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ABOUT THE ANNUAL MEETING

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2025 CALL FOR MEMBER-ORGANIZED SESSIONS

2025 CALL FOR PAPERS

2024 CALL FOR POSTERS

HOTEL RESERVATIONS

TRAVEL INFORMATION

ANNUAL MEETING SCHEDULES

EXHIBITORS & SPONSORS

HONORS & AWARDS

PAST & FUTURE MEETINGS

2025 LIST OF APPROVED SESSIONS AND WORKSHOPS

Boston & Hybrid: November 19-22

ASOR’s 2025 Annual Meeting will take place November 19-22 at the Boston Park Plaza. The meeting in November will be hybrid with both virtual and in-person participation in a similar format to the 2024 Annual Meeting.

All sessions and workshops will be able to include both in-person presentations in Boston and virtual presentations online via Zoom. This is subject to change as the meeting develops.

Paper and workshop presentation proposals may be submitted per the instructions on the Call for Papers from February 15 – March 15.

ASOR Standing Sessions

Member-Organized Sessions and Workshops Approved for the 2025 Academic Program

*Sessions (and workshops, when feasible) will be offered as part of the hybrid program with virtual and in-person participation unless otherwise noted. This is subject to change as the meeting develops.

Descriptions of Sessions & Workshops

Sessions and workshops will be offered as part of the hybrid program with virtual and in-person participation unless otherwise noted. This is subject to change as the meeting develops.

ASOR Standing Sessions

Ancient Climate and Environmental Archaeology

Session Chairs: Brita Lorentzen, Cornell University; Kathleen Forste, Brown University

Description: This session accepts papers that examine past human resource (flora and fauna) uses and human/environment interactions in the ancient Near East.

Ancient Inscriptions

Session Chairs: Jessie DeGrado, University of Michigan; Madadh Richey, Brandeis University

Description: This session focuses on epigraphic material from the ancient Middle East, North Africa, and eastern Mediterranean. Proposals may include new readings of previously published inscriptions or preliminary presentations of new epigraphic discoveries, as well as submissions that situate written artifacts in their social contexts and/or engage broader theoretical questions.

Approaches to Dress and the Body

Session Chairs: Neville McFerrin, University of North Texas

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 illuminate 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: Stephen Cook, Virginia Theological Seminary; Alison Acker Gruseke, Williams College

Description: This session is meant to explore the intersections between History, Archaeology, and the Judeo-Christian Bible and related texts.

Archaeology and History of Feasting and Foodways

Session Chair: Jacob Damm, College of the Holy Cross

Description: The Archaeology and History of Feasting and Foodways session addresses the production, distribution, and consumption of food and drink. Insofar as foodways touch upon almost every aspect of the human experience—from agricultural technology, to economy and trade, to nutrition and cuisine, to the function of the household and its members, to religious acts of eating and worship—we welcome submissions from diverse perspectives and from the full spectrum of our field’s geography and chronology.

Archaeology of Anatolia

Session Chairs: Nancy Amelia Highcock, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford; Oya Topçuoğlu, Northwestern University

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 Chair: Jennifer Swerida, University of Pennsylvania

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 Chairs: Michael Zimmerman, Bridgewater State University; Misha Elashvili, Bridgewater State University

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.

Archaeology of Cyprus

Session Chairs: Kevin Fisher, University of British Columbia; Catherine Kearns, University of Chicago

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.

Archaeology of Egypt

Session Chair: Julia Troche, Missouri State University; Jordan Galczynski, University of California, Los Angeles

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.

Archaeology of Iran

Session Chair: Kyle Gregory Olson, University of Pennsylvania

Description: This session explores the archaeology of Iran.

Archaeology of Islamic Society

Session Chairs: Ian W. N. Jones, University of California, San Diego; Tasha Vorderstrasse, University of Chicago

Description: This session explores the archaeology of Islamic society.

Archaeology of Israel

Session Chair: Boaz Gross, Israeli Institute of Archaeology and Tel Aviv University

Description: This session seeks submissions in all areas of the archaeology of Israel: Current fieldwork and discoveries; new insights on past excavations; history, policy and methodology of the archaeology of Israel.

Archaeology of Jordan

Session Chairs: Monique Roddy, Walla Walla University; Craig Tyson, Deyouville; and Stephanie Selover, University of Washington

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: Petra M. Creamer, Emory University; Elise J. Laugier, Utah State University

Description: This session highlights research on all aspects of history and archaeology focused on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and adjacent areas.

Archaeology of Lebanon

Session Chairs: Hanan Charaf, Lebanese University; Nadine Panayot, American University of Beirut; Helen Dixon, East Carolina University

Description: This session is focused on current archaeological research in Lebanon, including the results of fieldwork and/or other research projects. Papers dealing with the archaeology of Lebanon relating to any period, or the protection and promotion of the cultural heritage of Lebanon, are welcome.

Archaeology of Mesopotamia

Session Chair: Lucas Proctor, J.W. Goethe University Frankfurt; Glynnis Maynard, Cambridge University

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 and New Media

Session Chairs: Michael Zimmerman, Bridgewater State University; Debra Trusty, University of Iowa

Description: The papers in this session represent a multidisciplinary discussion of theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of archaeology of the Near East and New Media. The focus of the session lies in storytelling and historical education through innovative technology, be it through digital or analogue games (“archaeogaming”), movies, immersive experiences, digital apps, escape rooms, or interactive museum exhibitions, for example. This session aims to present a diverse array of topics at the intersection of the archaeology of the Near East and new technologies, opening up for discussion and debate the multi-functionality of these tools for research, education, community engagement, and heritage management.

Archaeology of the Near East: Bronze and Iron Ages

Session Chair: J. P. Dessel, University of Tennessee

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 Chairs: Simeon Ehrlich, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Robyn Le Blanc, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Description: This session is open to papers that concern the Near East in the Classical periods.

Archaeology of the Southern Levant

Session Chair: Sarah Richardson, University of Manitoba

Description: The focus of this session is on current archaeological fieldwork in the southern Levant.

Archaeology of Syria

Session Chair: Kathryn Grossman, North Carolina State 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 Chairs: Amy Gansell, St. John’s University; S. Rebecca Martin, Boston 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 Chairs: Sarah Schrader, Leiden University; Rose Campbell, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Luskin Center for History and Policy

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.

Cultural Heritage: Preservation, Presentation, and Management

Session Chair: Nour Munawar, University of Amsterdam

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 Chairs: Leigh Anne Lieberman, Princeton University; Matthew Howland, Wichita State University

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.

Gender in the Ancient Near East

Session Chairs: Avary Taylor, Yale University; Kelsie Ehalt, University of Michigan

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.

History of Archaeology

Session Chairs: Leticia R. Rodriguez, University of Houston; Caitlin Clerkin, Harvard Art Museums

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 Chair: Pınar Durgun, The Morgan Library and Museum

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. Biké Yazıcıoğlu, Simon Fraser University; Benjamin Irvine, British Institute at Ankara

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 Chair: George Pierce, Brigham Young University

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.

Maritime Archaeology

Session Chairs: Tzveta Manolova, Université Libre de Bruxelles; Traci Andrews, Texas A&M

Description: This session welcomes papers that concern marine archaeology in terms of methods, practices, and case studies in areas throughout the Near East.

Prehistoric Archaeology 

Session Chairs: Austin “Chad” Hill, University of Pennsylvania; Blair Heidkamp, University of Texas, Austin

Description: This session is open to papers that concern the prehistoric Near East, particularly in the Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Chalcolithic.n.

