2020 VIRTUAL SESSIONS AND WORKSHOPS
ASOR Standing Sessions
- Ancient Inscriptions
- Approaches to Dress and the Body
- Archaeology and Biblical Studies
- Archaeology of Anatolia
- Archaeology of Arabia
- Archaeology of the Black Sea and the Caucasus
- Archaeology of the Byzantine Near East
- Archaeology of Cyprus
- Archaeology of Egypt
- Archaeology of Israel
- Archaeology of Jordan
- The Archaeology of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq
- Archaeology of Lebanon
- Archaeology of Mesopotamia
- Archaeology of the Near East: Bronze and Iron Ages
- Archaeology of the Near East: The Classical Periods
- Archaeology of the Southern Levant
- Archaeology of Syria
- Art Historical Approaches to the Near East
- Bioarchaeology in the Near East
- Career Options for ASOR Members: The Academy and Beyond
- Cultural Heritage: Preservation, Presentation, and Management
- Digital Archaeology and History
- Environmental Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
- Gender in the Ancient Near East
- History of Archaeology
- Interdisciplinary Approaches to Seals, Sealing Practices, and Administration
- Isotopic Investigations in the Ancient Near East and Caucasus
- Landscapes of Settlement in the Ancient Near East
- Maritime Archaeology
- Prehistoric Archaeology
- Reports on Current Excavations—ASOR Affiliated
- Reports on Current Excavations—Non-ASOR Affiliated
- Technology in Archaeology: Recent Work in the Archaeological Sciences
- Theoretical and Anthropological Approaches to the Near East
Member-Organized Sessions and Workshops for the 2020 Annual Meeting
- Addressing the Challenges of Creative Pedagogies in Ancient Studies (Workshop)
- Archaeology and Climate Change: New Challenges to Fieldwork in the Middle East (Workshop)
- Archaeology as a Tool for Enhancing Participant Welfare, Social Cohesion, and Education
- Archaeology of Petra and Nabataea
- Archaeology of the Near East and Video Games
- Authoritarianism
- Best Practices for Digital Scholarship (Workshop)
- Biblical Texts in Cultural Context
- Complexity Without Monumentality: Rethinking Nomads of the Biblical Period
- Contemporary Identities and Self-Reflective Approaches in the Study of the Ancient Near East
- Cultural Heritage and Archaeology of Palmyra (Workshop)
- Current Directions in Coroplastic Studies
- Cypriot Connectivity in the Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Classical Period: Assessing Cypriot Material and Textual Evidence from Non-Cypriot Contexts
- Ethics and Responsibility During and After Conflict
- Ethics in Archaeological Practice (Workshop)
- Fifty Years at Tell el-Hesi
- From Assyria to Iberia and Back: Current Archaeological Work in the Expanded “Near Eastern” Mediterranean
- Geoarchaeological Research in Near Eastern Archaeology (Workshop)
- Grand Challenges for Digital Research in Archaeology and Philology (Workshop)
- Interdisciplinary Approaches to Collapse, Resilience, and Resistance in the Ancient Near East
- Navigating the “In Between”: Identifying a Career Trajectory in Academia for the Early Career Scholar (Workshop)
- New Directions in the Historical Geography of the Ancient Near East
- Online Photo Archives as Tools for Archaeological Heritage Preservation and Engagement (Workshop)
- Preserving the Cultural Heritage of the Madaba Region of Jordan (Workshop)
- Protecting Libyan Cultural Heritage
- Scribal Hands and Habits in Cuneiform Texts
- The Secret Lives of Objects: Counter Histories and Narratives
- The Southern Phoenicia Initiative (Workshop)
- State and Territory in the Ancient Near East: Mapping Relationships and Challenging Paradigms
- Tiny Talks on (Tiny) Things: Networks Encapsulated in Minute Objects (Workshop)
- Urban Sustainability: How and Why Cities Live or Die
Descriptions of Sessions & Workshops
ASOR-Sponsored Sessions
Session Chairs: Jessie DeGrado, Brandeis University; Madadh Richey, University of Chicago
Description: This year’s session will focus on questions related to writing, power, and agency. Recent studies on concepts such as cosmopolitanism (e.g., Lavan, Payne, and Weisweiler 2016) and heterarchy (e.g., Svärd 2012, 2015) have complicated assumptions about the strictly hierarchical nature of societies in ancient Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Levant.
We welcome submissions that explore the complicated and contingent nature of agency as evinced through the textual record. Areas of interest include the practice of object dedication, epistolary customs and diplomatics, and the economic and political role of women. We will also hold an open session and invite submissions on any topic related to written artifacts in the ancient Middle East and Mediterranean.
Approaches to Dress and the Body
Session Chairs: Neville McFerrin, Ohio University; Josephine Verduci, University of Melbourne
Description: Traces of practices relating to dress and the body are present in many ways in the archaeological, textual, and visual records of the ancient world, from the physical remains of dressed bodies, to images depicting them, to texts describing such aspects as textile production and sumptuary customs. Previous scholarship has provided useful typological frameworks but has often viewed these objects as static trappings of status and gender. The goal of this session is to lluminate the dynamic role of dress and the body in the performance and construction of aspects of individual and social identity, and to encourage collaborative dialogue within the study of dress and the body in antiquity.
Archaeology and Biblical Studies
Session Chair: Jonathan Rosenbaum, Gratz College
Description: This session is meant to explore the intersections between History, Archaeology, and the Judeo-Christian Bible and related texts.
Session Chair: James Osborne, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago
Description: This session is concerned with current fieldwork in Anatolia, as well as the issue of connectivity in Anatolia. What, for example, were the interconnections between Anatolia and surrounding regions such as Cyprus, Transcaucasia, Mesopotamia, and Europe?
Archaeology of Arabia
Session Chairs: Charlotte Marie Cable, Michigan State University
Description: This session seeks contributions covering a wide spatio-temporal swath from the Paleolithic to the present centered on the Arabian Peninsula but including neighboring areas such as the Horn of Africa, East Africa, and South Asia. Contributions might be tied to the region thematically (e.g. pastoral nomadism, domesticates, or agricultural strategies), methodologically (e.g. Landscape archaeology, or satellite imagery technologies) or through ancient contacts such as trade along the Red Sea, Persian/Arabian Gulf or Indian Ocean.
