the Humanities
Fellow (2000-2001), Ernest S. Frerichs Fellow (2002-2005),
Senior Fellow (2009-2014), and former Albright Trustee,
“Tobacco Pipes and the Ophir Expedition to Southern Sinai:
Archaeological Evidence of Tobacco Smoking among 18thand 20th-Century Bedouin Squatters”; Robert Schick,
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow (19951996), United States Information Agency (USIA) Fellow
(1995-1996), National Endowment for the Humanities
Fellow (1996-1997), Islamic Studies Fellow (1996-1997),
Islamic Studies/Annual Professor (1997-1998), Islamic
Studies Fellow (1998-2000) and National Endowment for the
Humanities Fellow (2008-2009), “King David in Mujir alDin’s Fifteenth-Century History of Jerusalem”; Hamdan
Taha, Senior Fellow (1996-2013) and Getty Research
Exchange Fellow (2009-2010), “An Iron Age II Tomb at
‘Anata”; Joe Uziel, Ernest S. Frerichs Fellow (2008-2012),
Itzhaq Shai, Post-Doctoral Fellow (2007-2012) and
Deborah Cassuto, Ernest S. Frerichs Fellow (2012-2014),
“The Ups and Downs of Settlement Patterns: Why Sites
Fluctuate”; Alexander Zukerman, Research Fellow (20012014), “The Horned Stands from Tell Afis and Hazor and the
‘Crowns’ from Nahal Mishmar.”
• Seymour Gitin, Dorot Director and Professor of Archaeology
Emeritus on his retirement after 34 years of service to the
Albright; and on the second Festschrift published in his honor
Material Culture Matters: Essays on the Archaeology of the
Southern Levant in Honor of Seymour Gitin, eds. J. R. Spencer,
R. A. Mullins, and A. J. Brody, Winona Lake, IN:
Eisenbrauns; and to the following Albright Fellows/Alumni
for their contributions to this volume: Garth Gilmour,
Research Fellow (1990-1991), George A. Barton Fellow
(1994-1995), Post-Doctoral Fellow (2000-2002), and Senior
Fellow (2003-2006) (2007-2014), “A Late Iron Age Cult
Stand from Gezer”; Marwan Abu Khalaf, Senior Fellow
(1999-2014), “The Umayyad Pottery of Palestine”; David
Ben-Shlomo, Research Fellow (2001-2006), Post-Doctoral
Fellow (2008-2011) and Senior Fellow (2011-2014),
“Marked Jar Handles from Tel Miqne-Ekron”; Jeffrey
Blakely, Annual Professor (1996-1997), James W. Hardin,
United States Information Agency Junior Research Fellow
(1994-1995) and Daniel Master, National Endowment for
the Humanities Fellow (2008-2009), “The Southwestern
Border of Judah in the Ninth and Eighth Centuries B.C.E.”;
Aaron Brody, George A. Barton Fellow (1992-1993), Dorot
Foundation Fellow (1993-1994), United States Information
Agency Junior Research Fellow (1995-1996) and current
Albright Trustee, “Interregional Interaction in the Late Iron
Age: Phoenician and Other Foreign Goods from Tell enNasbeh”; Susan L. Cohen, United States Information Agency
(USIA) Fellow (2000-2001), Post-Doctoral Fellow (20022006), Senior Fellow (2006-2007) and Albright Trustee, on
“Three Middle Bronze II Burials from Tel Zahara” (with
W. Wieckowski); Salah Hussein al-Houdalieh, PostDoctoral Fellow (2000-2012), “Tomb Raiding in Western
Ramallah Province, Palestine: An Ethnographic Study”;
Edward F. Maher, George A. Barton Fellow ( 2000-2001),
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow (20032004) and (2009-2010), “Lambs to the Slaughter: Late Iron
Age Cultic Orientations at Philistine Ekron; Laura B.
Mazow, United States Information Agency Fellow
(1997–1998), Samuel H. Kress Fellow (1998–1999), Miqne
Fellow (1999–2000), George A. Barton Fellow (2003–2004),
Post-Doctoral Fellow (2009–2011) and Senior Fellow (20112014), “Competing Material Culture: Philistine Settlement at
Tel Miqne-Ekron in the Early Iron Age”; Hani Nur el-Din,
Miqne Fellow (1989–1990), Research Fellow (1990–1997),
Post-Doctoral Fellow (1997–2001), and Senior Fellow
(2001–2014), “The Evolution of the Sacred Area at Tell esSultan/Jericho”; Steven M. Ortiz, Research Fellow (19891990), United States Information Agency Junior Research
Fellow (1994-1995), George A. Barton Fellow (1995-1996),
“`Ashdod Ware’” from Ekron Stratum IV: Degenerated and
Late Philistine Decorated Ware”; Yorke M. Rowan, Council
of American Overseas Research Centers Advanced Multi-
• Amir Golani, Research Fellow (1990-1991), Bloomingdale
Foundation Fellow (1991-1993), Miqne Excavation Staff
(1992-1993), Research Fellow (1993-2010), Post-Doctoral
Fellow (2010-2012) on the publication of his article “Ashqelon
during the EB I Period – a Centre for Copper Processing and
Trade” in The Nile Delta as a Centre of Cultural Interactions
between Upper Egypt and the Southern Levant in the 4th
millennium BC ed. A. Maczynska, Studies in African
Archaeology, vol. 13, Poznan: Poznan Archaeological Museum.
