The ASOR Blog

Archaeology Weekly Roundup! 5-24-13

jennfitz — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:15:44 +0000

An international team of researchers including Colorado State University professors Christopher Fisher and Stephen Leisz have been utilizing LiDAR technology to seek ancient settlements and human constructed landscapes in an area long rumoured to contain the legendary city of Ciudad Blanca – the mythical “White City” – in Central America.

Schoolchildren, pensioners and office workers are helping scholars at Oxford University to transcribe 2,000-year-old documents. The Ancient Lives project has enlisted thousands of internet users, who have already helped to transcribe more texts than diligent scholars had managed in the previous 100 years.

Ancient ivory carvings made by Phoenician artists some 3,000 years ago have long hidden a secret, even while being openly displayed in museums around the world: The sculptures were originally painted with colorful pigments, and some were decorated with gold.

The penalty for the near-total destruction of one of the biggest Mayan pyramids in Belize — which the government called “unforgivable” and left archaeologists speechless — may leave conservationists speechless: just $5,000.

A museum in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, has suspended the excavation of what is thought to be an imperial mausoleum following protests from archaeologists and the public. The department of archaeology at the Nanjing Museum admitted it plans to build a heritage park and a museum on the site of the mausoleum, and said it will further consult experts before putting forward new protection measures.

Nearly 5,000 ancient cave paintings have been discovered in Burgos, Mexico. The red, white, black and yellow images depict humans hunting, fishing and gathering, as well as animals such as deer, lizards and centipedes.

The eastern “panhandle” of the kingdom of Jordan is partly covered by a vast and rugged lava desert, the Harrat, covering about 11.400 km² (Fig. 1). Scoured by wind in winter and scorched dry by the sun in summer, the surface is covered by black basalt stones, making this area seem as uninviting, hostile and inaccessible as is imaginable. Nevertheless this modern day desolate desert proves to be as rich in archaeological heritage as one may wish.

“Who invented clothes?” It’s one of those brilliant questions that children ask, before they learn that the big things we wonder about rarely have simple answers. It’s the kind of thing that archaeologists like me get put on the spot about when chatting to kids, and we love to have a crack at answering.

Copper coins and a 70-year-old map with an “x” may lead to a discovery that could rewrite Australia’s history. Australian scientist Ian McIntosh, Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University in the United States, plans an expedition in July that has stirred the archaeological community.

The care given to restore Ananda, one of signature temple of the ancient Burmese city of Bagan, to its original form is the exception. Hundreds of other monuments in the area have been subjected to what conservationists regard as historical treason.

Archaeologists found the 1,400-year-old remains of a Nubian soldier in Aswan, a city in southern Egypt, Minister of State for Antiquities Ahmed Eisa said. The soldier’s remains were discovered in a field that dates to the Late Roman Period and Early Middle Age near the border of Egypt and Nubia.

Archaeologists have long debated when early humans began hurling stone-tipped spears and darts at large prey. But direct evidence of this hunting technique in early sites has been lacking. A new study of impact marks on the bones of ancient prey shows that such sophisticated killing techniques go back at least 90,000 years ago in Africa and offers a new method of determining how prehistoric hunters made their kills.

Heavy equipment belonging to a construction firm that is working on the long-expected Marmaray project — an undersea commuter train connecting İstanbul’s Asian and European sides – invaded an excavation site in Yenikapı and has damaged remnants dating back to the Neolithic Age.

The tiniest bones in the human body – the bones of the middle ear – could provide huge clues about our evolution and the development of modern-day humans, according to a study by a team of researchers that include a Texas A&M University anthropologist.

An ancient log-boat – which could be thousands of years old – has been discovered in the banks of the river Boyne. An initial examination by underwater archaeologist Karl Brady suggests it could be very rare because, unlike other log-boats found here, it has oval shapes on the upper edge which could have held oars.

Municipal authorities have ordered a temporary stop of work on a construction site in the area of a protected archaeology site along Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast. The ongoing rapid construction was apparently started just ahead of Sunday’s early general elections in Bulgaria, and raised among an outcry among environmentalists and the general public.

Archaeologists are to explore the remains of a Roman naval base in Cumbria in the hope of finding evidence of a civilian settlement from more than 1,800 years ago.

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The Ancient Near East in Brazil and Argentina From the Origins of Research to the Present

jennfitz — Mon, 20 May 2013 14:32:19 +0000

By: Josué Berlesi

Brazil and Argentina are not the first places you think of for ancient Near Eastern studies. But the story of ancient Near Eastern studies in these places is both interesting in its own right and says important things about education and culture in these countries.

There are similarities between the discipline in these two countries but their differences are tremendous and are related to the larger history of academic institutions. Argentina’s academic tradition is far longer and more solid than Brazil’s. The first Brazilian university (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) was created only in 1920, while the oldest in Argentina, the University of Cordoba, was founded in 1613.

Former Rectory, University of Cordoba (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cordoba-derecho1.JPG)

Unfortunately, there are few sources to investigate the development of ancient Near Eastern studies in these two countries. But this also says something about the important differences between the two. In Brazil there are useful articles about the development and the present situation of the discipline of ancient history, but these are rarely found in Argentina. Why? In my opinion the abundance of sources in Brazil is an attempt to bring visibility to an area that has been given little space in most Brazilian universities. In contrast, ancient history has been more successful in Argentina, where it has been solidly represented since the second half of the twentieth century. The need for acknowledgement is therefore lower.

But both countries are indeed similar in another respect: most historic and archeological research carried out is concerned with the national past. Scholars from both countries are often asked: Why study the ancient Near East? Such questions are posed as if knowledge were not universal, as if Latin Americans should only study aspects of their own countries, or even as if there a hierarchy of knowledge where the regional past is more important than foreign history.

The study of ancient history appeared almost simultaneously in the 1950s in both countries. Yet, in Brazil, since the beginning there has been emphasis on classical Greece and Rome while in Argentina studies of the ancient Near East have prevailed. Indeed, interest in ancient Near Eastern societies existed even outside of academia in Argentina.

One of the first books on the ‘Argentinean orientalism’ was written by the Catholic priest Julian Toscano, who went to Palestine in 1908 with a group of Argentinean pilgrims to visit biblical sites. In the early twentieth century two European Egyptologists visited Argentina, Alexandre Moret of France and Jean Capart from Belgium, who sponsored conferences and analyzed Egyptian museum pieces. In 1941, as a result of an initiative by Argentinean ambassador Jorge Gaston Blanco Villalta, the Instituto Argentino de Estudios Orientales was founded. By the end of the 1950s, the Instituto de Egiptología de la Argentina was created to promote the study of Ancient Egypt.

In academia, ancient Near Eastern research took an important step in the early 1960s with the creation of the Centro de Estudios de Historia Antigua Oriental in the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras of the University of Buenos Aires. In 1972, the Centro de Estudios was converted into Instituto de Historia Antigua Oriental and published the Revista del Instituto de Historia Antigua Oriental, the first academic journal devoted to ancient Near Eastern studies in the country. The first Argentinean journal of Egyptology, Aegyptus Antiqua, was launched in 1974. These and other organizations promoted interest and study and contributed to the creation of research libraries.

Study of the ancient Near East in Argentina was introduced by Professor Abraham Rosenvasser, who started teaching ancient history at the University of Buenos Aires in 1956. Other institutes were created during the 1960s, such as the Escuela de Estudios Orientales at the Universidad del Salvador and more recently the Centro de Estudios de Historia del Antiguo Oriente at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina. As we can see, themes related to the ancient Near East have been studied both inside and outside the academy for decades. This historical basis has favored an important updating of contents and has consolidated a group of remarkable professionals that have studied the subject in several regions over the country. At present, doctoral studies in these fields can be taken in several Argentinean universities.

The Brazilian situation is quite different. Classical research was introduced by Professor Euripedes Simoes de Paula at Universidade de São Paulo during the 1950s. Research was characterized by great erudition, but the field acquired the image of elitism. Beyond that, research did not address theoretical issues and had a distinct positivist bias. Some Brazilians left the country during the 1960s and 1970s, notably Professors Milton Schwantes and Emanuel Bouzon. After returning to Brazil, they helped develop biblical and Mesopotamian studies, respectively.

Military rule from 1964 to 1985 created a delicate situation for the study of ancient history in Brazil. At the peak of the political radicalization that characterized the university movement against the dictatorship, the collaboration of some professors with the government contributed to the association of the study of ancient societies with right-wing political thought. This strengthened prejudice against the field. Historians were expected to become involved with themes related to the national political situation, and those who opted for ancient history were mislabeled as reactionary.

An important change has occurred since the 1980s with regard to studies of the ancient Near East. Ancient history has begun to move away from a positivist bias and theoretical issues have been discussed, sometimes following the international debate about specific themes. One of the main sponsors was Professor Ciro Cardoso, who returned to Brazil after being exiled and began teaching at the Universidade Federal Fluminense. The rehabilitation of the field is remarkable, and researchers at outstanding universities have enabled a new stage of expansion at the turn of the twenty-first century.

Teaching of ancient Near Eastern history, more in Argentina than in Brazil, is mainly concentrated in undergraduate disciplines in history and archeology courses. Archeology still awaits advancement in both countries and has yet to challenge the regionalist logic found in that discipline. Archeologists working on the ancient Near East are rare in both countries. There are some historians involved with archeological research but they do not have formal training.

Gradually, research into ancient Israelite society has also appeared; it is still the focus of professionals in the field of theology. Here, another important difference between the South American academic tradition and the European and North American traditions can be noticed. Both in Brazil and in Argentina, theology is still seen in academia as a pariah; for instance, it has not been included either in public universities or in any of the most important universities. The reason for theology’s marginalization is not clear.

Finally, it is worth noting that Egypt and Mesopotamia have been the main study topics when it comes to the ancient Near East. Both in Brazil and in Argentina, there are specialists in these areas, but Argentina is in a better position, since at least three universities have consistently carried out studies of these societies, with collective research projects being supported by resources provided by national sponsoring agencies. There are two dedicated academic organizations that produce specialized publications while there are no publications of this kind in Brazil. In Brazil, the first steps have been taken towards formation of professional organizations devoted exclusively to ancient Near Eastern studies.

In Argentina, researchers have enjoyed better international visibility. This is reflected, for instance, in the presence of foreign experts who often visit Argentina to participate in academic events and share their research. In Brazil, until recently, the ancient Near East was almost an orphan; it was difficult to obtain specialized literature in Portuguese and until 2009 Professor Ciro Cardoso was the only professional able to guide this kind of research. Now, two other faculty members are able to guide research, and larger number of students have become interested. The future for ancient Near Eastern Studies in both Argentina and Brazil is brighter than ever.

Josue Berlesi is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Buenos Aires and Professor of Ancient History at the Federal University of Para – Campus Cameta.

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Archaeology Weekly Roundup! 5-17-13

jennfitz — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:58:29 +0000

Will Egypt’s illustrious heritage fall into oblivion under the toll of urban and agricultural encroachment? Nevine El-Aref finds that serious problems are facing some of the nation’s famous archaeological sites, while others may be storms in so many teacups.

By the end of the century, the birthplace of America may be underwater. Jamestown is now threatened by rising sea levels that scientists say could submerge the island and scientists are wondering if there’s a way to save it.

Analysis of DNA from ancient remains on the Greek island of Crete suggests the Minoans were indigenous Europeans, shedding new light on a debate over the provenance of this ancient culture.

The earliest known cave paintings fuel arguments about whether Neanderthals were the mental equals of modern humans.

Uruk rises again in digital 3D with reconstructions of the ancient city created for a new museum exhibition.

Archaeologists revealed Monday that the divination rituals used by ancient Chinese thousands of years ago may have featured some behind-the-scenes trickery.

Archaeologists have uncovered an “extraordinary” mosaic that would’ve been used as the floor of a public building during the Byzantine Period in what is today Israel, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced.

Scientists investigated ancient DNA from the teeth of 19 different sixth-century skeletons from a medieval graveyard in Bavaria, Germany, of people who apparently succumbed to the Justinianic Plague in an effort to identify the cause of the plague that killed more than 100 million people.

The restoration of the famed İshak Paşa Palace in Eastern Turkey has been completed and the palace is now waiting for visitors.

A construction company has essentially destroyed one of Belize’s largest Mayan pyramids with backhoes and bulldozers to extract crushed rock for a road-building project, authorities announced on Monday.

While excavating the Bronze Age site of Krasnosamarkskoe in Russia’s Volga region, archaeologists unearthed the bones of at least 51 dogs and 7 wolves. All the animals had been skinned, dismembered, burned, and chopped with an ax, pointing to some sort of ritual.

The so-called Elephant’s Tomb in the Roman necropolis of Carmona (Seville, Spain) was not always used for burials. The original structure of the building and a window through which the sun shines directly in the equinoxes suggest that it was a temple of Mithraism, an unofficial religion in the Roman Empire.