Archaeology of the Black Sea and the Caucasus
Session Chair: Lara Fabian, Albert-Ludwigs-Universitaet Freiburg
Description: This session is open to papers that concern the archaeology of the Black Sea and Eurasia.
Archaeology of the Byzantine Near East
Session Chair: Alexandra Ratzlaff, Brandeis University
Description: This session is open to papers that concern the Near East in the Byzantine period.
Session Chair: Nancy Serwint, Arizona State University
Description: This session focuses on current archaeological research in Cyprus from prehistory to the modern period. Topics may include reports on archaeological fieldwork and survey, artifactual studies, as well as more focused methodological or theoretical discussions. Papers that address current debates and issues are especially welcome.
Session Chairs: Krystal Pierce, Brigham Young University
Description: This session is open to research on all areas related to the archaeology of Egypt, including current and past fieldwork, material culture, textual sources, religious or social aspects, international relations, art, and history.
Session Chair: Boaz Gross, Israeli Institute of Archaeology and Tel Aviv University
Description: The focus of this session is on current archaeological fieldwork in Israel.
Session Chairs: Marta D’Andrea, Sapienza Università di Roma; Barbara Reeves, Queen’s University
Description: This session is open to any research from any period relating to the archaeology of Jordan. The session is open to papers on recent fieldwork, synthetic analyses of multiple field seasons, as well as any area of current archaeological research focused on Jordan.
The Archaeology of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq
Session Chairs: Jason Ur, Harvard University
Description: This session highlights research on all aspects of history and archaeology focused on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and adjacent areas.
Session Chair: Hanan Mullins, ASOR
Description: The focus of this session is on current archaeological fieldwork in Lebanon.
Session Chair: Darren Ashby, Penn Museum
Description: This session seeks submissions in all areas illuminated by archaeology that relate to the material, social, and religious culture, history and international relations, and texts of ancient Mesopotamia.
Archaeology of the Near East: Bronze and Iron Ages
Session Chair: Eric Welch, University of Kentucky
Description: This session is open to papers that concern the Near East in the Bronze and Iron Ages.
Archaeology of the Near East: The Classical Periods
Session Chair: Michael Zimmerman, Bridgewater State University
Description: This session is open to papers that concern the Near East in the Classical periods.
Archaeology of the Southern Levant
Session Chair: Owen Chesnut, North Central Michigan College; Josh Walton, Capital University
Description: The focus of this session is on current archaeological fieldwork in the southern Levant.
Session Chair: Clemens Reichel, University of Toronto; Caroline Sauvage, Loyola Marymount University
Description: This session is concerned with all areas of Syria that are illuminated by archaeology.
These include a discussion of recent archaeological excavations, history, religion, society, and texts.
Art Historical Approaches to the Near East
Session Chair: Stephanie Langin-Hooper, Southern Methodist University
Description: This session welcomes submissions that present innovative analyses of any facet of Near Eastern artistic production or visual culture.
Bioarchaeology in the Near East
Session Chair: Sherry C. Fox, Arizona State University
Description: This session welcomes papers that present bioarchaeological research conducted in the Near East. Papers that pose new questions and/or explore new methods are encouraged.
Career Options for ASOR Members: The Academy and Beyond
Session Chair: Emily Miller Bonney, California State University, Fullerton
Description: Applicants for tenure-track positions at universities and colleges confront diminished demand for faculty. Increasingly, junior scholars are forced to look for adjunct or temporary appointments and face the possibility of no appointment at all. This session aims to provide insights into alternative careers for both the next generation of ASOR scholars and those interested in a career change. Each year one or two panels of four to six scholars who developed careers outside the academy will discuss their careers, answering fundamental questions in 15- to 20-minute presentations. How did they discover the job opportunities that became a meaningful career? Did they begin in the academy and leverage that experience to gain access to a different career or were they able to move from graduate school into this work? How important, if at all, was a post-doc in the choices they had? How long did it take to get into the position where they have spent most of their professional lives? What additional training did they need? Have they been able to continue their research and/or excavation projects: that is, what was the overall impact of the career choice on their scholarship? Sessions will include time for questions and discussion.
Cultural Heritage: Preservation, Presentation, and Management
Session Chairs: Glenn Corbett, Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC); Suzanne Davis, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan
Description: This session explores theory and practice in the areas of archaeological site and collections conservation, presentation, education, and management. Discussion of community-engaged projects is especially welcome.
Digital Archaeology and History
Session Chair: Tiffany Earley-Spadoni, University of Central Florida
Description: This session will present papers that describe significant advances in or interesting applications of the digital humanities. Topics may include public digital initiatives, 3D scanning and modelling, spatial analysis (GIS and remote sensing), social network analysis, textual analysis, textual geographies, digital storytelling, data management etc. In addition to methodological topics, the session also welcomes papers that focus on broader debates in the digital humanities.
Environmental Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
Note: When submitting an abstract online for this session, select the session titled “Archaeology of the Natural Environment: Archaeobotany and Zooarchaeology in the Near East”
Session Chairs: Melissa Rosenzweig, Miami University; Madelynn von Baeyer, University of Connecticut
Description: This session accepts papers that examine past human resource (flora and fauna) uses and human/environment interactions in the ancient Near East.
Gender in the Ancient Near East
Session Chair: Stephanie Lynn Budin, Near Eastern Archaeology
Description: This session pertains to on-going archaeological, art historical, and/or anthropological work and research into the construction and expression of gender in antiquity, ancient women/womanhood, masculinities (hegemonic and otherwise), Queer Theory, and the engendering of ancient objects and spaces.
Session Chair: Kevin McGeough, University of Lethbridge
Description: Papers in this session examine the history of the disciplines of biblical archaeology and Near Eastern archaeology.