• Jonathan Greer, Educational and Cultural Affairs Fellow
(2010-2011) on his appointment as Director of the newly
established Hesse Memorial Archaeological Laboratory
( h t t p s : / / w w w. c o r n e r s t o n e . e d u / h e s s e - m e m o r i a l archaeological-lab) at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary
where he serves as Assistant Professor of Old Testament.
• Michael G. Hasel, Samuel H. Kress Fellow (1995-96) on
the publication of the volume co-authored with Y. Garfinkel
and S. Ganor Khirbet Qeiyafa, Vol. 2: Architecture and
Stratigraphy (Areas B, C, D, and E), 2009-2013, Jerusalem:
Israel Exploration Society.
Continued on page 31 – Alumni News
30
Continued from page 30 – Alumni News
• Larry G. Herr, Annual Professor (1993-1994) on the
publication of his chapters “Site Descriptions” and “Random
Square Descriptions – Topographical Zones 1, 2 and 3”
(co-authored with B. MacDonald, D. Scott Quaintance,
G. A. Clark, and M. C. A. Macdonald) in The Ayl to Ras AnNaqab Archaeological Survey, Southern Jordan 2005-2007,
American Schools of Oriental Research Archaeological
Reports 16; Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research.
in the Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry; “Major,
Minor and Trace Element Mass Fractions Determined Using
ED-XRF, WD-XRF and INAA for Five Certified Clay
Reference Materials: NCS DC 60602–60105; NCS DC 61101
(GBW 03101A, 03102A, 03103, and 03115)” (co-authored
with D. Dvoracek, M. Glascock & R. Speakman) in the
Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry.
• Alex Joffe, Research Fellow (1987-1989), George A. Barton
Fellow (1989-1990), Post-Doctoral Fellow (1991-1992) on
the publication of his volume coedited with Asaf Romirowsky
Religion, Politics, and the Origins of Palestine Refugee Relief
(with Asaf Romirowsky), New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.
• Malka Hershkovitz, Research Fellow (2005-2014) on the
publication of her articles “A Carnelian Gemstone from the
Herodian Palaces at Jericho” (with S. Amorai-Stark) in
Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces at Jericho, Final Reports of the
1973-1987 Excavations 33, eds. R. Bar-Nathan and J. Gartner,
Jerusalem; and “Local Pottery of the Hellenistic and Early
Roman Periods from Areas J and N, in Jewish Quarter
Excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem, Conducted by Nahman
Avigad, 1969-1982. Vol. VI, The Finds from Areas J and N –
Final Report, ed. H. Geva, Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society.
• Isaac Kalimi, National Endowment for the Humanities
Fellow (2007-2008) on the publication of the volumes Das
Chronikbuch und seine Chronik: Zur Entstehung und Rezeption
eines biblischen Buches, Wien: Herder Verlag; Scriptural
Authority in Early Judaism and Ancient Christianity (co-edited
with T. Nicklas and G. G. Xeravits), Berlin: Walter de Gruyter;
Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem – Story, History and
Historiography (edited with S. Richardson), Leiden: E. J. Brill;
and of his chapters therein, “Sennacherib at the Gates of
Jerusalem (701 B.C.E.): Story, History and Historiography:
An Introduction” (with S. Richardson), and “Sennacherib’s
Campaign to Judah: The Chronicler’s View Compared with
his ‘Biblical’ Sources”; and on his articles “The Rise of
Solomon in the Ancient Israelite Historiography” in The Figure
of Solomon in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Tradition: King, Sage
and Architect, ed. J. Verheyden, Leiden: E.J. Brill; “Kings with
Privilege: The Core Source(s) of the Parallel Texts between the
Deuteronomistic and Chronistic Histories” in Revue Biblique
119; “King Solomon: His Birth and Names in the Second
Temple Period Literature” in Biblica 93; and on his
appointments as Associate Editor for Catholic Biblical
Quarterly; as Research Professor in Hebrew Bible and Ancient
Israelite History at Universität Mainz; and as a Fellow of The
Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS) at the Uppsala
University for the upcoming academic year.
• Louise Hitchcock, United States Information Agency Fellow
(2000-2001), Annual Professor (2006-2007) and National
Endowment for the Humanities Fellow (2011-2012) on the
article which she co-authored with Aren Maeir “Yo Ho, Yo
Ho, A Seren’s Life for Me” in World Archaeology 46/4.
• Salah Houdalieh, Post-Doctoral Fellow (2000-2012) on the
publication of his article “Physical Hazards Encountered by
Antiquities Looters: A Case Study from the Palestinian
National Territories” in Palestine Exploration Quarterly 145/4.
• Shih-Wei Hsu, Noble Group Fellow (2012-2013) on being
awarded a Ph.D. in Egyptology at the Free University of
Berlin, writing on the subject of “Bilder für den Pharao.
Untersuchung zu den bildlichen Ausdrücken des Ägyptischen
in den Königsinschriften und anderen Textgattungen” (Images
of the Pharaoh. Investigation into Figurative Language of
Ancient Egyptian Royal Inscriptions and other Text Types).