A University of Southampton professor has carried out the most detailed analysis ever of the archaeological remains of the lost medieval town of Dunwich, dubbed ‘Britain’s Atlantis.’

The 200-year-old body of a British Coldstream Guards soldier was found in sand dunes in the Netherlands. Who was he?

Necropolis bioarchaeology at Roman Sanisera: a team from the Sanisera Field School have been investigating two of the seven necropolis sites that surround the Roman city of Sanisera on Menorca.

First Nations group outraged at destruction of ancient rock art sites.

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Ten Years after Iraq: Archaeology, Archaeologists, and U.S. Foreign Relations

jennfitz — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:08:25 +0000

Thirty-foot tall bronze sculptures of former Iraqi Saddam Hussein, sit on the grounds of the Republican Palace, in the International Zone (IZ) located in Central Baghdad, Iraq. (DoD photo by Jim Gordon, CIV)

By: Morag M. Kersel and Christina Luke

Ten years ago, in April of 2003, a coalition led by the United States invaded Iraq. This quickly toppled the Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein but also resulted in the loss of life, local unrest, displacement, and the ransacking of cultural institutions, archives, libraries, and the national museum in Baghdad. During that eventful month we both worked for the U.S. Department of State in the Cultural Heritage Center– Christina as a cultural property analyst and Morag as a contractor, administering the U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation.

In our daily work lives at State we knew that we were carrying out foreign policy initiatives under the guise of archaeology, but until April of 2003 and the unfolding events in Iraq we did not realize that all of the programming and initiatives we carried out at State, and much of our previous lives as archaeologists, was in the service of the state, under a paradigm of national bridge building and fence mending. While we do not wish to diminish the myriad devastating effects of war on humanity, as archaeologists we are also concerned with the consequences of war on cultural heritage.

The days following the invasion were action-packed, filled with discussions and consultations on the best courses of action to protect cultural heritage sites, how to recover and repatriate artifacts looted from sites and museums, and how best to work with our archaeological and cultural heritage counterparts in academic institutions, non-governmental entities, and at the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage [SBAH] in Iraq. After three years of working with/for the Department of State, one thing became very clear to us: archaeology and archaeologists are key elements in the U.S. diplomatic toolkit. Archaeology and archaeologists are among the everyday, on the ground diplomats who present the non-military face of the U.S. to the world at large.

In the days after initial reports of looting and ransacking of cultural institutions, archaeological sites, and museums in Baghdad and the countryside, coalition forces and the U.S.in particular were excoriated in the press. The public woke up to front page headlines like “US Blamed for Failure to Stop Sacking of Museum” and “The greatest cultural disaster of the last 500 years.” The negative publicity associated with the failure of coalition forces to protect the cultural resources in the “cradle of civilization” sent foreign opinion of the United States into a tailspin. Most of the world believed that the U.S. did not care about culture and our failure to place a tank in front of the national museum, but choosing to protect the oil ministry, reinforced this notion. How could a country overcome such damaging allegations?

Enter the Cultural Heritage Center of the U.S. Department of State. In the decade after 2003 we have witnessed the transition of an office that had been working quietly and diligently behind the scenes with little recognition or support to an entity that has become, by cultural heritage standards, a major funding source, intellectual resource, and a prominent player in establishing U.S. approaches to cultural policy and programs on the international level. Since the initial failure to safeguard the cultural sites and institutions in Iraq, the Cultural Heritage Center has earmarked funds, established collaborative training programs, supported conservation efforts, museum exhibitions, and archaeological site management plans. All of these help demonstrate that the U.S. does care about culture and global heritage.

Erbil Civilization Museum – image courtesy of the Iraqi Institute of Antiquities and Heritage in Erbil

Over the years the Iraq Cultural Heritage Initiative has received some US $12.9 million for various cultural heritage projects in Iraq. Funds have been used for infrastructure improvements to the Iraq Museum in Baghdad and the rebuilding of museums and archaeology organizations as well as the creation of a conservation institute in Kurdish-populated Erbil. Training of Iraqi scientists in the United States and in Iraq is also an essential element of the Iraq Cultural Heritage Initiative.

We argue that this project is an element of American statecraft, which allows the U.S.to project a kinder, gentler side of foreign relations. Archaeologists in both the West and in Iraqare often called on to promote mutual understanding and a shared goal of protecting the past. Programs like this and others administered by the Cultural Heritage Center at State are not only about atonement for past carelessness, they are mutually advantageous – the typical U.S. archaeologist can and does profit from these associations just as the average Iraqi archaeologist benefits. Recently, the first official SBAH permits to conduct archaeological excavation and survey in the south of Iraq were issued to joint Iraqi-foreign teams. These permits were issued as part of the Iraq Cultural Ministry’s recognition of countries that assisted in recovering, repatriating, and safeguarding the country’s archaeological treasures. Despite this the question of political authority regarding who in Iraq has the right to issue permits to foreigners to work in the country has reared its head. Foreign teams seeking entry sometimes wait in limbo as Iraqi professionals grapple with issues of jurisdiction and oversight at archaeological sites.

But what does any of this have to do with the average American, or even the average U.S. archaeologist? In our recent publication US Cultural Diplomacy and Archaeology: Soft Power, Hard Heritage (Routledge 2013) we argue that archaeology and archaeologists are deployed in the service of U.S. diplomacy abroad. We contend that foreign relations in places like Iraq and Afghanistan would be less well-developed without the positive, collaborative outcomes of archaeology and the efforts of U.S. field archaeologists working in partnership with professional archaeologists, government representatives, and local individuals.

Funding archaeological field research in order to improve understanding of our collective heritage is not cheap and it is often U.S. taxpayer dollars through programs from the U.S. Department of State, the Fulbright program, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Council for Overseas American Research Centers (CAORC), that enable field projects to go ahead. We believe such fieldwork results in improved diplomatic relations between the United States and foreign partners. Unfortunately, precisely because most of these projects are “under the radar” and “soft,” they don’t make headlines, nor do they necessarily garner the same level of interest they would if they produced a high-impact economic return. Measuring the so-called “deliverables” is challenging. Our current work focuses on the legacy of archaeology and its long-term, sustained contributions to international diplomacy, technology, education, and in-country development.

W.F. Albright Institute in Snow – image courtesy of George Pierce, ECA Fellow, W.F. Albright Institute

Yet the future of archaeological field research is under threat. The current U.S.government fiscal crisis threatens to cut valuable funding from the NSF, the NEH, the CAORC, as well as the Fulbright program. If you care about the value of the archaeological past and its positive role for creating opportunities in the present, we urge you to become “archaeolobbyists” on behalf of various government programs that fund not only archaeology, but our critical nodes of support, especially the U.S. overseas research centers (more commonly known as the “foreign schools”). Places like the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute in Nicosia, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the American Research Institute in Turkey (Ankara and Istanbul branches), and the American Center of Oriental Research in Amman are vital for presenting a neutral space for local and U.S. researchers to meet, debate, and plan future collaborations in cultural heritage. Funding for these institutions dropped in the last few years, so we ask you to call your local and state representatives and make the case for the importance of archaeology and archaeologists in global perceptions of a caring United States.

Cyprus American Archaeological Institute-image courtesy of ASOR

Many an archaeologist will declare that they do not “do politics” or “heritage.” To many, the science of archaeology allows them to remain above the political fray. We argue to the contrary, that support of scientific endeavors, especially with U.S. governmental sources, is steeped in politics. We think it is time that as a discipline we recognize the power of archaeology in diplomatic relations, whether it is through advancements in technologies using CORONA imagery, research focused on sustainable agriculture and climate change, or heritage management. The interdisciplinary and international networks of field archaeologists leverage cultural capital in ways that other disciplines cannot. This component represents our greatest strength in making the case for future funding of U.S. overseas archaeological projects and U.S. foreign centers. Archaeology and archaeologists are effective but undervalued elements of foreign relations that we should be championing.

Morag M. Kersel is assistant professor in the Anthropology Department at DePaul University and a member of the ASOR Program Committee. Christina Luke is senior lecturer in the Archaeology Department at Boston University and is the Chairperson of the Committee on Archaeological Policy of the Archaeological Institute of America. They are the co-authors of the recently published US Cultural Diplomacy and Archaeology: Soft Power, Hard Heritage (Routledge 2013).

Hand in Hand with Politics: The Challenges of Egyptian Studies in Serbia

jennfitz — Mon, 13 May 2013 14:20:27 +0000

By: Branislav Anđelković

There is a saying that Balkans, sometimes rightly compared to a “powder keg”, is a place where the East offered a hand to the West but the West refused to shake it. The Balkan Peninsula is a land bridge between Europe and Asia, through which pass major cultural boundaries. The Balkans are a border, and an arena, between two different cultural spheres with contrasting world views, value systems, aesthetics, and artistic tendencies: Rome and Byzantium, the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire, West and East, Modern and Oriental. And we cannot forget that there are deep divisions within the Balkans, particularly between north and south. These divisions have unfortunately manifested themselves as open warfare but have also been expressed in the politics of Yugoslavian Egyptology.

Figure 1: Scarab excavated in Serbia. Photo courtesy of B. Anđelković.

Archaeological objects from the Near East appeared sporadically in Serbia and can be classified in four chronological and contextual settings. The first – represented by a glazed composition scarab found in a local Iron Age ruler’s grave mound (dated 550-520 B.C.) in Southwestern Serbia – corresponds to prehistory (Figure 1). The second, the era of Roman domination, includes a number of artifacts, chiefly figurines, lamps, and inscribed altars, connected to Egyptian or syncretistic deities, chiefly Isis, Isis-Fortune, Harpocrates, Anubis, Hermes-Thoth, and others. These are mostly of Roman rather than Egyptian manufacture, though during the construction of Roman emperor Galerius’ palace in Eastern Serbia (ca. 300 A.D.) a number of architectural elements including some columns and statuary were made of Aswan red granite and other Egyptian stone (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Aswan red granite column fragment from Roman palace in Eastern Serbia April 14th 2013. Photo courtesy of B. Anđelković

The Middle Ages have yielded only objects related to the Christian cult (such as Coptic pottery, textiles, and bone boxes), brought from the Holy Land and Egyptian monasteries by Serbian monks and pilgrims. The fourth stage encompasses the Enlightenment and its echoes in Serbia when, among other things, the attempt was made, albeit briefly, to promote interest in Ancient Egyptian civilization as the common heritage of humanity.

One aspect of this was Egyptian collections. In 1888 the ‘Belgrade Mummy’, recently identified as Early Ptolemaic priest Nesmin from Akhmim, was donated to the National Museum in Belgrade (Figure 3). The collection of Egyptian antiquities in the City Museum of Vršac (northern Serbia) was established in 1894, and the Egyptian collection of the City Museum of Sombor (northern Serbia) was founded in 1899. The modest corpus of Egyptian antiquities in Serbia – including an 8.5 kilogram gilded bronze Osiris statue from Beni Suef, and three alabaster vessels from Djoser’s Step Pyramid presented during 1970s to Yugoslav President Tito by then President of Egypt Anwar El Sadat – comprises 177 items if we include Ptolemaic bronze coins and Coptic textiles.

Figure 3: Belgrade mummy coffin. Photo courtesy of B. Anđelković.

It is noteworthy that all of the 19^th century donors of Egyptian antiquities were born and lived north of the Danube and Sava rivers in what was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Vojvodina, the northern province of Serbia. In the area south of the Danube and Sava rivers, namely most of present-day Serbia, where culture was more closely related to the Ottoman Empire, there were neither donors nor collections of Egyptian antiquities. Additional confirmation of this pattern is the fact that there are some 4000 Egyptian pieces in Croatia, within the Western political and cultural sphere, whereas immediately to the south, in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina, influenced by the Ottomans, there are none. By some irony of fate Egypt herself was for centuries under Ottoman suzerainty and remained nominally an Ottoman province until 1914.

Similar contrasts appeared in Yugoslav participation in the UNESCO Nubia Campaign – the rescue of Nubian monuments and sites affected by the Aswan High Dam Project. In 1960 the Yugoslav federal government established a ‘National Committee for the Realization of the Ancient Nubian Monuments Preservation.’ A Yugoslav team was engaged from November 1963 to May 1964 in detaching fresco paintings from the walls of the Christian church in a former temple of Amun of Ramesses II in Wadi es-Sebua, the small rock-cut chapel of Horemheb at Abu Oda, the 8^th century Central Church of Abdallah Nirqi, and the 11^th century Christian church at Sheikh Abdel Gadir (in Sudan).

To express its gratitude, Egypt subsequently donated a number of antiquities to Yugoslavia, including the 22^nd Dynasty mummy of Kaipamau from the Asasif Necropolis to the south of Deir el-Bahri (TT192). The antiquities should have been sent to the National Museum in Belgrade (Serbia) but were redirected to the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb (Croatia). It should be noted that both institutions that participated in the Nubia campaign were from Belgrade – the Yugoslav Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, and the Faculty of Architecture (University of Belgrade) – let alone that Zagreb already had quite a large Egyptological collection.