Interdisciplinary Approaches to Seals, Sealing Practices, and Administration
Session Chairs: Sarah Scott, Wagner College; Oya Topçuoğlu, Northwestern University
Description: This session invites submissions touching on any aspect of glyptic studies. Papers may approach seals and sealings as object, text, and/or image, and rely on multiple strands of evidence. Applied methodologies from a variety of disciplines are encouraged. While seals and sealings form the core subject of investigation for this session, papers that rely on a wide range of comparative objects are welcome. Glyptic-related topics covering the full geographical and chronological horizon of the ancient Near East are considered
Isotopic Investigations in the Ancient Near East and Caucasus
Session Chairs: G. Bike Yazıcıoğlu-Santamaria, University of Chicago; Maureen E. Marshall, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Description: Biogeochemical research on the human condition in the ancient past is a rapidly growing field. Isotopic investigations targeting questions about climate change, human mobility, animal trade, herding strategies, crop management, diet and subsistence, and infant-feeding practices in the broader ancient Near East have increased in number over the past decade. However, biogeochemical techniques and understandings continue to develop and be re-evaluated, necessitating venues for scholarly exchange, comparison, and discussion. The objective of this session is to encourage a dialogue among researchers conducting and using biogeochemical techniques in the region, integrating analytical methods with social and historical questions. In consecutive years the session will incorporate the results of most recent and ongoing research in the region with methodological advances in techniques and approaches, in tandem with the developing agenda of the “Archaeological Isotopes Working Group” Business Meetings.
Landscapes of Settlement in the Ancient Near East
Session Chairs: Jesse Casana, Dartmouth College; Emily Hammer, University of Pennsylvania
Description: This session brings together scholars investigating regional-scale problems of settlement history and archaeological landscapes across the ancient Near East. Research presented in the session is linked methodologically through the use of regional survey, remote sensing, and environmental studies to document ancient settlements, communication routes, field systems and other evidence of human activity that is inscribed in the landscape. Session participants are especially encouraged to offer analyses of these regional archaeological data that explore political, economic, and cultural aspects of ancient settlement systems as well as their dynamic interaction with the natural environment.
Session Chair: Caroline Sauvage, Loyola Marymount University
Description: This session welcomes papers that concern marine archaeology in terms of methods, practices, and case studies in areas throughout the Near East.
Session Chair: Yorke Rowan, University of Chicago
Description: This session is open to papers that concern the prehistoric Near East, particularly in the Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Chalcolithic.
Reports on Current Excavations—ASOR Affiliated
Session Chair: Jack Green, ACOR
Description: This session is for projects with ASOR/CAP affiliation.
Reports on Current Excavations—Non-ASOR Affiliated
Session Chair: Daniel Schindler, Texas Tech University
Description: This session is for projects without ASOR/CAP affiliation.
Technology in Archaeology: Recent Work in the Archaeological Sciences
Session Chair: Bradly Erickson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Description: This session welcomes papers that examine the issue of technology in archaeology.
Theoretical and Anthropological Approaches to the Near East
Session Chair: Tobin Hartnell, American University of Iraq, Sulaimani; Darrell J. Rohl, Calvin University
Description: This session welcomes papers that deal explicitly with theoretical and anthropological approaches to ancient Near Eastern and eastern Mediterranean art and archaeology.
Member-Organized Sessions
Addressing the Challenges of Creative Pedagogies in Ancient Studies (Workshop)
Session Chairs: Nadia Ben-Marzouk, University of California, Los Angeles; Jacob Damm, University of California, Los Angeles; Thomas Landvatter, Reed College
Description: This year, the Creative Pedagogies workshop seeks to generate discussion around the following challenges faced by ancient studies educators: creative language pedagogy, rethinking the survey, and working with material culture. These challenges can manifest as follows. First, many in our field are often called on to teach languages without any training in language pedagogy, either ancient or modern. Second, the traditional survey has grown more complex, either due to new institutional requirements or the simple fact that for many in our field, lower-division surveys provide the only opportunity to engage students. Last, in the absence of major collections, many of us grapple with finding innovative ways to teach material culture aside from images and site plans. This workshop welcomes individuals to present ten-minute papers on ways to address one of these challenges. Introductory papers will be followed by a 30-minute period of both small workgroups and discussion. For the workgroup portions, participants will be tasked with developing learning objectives, in-class activities, and assessments for hypothetical courses, which will in turn be recorded and distributed. Consequently, this workshop will foster discussion about pedagogical problems as well as generate concrete takeaways participants can utilize in their own classrooms.
Archaeology and Climate Change: New Challenges to Fieldwork in the Middle East (Workshop)
Session Chairs: Ömür Harmanşah, University of Illinois at Chicago
Description: This workshop emerges from the urgency to address the methodological and political challenges to the archaeology of the Middle East posed by the ongoing debates on climate change, the Anthropocene, and the global ecological crisis. The global crisis for world ecologies and communities has come to the forefront of public debates in the last few years, due to the increasing uncertainty and precarity of the planet’s future. Likewise, scholars in the humanities and social sciences have pointed out the need to rethink the way we write history at this critical moment and reconsider particular research agendas, given the need to reconsider established historical notions such as the prehistory/history divide, the need to rethink temporal scales and incorporate deep time and geological time, the increased importance of collaborating with local communities, and so on. The Middle East today is an embattled region torn by wars, forced migration, heritage violence, and uncontrolled development, all of which are arguably linked to the broader ecological crisis. What does archaeological fieldwork look like in these “interesting times” and how are archaeologists addressing and adopting to work in the field in the age of the Anthropocene? What would be the contribution of archaeologists to debates on climate change?
