At the 2019 ASOR Annual Meeting in San Diego, Assaf Yasur-Landau, Eric H. Cline and Yorke M. Rowan were awarded the G. Ernest Wright Award for their book, The Social Archaeology of the Levant (Cambridge University Press). This award is given to the editor/author of the most substantial volume(s) dealing with archaeological material, excavation reports and material culture from the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean. This work must be the result of original research published within the past two years. One award is given annually.

The editors at the 2019 Annual Meeting in San Diego.

“In The Social Archaeology of the Levant, Assaf Yasur-Landau (Associate Professor, Department of Maritime Civilizations, University of Haifa), Eric H. Cline (Professor of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies and Anthropology, George Washington University) and Yorke M. Rowan (Research Associate Professor, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago), bring together a carefully curated and well-edited collection of contributions focusing on the southern Levant. These contributions represent a wide temporal span, ranging from the Palaeolithic to the Islamic period and beyond, but they share a common approach that gives the volume a strong sense of unity. This shared approach is defined by an emphasis on bottom-up processes and perspectives to engage with big-picture questions of how ancient people lived their lives. Within this shared framework, however, individual authors emphasize different kinds of data, methodologies and theoretical frameworks to achieve this goal, from biological anthropology to epigraphy, and from the archaeology of gender to public heritage. The result is a significant contribution to the archaeology of the region that refocuses research agendas for the modern era by concentrating on big questions that are often lost in the detailed minutiae of ongoing archaeological debates.”

Upon accepting the award, the editors thanked the contributors to the volume: Arwa Badran, Edward B. Banning, Anna Belfer-Cohen, Erez Ben-Yosef, Andrea M. Berlin, Stephanie L. Budin, Shlomo Bunimovitz,  Meredith S. Chesson, Susan L. Cohen, Yoram Cohen, Avraham Faust, Bill Finlayson, Nigel Goring-Morris, Philip Graham, Leore Grosman, Susan Guise Sheridan, Felix Höflmayer, David Ilan, Ian W. N. Jones, Rabei G. Khamisy, Morag M. Kersel, Aren M. Maeir, Nimrod Marom, Daniel M. Master, Natalie D. Munro, Benjamin W. Porter, Alexandra L. Ratzlaff, Gary O. Rollefson, Christopher A. Rollston, Ruth Shahack-Gross, Sariel Shalev,  Katharina Streit, Oren Tal, and Itamar Taxel.  They also thank the volume’s editors, Beatrice Rehl and Asya Graf, and copyeditor, Heather Heinrich.   

The editors hope to enjoy such a large gathering with friends again soon!

Learn more about ASOR Awards

Nominate a book for the G. Ernest Wright award. The deadline for book award nominations September 18, 2020. The deadline for service award nominations is September 11, 2020.