The challenges of Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern studies in Serbia remain related to two major issues. The first, ethnic and political rivalries, was present while Serbia was one of six republics within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In April 1970, an Educational and Cultural Cooperation Agreement was signed between SFRY and Egypt which permitted a team of Yugoslav archaeologists to excavate in Egypt. The expedition to the site in Lower Egypt was to be led by Dr. Sava Tutundžić from the University of Belgrade and some 50% of the excavated finds were to be given to the Archaeological Collection of the University of Belgrade. But due to the silent rivalry between the Yugoslav republics and latent in the federal government, the excavation was repeatedly postponed until the agreement expired. Well-informed government sources stated that a colleague from Slovenia and her friend, a senior Communist party federal government official from Slovenia, did not like the idea of Belgrade becoming the center of Yugoslav Egyptological research.

The second issue that badly affects Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern studies in Serbia is recent Serbian cultural nationalism or even cultural xenophobia. The Egyptological episodes from the former Yugoslavia described above would hardly have been possible without at least the “active passivity” of the Serbian side and its officials. The same attitude was demonstrated by the fact that the National Museum in Belgrade removed its modest Egyptological collection from the permanent display in the early 1960s, and worse yet, gave away its single Egyptian mummy to Montenegro, namely to the ‘Art Gallery of Non-aligned Countries “Josip Broz Tito.”’ The coffin with the Belgrade mummy then lay unpacked (wrapped in a thin sheet foam firmly bound with iron wire) in the Gallery’s depot from 1986 until November 1991. It was only after the Chair of Near Eastern Archaeology from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Belgrade petitioned the National Museum to demand the mummy – along with another Ptolemaic period coffin – be returned from Montenegro, that were they sent back to Serbia.

Courses on ancient Near Eastern archaeology were introduced in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade in 1955. A Chair was founded in 1968 but was abolished during the reorganization of the Department of Archaeology in mid-2000s. Today, a number of courses dealing with the Ancient Near East and Egypt are given at the Faculty of Philosophy, the only institution in Serbia that has ever employed Ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian archaeology specialists (two of us at the moment). Unfortunately, from the very beginning of Near Eastern archaeological courses in Serbia the prevailing attitude within the local archaeological community was mostly negative. The usual mantra, a product of the political concept and the cultural mentality, was that ‘we have the archaeology of our own soil and do not need a foreign one.’

It is hardly a surprise that “Serbian roots” and the origins of “Serbian territory” are pushed further and further back in time and space by a number of local archaeologists with pseudo-archaeological theories. An historical perspective shows that whenever archaeology and politics go hand in hand it is always at the expense of archaeology. In that light it should be noted that the Section for Near Eastern Archaeology of the Serbian Archaeological Society was established in 1991 and successfully functioned until 2008, when the nationalist wing within the Society took over.

In spite of the political circumstances and misunderstandings, the interest of the general Serbian public in ancient Egypt and Egyptian antiquities is enormous. For the last twenty years the Belgrade mummy has probably been the most presented archaeological piece in the Serbian mass media. Thanks to the City of Belgrade’s recent donation of the special $45,000 climate controlled display case, the mummy of Nesmin from Akhmim will see its 125^th anniversary in Belgrade (1888-2013), well protected for future generations. So, with all ups and downs, if you ask me am I an optimist concerning the Ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian studies in Serbia, my answer is: in the long, persistent, and patient run – yes!

Branislav Anđelković is assistant professor in the Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade.

Remix: Hisham M’Farreh, Chef at the Albright Institute (1994-Present)

jennfitz — Wed, 08 May 2013 17:18:33 +0000

Recently, I was looking through some of this blog’s original posts to remove spam comments when I came across this article by the Albright Institute’s chef, Hisham M’Farreh. The included recipe looked easy to follow and delicious, so I decided to try it at home.

Because this was an experiment, I made a half-batch and ended up with 13 small dinner-sized rolls. I also used three tablespoons of za’atar mix and in the future I would bump this up to at least four. I substituted an Italian cheese blend for the “baladi or Bulgarian salted cheese” and thought it all turned out well (though I’m sure the originals are much better!).

A crucial component of this recipe is za’atar, which not everyone has lying around the house. I didn’t have fresh za’atar leaves at home, but I did have the spice mix (which includes salt and sesame seeds). Mine had been brought back as a present from Israel but it is frequently sold in stores in the US or you can make it yourself.

My rolls didn’t turn out quite as big as the ones in the picture below (probably due to my chilly Boston apartment), but they were tasty and I will definitely try this recipe again! If you have any recipes you’d like to share or if you’ve tried out this one let us know in the comments! I’d love to hear if there are other variations.

-Jen

Without further ado here is the original entry:

February 18, 2009
Contributed by Hisham M’Farreh

Food is considered an essential element of human life. As in the old Arabic saying, “the shortest route to someone’s heart is through his stomach.”

I have been working as a cook at the Albright Institute (AIAR) in Jerusalem for about fifteen years, a job which I took after my uncle Omar Jibrin retired, having served as the Institute’s chef for a little over half a century. Uncle Omar had very friendly and good relationships with the Albright Directors, Trustees and Fellows.

Hisham M’arreh with his renowned za’atar rolls in the foreground.

I have also had the privilege of forming good friendships with many archaeologists and other students and scholars who come to do research and stay at the Institute. These friendships usually start in the kitchen especially during breaks and at tea time, when people come to talk to me. And these relationships have become stronger over the years.

The long period of experience in my current position has taught me so much about the people who come to do research at the Albright, including Americans, Europeans, Israelis and Palestinians. I have come to learn that the vast majority of them are friendly and modest. They seem to have acquired these characteristics from their special outlook on life. I believe that the search for historical truths, which is the aim of their research and especially their excavations, and which they document in their books, has significantly affected our understanding of human values. Thus, their tasks have shaped their characters; making them decent people with pleasant personalities.

Having said all of this, I should point out something that has influenced my perception of Albright researchers. These people whom I cook for on a daily basis are unlike tourists in hotels who come to this country for a different purpose. Besides, most researchers and archeologists whom I have come to know at the Albright, often return many times to the Institute. This helps to maintain a sense of continuity, and continues to strengthen the friendship between us.

I would like to add that my father was a chef for about 45 years at an archaeological institute in Jerusalem, now known as the Kenyon Institute (previously the British School of Archaeology). I gained a lot of experience in cooking and in my understanding of researchers who come from abroad from my father and also from my uncle, Omar.

Albright Fellows, when about to leave the Institute, have the opportunity to choose their “last supper” and the following recipe is one of their favorites.

Fresh za’atar rolls stuffed with white cheese

Ingredients:
4 cups flour
1 cup fresh za’atar leaves
2 teaspoons yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 cup olive oil
11/2 cup lukewarm water
Filling:
2 cup grated white cheese (baladi or Bulgarian salted cheese)

Directions:

In a medium bowl sift flour and then add dry ingredients
Add oil, and za’atar leaves
Add water
Mix until a dough is formed
Cover with towel for about one hour at room temperature until the dough is doubled in size
Cut into small balls about the size of an egg
Fill each ball with the grated cheese and form into a roll
Put the rolls on baking sheet and let raise for about half an hour at room temperature
Bake in preheated oven (400F) for about 20 minutes or until light brown
Serve hot with fresh salad

~~~

Biblical Archaeology in Germany – Does it Have a Future?

jennfitz — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:40:24 +0000

By: Martin Peilstöcker

What if Biblical Archaeology went extinct in your native country? More than twenty years ago I left my native Germany to get a Ph.D. at Tel Aviv University and to work for the Antiquities Authority in Israel. But when I returned in 2009, the situation I found in Germany came as a shock. Biblical Archaeology is an endangered species and may never recover.

Ever since the Reformation, Protestant seminaries have held Biblical Studies in the highest regard. The Enlightenment meant that historical-critical investigations of the Bible were central to any theological program in Germany. Biblical Archaeology thus became a central part of theological studies at Protestant seminaries. But even in this supportive environment it only had the status of a “Hilfsdisziplin” (auxiliary discipline). With shrinking numbers of students at the faculties of theology in the 1990s, budgets were cut back and small seminars and institutes like those for Biblical Archaeology were closed, leaving only a handful. How could a discipline that once was so central have become relegated to an afterthought in just two decades?

The change happened more quickly than any of us could have imagined. At most universities, Biblical Archaeology has long benefited from the presence of associated historical-critical disciplines such as Near Eastern languages and literatures and Egyptology. University libraries were among the top collections in the world, and even research laboratories carried out their own field-projects. However, the shrinking numbers of students resulted in budgets being cut. Departments dedicated limited resources to “core” areas of theology, Semitic languages, Bible, and classics. Archaeology was seen as an interdisciplinary endeavor and so budgets were scaled back or cut completely. Small seminars and institutes like those for Biblical Archaeology were closed, leaving behind only a handful of places where Biblical Archaeology was taught. And in those places its importance had been diminished.

Garden of the German Protestant Institute in Jerusalem
(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DEI_J_2007.jpg
July 2007 Prof. Dr. Dr. D. Vieweger, Leitender Direktor DEI Jerusalem+Amman)

The only German institution in Israel engaged in Biblical Archaeology was endangered as well. The German Protestant Institute, founded in 1900, is located in the Auguste Victory compound on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem. As a result of the 1967 war a branch was opened in Amman in order to continue research in Jordan. Because of its location, since 1967 the German Protestant Institute could not carry out fieldwork in Israel because it is located, according to official German church politics, outside Israel. The institute became more and more isolated from the German academic mainstream. A field survey in the early 1990s in the region of Akko by the author and Gunnar Lehmann, then acting director, caused a heated debate among the board of the institute in Germany. The next director, the late Volkmar Fritz, did excavate on behalf of the institute in Israel, but was not renewed for a second term. It was proposed that the institution should be shut down and only after protests by the remaining German Biblical Archaeologists and the appointment of a new director, Dieter Vieweger, the institute survived. It is no longer exclusively supported by German Protestant denominations but now cooperates with the governmentally funded German Archaeological Institute.

The controversy over the German Protestant Institute made it clear how limited the influence of Biblical Archaeologists is in German academic and political circles. Most German Biblical Archaeologists were “self-made”; they had grown up within archaeological projects of the 1950s and 1960s in Israel such as the Tel Beer-Sheva excavations and had studied in Jerusalem or later Tel Aviv. Their knowledge of the history and archaeology of Ancient Israel was excellent, as was their ability to excavate. But the “real” German archaeologists mostly approached them with condescension.

German archaeological activity is shrinking along with scholarly output. A look at a list of publications by German scholars in the last decade or so shows not one archaeological project carried out in Israel or Jordan has published a final report. Conspicuously missing are final reports of the German excavations of the late Diethelm Conrad at Tel Akko (1978 – 1983), the renewed excavation by the late Volkmar Fritz at Tell Kinrot, or the project at Khirbet ez-Zeraqon in Jordan by Siegfried Mittmann (until 1992). Moreover, the list of publications of archaeological studies in pottery, chronology, or methodology is also short. Resources for excavation, study, and publication are simply not there.

Gottlieb Schumacher’s theodolite. (source: Prof. Dr. Dr. D. Vieweger, Leitender Direktor DEI Jerusalem+Amman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Theodolit.jpg)

Declining interest is also seen outside of German university and government circles. The Deutscher Palästina-Verein (German Society for the Exploration of Palestine) was founded in 1877. Along with the American Schools of Oriental Research (founded in 1900), the British Palestine Exploration Fund (founded in 1865), and the French École Biblique et Archéologique (founded in 1890), the German society reflects the interest in the Holy Land which came into vogue all across Europe in the late 19^th century. But in the last five volumes of the society’s journal, the Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins,out of 26 articles dealing with archaeology only five were studies written by German scholars.

Gottlieb Schumacher at Tell Mutesellim (Megiddo)
(http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%91%D7%A5:Gottlieb_Schumacher_in_Tell_Megiddo.jpg)

Many important archaeological projects were carried out by the Deutscher Palästina-Verein in its early years, including the excavations at Megiddo directed by Gottlieb Schumacher. But the society has not sponsored any fieldwork since World War II. Moreover, an offer to participate in the renewed Megiddo project directed by Israel Finkelstein, David Ussishkin, and Baruch Halpern in the early 1990s was turned down. A number of individual German scholars have been active in archaeology in Israel. Parts of the Tel Kabri excavation project of the late Aharon Keminski were co-directed by Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier, a classical archaeologist. Prof. Herrmann Michael Niemann from the University of Rostock participated in the Megiddo excavations and other Israeli projects, but his primary field is theology and the Old Testament. Prof. Manfred Oeming from Heidelberg co-directs the excavations at Ramat Rahel but he is a theologian and Old Testament scholar as well. The pattern is unmistakable; individual participation in Biblical Archaeology is dropping along with institutional support.

Seal of Shema from Schumacher’s excavations at Megiddo (source http://cojs.org/cojswiki/images/e/e9/Seal_of_Shema.JPG)

What about the next generation? Today a student of archaeology in Germany interested in Biblical Archaeology and the archaeology of Israel proper is in a difficult situation. First, the opportunities for basic studies of archaeological sites, pottery and other typologies, excavation methodologies, and more are limited. Who should teach that in Germany? Second, while opportunities to participate in an archaeological excavation exist, German field-schools are very few; really, in recent years only those of the Johannes Gutenberg University at Tel Yafo (Jaffa) and Ramat Rahel of Heidelberg University. A few more projects are in their initial stage and have yet to change the overall situation. Others exist in Jordan and Lebanon, but work in those countries does not allow students to get first hand knowledge of modern field archaeology in Israel.

Many projects in Israel accept “volunteers” – another way of saying excavation tourism, a subject beyond the scope of this essay. But going back and forth with a wheelbarrow to the dump is not the best way for someone to learn what modern field archaeology is all about. Even if students find a dig, the German educational system poses other problems such as high tuition, which cannot be covered by scholarships, a different system of university credits, and the different dates of the academic year in Germany, Israel, and the US.

Overall, it seems to me that without a major change, the days of German Biblical Archaeology are numbered! In a few more years there will be no more German scholars; not to dig, teach, and even more importantly, to study the archaeology of ancient Israel and the roots of the monotheistic religions. The German-European view will be missed in global scholarly debates and at home in Germany. But it is up to the remaining German scholars and their institutions to change the situation.

Martin Peilstöcker is a research archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority and a visiting faculty member at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz and a guest curator at the Bibelhaus Erlebnis-Museum Frankfurt.

Study of Early Pottery Workshops in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East Around 6,000 cal. BC

jennfitz — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:42:00 +0000

By: Ingmar Franz, Freiburg University, George A. Barton Fellow

The goal of my project was an in-depth survey of the literature focusing on early pottery production in the Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic periods in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin and the Near East. The well-organized Albright library provided the opportunity for me to find almost every source I needed. Discussions with the fellows at the institute were also fruitful and contributed to the success of my project.

In the first weeks at the Albright, I realized that although textile and basketry production is seen by scholars as an important technology during the Neolithic period, they have not looked at the connection to pottery technology. Unfortunately, I could not find any Neolithic pottery workshops in the Levant and Mesopotamia, but I did find two well documented pottery workshops from the Early Chalcolithic and the Late Bronze Age in Syria at Tell Kosak Shamali (~5000 cal. BC) and Tell Sabi Abyad (~1200 cal. BC). This indicated that the remains from Çatalhöyük West (~ 6000 cal. BC) were the oldest pottery production contexts in the region discovered so far. Due to the lack of pottery workshops, the focus of my research shifted to looking for evidence of basketry and plaster vessel (“white ware”) production, both of which can be seen as the predecessor or bridge to pottery technology. A third very interesting and still mysterious artifact category is the so-called “sling missiles,” which are found at many Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites in Mesopotamia, and which are comparable in size and shape to the unfired clay balls from Çatalhöyük West.

With this shift of interest, I collected a great deal of data for my research, registering basket and textile remains from the Naḥal Ḥemar Cave; impressions of basketry and mats on pottery from Tell es-Sultan, Sha’ar Hagolan, Munḥata; remains of plastered storage installations from Tell es-Sultan; plastered human statues with basket or wattle impressions on the interior from Tell es-Sultan, Ain’ Ghazal and from every major site at which data existed throughout the Pre-Pottery and Pottery Neolithic periods and onwards; including basketry and textile production like bone awls, needles, shuttles, and spindle whorls. Concerning plaster vessels, it turned out that most of the objects from Tell Ramad, Yiftaḥ’el, and Labwe were from the Pottery Neolithic period and, therefore, occur together with pottery. This shows that plaster vessels actually could be unfired pottery like the pieces found at Çatalhöyük. Clay “sling missiles” are known from many sites in Mesopotamia. Although they are mostly found in domestic contexts, they are interpreted as “sling missiles” because they look like date-shaped lead sling missiles used by slingers in Greco-Roman antiquity. Consequently they are seen as evidence for early warfare in human history (e.g. ~6000 cal. BC at Hacılar or ~3500 cal. BC at Hamoukar). In fact, they consist of sun-baked clay which has been rolled by hand when the clay was still wet. Considering the domestic contexts in which they were found, the “sling missiles” seem more like collected raw material for clay seals or pottery.

My research showed that “white ware” and “sling missiles” are still quite mysterious and not well studied finds which could be seen as remains of pottery production. Only archaeometric material analyses and direct comparison with results on pottery technology, which I do with my research on the pottery technology at Çatalhöyük, will help unravel this mystery. Due to the sparsely available data on pottery production I realized that I have to look at the early stage of pottery technology which ranges ca. from 7000-5000 cal. B.C. in the region to finally understand the developments around 6000 cal. BC.