Archaeology as a Tool for Enhancing Participant Welfare, Social Cohesion, and Education
Session Chairs: Rona Shani Evyasaf, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology; Dr. Stephen Humphreys, American Veterans Archaeological Recovery
Description: An increasing body of peer-reviewed research demonstrates that participation in archaeological fieldwork, labwork, and conservation offers physical, psychological, and social benefits. These benefits are becoming more widely acknowledged in the archaeological community, due in part to their inherent media-friendliness and tendency to attract non-standard sources of funding. As a result, more projects have begun to incorporate varying methods to enhance these benefits without compromising the quality of scientific research. Participant-oriented archaeology is now being used to aid military veterans struggling with PTSD and provide an outlet for children with autism, as well as to promote civic renewal, build communities and educational projects, and bridge social divisions. As more data have accumulated to prove the viability of participant-oriented projects there is now an urgent need for the dissemination of this data and the codification of best practices across this emerging field. We welcome proposals depicting innovative projects that use archaeological fieldwork, archival work, or other forms of engagement with the material record to benefit participants and/or promote social benefit, as well as proposals that articulate the methods by which archaeology can contribute to the public good.
Archaeology of Petra and Nabataea
Session Chairs: Cynthia Finlayson, Department of Anthropology, Brigham Young University; David F. Graf, Department of Religious Studies, University of Miami (Florida)
Description: This purpose of this session is to include projects not only at Petra, but also from throughout the vast Nabataean kingdom and beyond where ever Nabataeans were active (the Mediterranean, Yemen, and Mesopotamia). The capital city of the Nabataeans has been the focus of numerous recent international archaeological projects, including many ASOR projects: the Great Temple, the Temple of the Winged Lions, and the Byzantine Church in the past, and currently the North Ridge, the Hellenistic Petra Project, the Garden Pool and Terrace, and the Ed-Deir complex. The art and architecture of Petra continues to be the subject for art historians. The immediate environs of Petra (Wadi Musa, Baydh, Ba’aja, and Humayma) have also seen renewed interest. In addition, there are recent projects in the Nabataean regions of Saudi Arabia (French, Italian, Polish), Syria (French), the Negev (Israeli), and the Sinai and Egypt (French, American). New Nabataean inscriptions also continue to emerge that illuminate Nabataean culture. We believe the session(s) will attract a host of scholars within ASOR and beyond. Additionally, by separating an independent session on the Nabataeans away from the already existing Jordan Sessions, more scholars will be able to present in all venues.
Archaeology of the Near East and Video Games
Session Chairs: Tine Rassalle, University of North-Carolina at Chapel Hill
Description: For centuries, the written word has been the preferred medium for transferring archaeological academic knowledge to the broader public. With the advent of modern communication technology like radio, TV, and the internet the possibilities to interact with the audience were broadened. Video games have since the 1980’s been a part of this new wave of telecommunication, but they remain underrepresented as a field of study in academic scholarship. In this session, we aim to correct this by offering a multidisciplinary discussion of theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of archaeology and video gaming. Archaeogaming, as it is often called, is a systematizing framework that includes the use of archaeological methods within game worlds, the creation of video games for, or about, archaeological practices, or the critical study of how archaeology is represented in video-games. Themes can include using archaeological tools and methods to conduct archaeological investigations into synthetic worlds, exploring heritage through play, and the use and ethics of virtual reality in digital spaces. In this session, we aim to present a diverse array of topics that sit on the intersection of the archaeology of the Near East and video games, opening up debate on themultifunctionality of this medium for research, education and heritage management.
Session Chairs: Kara Cooney, University of California, Los Angeles; Jonathan Winnerman, University of California, Los Angeles
Description: With authoritarianism on the rise in the contemporary world, it is surprising that more attention has not been explicitly devoted to this topic by scholars of the ancient Near East. Kingship remains an area of interest, but it and related subjects are rarely framed in terms of authoritarianism or despotic power. The purpose of this panel is to investigate the construction and maintenance of absolute power in ancient regimes. How is authoritarianism, the ability to transgress normal limits on power, conceived through religious, natural, political, or legal means? When does it succeed and when does it fail? How can it be detected in the historical or archaeological record? What is the relationship between power and propaganda and can these two effectively be separated and deconstructed? In order to answer such questions, this panel first seeks to bring together a diverse group of Egyptologists, as Egypt is often viewed as the ancient culture where authoritarianism was practiced to its most extreme degree. This perspective will then be complemented by scholars specializing in different cultures of the ancient Near East in order to achieve a more general and perhaps more broadly applicable consensus.
Best Practices for Digital Scholarship (Workshop)
Session Chairs: Sarah Kansa, Alexandria Archive Institute; Charles E. Jones, The Pennsylvania State University
Description: We expect to offer perspectives on a variety of topics such as open access publication, data collection, data publication, Creative Commons/copyright, data access, sustainability, self-archiving, negotiating author agreements, and the like.
First year topic: Networking and Publishing: Navigating social media, conventional and digital dissemination services
Second year topic (2020): Best practices in different sub-disciplines (ceramics, lithics, zooarch, GIS) *Note: In 2020 this session will function as a Workshop with a discussion among panelists instead of formal paper presentations.
Third year topic: Best practices in publishing digital content
Biblical Texts in Cultural Context
Session Chairs: Christine Elizabeth Palmer, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary; Kristine Henriksen Garroway, Hebrew Union College
Description: This session will focus on the biblical text within its ancient Near Eastern cultural and intellectual environment. Its aim is to provide a forum for collaboration and scholarship across disciplines that contextualizes the Bible in the broader cultural world of the ancient Near East through the three dominant themes of ritual, family, and society. We welcome contributions that utilize a variety of approaches—archaeological (material culture), philological (comparative literature), and iconographic (visual exegesis)—to explore biblical texts as cultural products and “textual artifacts” of ancient Israel Contributors are also invited to explore examples of textual description, or ekphrasis, that may offer a vantage point on relevant cultural practices and institutions attested in the ancient Near East.
Year one (2020) of this multi-year session will concern itself with biblical ritual in light of ritual practices of the ancient Near East. Year two will be dedicated to family institutions and household practices, including the role of children, identity formation, and family religion. The third year will be focused on society, touching on topics of kingship and state, politics, and local economies.