Recent Work in the Archaeological Sciences

Session Chairs: Alyssa V. Pietraszek, University of Haifa; Hannah M. Herrick; Simon Fraser University

Description: This session welcomes papers that apply one or more archaeological sciences, broadly defined, to investigate aspects of the ancient world.

Reports on Current Excavations—ASOR Affiliated & Non-ASOR Affiliated

Session Chair: Daniel Schindler, Bowling Green State University

Description: This session is for excavation reports from projects with or without ASOR/CAP affiliatio

Theoretical and Anthropological Approaches to the Near East

Session Chairs: TBD – Open Call for Session Chairs: Application Deadline January 8

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 and Workshops approved for the 2025 Academic Program

*Sessions (and workshops, when feasible) will be offered as part of the hybrid program with virtual and in-person participation unless otherwise noted. This is subject to change as the meeting develops.

Africa in the Ancient World

Session Chairs: Brenda J. Baker, Arizona State University; Michele R. Buzon, Purdue University

Description: This session, co-sponsored by the American-Sudanese Archaeological Research Center, builds on the successful Reintegrating Africa in the Ancient World workshop. This session allows paper contributions on the archaeology, bioarchaeology, and history of northeast Africa, engaging with a specific theme each year to highlight the rich prehistory and history of ancient Sudan and the greater northeast Africa region. The session welcomes work on a range of ancient northeast African cultures, including but not limited to Nubia (Kush), Aksum, Garamantes, and Egypt. Themes addressed are designed to have relevance in the modern world.

In the first year (2024), we consider conflict and its consequences in both the past and present. What evidence is there for conflict in the region through time? What impact did/does conflict have on the local populace? What is the variability in interactions? The second year (2025) focuses on mobility and migration into, within, and out of Africa. Different methods for reconstructing population movements, such as funerary behavior, artifact distributions, paleogenomics, and isotope analyses, are considered.  How might various methods be integrated to investigate identity? What circumstances may result in different mobility patterns? The third year (2026) emphasizes identity and community through time. How does identity manifest through time? What factors affect identity and formation of communities? How does archaeology contribute to community and identity formation in the present?

The 2024 Annual Meeting Session comprises contributions on the archaeology, bioarchaeology, and history of northeast Africa, engaging with a specific theme each year to highlight the rich prehistory and history of ancient Sudan and the greater northeast Africa region. The session welcomes work on a range of ancient northeast African cultures, including but not limited to Nubia (Kush), Aksum, Garamantes, and Egypt. Themes addressed are designed to have relevance in the modern world. In the first year (2024), many presentations (including all in the second session) focus on conflict and its consequences in both the past and present. What evidence is there for conflict in the region through time? What impact did/does conflict have on the local populace? What is the variability in interactions?

Age, while the second year (2025) will be focused on the Iron Age.

Alterity in the Ancient Near East

Session Chairs: Lauren Cook, Johns Hopkins University; Georgia Vance, Johns Hopkins University

Description: Alterity in the Ancient Near East seeks to explore the topics of social norms and social difference in the Ancient World from the 4th to the 1st millennium BCE. Papers should explore modes of “difference-making”; how communities seek to mark, mitigate, or exacerbate social difference. What processes, practices, or technologies are employed to demarcate social groupings? How are these boundaries represented in space, literature, burial practices, or the visual arts?

We especially seek perspectives that disrupt simplistic dichotomies of ‘us’ and ‘them’, shifting the dialogue to the complex array of dynamics that emerge through intergroup contact. Contemporary theoretical perspectives, such as schismogenesis or middle-ground theory, may be engaged to think through these dynamics. Contributions may focus on conceptions of foreigners and foreignness, as well as the experiences of individuals on the margins of sociability such as enslaved people and those who inhabit the ‘betwixt and between’, resisting clear-cut characterization.

Ancient Aliens in Modern Times: The Politics and Ethics of Pseudoarchaeology

Session Chairs: Leah Neiman, Brown University; Sandra Blakely, Emory University

Description: Archaeology has inspired endless theories about aliens, lost civilizations, apocalyptic predictions, and mysterious technologies. While many of these theories may seem laughable, the political and religious ideologies they promote and in which they are grounded can have serious implications. Pseudoarchaeologies build on narratives of racism, nationalism, and conspiracy theories with roots in the 19th century and earlier: the study of alternative archaeologies has taken on new urgency in the wake of Covid-19, the politics of disinformation, and the proliferation of anti-science attitudes in the West and beyond. Pseudoarchaeologies index the continual repurposing of the past for contemporary needs: their analyses offer critical reflection on the responsibility of the field for public education, conservation, and indigenous rights.

This session invites contributions that examine the impact of pseudoarchaeological narratives on society and consider our responsibility as scholars to engage with such discourse publicly. Together, we will discuss: How have historical and archaeological research been used and intertwined with the evolution of modern religious and political ideologies? How are we to respond when the past gets appropriated for problematic means in the present? What responsibility do academics have for confronting how their work may be used, or abused, by others?

Ancient Languages and Linguistics

Session Chairs: Victoria Almansa-Villatoro, Yale University; Brendan Hainline, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Description: This session invites papers engaging in a broad spectrum of topics related to ancient languages and linguistics. Submissions may focus on grammatical, lexicological, or phonological evidence, or draw from a range of textual and archaeological sources. We also encourage contributions that move beyond traditional linguistic analysis to explore the meaning and function of language in its ancient contexts. Regardless of the chosen approach, presentations should use language as a medium to better our understanding of the people who spoke it in ancient times.

Language and Place (2025) In this first of two thematically paired years, we especially invite submissions exploring the interaction between language and place. We welcome methodologies and approaches that account for the location of a language in space, such as dialect geography and wave models of language change. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, geographic dialects, dialect continuums, contact and borrowing between neighboring languages, areal features, etymologies of toponyms, and cross-cultural communication and the use of diplomatic languages.

Language and People (2026) In this second of two thematically paired years, we invite submissions from scholars exploring how the study of language can illuminate the lives, experiences, and relationships of people across the ancient world. We welcome methodological and theoretical approaches that integrate insights from linguistics, social theory, semiotics, and communication. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, power asymmetry in communication, the creation of prestige and identity dialects, the use of language to transmit emotions, reconstructing worldviews and discourses through semantic ranges and etymologies, persuasive rhetoric and narrative storytelling, speaking and the power of the word, the role of body language, and theoretical approaches to the materiality of language.

And the Land had Rest? The Aftermath of Destruction and the Development of Memory

Session Chairs: Nitsan Shalom, University of Oldenburg and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Igor Kreimerman, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Description: The destruction of settlements is a pervasive phenomenon throughout the archaeological record. It has had a detrimental impact on the histories of societies and the modern ability to reconstruct these histories through the analysis of destruction layers. But destruction events also create significant cultural and theological shockwaves, that can resonate long after the ruins have been resettled through cultural narratives that interpret the historical events in diverse ways. Recent scholarship has turned to dealing with the aftermath of destruction events. The concepts of squatter activity, life among the ruins, landscapes of memory, and cultural memory and myths were developed within the discussion of the lingering physical, symbolic, and cultural impact of destruction. This session seeks to deepen the integration of the discussion by bringing together scholars dealing with these topics from varied research perspectives, examining material remains, textual and pictorial representations, and comparative literature that represent reactions and impacts of destruction events. Through different test cases, we focus on asking what happens following destruction, how the destruction’s physical remains are perceived and treated by subsequent residents of the ruined site, and how memories and narratives develop in relation to these remains.