~~~

Archaeology Weekly Roundup! 5-3-13

jennfitz — Fri, 03 May 2013 17:34:52 +0000

To see Sana’a’s Old City for the first time is like “a vision of a childhood dream world of fantasy castles,” a visitor once remarked, but official neglect and unruly construction are threatening to destroy that magic. UNESCO has even threatened to remove the city from the World Heritage List.

They lived in well-planned cities, made exquisite jewelry, and enjoyed the ancient world’s best plumbing. But the people of the sophisticated Indus civilization—remain mysterious, though recent research may have uncovered evidence of matrilocality and surprising levels of violence.

During routine archaeological research as part of the Ancient Egypt Leatherwork Project (AELP) carried out by Salima Ikram, Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo (AUC) and Andre Veldmeijer, head of the Egyptology section at the Netherlands Flemish Institute in Cairo, a collection of 300 leather fragments of an Old Kingdom chariot were uncovered at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

What’s certain is that some members of the desperate colony at Jamestown resorted to cannibalism to survive. The proof comes in the form of fragments of a skeleton of a girl, about age 14, found in a cellar full of debris in the fort on the James River that sheltered the starving colonists.

At least 1,000 Aboriginal founders first arrived in Australia some 50,000 years ago, a reconstruction indicates — numbers that could be evidence of an intentional migration rather than the accidental stranding of a few individuals at a time

Researchers have solved the riddle of how one of Africa’s greatest civilizations survived a catastrophic drought which wiped out other famous dynasties. Geomorphologists and dating specialists from The Universities of Aberystwyth, Manchester, and Adelaide say that it was the River Nile which made life viable for the renowned Kerma kingdom, in what is now northern Sudan.

Scientists are typically split between two theories on the subject: Either the Maya developed directly from an older”mother culture” known as the Olmec, or they sprang into existence independently. But a new paper disagrees with both theories, pointing to finds from the site of Ceibal in Guatemala, as evidence for a more complex origin story.

Past climate change varied remarkably between regions. This is demonstrated in a new study coordinated by the international Past Global Changes (PAGES) project, which reconstructed temperature over the past 1000 to 2000 years.

An international team of archaeologists has stumbled upon a cache of relics dating back several millennia in the northern Omani enclave of Musandam. The discovery has been billed by the Ministry of Heritage and Culture as among the most stunning archaeological finds of recent times.

Archaeologists in Florida are working to uncover the original Spanish settlement of St. Augustine from 1565, which the Spanish held for a year before being driven out by Native Americans. They think they may have found the early structures used by the Spanish.

The Mycenaens, the first Greeks, inspired the legends of the Trojan Wars, “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey.” Their culture abruptly declined around 1200 B.C., marking the start of a Dark Ages in Greece, and now scholars are looking for signs that earthquakes contributed to this decline.

Hundreds of lorries will rattle down the new Ras Al Khaimah truck road that is expected to open next year, but there will be no clue that they are thundering over the remains of 4,000-year-old tombs. Archaeologists are in the final days of a three-month rescue excavation of the Qarn Al Harf tombs built by prehistoric date farmers.

Eight skeletons have been discovered next to the site where a medieval knight was found underneath a car park in Edinburgh, on the former site of the 13th Century Blackfriar’s Monastery.

An Egyptian excavation mission from the Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA) uncovered a complete industrial area that can be dated to the Graeco-Roman era. The discovery was found during routine excavation work at the archaeological site of Tell Abu-Seifi, located east of the Suez Canal and south of Qantara East.

~~~

Trade and Trophy: Near Eastern Imports in the Sarmatian Culture

jennfitz — Thu, 02 May 2013 15:50:54 +0000

By: Oleksandr Symonenko, Institute of Archaeology, Kyiv, Glassman Holland Research Fellow

The main purpose of my project was the study of Near Eastern artifacts from Sarmatian graves. The Sarmatians were Iranian-speaking nomads who inhabited the territory stretching from the Altai Mountains up to the Danube from the 3rd – 4th centuries CE. The Near Eastern artifacts objects came to the Sarmatians in two main ways, as military trophies and as traded merchandise.

Spoils of war included Montefortino- and Pilos-type helmets and fragments of body armor found at Sarmatian sites. The helmets came to the Sarmatians during the Mithridates’ wars against Rome between 88 – 63 BCE. They were used by the Galatian soldiers of Mithridates’ army and were passed on from them to the Sarmatians. The Roman scale armors of the lorica plumata type, found in Sarmatian graves, were most probably seized by the Sarmatians during the war of 47 BCE in Asia Minor. Fragments of Parthian type armor were found in Sarmatian kurgans in the second half of the 1st – early 2nd centuries CE. Such trophies fell into Sarmatian hands during their battles with the Parthians in 72 CE.

Perhaps the trophies of the Sarmatian raids into the Graeco-Bactrian Kingdom in the late 2nd century BCE are the Parthian bowls and Achaemenid phialai with Parthian and Chorasmian inscriptions found in the graves of rich nomads in the Ural and western Siberia regions. Also several silver gilded bowls manufactured during the Late Hellenistic Period in Seleucid or Parthian workshops were found in Sarmatian kurgans. Judging from their dating, they could also have been seized by Sarmatians during the plundering of the Graeco-Bactrian Kingdom in the late 2nd century BCE.

Most of the Near Eastern objects, however, came to the Sarmatians as goods. Among the jewelry of Near Eastern origin were Egyptian gold finger rings and fibula with the crown of Isis and two Ptolemaic gold armlets with figures of Eros and Psyche, found in kurgans in the Ukraine. It is interesting that all of the Near Eastern jewelry from Sarmatian graves was made at least 100 years earlier than their burial date.

A group of large eye beads and degraded mask-beads of eastern Mediterranean origin were used as amulets on Sarmatian horse harnesses dated to the late 3rd – early 2nd centuries BCE. The eye beads of some types dated to the late 1st century CE and faience amulets in the shapes of scarabs, lions, frogs etc., found in the Sarmatian burials, were made in Roman Egypt.

Some glass vessels from Sarmatian graves also originated in the Near East. They are the Achaemenid calix of the late 4^th – 3^rd centuries BCE; kantharoi of the Late Hellenistic types from workshops in coastal Syria; fragments of millefiori vessels, probably made in Alexandria, Egypt; faceted beaker of Eggers type 187 of the same manufacture; balsamarii manufactured in the workshops of Syria and Judea; eastern Mediterranean jugs of violet glass; and a faience dish considered to have been made in Egypt or Parthia.

These are but a few of the spectacular objects offering evidence of contacts between Sarmatians and the Near East. Their rarity and assortment indicate the indirect and sporadic character of these contacts. It is interesting that all Near Eastern objects found in Sarmatian graves are dated to the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman periods. In the graves of the Late Sarmatian period (second half of the 2nd – 4th centuries CE) Near Eastern items are absent. Most likely, this is a reflection of the change of trade relations of the North Pontic cities, when most Roman imports derived from European provinces of the empire. I wish to thank the Albright Institute for the award of the Glassman Holland Fellowship which has afforded me an excellent opportunity to further my research.

~~~

Typology and Semantics of Cryptograms and Acrolexa in the Orthodox East in the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Period

jennfitz — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:36:37 +0000

By: Emmanuel Moutafov, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow

For some scholars, the letter abbreviations with encoded meaning on cryptograms and acrolexa are the creation of a monachus ludnes (a monk having fun), who has been instructed to hide his identity or his personal message in an acrostic or in visual poetry, writes his signature through cryptographs, laughs at monastery moralizing anecdotes and does not want his identity to be revealed in the vanity of mundane life. This monk is perhaps of the greatest schema, due to which the so-called cryptograms will be written on his hood, in order to protect him from evil demons, impious thoughts, misfortunes, and encroachments. The visual model of a cross with letter symbols will be borrowed from certain bilingual Byzantine coins, bearing the image of the blossoming Golgotha cross from the time of Emperor Heraclius; the Roman numbers of those coins ХХХХ began to be perceived as the popular tetragrammata/ tetragrams since the Greek numbering uses letters, while Latin is forgotten in the East. The earliest manuscript with such signs dates back to the 11^th century in Sinai, but these signs are well known. In the late 14^th century, the letters around the blossoming cross appear in monuments of church art in the Balkans and Cyprus. From the 15^th century onwards, the Slavs started to extend the repertoire of the letter abbreviations related to the cross, in which the tetragrammata was dominant. In terms of their contents no analogue to them was found either in the canonical written or in the apocryphal tradition. Around the 16th century, this staurographic tradition appeared also in the old-print books and manuscripts with liturgical content, but the cryptic signs there did not become a sustainable element of their decoration. In contrast to the tradition close to Mount Athos from the 17^th century onwards in Russia, there was real encryption of the messages in the “Letters of the Cross.” However, the hypothesis that they originated from the anonymous Russian alphabetic books is unsubstantiated. In that same period in the Balkans, the use of these signs was reduced and almost completely disappeared in the 19^th century without affecting day-to-day Christianity.