Complexity Without Monumentality: Rethinking Nomads of the Biblical Period
Session Chairs: Erez Ben-Yosef, Tel Aviv University; Zachary Thomas, Macquarie University
Description: The treatment of nomads/mobile peoples in biblical archaeology and biblical scholarship has until recently been confined to a narrow range of social interpretations, most of which are heavily based on Bedouin ethnography. Accordingly, the prevailing perception of biblical-era nomads has been one of people that could not form strong political entities, and whose influence on the course of history was marginal. Recent archaeological evidence of a strong nomadic polity in the Arabah Valley calls into question the existing research paradigm, with substantial implications for archaeologically based historical reconstructions and textual issues related to mobile groups, including the sedentarization process of the Israelite tribes and the emergence of a kingdom in the highlands. This session aims at furthering discussions of biblical-era nomads as a multi-dimensional phenomenon, consisting of complex continuums of sedentarization and subsistence practices. Papers include new or revised treatments of such societies in texts and archaeology, research on nomadism in other periods and geographic locations that can contextualize the southern Levantine case, and studies related to the epistemological challenges posed by archaeological and textual sources. This session will serve as a forum for scholars seeking to move beyond the existing paradigms and dichotomies around nomads and their socio-political role in the southern Levant and wider Near Eastern world.
Contemporary Identities and Self-Reflective Approaches in the Study of the Ancient Near East
Session Chairs: Pınar Durgun, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Liat Naeh, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Description: The study of the ancient Near East has been shaped by past and ongoing political and scholarly agendas of the West. But how do our own identities—the here and now—inform the study of the ancient Near East? What questions do we prioritize and what questions do we not ask? This kind of self-reflective scrutiny may be challenging, confrontational, and controversial; but it is also instrumental for the advancement of our field(s).
This session hopes to create a platform for such discussions, focusing on the ways in which individual cultures, religions, nationalities, epistemologies, and political views are made visible or silenced in research. We invite contributions that raise questions on the impact of contemporary colonialism, politics, war, national borders and divisions, and localism; or that revisit the values and priorities instilled through higher education, field training, and professional experiences. We are especially interested in contributions that explore local Middle Eastern perspectives, or encounters among the world views of scholars from the Middle East, Europe, and North America, examining issues of ownership, bias, and scholarly narratives. Case studies, syntheses, and personal reflections are all welcomed.
Cultural Heritage and Archaeology of Palmyra (Workshop)
Session Chairs: Adrian Stähli, Harvard University
Description: The armed conflict in Syria began in March 2011 and escalated, leading to significant degradation of humanitarian conditions and the destruction of Syria’s exceptional archaeological, urban, and architectural heritage. Several monuments of Palmyra were destroyed in 2015. In 2017, the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) launched an international project offering the possibility to digitize archeological archives, to produce 3D models, and to create a VR experience of the destroyed Baalshamîn temple. These results were possible thanks to international collaborations. The project also considers the social impact of producing digital doubles of lost monuments and aims to reach refugees in order to give them access to their history. Memory culture is the way a society ensures cultural continuity by preserving, with the help of cultural mnemonics, its collective knowledge from one generation to the next. In this session, we hope to engage more scholars to share experience and papers on similar problems and approaches involving archaeology, digital archaeology and heritage studies. Following existing initiatives such as the Archaeological Heritage Network, Harvard University and the Harvard Art Museums are planning to establish a cultural heritage program. The aim of this session will be to invite and to get in touch with colleagues interested in participating to create a “Cultural Heritage Initiative.”
Current Directions in Coroplastic Studies
Session Chairs: Nancy Serwint, Arizona State University; Casey Gipson, Arizona State University
Description: Following on the success of “Figuring Out the Figurines of the Ancient Near East” sessions at the ASOR 2009. 2010, and 2011 meetings, another multi-year session that focuses on sculpture fashioned from clay in the ancient Mediterranean will be offered. The nearly ubiquitous discovery of clay sculpture in a variety of contexts over a chronological and geographic spread has resulted in a surge of research studies that assess the terracotta sculpture from multiple perspectives. The multi-year session will focus on emergent approaches in the discipline and will be titled “Current Directions in Coroplastic Studies.” The first year’s session (2020) will be “Methodologies in the Study of Terracotta Sculpture.” Year two’ session will be “The Materials and Production of Terracotta Sculpture,” while the third year will be titled “Context and the Relationship with Typologies.”
Cypriot Connectivity in the Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Classical Period: Assessing Cypriot Material and Textual Evidence from Non-Cypriot Contexts
Session Chairs: Giorgos Bourogiannis, Institute of Historical Research, National Hellenic Research Foundation
Description: The session aims to assess Cypriot archaeological, epigraphic and, when applicable, numismatic evidence from extra-insular sites in order to investigate the role of Cyprus in a broader Mediterranean context, understand its engagement in cultural interaction, and discuss Cypriot activity and perhaps presence overseas. The chronological span is set between the Late Bronze Age and the end of the classical period (ca.16th–4th centuries B.C.E.), when Cyprus experienced high levels of contact and significant changes in its socio-economic structures. The latter had an impact on the island’s material and written record and on its patterns of interaction with other areas. The session aims to address the following questions: How is Cypriot activity in the ancient Mediterranean reflected by and on material and epigraphic evidence? How do different types of evidence relate to each other? What is their source and context? What differences can be found in Cypriot evidence abroad, how did Cypriot connections with each area differ, and what was the Cypriot role in them? What changes can be deduced from the study of Cypriot evidence overseas over a long period of time? What was the possible role of epigraphic evidence discovered abroad as a statement of a Cypriot cultural identity?
Ethics and Responsibility During and After Conflict
Session Chairs: Tashia Dare, University of Kansas, Museum Studies Program
Description: This session focuses on ethical questions and evaluations in archaeology and other cultural heritage professions during crisis situations. The following are possible questions to be considered. In times of armed conflict what responsibilities do heritage professionals have toward affected local communities, if any? Who benefits from this assistance and in what ways (both from the perspective of the professional and the local community)? Should heritage professionals be involved in human rights issues, humanitarian crises, and/or post-conflict peace-building, reconstruction, or reconciliation efforts? Is there a moral and/or professional obligation to assist in these situations, even helping individuals and communities to not only survive but to thrive? If so, what concerns are there in doing this and how should these concerns be addressed? What challenges and questions do heritage professionals face as they work with local communities and other professionals in protecting and preserving heritage in times of crisis? How do heritage professionals engage with local communities and how do members of local communities engage with heritage professionals during and following crises situations?