Archaeologies of Memory

Session Chairs: Janling Fu, Harvard University; Tate Paulette, North Carolina State University

Description: This session seeks to continue building a robust, theoretically innovative, and empirically grounded conversation about the topic of memory across the sub-disciplines of ancient Near Eastern studies. During the previous three years, the session brought together specialists working all over the geographical and chronological spectrum to explore memory through three intertwined themes: space, place, and the built environment (2022); things, bodies, and assemblages (2023); and events, rituals, and routines (2024). Building on the momentum of these lively sessions and the connections that they fostered, the session will now approach memory through three new themes that, once again, seek to open up new perspectives and encourage dialogue among those working with archaeological, art historical, and/or written evidence. In the first year (2025), we consider memory as an instrument of inclusion and exclusion. For the second year (2026), we explore memory through the poles of stasis and change. In the third year (2027), we situate memory at the junction of trauma and healing. It is hoped that this continued, multi-disciplinary engagement with the topic of memory will encourage scholars of the ancient world to seek out and interrogate evidence for the complex intermingling of past and present and the many different modes of remembering and forgetting.

Archaeology of Petra and Nabataea

Session Chairs: Cynthia Finlayson, Brigham Young University; Anna Accettola, Hamilton College

Description: The 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 Ad-Deir Plateau 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.

Archaeology of Religion in the Levant during the Second and First Millennia BCE 

Session Chairs: Lidar Sapir-Hen, Tel Aviv University; Ido Koch, Tel Aviv University

Description: The Archaeology of Religion in the Levant during the Second and First millennia BCE is aiming at fostering a scholarly stage for an interdisciplinary discussion on a wide range of approaches, perspectives, and interpretative frameworks of religion and its materiality. We encourage papers covering aspects of religion, such as belief, ritual, cosmology, and ontology, based on studies of material remains as well as their reflection in textual and pictorial sources.

The 2025 session is dedicated to human–animal relations and their reflections in religious practices in the Levant during the second and first millennia BCE. We welcome papers dealing with this issue through various media and contexts, including texts, faunal remains, iconography and more.

Art, Archaeology, and History of Central Asia

Session Chairs: Harrison Morin, University of Chicago; Mitchell Allen, University of California, Berkeley

Description: This session is dedicated to the presentation of new and ongoing research concerning the art, archaeology, and history of Central Asia from prehistory to the present. Contributions may focus on a wide array of topics geographically tied to the region such as the presentation of findings from a recent season of fieldwork, intensive artifactual, textual, and art historical studies, or broader methodological or theoretical discussion relating to Central Asia’s history and archaeology. Papers concerning the cultural heritage of Central Asian countries are especially welcome.

Biblical Texts in Cultural Context

Session Chairs: Christine Palmer, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary; Kristine Garroway, Hebrew Union College

Description: This session explores the biblical text within its ancient Near Eastern cultural and intellectual environment. Our aim is to provide a forum for collaboration and scholarship across disciplines that contextualizes the Bible in the broader world of the ancient Near East through the three overarching themes of memory construction, ethnicity and identity formation, and biblical ritual. We invite 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. A secondary aim is to pursue publication of the themed papers presented in the three-year session.

The first year (2023) of this multi-year session will focus on memory construction. We welcome papers that consider social memory through texts and inscriptions, monumentality, and embodied practices. The topic for year two (2024) will be ethnicity and identity formation, inviting scholarship on conceptualizations of self and the other that intersect with the biblical text. The final year (2025) will be dedicated to biblical ritual in light of ritual spaces, personnel, and practices of the ancient Near East.

Building, Training, and Taming Your Own AI Assistant: Opportunities and Challenges for Archaeological Research and Communication (Workshop)

Session Chairs: Oystein S. LaBianca, Andrews University; Matt Vincent, American Center of Research

Description: This workshop will explore the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in archaeology, focusing on developing, utilizing, and ethically managing custom-built AI tools. Each year will address a specific theme, building on the previous year’s discussions and fostering ongoing collaboration among archaeologists, data scientists, and interdisciplinary researchers.

Community Archaeology: Decolonizing Field Research (Workshop)

Session Chairs: Frederick A. Winter, D.C. AIA; Jane DeRose Evans, Temple University

Description: This workshop, sponsored by the Cultural Heritage Committee, will be an examination of community-based projects in archaeology. Using specific project examples, the workshop will build toward models of project structures that move beyond the historical format of Western countries conducting research in the Middle East and Mediterranean and move toward ones that reflect both community engagement and fully integrated collaborations. How will these new models change how we conduct archaeology projects; how will the existing support structures, including the publication and funding paths, adapt to this new environment; what are the past experiences with such collaborations and what are the possible impediments to these international and inter-institutional partnerships?

Crossing Eurasia: Bronze and Iron Age Human Mobility between Arabian Sea and Eastern Mediterranean (Workshop)

Session Chair: Marco Ramazzotti, Sapienza University of Rome

Description: This workshop aims to investigate the socio-economic morphology and political-territorial organization of the semi-nomad and nomadic communities that occupied the Lands of Sumer, Ebla, Dilmun and Magan during the Bronze and Iron Age. The interdisciplinary research aims to map the spatial patterns and dynamics of human mobility that took in four regional cores between Southeastern Arabia and Northern Syria and to select, investigate and protect tangible and intangible heritages of nomad cultures supporting their development through the ways of sustainable tourism. In this specific sense the historical lands of Sumer and Ebla, Magan and Dilmun ‘crossed’ Eurasia, interacting with the civilizations that arose along the shores of the Arabian Sea with those that formed along the eastern coasts and inlands of the Mediterranean, from the end of the 4th to the end of the 1st millennium BCE. The four regional cores were inhabited and transformed by mobile groups, tribes and kinship organizations in contact with each other but with different identities and territorial borders; their intermittent appearance between the north-western section of the Indian Ocean and inner Syria encompassed the most significant macro-economic processes and geo-political events of Near East’s Bronze and Iron Age history, such as the ‘urban revolution’ , the formations of the so-called ‘secondary cities’ , the collapse of the ‘first world empires’ , the renaissance of ‘territorial states’ , the ‘spread of nomads and semi-nomads’ tribes along the south-western fringes of Eurasia and the birth of the ‘Great Empires’.

Cultural Heritage in Crisis: People Oriented (Workshop)

Session Chairs: Tashia Dare, Independent Scholar; Jenna de Vries Morton, Umm al-Jimal Archaeological Project

Description: This multi-year workshop centers on the people behind cultural heritage before, during, and after conflict: heritage professionals and local communities. The workshop is concerned with mitigating risk, building resiliency, and forging and maintaining healthy and meaningful relationships.
The first year’s theme (2023) explores the needs of cultural heritage professionals. Questions to consider include: How do we mitigate the risks heritage professionals face? What resources are needed to protect heritage professionals? How do we prepare local heritage professionals before conflict happens? How do we build resiliency and assist heritage professionals as they move forward post-conflict?

The second year (2024) focuses on the local community. When everyday survival and livelihoods may be at risk due to conflict how do we meet the needs of local communities and the preservation of cultural heritage? What impacts does conflict have on local communities being able to access, participate, and contribute to their cultural heritage (including archaeological sites and museums)? What role do archaeologists and other related professionals have in addressing these issues and other similar concerns? How do we build resilient communities?

The third year (2025) is dedicated to cultural heritage and peacebuilding. What does cultural heritage as a peacebuilding tool look like on the ground? What issues might there be to this? What are the benefits? What can we learn from successes and failures of efforts already taken in this area? Can cultural heritage be a proactive tool to preventing conflict? If so, what does this entail?