The scientific interpretation of cryptograms has been quite limited so far, and this is due mostly to the lack of a concrete idea as to which of these letter symbols are encrypted, and which are not, because not all researchers are knowledgeable in the Greek tradition; it is due also to the lack of adequate terms used to describe the different types of acrolexa. Because of this, I had to research mainly the semantics of these acrolexa, to set up their typology, to find parallels in epigraphy, paleography, and to extend the parameters of my study not only outside Bulgaria, but also beyond the Balkans.

I realize that this study does not cover all monuments, and also that there are other genres of medieval and post-Byzantine art where such letter abbreviations can be found. Also I understand that the interpretations I have suggested are only tentative. However, since my aim was to establish a typology of what is known about them and to highlight what is valuable in their semantic structure, I believe that finding numerous and different abbreviations of this kind is possible. Such decoding, as well as many items in the humanities are tentative, at least until we find the answers to this “crossword puzzle,” provided that such answers exist.

~~~

Archaeology after the Arab Spring

jennfitz — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 18:03:30 +0000

By: Jesse Casana

The transformative political events in the Middle East over the past two years have had, among many other unexpected outcomes, profound effects on the direction of research in Near Eastern archaeology. War and civil unrest act as both a carrot and a stick, forcing the cessation of fieldwork in some areas, while promoting new investigations in places that might otherwise have gone unexplored. The geopolitics of the post-Arab Spring world are changing where we are able work, and by consequence they will shape the research questions we investigate, as well as the regions where future generations of scholars will likely specialize. But the present moment of realignment is far from unique—our discipline has been shaped from the beginning by the tumultuous political history of the Middle East.

In the spring of 1920, James Henry Breasted and a group of scholars from the University of Chicago’s newly founded Oriental Institute embarked on a survey of major archaeological sites in Mesopotamia and Syria[1]. It was Breasted’s hope that the return of political stability under British rule after the end of World War I would facilitate renewed investigations in Mesopotamia. Having traveled by steamer from Egypt, via Bombay, to Basra in southern Iraq, the team began making their way up the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, visiting many of the most prominent sites in the region, including Uruk, Babylon, and Nineveh.

Oriental Institute expedition team members pose with British officers at the west gate of Dura Europos, May 1920. (Image reproduced courtesy of the Oriental Institute Museum’s Photographic Archives http://oi.uchicago.edu/museum/collections/pa/).

But Breasted’s progress was soon hampered by growing violence in rural regions, the beginning of the Iraqi Revolt of 1920[2]. Then, in late April, the British civil commissioner in Baghdad told Breasted about some ancient frescos exposed during the excavation of bunkers at the site we now know as Dura Europos and asked him to investigate. The commissioner also confidentially informed Breasted that British forces were planning an imminent withdrawal as the supply lines were increasingly difficult to defend against attacks.

The Chicago team raced north to Dura, arriving at the site the same day that the British were retreating southwards. Breasted convinced them to stay for one more day, over which time the team frantically recorded the Byzantine-era paintings that were then exposed. Several years later, when it was again safe to visit Dura, most of the paintings had been destroyed or damaged, some by looting, others by vandals. But the photographs and drawings made by the Chicago team preserved a record of these unique works of ancient art, and they were published in 1924 as the first volume in what would become the well-known Oriental Institute Publication series[3].

The story of Breasted’s adventures, maneuvering to achieve what archaeological objectives he could within a world wracked by political turmoil, is familiar to many of us pursuing Near Eastern archaeology in the wake of the Arab Spring. Most archaeological fieldwork requires large groups of international scholars to live and work in remote areas for long periods of time, and such endeavors would be dangerous to undertake during times of political instability.

We need look back no further than the 1960s and 1970s, when southern Iraq and southwestern Iran were cauldrons for innovative archaeological research, with many of today’s most prominent Near Eastern scholars cutting their teeth on fieldwork in the region. But effectively all research in Iran ended abruptly in 1979 with the Iranian Revolution, and the ensuing Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s brought research in neighboring Iraq to a crawl.

The first Gulf War of 1991 finally drove all remaining Western archaeologists from Iraq, and subsequent years saw the imposition of crushing international sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s regime. These sanctions starved local antiquities authorities and their legal restrictions effectively prevented any fieldwork for the next decade. While a few scholars managed to conduct limited archaeological research in Iran and Iraq after their respective closures in 1979 and 1991, most were instead driven to begin projects elsewhere. Syria and Turkey can be seen as beneficiaries of the closures of Iran and Iraq, as areas of these countries that had previously seen almost no research soon became some of the field’s main research foci.

Tell Qarqur, western Syria, where the ASOR-sponsored project, seen here during the excavation of a step trench in 2008, is now on indefinite hiatus (photo credit: Jesse Casana).

Today we see a similar process unfolding, as a generation of Near Eastern archaeologists trained on projects in Syria, Egypt and Turkey now find themselves in search of new opportunities elsewhere. In Syria, where I was directing the ASOR-sponsored excavation at Tell Qarqur, archaeological fieldwork has been brought to a standstill by the current civil war. I, like many of my colleagues, cancelled a field season planned for summer 2011, following the swelling protests that began the previous spring. Not feeling it safe to return in the years since, I left behind a storeroom packed to the ceiling with artifacts and equipment, a partially installed Tell Qarqur gallery in the Hama museum, and an entire community who depended on the excavation for a large part of their income.

As the situation in Syria has continued to deteriorate over the past two years, the civil war has killed tens of thousands, destroyed the lives and homes of so many others, and threatens to tear apart the country itself. The concerns of archaeologists have understandably been sidelined by the humanitarian crisis, but inevitably, the archaeological heritage of Syria will suffer as well, as the security vacuum has encouraged looting and destruction of sites, monuments, and museums.

It remains difficult to determine the extent to which looting is taking place, but an analysis based largely on videos and images from social media, published in May 2012, shows extensive damage to many major World Heritage sites[4]. A more recent report released in February 2013 by beleaguered antiquities officials in Damascus suggests the situation has grown worse over the past year[5]. Occasional reports by international journalists similarly imply widespread destruction, some the result of targeted looting campaigns, others simply driven by people seeking refuge, as appears to be the case among the Dead Cities of western Syria, where families now hide in subterranean Roman tombs[6]. Given the extremely limited access of archaeologists and antiquities officials to most of Syria, we can assume the situation there is much worse than can be documented at this point, while any hopes for resumed fieldwork are likely years off.

In Egypt, the situation is less dire, but since protests erupted there in 2011, archaeological research in Egypt has been seriously challenged by the ongoing threat of violence throughout the country. Many field projects have been forced to truncate their planned research, or to go on hiatus completely. Looting of sites has proliferated, while the collapse of tourism revenue has left Egyptian antiquities authorities with major budgetary shortfalls[7]. Renewed protests and violence that have swept across Egypt since January 2013, alongside the volatile political situation, bodes ill for archaeology there in the near term.

The ongoing political instability in the wake of the Arab Spring makes a difficult situation worse for would-be Near Eastern archaeologists, as the options for fieldwork in many areas dwindle. Iran remains almost entirely closed to foreign teams, and even when research permits have been granted by antiquities authorities, visas are often not forthcoming. Most of southern Iraq is still dangerous ten years after the US-led invasion, and the handful of scholars willing to brave the uncertainty have found difficulty in securing permits.

Periodic violence in Lebanon has made it challenging to work there for decades, and the perennial threat of civil war keeps many archaeologists from investing the time and money to develop new projects there. In Jordan, analysts fear that a flood of Syrian refugees, a faltering economy, and a rising tide of protests could destabilize that country[8], making it too a potentially risky prospect for new projects. In Cyprus, a third of the island – and the portion closest to the Near Eastern mainland – is considered by many legal experts to be occupied territory, making archaeological research there a potential violation of international law[9]. As a stable, wealthy, NATO-member state, Turkey would appear to be an obvious destination for displaced archaeologists, yet even prominent faculty at well-funded institutions face major hurdles in securing and maintaining Turkish research permits[10]; the prospects for young scholars who want to begin new projects there are even dimmer.

The challenges of working in the traditional core zones of the Near East, now heightened by the Arab Spring, are beginning to push archaeologists into other, less explored regions, and those areas will undoubtedly be the archaeological beneficiaries of the transformations now afoot. Antiquities authorities in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq, an area that even Breasted considered too dangerous to visit in 1920, have proven especially welcoming of foreign archaeologists. Over the past two years there has been an explosion of new research in the region, and I, like many colleagues formerly working in Syria, have recently begun a new project there.

Author Jesse Casana (left) poses with a Kurdish farmer on a new regional survey project in the upper Diyala/Sirwan River Valley, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, October 2012 (photo credit: Claudia Glatz).

Likewise, major capital investments in cultural heritage institutions in several Gulf states, such as the establishment of UCL Qatar in Doha and the creation of the Saadiyat museum campus in Abu Dhabi, are now also attracting many scholars to those previously little-studied areas. Other Near Eastern archaeologists have shifted their focus to the Fertile Crescent’s lesser-known neighbors, looking north to the Caucuses, particularly in Armenia and Azerbaijan, or to the south, in Sudan and Ethiopia. Such geographic displacement is intellectually healthy; it forces us to ask new questions and leads us to discover new things.

Fundamentally, however, political instability is bad for archaeology; it makes prevention of looting and site destruction vastly more challenging, and it often makes conducting archaeological fieldwork fall somewhere on the continuum from risky to suicidal. In these ways, the revolutions that have gripped the Arab world over the past two years have inevitable, deleterious consequences for the archaeology in those regions, even while prompting new research in other areas. What the history of our field teaches us, however, is that when dreams for peace and prosperity are ultimately achieved in Syria, Egypt and elsewhere, there will be many archaeologists ready to resume the exploration of those countries’ remarkable cultural heritage.

Jesse Casana is Associate Professor of Archaeology in the Department of Anthropology and Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

[1] A lively account of the expedition can be read in, J.H. Breasted (1922) The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago: A Beginning and a Program. Oriental Institute Communications 1. University of Chicago Press.

[2] For a recent discussion of events surrounding the 1920 Iraqi Revolt, see: Charles Tripp (2007) A History of Iraq. Cambridge University Press.

[3] J.H. Breasted (1924) Oriental Forerunners of Byzantine Painting: First century wall paintings from the fortress of Dura on the Middle Euphrates. Oriental Institute Publications 1. University of Chicago Press.

[4] Cunliffe, Emma (2012) Damage to the Soul: Syria’s Cultural Heritage in Conflict. Durham University and Global Heritage Fund. http://ghn.globalheritagefund.com/uploads/documents/document_2107.pdf

[5] AbdulKarim, Maamoun (2013) The Status of Syrian Antiquities since the beginning of the Crisis until Feb 1, 2013, and their protection measures. Unpublished report of the République Arabe Syrienne Ministère de la Culture, Direction Générale des Antiquités et des Musées.

[6] McEvers, Kelly; Rima Marrouch (2013) Displaced Syrians Find Shelter In Ancient ‘Dead Cities.’ National Public Radio. March 8, 2013. http://www.npr.org/2013/03/08/173788537/displaced-syrians-find-shelter-in-ancient-dead-cities

[7] Marchant, Jo (2011) Archaeology meets politics: Spring comes to ancient Egypt. Nature November 23, 2011. http://www.nature.com/news/archaeology-meets-politics-spring-comes-to-ancient-egypt-1.9416

[8] e.g., Azizon, Maha Hosain (2012) Is Jordan Headed for an Arab Spring? Bloomberg Businessweek, November 25, 2012 http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-25/is-jordan-headed-for-an-arab-spring; Riedel, Bruce (2012) Jordan’s Arab Spring. The Daily Beast, November 15, 2012. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/15/jordan-s-arab-spring.html

[9] Crain, Amanda (2008) Opening Pandora’s Box: How an archaeological find divides the Cypriots. The German Times, September 2008. http://www.german-times.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8478&Itemid=12

[10] Güsten, Susanne (2011) Turkey Presses Harder for Return of Antiquities. New York Times May 25, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/world/europe/26iht-M26C-TURKEY RETURN.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Archaeology Weekly Roundup! 4-26-13

jennfitz — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:35:46 +0000

The minaret of one of Syria’s most famous mosques has been destroyed during clashes in the northern city of Aleppo. The state news agency Sana accused rebels of blowing up the 11th-Century minaret of the Umayyad Mosque. However, activists say the minaret was hit by Syrian army tank fire.

The builders of the famous Giza pyramids in Egypt feasted on food from a massive catering-type operation, the remains of which scientists have discovered at a workers’ town near the pyramids.

Sounding like the plot from a science fiction novel, a robot has discovered three burial chambers under one of the main temples at the archaeological site of Teotihuacan. The ancient city is about 31 miles northeast of Mexico City and estimated to be over 2,000 years old.

A 12th-century manuscript contains the oldest known European Medieval food recipes, according to new research. The recipes, which include both food and medical ointment concoctions, were compiled and written in Latin. Someone jotted them down at Durham Cathedral’s monastery in the year 1140.