Ethics in Archaeological Practice (Workshop)
Session Chairs: Sarah Lepinski, Independent Scholar; Sarah Kielt Costello, University of Houston–Clear Lake
Description: This workshop will explore pressing topics and issues surrounding archaeological ethics as currently practiced, particularly as they relate to the ASOR membership, and address the principles of ethics in practice and professional responsibility surrounding conduct and authority in archaeology. The first session will include a diverse range of topics representing the composition of a volume to be published in 2021 or early 2022 (already in progress). The workshop format is intended to further the discussion and raise new topics not represented (or not fully explored) in that volume; that discussion will help determine the themes for the following two years.
Session Chairs: Kara Larson, Mississippi State University; Geoffrey Ludvik, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Jeffrey Blakely, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Description: In the wake of the Six-Day War, ASOR President G. Ernest Wright had the desire to initiate a new archaeological project in Israel on a site that had previously been dug. Thus was borne the Joint Archaeological Expedition to Tell el-Hesi, which conducted its initial season in 1970. Building upon the work of Petrie and Bliss, the Joint Archaeological Expedition sought to apply modern principles of investigation to this important site and its surroundings. This year, 2020, marks the 50th anniversary of the Tell el-Hesi excavations. In celebration of that anniversary, this session will highlight two themes:
- Studies revisiting the material culture uncovered by the Joint Archaeological Expedition’s excavations and spanning four millennia of occupation at the site, much of which remains unpublished and/or never fully analyzed.
- The recently completed Hesi regional survey, which also began in 1970 and was completed in 2010.
We welcome an interdisciplinary collection of papers incorporating archaeometric techniques and current theoretical models in the study of related Hesi materials. Papers will explore various features of Tell el-Hesi and the surrounding region, aiming to synthesize new interpretations of the site and advance the legacy of modern research at Hesi begun half a century ago.
From Assyria to Iberia and Back: Current Archaeological Work in the Expanded “Near Eastern” Mediterranean
Session Chairs: Nassos Papalexandrou, The University of Texas at Austin
Description: ASOR meetings usually concentrate on archaeological work in traditional areas of the ancient Near East but areas of the central or western Mediterranean remain outside its main focus. However, recent developments like the epochal exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art titled Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age, with a catalogue edited by Joan Aruz et al. (2014) or publications like Greek Art and the Orient by Ann Gunter (2009) and Communities of Style by Marian Feldman (2014), showcased the fascinating evidence pertaining to an expanded and highly interconnected Mediterranean world that culturally or economically came under the orbit of the ancient Near East. This session solicits presentations focusing on various manifestations of the traffic of people, ideas, or artifacts of Near Eastern origin throughout the Mediterranean of the Early Iron Age. In Greece and Italy these phenomena are usually studied under the not-unproblematic heading of “orientalizing,” whereas further west they belong to archaeologies of Phoenician expansion and interaction with indigenous populations of the Iberian peninsula, North Africa and the south of Europe. The aim of the session will be to highlight developments outside the traditional territorial focus of the ancient Near East, which however implicate it as a source or recipient of various multi-directional movements and flows of people, commodities, and ideas.
Geoarchaeological Research in Near Eastern Archaeology (Workshop)
Session Chairs: Shawn Bubel, University of Lethbridge; Howard Cyr, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Description: This session highlights insights gained through geoarchaeological research. The workshop begins with an opening paper reflecting on the theme. Presenters are asked to tie their paper to the theme. The discussion that follows the papers is an open forum for specialists and non-specialists to discuss the application of geoarchaeological methods to their projects. The aim is to increase the accessibility of geoarchaeological research and to offer support for adopting these methods/techniques into archaeological projects.
2020: Making Geoarchaeological Research Accessible to Non-Specialists
Grand Challenges for Digital Research in Archaeology and Philology (Workshop)
Session Chairs: Miller C. Prosser, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago; Timothy P. Harrison, University of Toronto
Description: A “grand challenge” is an idea that is meant to generate major changes, expand boundaries, intensify research activities, and mobilize resources. This workshop provides a venue in which researchers collaborate to address a series of grand challenges in the domains of digital archaeology and philology.
Year One: Breaking out of the Table: The Grand Challenge of Digitization
Year Two: Integrating Data Sets
Year Three: Analysis, Publication, Archiving, and Sustainability
Year One (2020):
In this session, we concentrate not only on the methods of recording digital data, but also on the schemas or data models used to record the data. In the first year, the goal is to promote discussions and evaluations of methods that are better suited to the unusual kinds of data we work with in the fields of archaeology and philology.
Topics may include, but are not limited to, graph database models, semi-structured data, the semantic web, linked open data, creative uses of GIS platforms, and TEI as a model for textual data. We also welcome presentations on specific projects or newly developed tools and platforms. Presenters may be working on excavations, surveys, text editions, epigraphy, paleography, or any sub-field that falls under the broad umbrella of ASOR.
Interdisciplinary Approaches to Collapse, Resilience, and Resistance in the Ancient Near East
Session Chairs: Lorenzo d’Alfonso, New York University; Tobin Hartnell, American University of Iraq; Nancy Highcock, University of Cambridge
Description: How a society responds to a crisis is the result of deliberate choices made by its members according to power dynamics and perceived risks. However, just as the level of social and economic inclusion varies across the body politic, the risks are also dispersed unequally throughout society. As a result, the capacity for resilience or desire for resistance after a crisis may reflect the needs of different social groups within any given community.
This session seeks papers addressing the following themes:
- How collapse can promote resilience or new social forms in interconnected regions?
- What external and internal dynamics are visible during and after a crisis?
- What do the strategies for confronting crisis reveal about social relationships within the body politic? How do these strategies (e.g. military or diplomacy) affect existing social relationships?
- Were these strategies helped or hindered in the case of a foreign hegemon or a local polity?
- How did societies increase their resilience or fail in the face of environmental crises?