Digging Up Data: A Showcase of Ongoing Digital Scholarship Projects (Workshop)

Session Chairs: Melissa Cradic, Open Context/Alexandria Archive Institute; Sarah Kansa, Open Context/Alexandria Archive Institute

Description: Digging Up Data: Turning an Idea into Digital Scholarship is a professional development and digital humanities mentorship program created and sponsored jointly by ASOR’s Early Career Scholars Committee and The Alexandria Archive Institute/Open Context. After three years of successfully supporting development of early career researchers’ digital projects, Digging Up Data is launching a new phase: this year’s program builds a sustainable working group for digital scholars in more advanced project stages. This next generation of the program fosters a network of program alumni whose projects represent a range of digital methodologies and approaches that have allowed them to develop skills and practices around data literacy and digital storytelling. This workshop showcases a range of new work being done in the digital humanities, focusing on the possibilities and challenges of entering into this ever-widening circle of practice. The session will highlight scholars’ individual projects, including the process of building and troubleshooting their projects; storytelling for and in collaboration with multiple publics; and the practical steps needed to realize an idea in an engaging and feasible way. Workshop participants will benefit from the panelists’ discussion of their projects’ successes and failures, have an opportunity to interrogate digital tools and methods, and be encouraged to network with other early career scholars interested in digital scholarship.

Digital Methodologies in Cypriot Archaeology

Session Chairs: Caroline Barnes, PhD Candidate, University of British Columbia; Eleanor Q. Neil, Centre for Urban Network Evolutions (UrbNet), Aarhus University

Description: Digital technologies are transforming the archaeological research ecosystem in Cyprus. This session explores recent developments, inviting papers that investigate how tools such as 3D modeling, GIS analysis, Virtual Reality, and digital archiving are revolutionizing documentation and analysis of material culture, from Bronze Age settlements to medieval monuments. The session also examines the critical role of digital platforms in enhancing public engagement, education, and the curation of Cypriot cultural heritage in the digital age.

Digital technology is advancing rapidly across all fields, often outpacing considerations of ethical issues and data tenure. By presenting diverse case studies, we seek to underscore how digital technologies and methodologies enable researchers to address complex questions about Cyprus’s archaeological record with greater precision, efficiency, and in greater depth. Attention will be given to the aspects of digital practice such as data ownership, accessibility, and the interplay between digital and analogue research methods. We invite interdisciplinary papers that acknowledge the deeper ethical responsibilities when incorporating digital tools into the humanistic and collaborative core of archaeology.

Cyprus represents a unique environment for research in this area, both because of its rich academic community and because these digital methodologies have the potential to address limitations placed upon the field due to the ongoing partition of the island. The Cypriot political context has prevented archaeologists from accessing sites and material still located in the northern, occupied part of the island since 1974. The use of digital technologies in addressing pre-1974, legacy data has the potential to reveal otherwise inaccessible narratives.

Diversifying West Asian Archaeology: Grassroots and Informal Solutions to Institutional Problems (Workshop)

Session Chair: Neil Erskine, University of Glasgow

Description: A common theme in presentations and discussion at the Diversifying West Asian Archaeology: Accessibility Barriers and Mitigating Strategies workshop held at the 2024 ASOR Annual Meeting was the complexity of performing outreach, widening participation, inclusivity, or decolonial work where this work was not necessarily an institutional priority. Further hurdles were identified in operating within the confines of institutional bureaucracy or political expediency, or even against outright hostility from administrative or managerial bodies.

This workshop will further explore these problems and seek concrete solutions by drawing on the work of informal collaborative networks, activist collectives, student groups, community projects, and other initiatives, from both within and beyond West Asian archaeology. The workshop will highlight work designed to facilitate entry to the discipline, help support and retain those already engaged in the field, and create a more socially responsible and inclusive field and create and collate practicable resources and strategies that can be implemented outwith the confines of institutional apparatus.

Dwelling in the Past: Scales of Settlement, Time, and Society in Anatolia

Session Chairs: N. İlgi Gerçek, Bilkent University; Yağmur Heffron, University College London; Müge Durusu-Tanrıöver, Temple University

Description: This session explores the concept of dwelling as an individual and/or collective practice that imbues spaces with meaning, with a focus on the rich bodies of evidence offered by the Anatolian longue durée, which both align with broader eastern Mediterranean dynamics while also displaying distinct regional patterns. We wish to exploit the exceptional opportunity Anatolia presents for informing broader discussions on the diverse relationships which past communities established with spaces, structures, monuments, places, and landscapes.

Our frame of reference is based on an understanding of human habitation as being shaped by interactions across multiple temporal, spatial, and social scales. From the intimate rhythms of households to the complexities of urban centers and landscapes, studying habitation offers a multidimensional view of how communities engaged with one another and their surroundings. Only by approaching past societies at multiple scales, can we effectively highlight the dynamic interplay between time, settlement, and society.

Planned as the first of a tripartite series in which we approach the theme of dwelling in a descending scale of analysis (from landscapes to towns and cities and to houses and neighborhoods), the session will focus on landscape as a medium of human perception, experience, and interaction.

We invite archaeological, text- or image-based studies from the Neolithic to the Ottoman era, to contribute to a discussion of landscapes not as passive backdrops to human activity but as active, inhabited, and socially constructed environments. In addition to topics focusing on tangible and quantifiable practices such as economic production, urban planning, or resource extraction, we also wish to encourage contributions that tackle questions around place-making, ritual, or sacred landscapes, which may be more ephemeral and resistant to measurement.

Eastern Mediterranean Connections: A Session in Memory of Jacqueline Balensi

Session Chair: Carolina A. Aznar, Saint Louis University-Madrid Campus; Michal Artzy, University of Haifa

Description: Jacqueline Balensi’s research and archaeological excavations at Tell Abu Hawam helped to improve our understanding of coastal-inland relations and interregional exchanges in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age, the Iron Age, and the Persion Period. As a way to honor Balensi’s memory, this session welcomes papers that either analyze an aspect of her legacy or build on it to cast new light on her research topics.

Experiments in Critical Reading: Ancient Literature and Modern Theory

Session Chair: Jane Gordon, University of Chicago; Margaret Geoga, University of Chicago

Description: The question of what, if anything, to do with modern literary and critical theory looms large in the study of ancient West Asian and North African literature. Recent works by scholars including Gerald Moers, Richard B. Parkinson, and Selena Wisnom have demonstrated that significant insights into ancient texts can derive from turning to modern theories—with the oft-stated caveat that one must, as Jeremy Black put it, “pursue a pragmatic approach led by elements of any theory which seem…responsive to that literature’s special character…and to set aside those which appear inappropriate.” But what exactly does a “pragmatic” or “appropriate” approach, with appreciation of differences in culture and context, look like? And what, conversely, might be gained from an “inappropriate” or “unpragmatic” one? Could we reach consensus on a methodology, and should we even aim to do so?

This session centers these methodological questions, directly examining the interpretive act itself. We invite participants to stage an encounter between a work of ancient literature (broadly defined) and a work of modern critical theory, exploring approaches such as deconstruction, eco-criticism, or psychoanalysis. We encourage examinations of the relationship between theory and our objects of study in a spirit of experimentation grounded in careful and attentive readings of both modern and ancient texts. Through a series of examples that pose direct confrontations between texts from these two disparate worlds, this session takes a deeper look at the issues and insights that accompany the act of reading an ancient text through a modern one.