• Alice Hunt, Educational and Cultural Affairs Fellow (20092010) on the publication of her articles “The Social Value and
Semiotic Function of Palace Ware in the Neo-Assyrian Empire”
in Provincial Archaeology of the Assyrian Empire, eds.
J. MacGinnis & D. Wicke, Cambridge: The McDonald
Institute; “Assyrian Palace Ware Definition and Chaîne
Opératoire: Preliminary Results from Nineveh, Nimrud, and
Assur” in Craft and Science: International Perspectives on
Archaeological Ceramics, eds. M. Martinón-Torres, Doha,
Qatar: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation; “Major, Minor and
Trace Element Mass Fractions Determined Using ED-XRF,
WD-XRF and INAA for Three Synthetic Mullite Certified
Reference Materials (NCS HC 14807; NCS HC 14808; and
NCS HC14809) and Five Stream Sediment Reference
Materials (GBW 07302; GBW 07310; GBW 07311; GBW
07312; and GBW 07405) (co-authored with D. Dvoracek,
M. Glascock & R. Speakman) in the Journal of Radioanalytical
and Nuclear Chemistry; “Major, Minor and Trace Element Mass
Fractions Determined Using ED-XRF, WD-XRF and INAA
for Three Fireclay Reference Materials: c.137; c.138; and c.139”
(co-authored with D. Dvoracek, M. Glascock & R. Speakman)
• Kyle Keimer, Educational and Cultural Affairs Fellow (20032004) and (2011-2012) on his marriage to Ellie Smith and on
the birth of their daughter, Cayley Grace Keimer; and on the
publication of his article “Gates, City” in The Encyclopedia of
the Bible and its Reception, Vol. 9, eds. D. C. Allison, Jr.,
V. Leppin, C. Leong Seow, H. Spieckermann, B. D. Walfish,
and E. Ziolkowski, Berlin: de Gruyter.
• Ann Killebrew, Dorot Fellow (1983-1984), Research Fellow
(1984-1985), Research Associate (1985-1986), Dorot /Miqne
Excavation Fellow (1986-1992), James A. Montgomery
Fellow (1992-1993), United States Information Agency
Fellow (1993-1994), Samuel H. Kress Fellow (1994-1995),
Research Fellow (1995-1999), Post-Doctoral Fellow (19992001), National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow
(2006-2007) and (2013-2014) on the publication of the
edited volume The Oxford Handbook of The Archaeology of
the Levant c. 8000-332 BCE (with M. L. Steiner), Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
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Continued from page 31 – Alumni News
• Nathaniel Levtow, Educational and Cultural Affairs Fellow
(2001-2002) and (2010-2011) on the award of a Berlin
Prize from the American Academy in Berlin (Spring 2015)
and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship
that he will hold in 2015-2016 for his project “Text
Destruction in the Bible and the Ancient World."
• Carol Meyers, J. Henry Thayer Fellow (1975-1976) and
current Albright Trustee on the publication of her article
“Was Ancient Israel a Patriarchal Society?” in Journal of
Biblical Literature (JBL) 133/1.
• Ianir Milevski, Research Fellow (2001-2006), Post-Doctoral
Fellow (2006-2013) and Senior Fellow (2013-2014) on his
appointment as TOPOI Research Fellow at the German
Institute of Archaeology, Berlin for October- November,
2014; and on the publication of the edited volume Diversidad
de formaciones políticas en Mesopotamia y el Cercano Oriente.
Organización interna y relaciones interregionales en la Edad del
Bronce (with Di Bennardis, C., Ravenna, E. ) Barcelona:
Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona; and on the publication
of his articles “Minor Arts and Society in the Chalcolithic of
the southern Levant” in Proceedings of the 8th International
Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, eds.
P. Bielinski et al.,Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz; “Para una
definición de las formaciones políticas en Palestina durante el
Calcolítico y la Edad del Bronce Antiguo I (ca. 4500-3000
a.C.)” in: Diversidad de formaciones políticas en Mesopotamia y
el Cercano Oriente. Organización interna y relaciones
interregionales en la Edad del Bronce, which he edited with
C. Di Bennardis, and E. Ravenna, Barcelona: Universidad
Autonoma de Barcelona; “Caching and depositing in the
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B of Yiftahel, Israel” (with J. Khalaily,
N. Getzov and O. Barzilai) in Stone Tools in Transition: From
Hunter-Gatherers to Farming Societies in the Near East, eds.