In this light, our session invites historians, archaeologists, environmental scientists, and heritage specialists to contribute to an inter-disciplinary dialogue on the study of Collapse, Resilience and Resistance in the Near East.
Navigating the “In Between”: Identifying a Career Trajectory in Academia for the Early Career Scholar (Workshop)
Session Chairs: Vanessa Workman, Bar-Ilan University; Eric Welch, University of Kentucky; Owen Chesnut, North Central Michigan College
Description: The workshop will feature a panel of speakers who represent different professional stages and research specialties in academic fields of the ancient Near East and beyond. Speakers will briefly present relevant experiences in their respective specialties, followed by a question-and-answer style panel during which each panel member will be prompted to speak on topics related to moving through the stages of education (undergraduate to post-doctoral positions), into finding and applying for jobs.
Topics covered will range from how to choose universities, advisors, and projects in the under/graduate stages, to building skills in preparation for numerous tracks in academia (e.g., field archaeologists, linguistic tracks and textual analysis, sciences in archaeology, laboratory work), and ways to present experiences and skills on one’s academic resume/CV. The overall objective of the session is to expose Early Career Scholars to the many options available in academia and offer pertinent guidance and tips to those who may not have access to it at their home institutions.
New Directions in the Historical Geography of the Ancient Near East
Session Chairs: Chris McKinny, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi; Kyle Keimer, Macquarie University; Aharon Tavger, Israel Heritage Department at Ariel University
Description: This session aims to provide a platform at ASOR for archaeologists and historians to present original research related to historical geography. We would like to have topical discussions that are more narrowly defined by chronological or regional considerations. While we hope to see studies connected with the historical geographical details of the Hebrew Bible and other related texts, we also would like to see the discipline of historical geography be applied to texts and regions beyond both the southern Levant and the Bronze and Iron Ages.
Online Photo Archives as Tools for Archaeological Heritage Preservation and Engagement (Workshop)
Session Chair: Jack Green, American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR Jordan),
Description: Online photo archives provide access to thousands of recent and historic images of archaeological and cultural heritage collections, sites, and landscapes across the MENA region. These range from aerial to ground-based photographs, crowd-sourced images, institutional or project-based archives, and digitized private archives. A recent increase in such online archives can partly be traced to recent responses to damage and destruction of cultural heritage across the Middle East. Such images may be used to aid reconstructions of damaged structures or objects, as research tools for monitoring changes and threats to collections, sites, and monuments in the region, as well as resources for preserving cultural memory among local and diaspora communities. Despite multiple resources and platforms available online, there is limited dialog between such projects about shared values, roles, and objectives. This workshop provides a forum to discuss opportunities and challenges for online photo archives focused on heritage preservation in the MENA region, asking questions such as: Who are their intended audiences? How might these archives be used in scholarly and public education settings? How effective are they in documenting, monitoring, and preserving heritage? Finally, the workshop attendees will consider the importance of collaboration, sharing, and building greater awareness of such archives.
Preserving the Cultural Heritage of the Madaba Region of Jordan (Workshop)
Workshop Chairs: Douglas Clark, La Sierra University; Suzanne Richard, Gannon University; Andrea Polcaro, University of Perugia; Marta D’Andrea, Sapienza Università di Roma; Basem Mahamid, Department of Antiquities of Jordan
Description: This workshop seeks to encourage collaborative presentations, panel discussions, and structured conversations focused on issues in the Madaba Region of central Jordan, as defined by the Department of Antiquities: the area between southern Amman, the eastern desert, the Wadi Mujib, and the Dead Sea. Archaeological issues—whether generically archaeological, geo-political, architectural, anthropological, ethnographic, conceptual and theoretical, cultural heritage- or community-related, or technological—are enlarged, enriched, and enhanced when approached collaboratively in a regional context.
2019: Madaba Region strategies and plans for preserving cultural heritage and fostering community archaeology. This would involve short reports/conversations among excavations/projects already carrying out heritage protection initiatives and/or community archaeology (such as Hisban, Tall Madaba, MRAMP, Mukawir, Lahun?), those with plans to do the same (`Umayri), MOTA/DoA initiatives, USAID/ACOR/SCHEP endeavors, all in the service of cross-pollination of ideas and practices in the region.
2020: Collaborative presentations/conversations among Madaba Region archaeological excavation projects, centered on the current Madaba Archaeological Museum where regional finds are stored, studied, and displayed. Given the success with our application for a US Ambassador’s grant (AFCP/CATF—Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Protection/Cultural Antiquities Task Force, funded by the US Department of State) for 2019-2021 and building on the introductory presentation in 2019, the workshop will focus on progress in plans for this totally upgraded and repurposed storage and research facility for our collective artifacts, as well as updates on new virtual technologies designed to preserve and present the Madaba region’s extensive cultural heritage.
2021: Collaborative presentations/conversations among Madaba Region archaeological excavation projects, centered on the proposed new Madaba Regional Archaeological Museum where regional finds will be displayed in a state-of-the-art facility. For example (one among many), one innovative feature imagined for the new museum is the use of a room in the introductory section of the Madaba Archaeological Park West as a springboard for exploring archaeological sites in the region, equipped with regional maps and directional indicators to these sites, including hard-copy and digital (perhaps smart-phone) access to information about the sites and directions for getting to them. Other issues involving the new museum will provide ample subject material for collective thinking and planning.
Protecting Libyan Cultural Heritage
Session Chairs: Will Raynolds, ASOR Cultural Heritage Initiatives; Heba Abd El Salam, ASOR Cultural Heritage Initiatives
Description: Since the Libyan revolution of 2011, cultural heritage sites around the country have faced threats from urban encroachment, looting, and the ravage of war. Members of the Libyan Department of Antiquities and Historic Cities Authority accompanied by civil society advocates such as the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, have launched efforts to document, stabilize, and protect sites and collections around the country, and have been increasingly successful in enlisting the assistance of volunteers. In recent years, ASOR has partnered with Libyan colleagues to advance this vital work at a time of unprecedented change. This session is intended as a forum for Libyan colleagues to present the results of these efforts.