From Artifact to History

Session Chair: Debora Sandhaus, Ben Gurion University at Beer Sheva; Joe Uziel, Israel Antiquities Authority

Description: The field of archaeology has greatly changed over recent decades with the introduction of new methods and schools of thought, changing over time with the appearance of new papers and books that adjust our way of thinking about the finds that we recover. Yet at the base of all of these methods and philosophies is the attempt to take a single, basic find and recreate the broader picture of ancient society and human interaction. The following session aims at taking 5 such “artifacts or groups of artifacts” from different regions in the Mediterranean, and use them as contributions to a greater understanding of the history of that region

The Future of Ancient West Asia Collections in Museums (Workshop)

Session Chair: Pınar Durgun, The Morgan Library and Museum

Description: Many departments and museums with ancient Western Asian collections are or will be going through renovations and interpretive updates. This workshop aims to bring together museum professionals and scholars to exchange ideas and brainstorm on the presentation of AWA collections in museums today and in the future. Following the discussions in the Museum Professionals roundtable and the Museums and Social Justice session at ASOR, the need for a working group around best practices and blindspots has become apparent. The idea of this workshop is to discuss issues that museums with AWA collections are concerned with including (but not limited to) languages, diverse perspectives, multivocality, labels, citation practices, accessibility, provenance, restitution and repatriation, community curation and engagement, interactivity, digital approaches, ethics, and political issues.

The first year of the workshop aims to discuss ongoing renovation projects and their outcomes. In the second year (2025) the discussion will center around what is missing and what can be done to recognize and respond to the blind spots in the presentation of collections. As a result of these two year discussions, in the third year, the workshop will center big picture ideas on the future directions of AWA collections. The overall goal is to prepare a “AWA collections-museum best practices” document for ASOR consideration.

Glyptic Databases: Collaboration and Integration in the Digital Humanities Transition (Workshop)

Session Chairs: Ben Greet, The University of Zurich; Nadia Ben-Marzouk, The University of Zurich

Description: As we move through the digital humanities transition, the study of glyptics in Southwest Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean is entering a new phase focused on establishing databases that foster collaborative, integrated, and standardized data to facilitate assessing broader questions of production, distribution, and other historical trends. As such, several projects have established outward-facing glyptic databases across various institutions in the Americas, Europe, and Southwest Asia, yet these projects often operate in silos, pursuing similar goals and facing the same challenges. This workshop aims to bring together both researchers involved in these projects and those working in independent databases within the broader discipline with several aims: (1) To discuss, collaborate, and troubleshoot existing databases in order to work toward establishing a shared methodology; (2) To move towards a standardized and shared descriptive glyptic typology and iconographic taxonomy that fosters robust and integrated data across platforms; (3) To broaden the potential research questions on glyptics by using these databases as new analytical tools. This workshop will be held over the course of three years, with each year focusing on a new topic as follows:

Year 1 (2023): Assessing the needs, challenges, and best practices of glyptic databases

Year 2 (2024): Toward establishing a shared and standardized taxonomic language

Year 3 (2025): Asking new questions with digital technologies: Moving towards broad glyptic studies

Home Away from Home: Disciplinary Migrations and Scholarly Identities

Session Chairs: Danielle Candelora, College of the Holy Cross; Mahri Leonard-Fleckman, College of the Holy Cross; Jacob Damm, College of the Holy Cross

Description: The realities of Higher Education mean that many of us find ourselves working in departments that do not directly align with the disciplines in which we were trained. How do these alternative departmental homes shape or influence our work? This session seeks to explore shifts in scholarly practice as we make our “homes away from home,” and to consider how these spaces have altered the way we think about our own work. Examples include the adaption of new frameworks and methodologies, interdisciplinary or unexpected collaborations, and the interplay between teaching requirements and scholarly projects. Papers should be rooted in examples of current research that have emerged from or exemplify these shifts, though authors can begin by briefly situating their research within their particular departmental contexts and experiences.

Interconnectivity and Exchange with Northeast Africa

Session Chairs: Iman Nagy, University of California, Los Angeles; Annissa Malvoisin, Brooklyn Museum

Description: Northeast Africa played a pivotal role in the ancient world, actively participating and shaping major networks of trade and exchange. Its strategic location, bridging West/Central Africa with the Indian Ocean and Red Sea trade networks, and its proximity to the Near East and Southern Europe, fostered an extraordinary level of interconnectivity. This led to the exchange of motifs, ideologies, and economic practices. The region’s diverse inter-regional resources and the integration of multicultural traditions are evident not only in archaeological findings but also in belief systems and iconography. This session is dedicated to exploring these intricate networks and relationships, extending from Northeast Africa to its surrounding regions, both near and distant.

We welcome contributions that investigate intercultural relationships, encompassing more than just economic networks or ideological spheres, but also including long-distance trade and the exchange of technologies over long time spans. Our goal is to stimulate dialogue among various schools of thought, both methodological and theoretical, to deepen our understanding of Northeast Africa’s role as a crucial intersection in the global networks of the ancient world.

Islamic Archaeology and ASOR: A Session in Memory of Don Whitcomb

Session Chairs: Asa Eger, University of North Carolina, Greensboro; Jodi Magness, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Description: This session aims to honor the memory and legacy of Don Whitcomb, a founder of the field of Islamic Archaeology, and one of its most important shapers and players in North America. At the same time, this session seeks to reinforce ASOR’s role in fostering the future of Islamic Archaeology. In the last two decades, ASOR has increasingly embraced Islamic Archaeology in its Annual Meetings, granted projects and awards, and funded cultural heritage initiatives. Dr. Whitcomb was pleased that the study of Islamic Archaeology had finally found its North American home and his students could continue their research through ASOR. The proposed session highlights the recent work of his students in the Levantine Mediterranean and Red Sea littorals, as a way to honor the memory and legacy of Don Whitcomb.

Jerusalem and the Archaeology of a Sacred City

Session Chairs: Prof. Yuval Gadot, Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, Tel-Aviv University; Dr. Yiftah Shalev, Israel Antiquities Authority

Description: This session wishes to explore the sacred past and present of Jerusalem as it revealed and manifested through the archaeology of the city and its surrounding. Jerusalem, a city that is sacred for all three major monotheistic religions, is a place were the past is ever present in the current sanctified landscape. From its inception and until nowadays Jerusalem’s natural and urban landscapes were dotted with landmarks, buildings and burial places, each of them commemorating an event or a figure and serving for ritualistic needs. As such these places were webbed within a wider narrative regarding the city’s place and within different nation’s past. Furthermore, the sacred has always been intertwined with the economy, politics and social realia, thus shaping and being shaped by all those aspects.

Aspects of architecture, landscape archaeology, archaeology of the senses, pilgrimage, temple related economy, ritualistic objects and all other manifestations of the sacred within the archaeology of the city, will be presented and discussed. We also welcome presentations related to heritage management in today’s contested city: how to conduct research in a place that is actively being worshiped and visited by tourists?

The first year (2024) focuses on studies aiming at identifying the personal experience expressions of worshipers and pilgrims who visited Jerusalem’s holy places throughout the ages. During the second year (2025) we wish to explore how the city was physically, economically and symbolically shaped by sacred sites. The focus of the third year (2026) will be the interface between heritage and worship.

The LCP Handbook Series: The Late Roman Amphora 1

Session Chairs: Andrea Berlin, Boston University; Nicole Constantine, Stanford University

Description: The Levantine Ceramics Project launched in 2011, and with ongoing support from ASOR, has become a lively, digital, open-access resource for the pottery of the ancient and medieval Mediterranean and Near East. The website is ever-growing, with more than 20,000 ceramic vessels uploaded by hundreds of scholars working around the globe. In 2025, the LCP launched a handbook series, which will draw on this abundant data to produce a user-friendly set of resources for excavators and students. These will appear as joint open-access e-books and traditional print books published by Lockwood Press. The handbooks will serve as easy-to-use guides for pottery identification as well as provide updated discussions of classes of pottery that are fundamental to our understanding of the past. Both the handbooks and the ASOR sessions dedicated to their topics will further the LCP’s mission of providing a venue for collaborative, open-access ceramic research.