F. Borrell, J. J. Ibañez, M. Molist, Barcelona: Universidad
Autonoma de Barcelona; “The Early Bronze Age Town of Ein
Zippori in the Galilee (Israel),” (with R. Liran and N. Getzov)
in Antiquity 88; “The Plastered Skulls from the Pre-Pottery
Neolithic B Site of Yiftahel (Israel) – A Computed
Tomography-Based Analysis” (with V. Slon, R. Sarig,
I. Hershkovitz, and H. Khalaily) in Plos-One 9/2; “ProtoHistoric Ein Zippori: The 2007 Excavations Season” (with
O. Barzilay, N. Getzov, N. Gubenko, N. Marom, A. Vered,
and J. Zheng) in Mitekufat Haeven – Journal of the Israel
Prehistoric Society 4; “Excavations at Horbat `Illit B:
A Chalcolithic (Ghassulian) Site in the Haelha Valley” (with
J. Vardi, I. Gilead, A. Eirich-Rose, M. Birkenfeld,
H.K. Mienis, and L.K. Horwitz) in Mitekufat Haeven –
Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society 43; “Sound-Track of the
‘Sacred Marriage’? A Newly Discovered Cultic Scene
Depicted on a 3rd Millennium BC Cylinder Seal Impression
from Bet Ha-Emeq, Israel” (with Y. Paz and N. Getzov) in
Ugarit-Forschungen 44; “The Transition from the Chalcolithic
to the Early Bronze Age of the Southern Levant in Socioeconomic Context” in Paléorient 39/1 1; and “The Exchange
of Flint Tools in the Southern Levant during the Early Bronze
Age” in a special issue of Lithic Technology.
• Daniel A. Machiela, Educational and Cultural Affairs Fellow
(2005-2006) on the publication of his article “Tobit and the
Genesis Apocryphon: Towards a Family Portrait”, coauthored
with Andrew B. Perrin, George A. Barton Fellow (20122013), in Journal of Biblical Literature (JBL) 133/1.
• Aren Maeir, Senior Fellow (2004-2010) on the publication
of his article coauthored with Louise A. Hitchcock “Yo-Ho,
Yo-Ho, a Seren’s Life for Me!” in World Archaeology 46/3;
“Four Short Alphabetic Inscriptions from Iron Age IIA Tell
es-Safi/Gath and Their Contribution for Understanding the
Process of the Development of Literacy in Iron Age Philistia”
(with E. Eshel) in“See, I Will Bring a Scroll Recounting What
Befell Me” (Ps 40:8): Epigraphy and Daily Life – From the
Bible to the Talmud Dedicated to the Memory of Professor
Hanan Eshel, eds. E. Eshel and Y. Levin, Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
• Edward Maher, George A. Barton Fellow (2000-2001),
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow (2003-2004)
and (2009-2010) on the publication of his article “Temporal
Trends in Animal Exploitation: Fauna Analysis from Tell
Jemmeh” in The Smithsonian Institution Excavation at Tell
Jemmeh, Israel (1970-1990), eds., D. Ben-Shlomo and
G. W. Van Beek, Washington DC: Scholarly Press.
• Daniel Master, National Endowment for the Humanities
Fellow (2008-2009) on the publication of the two-volume
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Archaeology,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, which he edited.
• Laura Mazow, United States Information Agency Fellow
(1997–1998), Samuel H. Kress Fellow (1998–1999), Miqne
Fellow (1999–2000), George A. Barton Fellow (2003–2004),
Post-Doctoral Fellow (2009–2011) and Senior Fellow (20112014) on the publication of the volume The Past and Present of
Household Beyond which she edited with A. Yasur-Landau and
J. Ebeling, Leiden: Brill; and on the article therein
“Introduction: The Past and Present of Household Beyond”;
and of her articles “The Root of the Problem: On the
Relationship Between Wool Processing and Lanolin
Production” in Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 27/1;
“Contamination in Organic Residue Analysis: A Cautionary
Tale,” (with S. Grieve and A. Kennedy) in Journal of Eastern
Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies 2/2; “The
‘Bathtub Coffin’ from Tel Qitaf: A Re-examination of Its
Context and Function” in Palestine Exploration Quarterly
146/1; “Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater:
Innovations in Mediterranean Textile Production” in Textile
Production in the Ancient Near East, eds. M. L. Nosch and
E. Anderson, Oxford: Oxbow Books.
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Continued from page 32 – Alumni News
• Robert Miller, Research Fellow, (1995-1996), Samuel H.
Kress Foundation Fellow (1996-1997), James
A. Montgomery Fellow/PC (1997-1998) on the publication
of his book Chieftains of the Highland Clans – A History of
Israel in the 12th and 11th Centuries BC, Eugene, OR:
Wipf & Stock.
• Benjamin Porter, Research Fellow (1996-1997) on the
publication of his book Complex Communities: The
Archaeology of Early Iron Age West-Central Jordan, Berkeley:
University of California.
• Christopher A. Rollston, National Endowment for the
Humanities Fellow (2013-2014) on his appointments as
Associate Professor of Northwest Semitic languages and
Literatures at George Washington University, and as a Coeditor (with E. Cline) of The Bulletin of the American Schools
of Oriental Research (BASOR); and on the publication of his
article “Epigraphic Notes on the Ossuary of Mariam,
Daughter of Yeshua`: Limning the Broad Tableau” in Israel
Exploration Journal 62/2.
• Jolanta Mlynarczyk, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow (20042005) and (2011-2012) on her award of Titular
Professorship by the President of the Republic of Poland,
Mr. Bronislaw Komorowski.
• Emanuel Moutafov, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow (20112012) on his appointment as Director of the Institute of Art
Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
• Steven Rosen, Post-Doctoral Fellow (2004-2008) and Senior
Fellow (2008-2012) on the publication of his article “Lithic
Systems of the 4th millennium BC: A Brief Comparison
between the Industries of Egypt and the Southern Levant” in
The Nile Delta as a Centre of Cultural Interactions between
Upper Egypt and the Southern Levant in the 4th millennium
BC. ed., A. Maczynska, Poznan: Poznan Archaeological
Museum; and of his review of D. M. Master, The Oxford
Encyclopedia of the Bible and Archaeology, Vols. 1–2, Oxford,
2013 in the American Journal of Archaeology 118/3.