A new report brings to light a hidden and pernicious problem – the psychological, physical and sexual abuse of students in the field of biological anthropology working in field studies far from home. The report is based on an online survey and telephone interviews that, in a period of less than two months, elicited accounts of abuse from dozens of women and men working in the field of biological anthropology.

Hundreds of miles away from Hadrian’s Wall, a man surfing the internet from the comfort of his home stumbled across something that astonished the professionals. Experts say he had potentially discovered the camp of the men who actually built the wall that runs across the country.

First discovered during a survey two years ago, disk-shaped copper plates found by archaeologists near the ancient site of Hippos-Sussita just east of the Sea of Galilee continue to mystify them. Now, archaeologists involved in the ongoing excavations at the site are reaching out to scholars and the public alike to help them find the answer to the riddle.

Check out this article on ASOR member Lynn Swartz Dodd’s hands-on class on basic Neolithic technology. Students made oil lamps, butchered meat with obsidian tools, and crafted mud bricks, along with other ancient chores of daily life.

The ancient Egyptians could soon be getting their genomes sequenced as a matter of routine. That’s the view, at least, of the first researchers to use next-generation techniques to analyse DNA from Egyptian mummies.

An archaeological dig in the heart of the City “will transform our understanding” of Roman London, experts claim. The area has been dubbed the “Pompeii of the north” due to the perfect preservation of organic artefacts such as leather and wood. The area has been dubbed the “Pompeii of the north” due to the perfect preservation of organic artefacts such as leather and wood.

The international scientific community faces the exciting challenge of discovering the origin of America’s first settlers. A new publication shapes some alternatives to the hypothesis of a single migration movement, as a model to describe the origin of America’s population.

To most people, a useless flint axe is just that. To archaeologist Sigrid Alræk Dugstad, it is a source of information about Stone Age children. In the article “Early child caught knapping: A novice early Mesolithic flintknapper in southwestern Norway,” she has turned upside down the hierarchy of objects from the Early

Excavations at the Palatine Hill in Rome have unearthed the first Temple of Jupiter Stator, or Jupiter the Stayer. The temple’s name derives from the Latin words “with him who stops” used to invoke the ancient god to give the armies of Rome the strength to resist in the face of an enemy.

A retaining pier wall, four shrines and an unusual circular structure dating to over 1000 years old, have recently been found by archaeologists of the National Institute of anthropology and history (INAH) in the pre-Hispanic site of Tabuco in Veracruz, making it the oldest port discovered on Mexico’s Gulf Coast.

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A Seminar on The History and Material Culture of Ottoman Palestine at the Kenyon Institute, Jerusalem

jennfitz — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:09:29 +0000

Fig 1: The seminar poster (graphics by Qais Tweissi)

By: Micaela Sinibaldi

On the 9th and 10th of February 2013 I had the great pleasure to organise a seminar entitled: The History and Material Culture of Ottoman Palestine at the Kenyon Institute in Jerusalem. The seminar consisted of a day of papers and a roundtable discussion at the Kenyon and a day of tours of the Old City led by some of the seminar scholars.

As an archaeologist who works on the Islamic period, I know from my fieldwork and research, which has been especially focused on Petra (Jordan), that it is particularly the later periods which are still largely unexplored by archaeology, particularly the Ottoman period. During my recent work for Brown University, for example, as a co-director of excavations at Islamic Bayda (Petra region), a village whose occupation spans the whole Islamic period, it appeared from my preliminary research that the latest and most extensive phase is Ottoman; however, almost no material is currently available in the region for providing the excavation results with some archaeological parallels. One of the reasons for a very recent interest in the archaeology of the Ottoman period is that, partly because of the wealth of both documentary and monumental architectural sources available, the study of material culture has naturally focused on buildings such as the impressive ones preserved in Jerusalem in the al-Haram al-Sharif and in other areas of the Old City of Jerusalem, rather than on rural sites or on the use of archaeology to help solve chronological questions. The study of monumental architecture has often been supported by documentary sources allowing the reconstruction of its history in detail. I therefore started developing an interest in organising a meeting of specialists of the Ottoman period to discuss how their work makes use of the different kinds of sources and to hear their perspectives on future research in this field which still holds much potential for many years to come.

During my stay at the Kenyon as a fellow in 2012, I approached the Director, Dr. Mandy Turner, suggesting that the Kenyon host a seminar on this topic and she approved enthusiastically. The Kenyon has an important tradition of supporting research on the archaeology and architecture of Jerusalem of the Islamic period, and eminent scholars have used it as a base for their fieldwork in the region. The Kenyon itself is located in a beautiful Ottoman-period building, so this was also an ideal setting for the seminar.

Fig 2: A group of seminar participants at the Jerusalem Citadel after the tour led by Mahmoud Hawari (far right).

I was fortunate, therefore, to be able to spend two days with distinguished scholars, experts on the History, Architecture and Archaeology of the Ottoman period of Jerusalem and Palestine, to discuss with them these important topics and learn about their recent research. Dr Yusuf Natsheh, the Director of the Department of Tourism and Archaeology at al-Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem, presented a paper on Architectural Stylistic Trends of Ottoman Jerusalem, the subject of his well-known research contributing to the volume Ottoman Jerusalem. The Living City: 1517-1917 (edited by S. Auld and R. Hillenbrand, 2000). Mohammad Ghosheh, an independent scholar and currently Fellow at the Albright Institute in Jerusalem, talked about The Haram al-Sharif under the Ottomans, presenting to the audience illustrations from his recently published monograph (Qubbat al-Sakhrah al-Musharrifah, 2012, whose English language edition, The Dome of the Rock, will be published in 2013). Khader Salameh, until January 2013 the Director of al-Aqsa Mosque Library and of the Islamic Museum in al-Haram al-Sharif, offered his recent research results on The Restorations of Sultan Mahmoud II in Jerusalem, the object of his forthcoming publication. Dr Robert Schick, an independent scholar well known for his wide experience of Jerusalem where he has lived and researched for many years, gave for the first time in Jerusalem the lecture Everyday Life in the Masjid al-Aqsa Compound in the Ottoman Period, which focused on the analysis of a selection of documentary sources showing some practical aspects of running the compound. Two more speakers also presented their research for the first time at this seminar: Dr Mahmoud Hawari, research associate at the University of Oxford whose best known work is the book Ayyubid Jerusalem (1187-1250), illustrated his research in progress for his forthcoming monograph on the Citadel of Jerusalem: The Citadel (Qal’a) of Jerusalem in the Ottoman period: an overview. Finally, Susynne McElrone, an advanced PhD student at New York University, presented the subject of her thesis research with the paper Hebron in the long nineteenth century: the historiography and the history.

The roundtable discussion focused on the use of sources for the study of the Ottoman period and stimulated important research topics, such as the need for more collaboration between historians, art historians and archaeologists; the desire for future research to focus more on rural architecture rather than limited to the better known monumental architecture and on the peripheral areas to integrate with research on urban centres; and the issue of access to archival sources and how to solve them.

Fig 3: Micaela Sinibaldi introducing Yusuf Natsheh’s keynote address at the Kenyon Institute (photo by James Eastwood)

The seminar day was a success with over 50 participants, and the roundtable and panel discussions saw the active participation of the audience, which included scholars from different institutions and individuals from the Jerusalem community. Moreover, much appreciated and important for our discussion was the presence of scholars and participants from the seminar Recent Advances in Islamic Archaeology organised under the auspices of the Albright Institute the previous day. On the seminar day we had an excellent Maghloube lunch in the Kenyon garden, kindly organised and offered by Dr Mandy Turner.

On Sunday, for the tours in the Old City, we were lucky to have a great sunny day. The speakers (along with Mandy and me) had the privilege to meet Yusuf Natsheh who gave us a full tour of al-Haram al-Sharif, including the Dome of the Rock, al-Aqsa Mosque, the Centre for the Restoration of Islamic Manuscripts and the underground areas of the compound. We then proceeded to meet Mahmoud Hawari and the other participants at the Citadel for a detailed tour of the area, illustrating the several phases of the Citadel, as reconstructed by his work on historical and archaeological sources. After a lunch in the Old City with all the participants, our day ended at sunset after a fantastic two-hour tour led by Robert Schick on the Mamluk and Ottoman buildings of the Old City.

Fig 4: Tour of the Islamic monuments of the Old City led by Robert Schick (photo by Micaela Sinibaldi)

It was a great pleasure to receive emails from the audience commenting on how much they enjoyed the whole event, and to know that the speakers found this a very welcomed opportunity for research discussion and further collaborations with each other. I am grateful to Dr Mandy Turner, Director of the Kenyon Institute for hosting, supporting and funding the event and for all her precious suggestions; the speakers for making the event such a success by accepting my invitation, by generously discussing with me aspects of the organisation and by being so flexible with all my requests; finally, the audience for their welcomed presence and active participation in the discussions, which really made the event a collaborative effort.

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Terracotta Oil Lamps from Qumran and Ein Feshkha (R. de Vaux’s Excavations, 1951-1958): Typology, Chronology and the Question of Manufacturing Centers

jennfitz — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:45:41 +0000

By: Jolanta Mlynarczyk, University of Warsaw, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow

The aim of my research at the Albright was to study an assemblage of ca. 200 oil lamps discovered at Qumran by archaeologists from the Ecole Biblique at the settlement itself and in the caves (1951-1956) as well as at Ein Feshkha (1958). The importance of this cluster of sites for our understanding of the late Second Temple period is indisputable, yet in the past many lamps have not been properly described within their archaeological context. Hence, the first stage of my research was focused on completing a description of the lamps and extracting the relevant contextual information. The second stage involved working out the typology. Conceived as a part of the general typology of the Qumran ceramics, the lamp typology consists of two series, each one dependent on a different technique employed in lamp-making: wheel-throwing and moulding. In the former group, the types have been distinguished on the basis of shape; and in the latter, the criterion of shape is combined with that of decoration.

In terms of general chronology, the assemblage covers over two centuries of lamp development in the region, from the early 1st century BCE until the first half of the 2nd century CE. Whenever possible, I examined the chronology of individual types according to the stratigraphy of the relevant examples; in some fortunate cases, this was supported by accompanying coins. At the same time, comparable lamps from dated contexts have been considered, whether found at the sites around the Dead Sea (Jericho, En-Gedi, Masada, Kallirhoe, Machaerus), in Jerusalem or in more distant parts of Judea /Palestine. Finally, the time range of each lamp type has been correlated with successive phases of Khirbet Qumran occupation.

I also addressed the questions of how many workshops supplied Qumran with lamps and where they were located. A macroscopic examination of the lamps enabled me to distinguish several groups of fabrics and different types of surface treatment suggestive of different workshops. These divisions have been challenged by the results of recent physico-chemical analyses attesting to the use of different clay sources (chemical groups of J. Gunneweg and M. Balla) as well as different types of fabric preparation (petrographic groups of J. Michniewicz). The suggested clay sources would have been in Qumran itself as well as in the vicinity of Jericho, Jerusalem and perhaps Hebron (one should remember, however, that a workshop situated in one place might have had good clay delivered from elsewhere).

The sheer fact that in Qumran the wheel-made lamps greatly outnumber the mould-made ones (174 versus 23) suggests that the latter were not made in the local workshop(s). Indeed, most of them are closely paralleled by the finds from Jerusalem in a series of types covering the Hasmonean and Herodian periods until 70 CE. Wheel-made lamps consist mostly of two major groups, each made up of several minor types. One group (39 items) is the so-called “Qumran lamps,” the distribution of which in the region proves that they were manufactured in Qumran; their contexts point to a Late Hasmonean date. Another group (127 items) is comprised of the “Herodian” (“knife-pared”) lamps, a 1st century CE type common in Judea, but in smaller numbers present also elsewhere in Palestine, probably made for the observant Jewish population. The “Herodian” lamps plus other types represented at Qumran suggest that the Qumran society was conservative, since all the lamp types are Judean, with the exception of just two Italian-type lamp fragments pertaining to the period when the site was garrisoned by the Romans. On the other hand, a number of lamp-making centers tentatively identified among the Qumran lamps (not only local lamps, but also the products of Jericho, Jerusalem and possibly Hebron) prove that the site was not isolated, i.e., it maintained trade and/or personal contacts with the above-mentioned localities.

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Ecclesia Diaboli: The Demonization of the Gentile Religion in Jewish and Christian Thought

jennfitz — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 19:18:45 +0000

By: Aleksander Michalak, Independent Researcher, Poland, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow

My preliminary examination of several Second Temple texts, 1 Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, Joseph and Aseneth, Testament of Job, the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs indicates that there is already at this time a connection between demons and the cult of foreign gods, although they are not always explicitly identified with one another. Sometimes the demonic spirits are said only to lead people astray, that is, to lead people toward Gentile worship and toward idolatry, whereas in other cases it is the demonic spirits who are the objects of worship, or the pagan gods themselves. The inanimate material of the idolatrous objects is frequently juxtaposed with the demonic power that is hidden behind them. The association of the Gentiles with the demonic realm in Jubilees is understood to be the result of the subordination of all foreign nations to the rule of spirits. According to the texts of the Testament of Job and, arguably, the Book of Revelation, it was Satan/the Devil himself who was worshipped in the Gentile temple. In these texts, he is also closely connected with idolatry and is, in fact, responsible for it. In Joseph and Aseneth, however, he is the protector (monarch) of the Gentile (Egyptian) gods. Both the Testament of Job and Joseph and Aseneth indicate that iconoclastic action against the Devil or even his protégées can be followed by his vengeance. In addition, in Jubilees and the 4QPseudo-Daniel the pre-exilic gods of Canaan, to whom Israelites offered child sacrifices, are imagined to be demons. Despite the demonization of the Gentiles, there is no call for the destruction of the pagan temples in the literature, although the passages from Jubilees as well as those from the Testament of Job may reflect, to some extent, an anti-Gentile atmosphere at the time that the work was created. In the texts examined, there are no references to any specific Gentile gods. It seems, rather, that their Jewish authors were inclined to associate them simply and generally with the demonic realm.

Together, these passages from Second Temple texts show that the religion of the Gentiles was perceived to be a religion under demonic (or diabolical) authority. A fuller understanding of the nature of this influence will be the subject of my continuing research.

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Archaeology Weekly Roundup! 4-12-13

jennfitz — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 19:51:41 +0000

A new language dating back to the Scottish Iron Age has been identified on carved stones. These inscriptions are believed to belong to the early Pict society living from ca 300 to 843 AD, in modern-day eastern and northern Scotland.

A giant “monumental” stone structure discovered beneath the waters of the Sea of Galilee in Israel has archaeologists puzzled as to its purpose and even how long ago it was built.

The rise of crowdfunding has taken another step forward as UK-based DigVentures launches the world’s first archaeology crowdfunding platform in response to the dwindling of traditional sources of funding for archaeology.

Archaeologists digging near a spa in southern Israel have uncovered Byzantine-era remains that include a large wine-press and a unique clay lantern decorated with crosses.

The ancient Maya used a vivid, remarkably durable blue paint to cover their palace walls, codices, pottery and maybe even the bodies of human sacrifices who were thrown to their deaths down sacred wells. Now a group of chemists claim to have cracked the recipe of Maya Blue.

A British archaeologist says he and his colleagues have unearthed a huge, rare complex near the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq. Stuart Campbell of Manchester University’s Archaeology Department says it goes back about 4,000 years, and is thought to be an administrative complex.

The remains of a 2,000-year-old ritual bath have come to light in Jerusalem, Israeli archaeologists say. The unusually complex bath would have been in use around the time of the Second Temple.

Nikki Berkebile has been studying the subsistence habits of Puebloans, or Anasazi, who lived on the southern rim of the Grand Canyon in the late 11th century. Traditional ethnographic literature indicates these ancient American Indians were heavily dependent on maize as a food source, but Berkebile isn’t so sure about that.

After being uncovered by Soviet archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi in the last century, the former fortress town of Gonur-Tepe is gradually revealing its mysteries to the world. It might have been a rare advanced civilisation before it was buried for centuries under the dust of the Kara Kum desert in remote western Turkmenistan.

A trove of Neanderthal fossils including bones of children and adults, discovered in a cave in Greece hints the area may have been a key crossroad for ancient humans, researchers say.

A 600-year-old, Ming Dynasty, tomb decorated with rare mural paintings has been unearthed in east China’s Jiangxi Province.

The Gilbert Island reefs in the Central Pacific were once home to two species of sharks not previously reported in historic records or contemporary studies. The species were discovered in a new analysis of weapons made from shark teeth and used by 19th century islanders.

Check out this video and article on the modern state of the ancient city of Babylon, after American occupation and Saddam Hussein.

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Ancient Tsunamis and their Modern Significance

jennfitz — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:13:27 +0000

An aerial view of damage to Ōtsuchi, Japan, a week after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated the area.

By: Beverly Goodman

On March 11, 2011, the word “tsunami” went from being an esoteric term to a household word. The world’s television screens were filled with images of destruction and carnage when massive waves generated by an offshore earthquake devastated large portions of northeastern Japan. Waves reaching as high as 40 meters resulted in more than 19,000 people either killed or missing, almost one million damaged or destroyed buildings, and $230 billion in damages. To make matters worse, the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant was severely damaged, causing a meltdown and explosions that released radioactive contamination into the air and water. According to Forbes, more than 315,000 people remain displaced today.

Just two years after this catastrophe, we are still asking whether any of the devastation could have been prevented. Should houses have been built differently? Should nuclear plants have been sited differently? How safe is it to live near any coast? In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, such questions are even more pressing for Americans living on the east coast. While archaeology cannot answer all of these questions, it can contribute to our understanding of tsunamis. In turn, the geological study of tsunamis helps us understand important archaeological phenomena in the eastern Mediterranean.

The perception that tsunamis—waves generated by geological events such as earthquakes and landslides—are occurring more regularly is not incorrect but it has been magnified through the smart-phone lens. Never before has information been passed so quickly, so widely, and so personally by witnesses to these infrequent events. The news media and video documentation allows us to experience these events like never before. But just as earthquakes existed long before the era of human perception, so too have tsunamis. Our problem is that we only have instrument-derived data on tsunamis for the last 100 years, though we know that tsunamis occurred in antiquity even when modern observations have yet to document evidence of them. In particular, geoarchaeological evidence also suggests that the Eastern Mediterranean region is overdue for this type of natural catastrophe.

Mediterranean coastal archaeological sites provide an invaluable opportunity to supplement the last century of instrument data and allow us to identify regions of tsunami risk. These archaeological data allow us to postulate the timing, magnitude, and impact of tsunami events in the past, and they provide vital information for future predictions. However, locating the remains of a tsunami event in coastal archaeological contexts is difficult and involves major methodological challenges. Since it is not a simple endeavor, archaeological evidence of tsunami events is grossly under-researched.

The same limitations with measured data are found in earthquake studies, and archaeological data have provided important details to define earthquake magnitudes in the past, using both textual and material remains. All geologists are familiar with historical catalogues that summarize all of the known earthquake events in a given geographical area and their textual sources. David Amiran’s famous catalogue of earthquakes in Palestine, published in the Israel Exploration Journal in 1951, and Nicholas Ambraseys’ 2009 book Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East are two important examples. Great effort and attention has been paid to historical texts and passing remarks that included any mention of seismic-like events. Archaeological evidence has been helpful for corroborating these records or determining exactly how ‘completely destroyed’ a site or region really was. Visitors to Beth Shean are quickly impressed by the evidence of the 749 CE earthquake. In turn, these catalogues have been critical for civil engineers and authorities who design modern building codes and disaster plans.

Tsunami records ride the coattails of earthquake catalogues, and until recently have been treated as curious but less-significant events. Recent articles and books summarizing tsunami events in regions including the Mediterranean have helped focus attention on the power of these events to alter human settlement as dramatically as earthquakes or other natural disasters. And as with earthquake catalogues, historical tsunami catalogues must be continually reassessed to determine the nature and extent of any given event. Geoarchaeological data have only begun to make a contribution.

Utilizing historical information about tsunamis, however, depends first on the ability to use geological tools to look at and recognize tsunami deposits for what they are. Sedimentological studyies of tsunamis were significantly expanded in the decade following the major tsunamis that devastated Japan in 2011 and the Indian Ocean in 2004. Following these events, scientists flocked to the impact sites to measure and record the deposits left by the waves and to determine the extent of damage. In the process, expansive sets of sedimentological descriptions became available, far overshadowing all the literature available previously, and this research created a richer database for interpreting tsunami deposits. However, it also complicated matters by exposing the wide range of sometimes contradictory geological signatures left behind. For example, in the case of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, most post-tsunami surveys consisted of trenches oriented perpendicular to a shore. These recorded both sediment sequences that were fining upward (that is, where grain size increases going down in a horizon) and fining downward (where grain size decreases going down in a horizon). In some areas the wave also produced more erosional than depositional remains.

Until recently, sedimentology suggested a relatively limited set of requirements to consider a deposit tsunami-derived. The primary test consisted of a marine deposit, for example sand and shells, located in a non-marine context far beyond the limits of a storm’s influence. The challenge is differentiating such a deposit from an average storm deposit.

Underwater coring in progress. Photo courtesy of Dr. Beverly Goodman.

It is at this point in the investigative process that archaeological sites are especially useful. First, archaeological remains can provide more precise dates than the absolute methods used by geosciences. Second, the condition and location of the marine deposit helps model and characterize the tsunami event. For example, deposits without immediate resettlement allow us to posit a more significant event than those deposits within an area of continuous occupation. When contemporaneous written data are available, archaeological deposits provide complementary or comparative data. In non-literate contexts or where a tsunami is not mentioned within the written record, geoarchaeological data can fill important gaps.

To understand how archaeology can contribute to the issue at hand, it is helpful to look at the evidence from Caesarea. At this site, underwater cores reveal evidence of four tsunami events at ca. 1500 BCE, 100-200 CE, 500-600 CE, and 1100-1200 CE. The first event (ca. 1500 BCE) was produced by the eruption of the Aegean island of Santorini and produced immense deposits as much as 40 centimeters thick. The next event can be dated precisely to December 13, 115 CE, thanks to the Roman historian Cassius Dio and to observations in the Talmud. Cassius Dio noted a tsunami and earthquake destroyed Antioch in December 115, while the Talmud, in Baba Metzia, noted that a tsunami resulted in the destruction of Caesarea’s Herodian harbor and reached as far south as Yavne. Although there was a tsunami in 502 CE, multiple texts speak to the devastation wrought across the Eastern Mediterranean by the event of July 9, 551 CE. Other texts attest to seismic activity in Greece and Anatolia during that year. John of Ephesus wrote of the sea receding at Beirut and the crowds who rushed to gather fish and treasure only to be engulfed by the wave itself. Modern crowds familiar with video of tsunamis are unlikely to be fooled the same way and would hopefully run to higher ground.

To the modern tsunami specialist, ancient deposits, for all their usefulness, are still rare. But it may be that tsunami deposits in the archaeological record have actually been grossly underestimated. A wide range of factors work against the preservation of such deposits, even in the short term, and we still have limited abilities to recognize the deposits.

It has been nearly a decade since the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, and researchers are returning to re-measure and record many of the same tsunami related features examined soon after the event. Just seven or eight years later, these deposits are now only rarely visible to the naked eye. One study found that over 70% of the deposits recorded in 2005 were virtually non-existent in 2011. Presumably, older tsunami deposits, which have also been subject to human modification such as rebuilding, are even less likely to be preserved and identified. The deposits that do remain and are recognized are thus especially important.

In coastal archaeological deposits the issue of preservation is compounded in cases of continued rebuilding. Just as the coast of Thailand has not become a vacant ghost town filled with memorials to the deceased, ancient coastal sites were not necessarily abandoned and left for paleo-tsunami scientists and archaeologists to investigate. People return, rebuild, rearrange, and remove the remains of the tsunami events and carry on with their lives. All the Mediterranean must be described this way. And even in areas where tsunami deposits are likely to be preserved, differentiating a typical coastal fill horizon made up of shell, ceramic, and sand from one containing the same materials but caused by a tsunami is well beyond typical excavation parameters. New methods are necessary.

Many proxies for recognizing tsunami deposits are proving useful. These include marine micropaleontological indicators, unique distributions of fine grain size fractions, mineralogical signatures, and the distribution of optically stimulated luminescence signals. In addition, work in underwater archaeological excavations as well as offshore coring have revealed a nearly untapped area for discovery of less-disturbed, better preserved tsunami horizons.

Underwater core being examined. Photo courtesy of Dr. Beverly Goodman.

All of these finds provide a rare window into understanding the minimum impacts of past events and producing better tsunami records as a means to estimate future risk. Three hundred thousand people were killed by the tsunami that struck Southeast Asia in 2004. Tens of millions of people live around the Mediterranean and the number of people at risk from tsunamis there is vast. Tsunami studies offer important opportunities for pioneering new geoarchaeological methods and for using scientific and textual data in creative ways. Putting these insights to use to mitigate the risks of the inevitable tsunami, through early warning systems, guidelines for construction and infrastructure, and disaster response, is a challenge facing governments and scientists regardless of nationality.

Beverly Goodman is Assistant Professor in the Leon Charney School of Marine Sciences at the University of Haifa. Her specialty is Marine Geoarchaeology and coastal environments. She has participated and directed fieldwork in Israel, Turkey, Yemen, and Mexico.

Archaeology and Cultural Heritage in Egypt after Mubarak