The 2025 ASOR session concerns the Late Roman Amphora 1 (LRA1), a ubiquitous, long-lived form whose distribution stretches from Scotland and Wales to Yemen and India, making it a powerful source of evidence for social and economic life in Late Antiquity. The LCP Handbook to the LRA1 brings together published scholarship, including all known production sites, petrographic data, and the most current information on distribution, all linked to the robust body of open-sourced data on the LCP. This session aims to continue the conversation that the Handbook begins, by inviting scholars to pose new questions and ideas to explore.

The 2026 ASOR session will be dedicated to Eastern Sigillata A (ESA) and the 2027 ASOR session will focus on ceramic wares of Jordan from the Early Bronze Age through the late Medieval era.

Life and Tradition around Sacred Mountains (Southwest Asia)

Session Chairs: Gonca Dardeniz, Istanbul University; Randall W. Younker, Andrews University

Description: Seas and rivers, steppes and forests, plateaus and mountains, which have surrounded human populations for ages, have social and cultural impacts on lifestyles and beliefs of communities. Of the typical list of geographical features associated with human communities, mountains, in particular, provide rich but challenging landscapes that impact human societies in distinct and decisive ways. This is because of their varying faunal, floral, and geological (e.g. ores and minerals), water resources, as well as the protection they can provide. Mountains have become distinctive landscapes for socio-ecology and production. Some communities have established strong social and economic linkages with the resources provided by mountains and mountainous areas. Being miners of metals or minerals like salt, exploiting forest resources (timber), pursuing animal husbandry or hunting on neighboring highlands, communities relate to local mountains in their own unique and idiosyncratic ways.

Taking full advantage of the resources mountains provide includes using the accumulated traditional knowledge of the surrounding mountains, including sacred and indigenous practice that connect communities to these special landscapes. Mountains are scenes for the dichotomies for bright and dark, fear and courage, accessible and unreachable. They have been metaphysical symbols for ancient civilizations all around the world representing the realm of gods or sacred beings. They are divine and spiritual markers of age-long traditions.

Mountainscapes offer dynamic highland-lowland livelihoods. While mountainscapes are less populated, they have received even less attention among the scholarly community. This session aims to open a door for scholars who have been studying different perspectives of archaeology and ethnograpy of mountains. While our team has especially focused on well-known (but little studied) “sacred” mountain landscapes on and around Mt. Agrı, Mt. Suphan and the Taurus mountains, our session welcomes archaeological, ethnological/ethnoarchaeological, and ecological research ongoing around mountains. Traditions around and the sacred nature of the mountains is an additional perspective that the theme of the session would cover.

Megiddo at 100: Exploring the Layers and Legacy of ISAC’s Expedition at Armageddon

Session Chairs: Eric Cline, George Washington University; Kiersten Neumann, University of Chicago

Description: The Megiddo Expedition, launched by the University of Chicago’s Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (then known as the Oriental Institute), was the first of many ambitious, multiyear archaeological projects initiated by the Institute in the early 20th century. These endeavors aimed to realize the vision of ISAC’s founder, James Henry Breasted, to uncover the origins of the earliest civilizations in West Asia and North Africa. In 1925, just four years after ISAC’s establishment, Clarence S. Fisher, the expedition’s first field director, led his team to the site of Tell el-Mutesellim (ancient Megiddo). Their mission: to uncover the layered history of this strategically significant city, which served as a critical crossroads between Egypt, the Mediterranean, and Western Asia. Over the next 14 field seasons (1925–1939), under the successive leadership of Clarence S. Fisher, P. L. O. Guy, and Gordon Loud, the discoveries, meticulous recordings, and interpretations at Megiddo laid the groundwork for modern archaeology in the southern Levant, predominantly preserved today in the ISAC Museum’s artifact and archival collections. Coinciding with the ISAC Museum’s special exhibition “The Megiddo Expedition at 100 Years” (working title), this session presents fresh perspectives on this old material, shedding new light on the lesser-known histories, untold narratives, and individuals—both influential and overlooked—connected to ISAC’s pioneering work at Megiddo.

New Approaches to Ancient Animals

Session Chairs: Christine Mikeska, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Theo Kassebaum, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Description: Building on the momentum of the inaugural session at ASOR 2024, we invite papers that apply innovative theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of ancient animals in Southwest Asia, North Africa, and the Mediterranean. Recent theoretical approaches emphasizing multispecies relationships and non-anthropocentric perspectives have revealed that animals are central to shaping human social worlds. This session therefore invites presenters to take animals and their social relationships seriously, critically approaching archaeological assemblages, texts, and iconography as tools to reimagine the more-than-human past. While the study of ancient animals is traditionally approached through an economic or ecological lens, focusing on the utility of animals to their human counterpart, this session seeks to bring together new perspectives on the lives of animals in the ancient past to broaden our understanding of ancient multispecies worlds. This session also seeks to address the siloization of knowledge dissemination that results from long held disciplinary boundaries that divide ancient animal studies. Therefore, we invite papers that rethink approaches to ancient animals from a wide variety of perspectives, including (but not limited to) zooarchaeology, history and philology, and art history. We also encourage interdisciplinary papers that bring these perspectives together. In 2025, this session is organized around the theme of Rethinking Animal Bodies and Boundaries. In 2026, the theme will be rethinking animal agencies and autonomy.

New Perspectives on Hellenistic Maresha in Idumea

Session Chairs: Adi Erlich, University of Haifa; Ian Stern, University of Haifa

Description: Forty years ago, the late Prof. Amos Kloner, our dear mentor who passed away in 2019, initiated the excavations at Maresha. Maresha was the primary city in Idumea during the Persian and Hellenistic periods, home to a mosaic of peoples and cultures under Idumean dominance. In the ASOR annual meeting of 2017, we held a session on the Cultural Mosaic of Maresha. Over the past eight years, research on the Hellenistic city of Maresha has grown significantly, and in 2025, two new monographs will be published regarding the subterranean complexes and the city’s buildings. Additional research is being conducted on the unique archive of sealings discovered in 2018, along with the numerous Greek and Aramaic inscriptions from the site. The proposed session aims to present new insights into Hellenistic Maresha and is dedicated to the cherished memory of Amos Kloner.

Once More With Feeling: Reading Emotions in Archaeological Objects (Workshop)

Session Chairs: Emily Miller Bonney, California State University, Fullerton; Leann Pace, Wake Forest University

Description: Presentations on archaeological investigations in the classroom, at conferences or in publications and on whatever times or places tend to focus on materials that contribute to the larger narrative, the arc of culture and civilization. We do not exclude the emotional altogether. After all funerary materials such as Athenian white-ground lekythoi often offer stark emotional content, and renderings of rambunctious revelry can reveal ritual celebrations. But the populations whose material culture we investigate also possessed and expressed a range of other emotions from personal joy to anger. How can we detect these more subtle and individualistic characteristics in the material record? In telling our stories in the classroom or at the podium or in the journal how can we disclose the humanity of these sometimes distant folk and repopulate times before our own with individuals? Is there a way to provide a narrative that identifies the often tender feelings of people whom we otherwise aggregate into specific cultural units? Are there certain principles or methods that will provide us with the insight into what it meant to live in some other time and place?

In this session we invite presenters to suggest ways of identifying such personal narratives with a six-minute presentation with only six slides on a single object that furnishes us with a glimpse of these articulations without words of what it means to be human. Submissions from all times and places where ASOR members work are welcome.