• Piotr Muchowski, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow (2002-2003)
on the publication of his article “Notes on Two Karaite Texts
edited by Ananiasz Zajaczkowski” in Folia Orientalia vol.
XLIX edited by Tomasz Polanski.
• Robert Mullins, United States Information Agency (USIA) Junior
Research Fellow (1997-1998), James A. Montgomery
Fellow/Program Coordinator (1998-2001), Educational and
Cultural Affairs (ECA) Fellow/Program Coordinator (2001-2002),
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow (2004-2005) on
the publication of his review of Dan III: Avraham Biran Excavations
1966-1999: The Late Bronze Age by R. Ben-Dov in the Bulletin of
the American Schools of Oriental Research 370.
• Yorke Rowan, Council of American Overseas Research
Centers Advanced Multi-Country Fellow (1994-1995),
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow (1999),
United States Information Agency Junior Research Fellow
(2000), Senior Fellow (2003-2004), Educational and Cultural
Affairs Fellow (2007-2008) and National Endowment for the
Humanities Fellow (2013-2014) on the publication of his
chapter “The Ground Stone Assemblage from Dhaskalio”
(with J. Dixon and R. Dubicz) in The Settlement at Dhaskalio,
eds. C. Renfrew, O. Philaniotou, N. Brodie, G. Gavalas and
M. J. Boyd, McDonald Institute Monographs, Cambridge:
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
• Megan Nutzman, Educational and Cultural Affairs Fellow
(2012-2013) on the completion of her Ph.D. in Classics at
the University of Chicago and on her appointment as
Assistant Professor of History at Old Dominion University.
• David Owen, National Endowment for the Humanities
Fellow (1988-1989) on his induction to the International
Association for Assyriology Honorary Council.
• Catalin Pavel, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow (2010-2011) on
the publication of his articles “Homer and Archaeology –
Perspectives from the East Aegean/West Anatolian Interface”
in Homère et l’Anatolie, II, L’Harmattan, eds. M. Mazoyer and
V. Faranton, Paris: Série Antiquité Université de Paris I
Panthéon Sorbonne, Paris; “The Social Construction of
Disability in Prehistoric Societies – the Limits of Funerary
Archaeology” in ‘Irreguläre’ Bestattungen in der Urgeschichte:
Norm, Ritual, Strafe …? Internationale Tagung, Frankfurt a.
Main, 3.–5. Februar 2012, Kolloquien zur Vor- und
Frühgeschichte, R. Habelt, ed. N. Mueller-Scheessel.
• Benjamin Saidel, United States Information Agency Junior
Research Fellow (1993-1994), George A. Barton Fellow
(1998-1999), Post-Doctoral Fellow (1999-2000), National
Endowment for the Humanities Fellow (2000-2001), Ernest
S. Frerichs Fellow/Program Coordinator (2002-2005),
Senior Fellow (2009-2014) and former Albright Trustee on
his co-authored article “A Note on the Excavation of an
Ottoman and British Mandate period Bedouin Campground
at Nahal Be’erotayim West in the Negev Desert, Israel” in
Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 25/1.
• Tomasz Polanski, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow (1999-2000)
on the publication of his book Christian Art in Oriental
Literatures. Greek, Syriac and Coptic Sources from the 4th to
the 7th Century, Grazer Beiträge, Zeitschrift für die
klassische Altertumswissenschaft, Supplementband XV,
Horn/Wien: Verlag F. Berger & Söhne; and on his article
“Icons of the Virgin Mary in the Early Greek and Coptic
Texts” in Folia Orientalia vol. XLIX which he edited.
• Philip Sapirstein, National Endowment for the Humanities
Fellow (2012-2013) on his appointment as Assistant Professor
of Art History at University of Nebraska-Lincoln; and on the
publication of his article “Demographics and Productivity in
the Ancient Athenian Pottery Industry” in Athenian Potters
and Painters III, ed. J. Oakley, Oxford: Oxbow Books.
• Michael Satlow, Seymour Gitin Distinguished Professor
(2012-2013) on the publication of his book How the Bible
Became Holy, New Haven, Yale University Press.
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Continued from page 33 – Alumni News
• Robert Schick, National Endowment for the Humanities
Fellow (1995-1996), United States Information Agency
(USIA) Fellow (1995-1996), National Endowment for the
Humanities Fellow (1996-1997), Islamic Studies Fellow
(1996-1997), Islamic Studies/Annual Professor (1997-1998),
Islamic Studies Fellow (1998-2000) and National Endowment
for the Humanities Fellow (2008-2009) on being appointed to
a three-year research position at the University of Mainz in
Germany to study early Christianity in southern Jordan; and
on the publication of his book Humayma Excavation Project 2:
Nabatean Campground and Necropolis, Byzantine Churches, and
Early Islamic Domestic Structures (with J. P. Oleson), American
Schools of Oriental Research Archaeological Reports, Boston:
American Schools of Oriental Research.