jennfitz — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:15:14 +0000

By: Greg Williams

Egypt’s January 25^th revolution was originally seen as part of the larger “Arab Spring” across the Middle East where old political regimes were overthrown by popular protests and replaced by representative democracies. But on January 28^th2011, as chaos reigned in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, reports began circulating around the globe claiming that antiquities on display in the Egyptian Museum had been stolen. Zahi Hawass, the famous face of Egyptian archaeology, Mubarak regime insider, and then head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), was immediately embroiled in the situation. Many outside of Egypt believed that the political volatility and economic crisis engulfing the capital and the rest of the country had claimed some of the most precious artifacts of Egypt’s over 5,000 year history which would be lost forever. Egyptians of all social classes converged on the museum to protect it, sparking hopes that a new era in the relationship between Egyptians and their past had begun.

The damage to the museum was less than originally feared but Egypt and Egyptian archaeology have been forever changed. Some changes have been obvious. President Hosni Mubarak was toppled and replaced in 2012 by Mohammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Mubarak’s trial on charges that he ordered the killing of unarmed protestors resulted in a death penalty which is now being appealed. Though seen as part of a larger Islamist takeover, in May 2012 the country still witnessed what may have been the fairest presidential elections in its history. Hawass is long gone from his post as well, along with a number of other SCA personnel. Long accused of corruption and negligence, protests at major tourist sites all over the country forced a re-shuffling of the council but left these sites sadly exposed to theft and destruction. Now, with the economy once again in a tailspin and frustration mounting on the street, a new constitution hopes to get Egypt back on track. But despite all these changes, repeatedly highlighted in European and American media as fundamental regional shifts, much with regard to archaeology and heritage has stayed the same.

Archaeology and Egypt’s cultural heritage in general were affected by the events of the January 25^th revolution, from Egyptologists who had devoted their academic careers and lives to Egypt, to employees of all levels of the SCA, to foreign tourists simply interested in visiting the Pyramids at Giza. After almost two years the country’s tourism industry is still stalling. The economy is again going off the deep end, and how exactly cultural heritage, not just Egypt’s ancient past but also its rich Coptic and Islamic history and sites, will be dealt with politically is still very much up in the air. Recently, President Morsi has advocated a return to fostering tourism and welcoming foreign visitors in an attempt to revive the faltering Egyptian economy. The Salafist Nour party has similarly insisted that anything that may jeopardize this vital part of Egypt’s economy should be prohibited. In fact, the tourism industry in Egypt is far from dead. According to Ahram Online, the country brought in a record $12.5 billion from tourism in 2010 and in 2012 Egypt still made about $9.4 billion, up from 2011’s numbers. Anyone who has spent less than $1 on a handful of sandwiches from a street vendor near an archaeological site knows several billion can go a long way in Egypt. Much of the SCA’s financial problems are related to major museum projects that are designed to bring in a new wave of foreign tourists.

In terms of excavations, the January 25^th revolution and re-organization of Egyptian antiquities departments cost archaeologists precious time in the field, not to mention the wide-ranging problems of looting and destruction of sites. But permits began to be issued again by the fall of 2011, and 2012 has seen a great number of excavations take place all over the country. Despite occasional demonstrations and general political unrest, foreign archaeological institutes in Cairo continue to support projects and host lectures, seminars, and talks for the public. Still, the issues that archaeology and cultural heritage in Egypt face now are perhaps more severe than getting tourism back up to 2010 numbers or the investment and involvement of outside projects.

Traditionally, antiquities and cultural heritage sites have been treated differently in terms of legislation. High fines and harsh punishments targeted those dealing in illegal trading and looting of artifacts. Some see the political changes in the last two years as evidence of a break-down in the system, where lack of security has led to a loss of important finds or illegal digging operations. There has been widespread looting at sites like El-Hibeh, Luxor and even Giza, and a number of museums and storehouses have been ransacked. But others argue that the deteriorating security situation exposed the great concern of most Egyptians regarding their own heritage. Regardless of the legislation in place and despite the political and economic instability, many sites and precious artifacts were protected surprisingly well because of everyday, conscientious Egyptians.

The other side of Egyptian cultural heritage legislation traditionally deals with sites, and in many cases these, whether archaeological zones or specific monuments, have been left to fall apart. In the summer of 2012 Roland-Pierre Gayraud, the long-time director of IFAO excavations in Istabl ‘Antar, south of central Cairo, expressed his discontent with the handling of his site by officials and lamented the potential situation of losing this site to urban development and negligence. Built by Yemeni tribes and occupied from the 7^th through the 12 centuries, Istabl ‘Antar is part of the larger archaeological zone of Fustat, one of the most important sites in Egypt and in Islamic history in general. Much of Istabl ‘Antar was bulldozed and subdivided for building, apparently by neighbors, before the government intervened.

Close to a quarter of Egypt’s population lives in Cairo. If the monuments within the city cannot be protected, nothing will be. Even monuments from Egypt’s recent history from the 1930’s to 1960’s have been torn down. For example, important heritage sites in the major cities of Port Said and Alexandria have recently been destroyed. Many more are threatened.

In recent years, projects under the Aga Khan Trust for Culture have constructed Al-Azhar Park, providing much needed green space in Cairo, and have worked with local communities to restore historic monuments while attempting to revitalize the local neighborhood. It is by no means an easy process, but many more foreign projects need to work towards creating a local appreciation for cultural heritage, whether the monuments are ancient Egyptian, Coptic, Islamic, or 20^th century buildings. The local interest is there and the wealth of sites and cultural heritage is obvious. But the legislation, whether under the Mubarak regime, or now under the new leadership, has not supported this type of approach, and there have been few incentives for officials to enforce vague laws. Big museums might bring more tourists and the Egyptian economy could certainly use the money, but museums out in Giza or down in Luxor, don’t help restore the funerary complexes in Darb al-Ahmar, don’t maintain the neglected 20^th century architecture that gave Cairo the nickname “Paris on the Nile,” and don’t provide sustainable solutions for impoverished communities or develop local businesses.

President Morsi’s new constitution was recently approved in a poorly overseen referendum accused of being rife with corruption and manipulation of ballot results. Unfortunately, the constitution does not present any creative or new ways to deal with a site like Fustat, historic monuments in Cairo, or the rich past present all over the country. Two articles (11 and 46) vaguely address the ideas of cultural heritage and promoting awareness, not unlike previous legislation that was designed to deal specifically with heritage monuments and archaeological sites. The constitution also creates a Supreme Council for Heritage Conservation, to come into effect immediately. But what kind of power this new organization will actually have to make meaningful changes is not specified.

For all the changes and fears of parliaments and governments dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, their policies have yet to improve the traditionally poor care of cultural heritage in Egypt. If trash collection and traffic in Cairo is any indication, their policies have not really changed things. For those who fear the destruction of ancient Egyptian statues by radical Islamist groups bent on erasing a “pagan” past or insist only foreign tourists in Egypt will save the economy, they are missing the point. The government of Egypt needs to foster and support local initiatives that aim to promote Egyptian history and heritage of all periods for Egyptians and the outside world alike. But it seems with so much “change” simply comes more of the same.

Greg Williams is a graduate student in the Arab and Islamic Civilizations Department at the American University in Cairo focusing on Islamic Art and Architecture.

ASOR and Archaeological Ethics

jennfitz — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 14:10:28 +0000

By: Lynn Swartz Dodd

“There is a tendency at every important but difficult crossroad to pretend that it’s not really there.”
–Bill McKibben

What should American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) members do if new Dead Sea Scrolls are found? What if our country’s military actions increase uncontrolled looting of ancient sites? Or if war creates a situation where people and ancient things exist under occupation? How should we deal with the remains of human beings we encounter in burials? How should ASOR members and others support international laws dealing with antiquities?

These are the questions that are driving the development of a new, comprehensive ethics policy for ASOR. This moment has arrived as a result of a decades-long process. ASOR is an organization with an impressive history and a promising future, founded in response to the shared interests, vision, and ideals of professional archaeologists, historians, epigraphers, and others.

ASOR President Tim Harrison initiated an evaluation of the state of ASOR’s ethics policies early in his term. He convened a small task force to help the Board develop a single, comprehensive ethics policy to replace ASOR’s piecemeal and sometimes competing ethics policies.

Our task force reviewed the past and existing policies and found that, over the years, concerned members and editors had addressed specific problems and sometimes created policies. These now provide ASOR members with a guide for their professional conduct in domains as diverse as (1) Board members avoiding conflicts of interest, (2) plagiarism in publication and access to data, (3) first presentation of artifacts without context at the annual meeting, and (4) affiliation standards for research projects.

Do these topics sound boring or benign? Let me rewrite the same list in a different way: (1) cronyism and filling my pockets at the expense of ASOR’s dues paying members; (2) stealing someone else’s data or ideas and passing them off as my own; (3) clouding my data set with possible fakes; being the first to authenticate an object, so that buyers, sellers and looters, or I profit; (4) undermining public support for archaeology because governments and the public can’t tell me apart from a looter or a loon.

Do I want to be a member of group that has policies for or against these outcomes? If ASOR does not develop policies AGAINST them, then ASOR has a policy that ALLOWS them. As ASOR members, unless we clearly state what our values are, we wonder and argue about what they should be instead of being free to attend to the work of discovery by recovering and interpreting the remains of our shared past.

Much has been done already but there is still more to do. ASOR needs to take an important step and develop a single, comprehensive ethics policy. We need to fill in several big holes and we need to revise existing policies so that everyone in ASOR is working from the same foundation and so that policies across ASOR aren’t conflicting.

Why does this matter? Why do ethics matter? I can tell you why they matter to me.

In business, I prefer to invest money in companies with a track record of delivering value (not only short-term profits) for their customers based on a published declaration of ethical conduct. I feel that such companies have the interests of their employees and customers in mind as they seek profits. Over the long term, such companies better avoid regulatory entanglements and benefit from greater customer loyalty and trust, and both affect the bottom line. Customers buy-in to such organizations.

I prefer to fund organizations and to write in support of laws that support democratic and humane ideals of governance. Why? Because two democracies are less likely to go to war (strange but true) and because, if enough of us contribute to improving people’s lives instead of continuing the status quo or even supporting conditions that cause misery, eventually things change.

In my professional life, I prefer to work with scholars who tell the truth about the limits of their data and who think that ethical conduct matters…for them as well as the other person. I prefer to work with studies written by scholars who include only materials that come from established contexts because I feel secure in the dataset being truly ancient (unclouded by possible later copies or by deliberate fakes).

I prefer to pay dues to an organization that demands high standards of its leaders so that it achieves its mission without wasting my dues for frivolous uses or personal gain. I prefer to invest in a professional organization that publishes the best available research and that has guidelines to ensure that authors are reputable scholars with reliable research, clean data sets, and fresh ideas.

What about you? Do you care whether ASOR members produce and publish narratives about the past that you can trust in our journals? Do you care whether ancient objects are ignored and left to languish in storerooms because they come from a looted site? Do you care whether people rip apart ancient contexts and bodies to gather oil lamps for sale in tourist shops? Do you care whether our country’s laws are broken in the pursuit of knowledge?

These are the kinds of questions that we in ASOR should ask ourselves because these things are happening today. We stand at a crossroads. Decisions on what we value will determine ASOR’s future direction and impact.

ASOR’s sister organizations and others are asking themselves these questions, including the Archaeological Institute of America, the Society for American Archaeology, the World Archaeological Congress, the American Institute of Conservation, and the Association of American Museums. Our fellow publications, such as Archaeology Magazine, Biblical Archaeology Review and National Geographic are also public vehicles for their organizational values.

If you do care, if you have an opinion, you are welcome to express it here on the ASOR Blog. Please contribute your thoughtful statements on ASOR’s blog or in the comments area of this ANE Today. If you attend the Annual Meeting in Baltimore in November 2013, you are invited to a “speed ethics” session in which more than a dozen of ASOR’s best and brightest will present their ideas for the future of ASOR’s ethics policy in five minute papers.

But not only that, much of the session is devoted to an open, moderated conversation in which YOU are invited to express your opinion about any aspect of ASOR’s ethics policy, whether in approval or dissent. The title of this session is “The Values of ASOR: Developing a Comprehensive Ethics Policy.”

This policy is not written yet. You can contribute to the process and contribute to the changes you want to see in ASOR.

Lynn Swartz Dodd is Lecturer and Curator of the University of Southern California Archaeology Research Center. She is also ASOR Secretary and a member of the Executive Committee.