Orientalism in Biblical Archaeology and Scholarship: A Legacy or a Prevailing Methodological Obstacle? (Workshop)

Session Chairs: Emanuel Pfoh, University of Helsinki; Erez Ben-Yosef, Tel Aviv University

Description: This workshop critically examines the enduring influence of Orientalism in contemporary biblical archaeology and scholarship. Orientalist perspectives, which shaped much of 19th-century academic thought, continue to influence the study of the Levant’s past and the historiography of the region. While the overt expression of Orientalism may have diminished over time, its methodological traces persist in both archaeological practices and biblical exegesis, whether consciously or unconsciously. Through a series of case studies, we will explore how Orientalist assumptions still inform current research, with particular attention to text-based and archaeology-driven historiographies. The aim is to assess whether these lingering biases are a remnant of past scholarly traditions or represent ongoing obstacles that hinder more nuanced, critical approaches to the ancient history of the Levant.

Rebuilding Antioch: Collaborative Approaches to the Ancient City (Workshop)

Session Chairs: Nicole Berlin, The Davis Museum at Wellesley College; Elizabeth Molacek, The University of Texas at Dallas

Description: The material culture of Antioch, one of the largest cities in the ancient Mediterranean, provides tantalizing insights into the lives of those living thousands of years ago. Recent digitization of the excavation archives and museum exhibitions about the city’s mosaics have made Antioch more accessible than ever before. Pedagogically, a number of universities now offer seminars focused on Antioch and its legacy. Antioch’s cultural heritage is an especially pressing topic after the devastating 2023 earthquakes in the Hatay Province, Türkiye. Previously, most of the Antioch material in the United States has been relegated to museum storerooms for the last eighty years. The majority of objects have never been on view. Even scholars dedicated to the field have struggled to locate or access all of the material, due to the complex and isolated nature of archives, institutions, and museum collections.

This two-year workshop brings together researchers involved in recent Antioch-related projects, as well as scholars currently working in the Hatay Province, with the following goals: 1) To discuss approaches for researching, displaying, and teaching with material from Antioch. 2) To facilitate conversions between scholars and museum professionals working in the United States or Europe and our Turkish colleagues, especially in the Hatay Province. 3) To propose collaborative approaches that continue to make Antioch’s cultural heritage accessible and tangible. The first year (2024) focuses on current museological and pedagogical approaches to Antioch while the second year (2025) highlights the current research happening in Antakya, Türkiye and ways of “re-building” the ancient city, digitally or otherwise.

Recent Excavations at the Phoenician Colony of Cerro del Villar, Malaga, Spain

Session Chairs: David Schloen, University of Chicago

Description: The papers in this session will present results of the excavations in 2022, 2023, and 2024 conducted by the University of Malaga and the University of Chicago at the important Phoenician colony site of Cerro del Villar near Malaga on the south coast of Spain. A densely built occupying 8 hectares was founded on a low-lying island in the estuary of the Guadalhorce River in the early 8th century BCE and was abandoned in the early 6th century due to repeated flooding. Excavations of this well-preserved settlement have provided valuable information about urban planning and development over a 200-year period and about its inhabitants’ cultural and economic connections to Phoenician and indigenous settlements in Spain and Portugal and connections to the Levantine homeland. More generally, excavations at Cerro del Villar shed light on the remarkable history of Phoenician colonization in Iberia, which occurred on a larger scale at an earlier time than previously thought.

(Re)excavating Karanis 100 Years Later: New Research on the Legacy Collections and Archival Records

Session Chairs: Laura Motta, University of Michigan; Tyler D. Johnson, University of Michigan

Description: The site of Karanis, a Greco-Roman farming village in Egypt’s Fayum region, was extensively excavated by the University of Michigan between 1924 and 1935. Although a far cry from modern standards, the Michigan team utilized advanced excavation and recording techniques for the time. Documenting the evolution of the site through a system of “levels” running from the Ptolemaic Period to Late Antiquity, the excavators left behind a dense archival record now housed at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology (Ann Arbor, Michigan). Also brought back to Ann Arbor was an immense quantity of material culture remains that provides critical insights into the daily life and economy of the settlement in the Roman period.

Despite 100 years of research and a rich scholarly tradition, much of these materials and records have yet to be systematically studied, contextualized and published. Today, however, multiple international teams are engaging with this extensive corpus, while ongoing excavations at Karanis are offering fresh perspectives and additional contextual information. Recent findings have challenged some longstanding assumptions about the settlement, particularly regarding its chronology and the timing of its abandonment. This session convenes researchers at the forefront of these efforts, with the aim of fostering collaborative approaches and stimulating interdisciplinary discussion. We particularly welcome papers that consider innovative interpretative frameworks and explore the challenges and opportunities of working with archival excavation data, charting new directions for the study of Karanis as it enters its second century of investigation.

Rethinking the Amarna Letters: Cuneiform and Cultures in Contact

Session Chairs: Gina Konstantopoulos, University of California, Los Angeles

Description: The Amarna letters not only provide a rich window into the social and political world of the 14th c. ancient Near East but also enrich our understanding of the scribal practices and languages of the period. This session will consider both the Amarna letters and their larger scribal and cultural context through the lens of Alice Mandell’s forthcoming monograph, Cuneiform Culture and the Ancestors of Hebrew Rethinking the Canaanite Amarna Letters (Routledge, July 2025). The papers in this session will respond to this monograph through an integrated discussion of the broader topics of: the scribal practices and communities that produced the Amarna letters, the nature of Akkadian and uses of cuneiform in the Middle and Late Bronze Age, and the connections and contacts between cultures in the Levant during this period. As such, the session examines and discusses Mandell’s work while also facilitating more detailed investigations into the larger questions surrounding the Amarna letters, particularly as connected to ancient Canaan and the Levant, which served as a contact point for the ancient Near East as a whole and a basis for comparative analysis of neighboring languages and scribal traditions.

Ritual, Power, and the Power of Ritual in the Ancient Near East: Ritual and Kingship

Session Chairs: Céline Debourse, Harvard University; Elizabeth Knott, College of the Holy Cross

Description: Rituals are powerful tools that can make or break the socio-political status quo, and those who command ritual hold a special kind of sway over other people. But what does it mean to wield ritual as a socio-political tool? In this two-year session, we will explore who harnessed the power of ritual, how they did so, to what aims and ends, and how reliable these ritual strategies were. During the first year we focused on ANE kingship and its rituals (“Ritual and Kingship in the Ancient Near East”), asking what royal ritual can teach us about the institution of kingship. In the second year, we will expand our outlook to understand how any ANE person or social group could use ritual to exert and subvert social or political power (“Power and Ritual in the Ancient Near East”). For both sessions, we welcome papers from archaeologists, art historians, and philologists.

The 2025 “Power and Ritual in the Ancient Near East” Session explores the socio-political power of ritual and how various ritual actors could tap into or subvert that power. A wide range of individuals and groups were involved in ritual performances. Rituals were often designed for kings, but they were not necessarily designed by kings. Who instructs who in ritual performance? And how do the presence and actions of various individuals and parties shape the experience of ritual? What traces of power plays can be found in the textual and material records? In this session, we will explore ritual from different perspectives – through texts, ritual theories, aspects of materiality, and architecture

The Robot at the Back of the Classroom: Student Engagement and Assessment under the Shadow of Generative AI (Workshop)

Session Chairs: M. Willis Monroe, University of New Brunswick; Emily Hammer, University of Pennsylvania

Description: Students and instructors across our disciplines have been impacted by the advent of easily accessible tools for generative AI (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude). These tools present problems for traditional pedagogical methods and have a deleterious effect on students’ motivation to learn. However, these tools are not going away and their usage is only going to become more common. How can we teach, engage, and assess our students in this rapidly changing landscape? This workshop will consider the unique benefits that courses structured around archaeology and ancient texts can offer, including innovative pedagogical solutions that facilitate deeper engagement and more effective assessment methods. We will focus on three aspects of teaching in our modern pedagogical landscape: 1) How to assess students accurately despite the threat of generative AI being used in lieu of actual student work. This can involve various techniques from the basic switch to analog in-class writing or oral exams, to prompt injection in lecture slides. This is not just about catching academic dishonesty as such methods can result in improvements in pedagogical outcomes. 2) How to change our pedagogical structures so that generative AI is not an easy crutch or an attractive shortcut. This can involve substantially more discussion-based courses, flipped classrooms, and group research projects. 3) Potential ways to incorporate generative AI into the classroom. Our students in their education and careers will need to learn the potential benefits, harm, and limitations of these tools, as well as how to critically assess their outputs.