Canaan (second expanded edition) co-authored with
M. D. Coogan; and on the publication of his books Poetic
Heroes: The Literary Commemorations of Warriors and Warrior
Culture in the Early Biblical World, XX: Eerdmans; How
Human is God? Seven Questions about God and Humanity in
the Bible, Collegeville MI: Liturgical Press; and of the articles
“Divine Love and Anger in the Hebrew Bible” in Chicago
Studies 52/3; “Gender Inversion in the Ancient Poetry of
Heroic Pairs” in Semitica & Classica 6; “Canaanite
Backgrounds to the Psalms” in The Oxford Handbook to the
Psalms, ed. W. P. Brown, Oxford: Oxford University Press;
“Warfare Song as Warrior Ritual” in Warfare, Ritual, and
Symbol in Biblical and Modern Contexts, eds. B. E. Kelle,
F. R. Ames, and J. Wright, Atlanta: Society of Biblical
Literature; “Is Genesis 1 a Myth? Yes and No” in Myth and
Scripture: Contemporary Perspectives on Religion, Language,
and Imagination, ed. D. E. Callender, Jr.; Atlanta: Society of
Biblical Literature; “Athtart in Late Bronze Age Syrian Texts,”
in Transformations of a Goddess: Ishtar – Astarte – Aphrodite,
ed. D. T. Sugimoto, Fribourg: Academic Press; Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
• Eileen Schuller, Barton Fellow (1980-1981) and Senior
Fellow (1995-1996) on being named a Fellow of the Royal
Society of Canada, the country’s highest academic honour.
• Itzhaq Shai, Post-Doctoral Fellow (2007-2012) on the
publication of his article “The Fortifications at Tel Burna:
Date, Function and Meaning” (with D. Cassuto, A. Dagan
and J. Uziel) in Israel Exploration Journal 62/2.
• Peter Stone, Educational and Cultural Affairs Fellow (20092010) on his appointment as a Visiting Assistant Professor at
Virginia Commonwealth University.
• Lydie Shufro, long-time Trustee and Chair of the
Development and Publicity Committees for the Lydie
T. Shufro Summer Fellowship endowed in her honor. Her
leadership over the past two decades in fundraising resulted in
a major renovation of the Institute’s facility, significant
improvements to the library, and the endowment of a senior
professorship. She has been responsible for organizing two
Centennial Symposia, revamping the Institute’s website, and
initiating and editing the Albright’s Newsletter. She was also
a staff member of the Albright’s and Hebrew University’s Tel
Miqne-Ekron excavations. Lydie’s outstanding work on behalf
of the Albright has been responsible for helping to make the
Institute the major American research center in Near Eastern
Studies that it has become.
• Yuri Stoyanov, Senior Fellow (2006-2014) on the
publication of his articles “Killing with Kindness: Renowned
Black Sea Archaeological Reserve Threatened Through
Controversial EU-Funded Programme” (Special Report),
Current World Archaeology 67; “Eastern Orthodoxy and the
Ethics of War” in Religion, War and Ethics: A Sourcebook,
eds, G. M. Reichberg and H. Syse, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press; “Apocalypticizing Warfare: from Political
Theology to Imperial Eschatology in Seventh to Early
Eighth-Century Byzantium” in The Armenian Apocalyptic
Tradition. A Comparative Perspective, eds. S. La Porta and
K. Bardakjia, Leiden: Brill; “The Eastward Expansion of
Manichaean Heterodox Religious Networks along the Premodern Silk Road” in “The Silk Road” Collection of Papers
from the Second International Conference on Chinese Studies
“The Silk Road,” ed. M. Marinova, Sofia: Art Ofis OOD;
“Medieval Christian Dualist Perceptions and Conceptions
of Biblical Paradise” in Studia Ceranea, 3; and on his
appointment as CBRL Senior Visiting Research Fellowship
for a project on the “A comprehensive analysis and
cataloguing of the religious manuscripts and texts in the
Qosababayean family archives, Jerusalem.”
• Edward Silver, Educational and Cultural Affairs Fellow
(2006-2007) and his wife, Michaela Soyer on the birth of
their second daughter, Cordelia Marilyn Silver.
• Ilona Skupinska-Lovset, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow (19992000) on the birth of her grandson, Christian to Cecilia and
Baard Delerud and on the publication of her articles “The
Cult of Astarte in Bethsaida and Kinneret? Interpretation of
Female Figurines Excavated on et-Tell and Tell el-Ghuremeh”
and “Phoenician Presence in Bethsaida” in The Festschrift in
Honor of John Tracy Greene, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• Oleksandr Symonenko, Glassman Holland Research
Fellow (2011-2012) on the publication of his article “The
Helmets of the Sarmatian Age in Eastern Europe” (in
Russian), in Stratum 4.
• Andrew Smith, Educational and Cultural Affairs Fellow
(2004-2005) on the publication of his book The Roman
Aqaba Project Final Report, Volume 1: The Regional
Environment and the Regional Survey (with S. T. Parker),
Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research.
• Hamdan Taha, Senior Fellow (1996-2014) and Getty
Research Exchange Fellow (2009-2010) on the publication
of his article “The State of Archaeology in Palestine” in
Patrimoine en Palestine – Enjeux et obstacles de sa mise en
valeur, Riveneuve editions.