Scribal Hands and Habits in Cuneiform Texts
Session Chairs: Nicholas Reid, Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando) and ISAW, New York University; Klaus Wagensonner, Yale University
Description: With increased access to collections and ongoing digitization projects, the opportunity has arisen to embark on new primary research related to scribal hands. These observations have been largely hidden in the field of Assyriology, since textual copies were produced freehand by scholars. This great service to scholarship that moved the field forward through copies also hid other important data points, since copies are often interpretive and look like the hand of the scholar rather than the scribe. On the basis of the available evidence, scholars organized texts by provenance, personal names, dates, and topics, depending on the internal data of the texts. This approach to the vast number of cuneiform texts produced significant results, but we have not exhausted the available information, as there are other ways to consider these texts. By comparing handwriting, texts that were not able to be linked prospographically, topically, or chronologically may be linked through the handwriting of the scribe. By identifying scribal hands, much can be learned about archives, writing, literacy, and scribal arts. The session consists of papers related to various periods, that can explore scribal techniques, diagnostic features, orthography, textual division, and handwriting. These papers will seek to establish the prospects, limitations, methodological approaches, and early findings related to the study of scribal hands.
The Secret Lives of Objects: Counter Histories and Narratives
Session Chairs: Lissette Jimenez, San Francisco State University; Kiersten Neumann, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago
Description: Objects have unique histories, beginning with where they were made, followed by how they may have been used, discarded, discovered, bought and sold, stored, and displayed. The lives and stories of objects persist as archaeologists, art historians, and museum professionals continue to appropriate, objectify, and re-contextualize them in an attempt to uncover the histories and sometimes hidden truths surrounding these artifacts. Researching and contextualizing objects can shed light on issues of provenance and provenience; raise discussions of repatriation; and potentially redefine the histories of disciplines. The focus of this session will be on the importance of context and object histories and how current object-based research encourages a dialogue of challenging ethical issues.
Year one (2019) of this multi-year session highlighted the importance of object research and context. Contributions focused on collections research, archival research and redefining disciplinary histories, and repatriation efforts. This year (2020) will explore how different types of object narratives and counter histories are established by cultural institutions, exhibitions, research, education, and publications, and how the reception and meaning of objects can change as a result of mode of presentation, perspective, and voice. We also welcome related papers on repatriation efforts. Year three (2021) will explore the application of technology or digital humanities projects to the study of objects and collections. Contributions to this session will discuss the benefits of interdisciplinary and collaborative object-based research and suggest future possibilities for object and collections studies.
The Southern Phoenicia Initiative (Workshop)
Session Chair: S. Rebecca Martin, Boston University; Jeffrey R. Zorn, Cornell University
Description: The Southern Phoenicia Initiative is a working group that seeks to establish research ties across key sites in the region of Southern Phoenicia. We invite papers from those who are interested in sharing data and resources to investigate the ecology, geology, geomorphology, material culture, and social anthropology of this loosely defined and liminal area. The chronological parameters stretch from the Middle Bronze Age to the Roman Period with the explicit aim of transgressing typical divisions in Near Eastern archaeology (Biblical, Classical) and investigating long-term processes. We aim to use Part I of the workshop for updates of recent and ongoing projects. Part II will consider specific topics, new projects, and methodologies for interdisciplinary research.
State and Territory in the Ancient Near East: Mapping Relationships and Challenging Paradigms
Session Chair: Julie Deluty, Saint Joseph’s University; Heidi Fessler, Independent Researcher
Description: This session explores connections between polities and geography, and how ancient people negotiated systems of power and government within their physical settings. Our knowledge of political geography in the ancient Near East is filtered through centuries of scholarship at times promoting notions of control that could use amended analyses. In light of this, this session welcomes papers that reinterpret dynamics between polities based on supporting archaeological or textual discoveries, or experiment with theoretical approaches that enlighten our understanding of an established data-set. Papers could argue, for instance, that a different model of control is more appropriate to explain evidence of a geopolitical relationship than previously put forth, or show how recent archaeological or textual discoveries require us to reevaluate our understanding of the power dynamics in a region. Special attention to how people in the ancient world perceived their own geopolitical structures or how geography served to define a city or region is encouraged.
Tiny Talks on (Tiny) Things: Networks Encapsulated in Minute Objects (Workshop)
Session Chair: Emily Miller Bonney, California State University Fullerton; Leann Pace, Wake Forest University
Description: This session continues the conversation from the 2019 crafting workshop. The organizers invite papers six minutes long and using no more than 6 slides to explores how crafting – particularly, but not exclusively, of tiny objects – can inform discussions of networks. While participants are not limited to papers on tiny artefacts we are intrigued by Susan Stewart’s explication in On Longing of miniatures as powerful embodiments of all the characteristics of the subject represented because of, rather than in spite of, their diminutive scale. Little objects may be viewed as microcosms of networks. A single item, by the material from which it is made, the skill required to produce it and the context in which it was found, can provide a route into understanding the world in which it was produced, used and deposited. How is that network of relationships embodied in the object? Tiny objects also can provide evidence of otherwise unseen networks, surprising the excavator by the context in which the item appears. How did this particular item, or the artisan who made, it end up here? What networks of trade, political relationships, and behavior brought it to its final resting place or led to its creation?
Urban Sustainability: How and Why Cities Live or Die
Session Chair: Odette Boivin, ISAW-NYU; Shana Zaia, University of Vienna
Description: Urbanization profoundly changed how humans live and interact with one another, a process that was initiated nowhere as early as in the Near East, home to some of the oldest cities in the world. But cities themselves were not static and were also subject to change, transformation, and development. The long history of the Ancient Near East is rich in examples of cities being founded, growing, shrinking, being neglected, destroyed, rebuilt, abandoned for a time or forever. What decides the fate of a city? What factors make it viable or not? What may prolong or reduce its lifespan? In this session, we will explore the many aspects of urban sustainability: environmental, economic, political, and cultural. We welcome contributions from archaeologists, philologists, historians, and art historians working on any region and period of the Ancient Near East and Egypt.