• Mark Smith, Annual Professor (2010-2011) on the receipt of
the 2013 Biblical Archaeology Society Publication Award for
Best Popular Book on Archaeology for Stories from Ancient
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Continued from page 34 – Alumni News
• Carey Walsh, United States Information Agency Junior
Research Fellow (1995-1996) on the publication of her
chapter “Gender and Identity in the Book of Numbers in
the volume Imagining the Other and Constructing Israelite
Identity in the Early Second Temple Period (which she edited
with E. Ben Zvi), London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark.
• Juan Tebes, George A. Barton Fellow (2005-2005) and Carol
and Eric Meyers Doctoral Dissertation Fellow (2010-2011) on
the award of an Apollo Visiting Fellowship for a one-month
research stay at the Centre for Classical and Near Eastern
Studies of Australia at the University of Sydney; and on the
publication of his articles “Socio-Economic Fluctuations and
Chiefdom Formation in Edom, the Negev and the Hejaz
during the First Millennium BC”; and “The Symbolic and
Social World of the Qurayyah Pottery Iconography” in the
volume which he edited Unearthing the Wilderness: Studies on
the History and Archaeology of the Negev and Edom in the Iron
Age, Ancient Near Eastern Studies Supplement Series, 45.
Leuven: Peeters; of his book Nómadas en la encrucijada:
Sociedad, ideología y poder en los márgenes áridos del Levante
meridional del primer milenio a.C., BAR International Series,
2574, Oxford: Archaeopress; “¿Todo tiempo pasado fue
mejor?: Tres estudios sobre comercio y desarrollo y su impacto
en la historia económica de la Antigüedad” in Antiguo Oriente
11; of his review of B. W. Porter Complex Communities: The
Archaeology of Early Iron Age West-Central Jordan. Tucson,
2013, in Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and
Heritage Studies 2-3; “Digging at a Copper Mining Region in
Southern Jordan” on The ASOR Blog; and on being awarded a
Research Fellowship at the Deutsche Akademische Austausch
Dienst (DAAD) (Germany).
• Yan Wan, Noble Group Fellow (2012-2013) on the award
of a Chinese government scholarship to do one-year of
research (June 2014-June 2015) at the Elie Wiesel Center
for Judaic Studies, Boston University, on “Ultra-orthodox
Judaism in Israeli Politics.”
• Benjamin Wold, National Endowment for the
Humanities Fellow (2012-2013) and Wenhua Shi, Noble
Group Fellow (2012-2013) on the birth of their daughter,
Shira Wenhua Wold.
• Lawson Younger, Seymour Gitin Distinguished Professor
(2012-2013) on the publication of his articles “AramDamascus” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and
Archaeology, ed. B. Alpert Nakhai. Oxford: Oxford University
Press; “The Scripts of North Syria in the Early First
Millennium: The Inscription of Yariri (KARKAMIS A15b)
Once Again” in Transeuphratène 46: (Volume d’hommages
pour André Lemaire), eds. J. M. Durand and J. Elayi. Paris:
Gabalda; and “‘War and Peace’ in the Origins of the
Arameans” in Krieg und Frieden im Alten Vorderasien. 52e
Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale International Congress of
Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology Münster, 17–21 Juli
2006, eds. H. Neumann, R. Dittmann, S. Paulus,
G. Neumann and A. Schuster-Brandis. AOAT 401. Münster:
Ugarit-Verlag.
• Haihua Tian, Noble Group Fellow (2013-2014) on the
publication of her article, “Briefly on Modern Biblical
Archaeology and its Development” in Religious Studies 40.
• Aaron Tugendhaft, National Endowment for the
Humanities Fellow (2012-2013) on his appointment as
Assistant Collegiate Professor in the Humanities and Harper
Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts at the
University of Chicago.
• Jeff Zorn, Samuel H. Kress Foundation Fellow (19901992), Post-Doctoral Fellow (1994-1995) and National
Endowment for the Humanities Fellow (1995) on the
publication of the edited volume “As for me, I will dwell at
Mizpah…”: The Tell en-Nasbeh Excavations after 85 Years,
coedited with A. J. Brody, Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias; and on
his articles therein, “Tell en-Nasbeh's Contributions to
Understanding Iron Age Water Systems” and “Tell enNasbeh in the 20th and 21st Centuries; on the publication
of his articles “An Iron Age I Canaanite/Phoenician
Courtyard House at Tel Dor: A Comparative Architectural
and Functional Analysis” (with A. Gilboa and I. Sharon) in
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 372;
“Note on the Depiction of a Hoplite on a Sherd from
Ashkelon” in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental
Research 372; “The Levant During the Babylonian Period”
in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant (ca.
8000 – 332 BCE), eds. M. L. Steiner and A. E. Killebrew,
Oxford: Oxford University Press; “War and Its Effects on
Civilians in Ancient Israel and its Neighbors” in The Other
Face of the Battle: The Impact of War on Civilians in the
Ancient Near East, eds. D. Nadali and J. Vidal, Alter Orient
und Altes Testament 413, Münster: Ugarit Verlag; and
on his Photo Essay, “Tell en-Nasbeh” on Oxford Biblical
Studies Online http://www.oxfordbiblicalstudies.com
/resource/ photoessays.xhtml.
• Christopher Tuttle, Research Fellow (2005-2006) on his
appointment as Executive Director of the Council of
American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC).
• Joe Uziel, Ernest S. Frerichs Fellow/Program Coordinator
(2008-2012) and Senior Fellow (2012-2013) on the
publication of his article “The Tel Nagila Middle Bronze Age
Homes – Studying Household Activities and Identifying
Children in the Archaeological Record” (with R. S. Avissar
Lewis) in Palestine Exploration Quarterly 145/4.
• François Valla, Senior Fellow (1986-1987) on the
publication of his volume Natufian Foragers in the Levant.
Terminal Pleistocene Social Changes in Western Asia (with
O. Bar-Yosef ), Archaeological Series 19, Ann Arbor:
International Monographs in Prehistory.
• Anna de Vincenz, Post-Doctoral Fellow (1999-2004) and
Senior Fellow (2004-2014) on the publication of her article
“Marks on the Pipes” in the volume, Bere e Fumare ai
Confini dell’Impero – Caffè e tabacco a Stari Bar nel period
ottoman di Sauro Gelichi e Lara Sabbionesi, Borgo S. Lorenzo
(FI): All ‘Insegna del Giglio.
35
Continued from page 7 – News from Jerusalem
Continued from page 2 – In The Shoes
I would also like to take this
opportunity to make a few personal
remarks. When Cherie and I, Michal
and Adam, with Talya soon to arrive,
moved into the Director’s House in
1980, we were greeted by Munira Said,
Omar Jibrin and Said Freij, who made up
part of the unique “human fabric” of the
Munira Said
Albright and who soon became our good
friends. I had no idea then that I would
stay on as Director for 34 years during
which time there were many good years
and some difficult ones. However, as
Director and Trustees working together,
we forged a relationship that became the
basis for a number of significant
accomplishments: establishing a unique
international doctoral and post-doctoral
Omar Jibrin
fellowship program in Near Eastern
Studies, that includes Israeli and
Palestinian academics; funding major
renovations of the facility, with in
particular, the expansion of the library in
which holdings tripled, and broadening
the logistical support given to an
increased number of ASOR-affiliated
Said Freij
and Albright Fellows’ excavation and
publication projects.
The encouragement given to my own research resulted
in the Tel Miqne-Ekron excavations, which I co-directed
with Trude Dothan of the Hebrew University, and which
radically changed the conventional understanding of
Philistine history. I am grateful to all of the staff and
Trustees, who played an important role in these
achievements, especially those who are no longer with us: Joy
Ungerleider Mayerson, Richard Scheuer, and Ernie Frerichs.
In July, I took on emeritus status and moved to one of the
offices in the Wright Lab to continue to work on the
publications of the Miqne-Ekron excavations, the pottery
volumes, and my memoirs. I also plan to continue my contacts
with several foundations and individuals in an effort to increase
the Albright endowment. What can I say about the “Roast and
Toast’ in Baltimore, except to thank Lydie Shufro for dreaming
it up, Mark Smith who helped organize the program, Andy
Vaughn for the logistical support, and those who funded the
event: Matt Adams, Sidnie White Crawford, Linda Feinstone,
Sharon Herbert, and Lydie Shufro. Cherie, Talya and I
thoroughly enjoyed both the Roasting and the Toasting, and I
especially appreciated the more than generous comments made
by the official and unofficial Roasters and Toasters. The only
complaint I heard from the participants was that they couldn’t
find enough stories on which to base a roast. Well that’s life!
And to Director Matthew Adams, I wish the best of luck.
I have every confidence that he will succeed in helping the
Albright grow from strength to strength in the years ahead.
Sy Gitin
we were able to relocate the students to Megiddo out of
range to the north in order to continue their educational
program. The Ashkelon staff, however, still had a
tremendous amount of paperwork and artifact processing to
do, and the Albright became an emergency “dig house”
where they could lay out their finds for final documenting,
finish writing their reports, and close down the excavation
season scientifically. As Tracy Hoffman explained in her
recent BAR blog post on the Ashkelon situation, in normal
times, “the Albright is an information hub for excavators,
and in times of crisis, it is a lifeline.”
Amidst the chaos of intense protests, rocket sirens, news
of war, and the scurrying to help excavation teams and
individuals however possible, there was a moment during
which I realized something vital about the Institute. It was in
the courtyard, where the configuration of the buildings and
grounds blocks out most sounds from the world outside.
The sun reflected off the fountain and the smell of the pine
trees and freshly planted flowers filled the air. The
Ashkelonian “refugees”, Albright staff, Fellows and other
visitors were bustling about their various tasks, some were
eating, some were laughing, everyone was busy doing
something. The Institute seemed especially alive and festive.
In that moment of clarity, I understood how essential and
central the Albright is to the community of scholars working
in the region. I hadn’t seen the Institute in quite that light
before, but the lesson will guide my directorship for the rest
of my tenure.
Matthew J. Adams, Dorot Director
[Abridged and adapted from “On the Shoulders of Giants. A New
Director at the Albright Institute,” Biblical Archaeology Review
Nov/Dec 2014]
All photos courtesy of AIAR
36