Rural Communities: Social and Spiritual Rites

Session Chairs: Helena Roth, Tel Aviv University

Description: This multi-year session aims to center rural communities in archaeological discourse, moving beyond their traditional role as a backdrop to urban archaeology. Recognizing the historical dominance of rural populations, this initiative prioritizes in-depth investigations of rural life across diverse geographic and temporal contexts.

Following the 2024 Annual ASOR meeting, which focused on subsistence strategies and their impact on rural communities, the second year of this multi-year session, planned for 2025, will explore social and spiritual rites within rural settings. In particular, issues of public versus private rites, taboos, allowances, and investment will be addressed within the discussion of how ancient rural societies performed rituals and how, in turn, these rituals shaped rural societies. This constitutes another step towards investigating rural societies on their own terms, rather than as the opposite of “urban.”

The final year, planned for 2026, will investigate the social structure and complexity of rural communities, integrating insights from the preceding years. This framework emphasizes a multidisciplinary approach, combining archaeological analyses with anthropological, textual, and psychological perspectives to achieve a comprehensive understanding of rural societies.

The Samaria Ostraca: A Twenty-First-Century Reappraisal (Workshop)

Session Chairs: Madadh Richey, Brandeis University; Matthew Suriano, University of Maryland

Description: This worskshop has as its goal the multidisciplinary re-evaluation of one of the most significant finds in Northwest Semitic epigraphy: the cache of roughly one hundred eighth-century B.C.E. ink ostraca from Samaria, one of the capitals of the Iron Age kingdom of Israel, discovered by the excavations of George Andrew Reisner in 1910. These ostraca are themselves superficially simple artifacts recording transfers of wine and oil. But their relative preponderance in a field with minimal epigraphic data has rendered them crucial for the understanding of Israelite writing, geography, sociopolitics, economics, and more. Recent years have seen a revival of interest and publication on the ostraca particularly and the kingdom of Israel generally (e.g. Tappy 2016 AASOR 70; Finkelstein 2021 IEJ 71; Richelle 2022 BABELAO 10-11). The present workshop aims to build on and focus this interest by bringing together scholars working on the ostraca and their contexts with different methods and disciplinary perspectives. We envision a conversation among archaeologists reevaluating the complex stratigraphy of Samaria and its “ostraca house,” epigraphers querying the texts’ characteristic palaeographic and linguistic features, and historians situating economic and sociopolitical observations with respect to the Hebrew Bible and other sources. Our focus on a particular corpus will facilitate detailed discussion among specialists and extrapolation from the specific to the general: what implications does this still unique set of finds have for our intersecting archaeological, epigraphic, and historical fields?

Social and Economic Dynamics of Early Near East Societies (Workshop)

Session Chairs: Jeremy A. Beller, University of Bergen; Tina Greenfield, University of Winnipeg; Kent Fowler, University of Manitoba

Description: This workshop explores the archaeology early societies in the Near East. Archaeological investigations demonstrate this region’s pivotal role in shaping early human civilisation and complex social systems. These societies developed monumental architecture, early writing systems like cuneiform, and technologies such as bronze tools and irrigation networks. Trade networks extended across the Near East, fostering cultural and material exchanges. These socioeconomic facets help us understand the transformation of human communities into stratified, urbanised states, primarily during the Neolithic to Bronze Ages (c. 10,000–2000 BCE).

Towards a Working Ancient Economy: The Bronze Age

Session Chairs: Eric Aupperle, Harvard University; Andrew Deloucas, Harvard University; Taha Yurttas, Harvard University

Description: The first history we have is arguably an economic one: a record rooted in the practical concerns of administration, resource allocation, and labor management. The need to control and quantify goods was a driving force not only for accounting technology, but for the development of institutions. Written and material records of the Bronze Age provide unparalleled clarity in documenting chains of production and distribution networks. As such, the study of Bronze Age economic history offers a window into a past that can encompass all strata of society.

This member-organized session invites papers on ancient economy based on written, material, and visual sources in any imaginable combination. This includes examinations of traditional sources of economic information (written accounts, sealing hierarchies, spatial analyses) as well as wider discussions of the social, legal, and political context of economy. The session embraces a wide geographic area, welcoming papers from Greater Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia and the Aegean, North Africa, the Caucasus, the Gulf, Central Asia, and beyond. Possible topics include trade networks, economic crises, labor history, debt, and civic institutions.

Urbanism and Polities in the Bronze and Iron Age Levant

Session Chairs: Omer Sergi, Tel Aviv University; Daniel Master, Wheaton College; Karen Covello-Paran, Israel Antiquities Authority

Description: Urbanism and urban centers were at the heart of political and economic life during the Bronze and Iron Ages, and throughout most of this time, they constituted the basic socio-political unit of the Levant. Urban centers throughout the Levant flourished and demised in the shadow of imperial forces from Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Egypt. Yet, there are profound differences between urbanism in the northern and the southern Levant. Moreover, the face of urbanism changed in the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, bringing about new socio-political formations, at least in the southern and central Levant, which are mostly thought of in terms of territorial polities. This session aims to discuss and ponder the formation and demise of Levantine urbanism within its socio-historical context. These session will call for papers discussing the changing faces of Levantine urbanism during the Bronze and Iron Ages, and how these were related to the formation of Levantine polities. It aims to scrutinize the relations between urban landscape and political hegemony, but also between the urban centers and their rural hinterlands. Thus, we hope, to provide a holistic view of Levantine urbanism from its very inception. We intend to dedicate the first year (2024) to discuss the formation of the urban landscape of the Middle Bronze Age and its impact on socio-political life in the Levant. Special attention will also be given to the formation of “Canaan” as a concept of social belonging. The second year (2025) will be dedicated to discussing Levantine urbanism under the empires of the Late Bronze Age (Mittani, Hittites, Egypt), and the third year (2026) will be dedicated to discussing the changing face of urbanism in the world of the Iron Age kin-based territorial polities.

Violence in the Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible

Session Chairs: Anthony P. SooHoo, SJ, Pontifical Biblical Institute; Shane Thompson, North Carolina Wesleyan College; Laura Battini, Collège de France

Description: While violence is a phenomenon common to the societies and cultures of the ancient Near East, including those of the Hebrew Bible, relatively little comparative analysis has been carried out among the various disciplines. The aim of this session is to stimulate conversation and collaboration among biblical scholars, Assyriologists, Egyptologists, and other specialists of the ancient Near East by focusing on the topic of violence in its various manifestations (i.e., interpersonal, communal, ritual, symbolic, gendered, structural, instrumental, post-mortem, surplus) in the archaeological, textual, and visual evidence from prehistory to the Hellenistic period. We also welcome submissions that consider the entanglement of contemporary imperialism, violence, historiography, and archaeology. This year we will focus broadly on the problem of studying violence in antiquity, given our limited access to the realia of ancient life. How was violence experienced materially and somatically, and how were these experiences mediated in text and art? We invite case studies that pay attention to the dynamics of violence, involving the perpetrators, victims, and audience, as well as its temporal and spatial setting. Other presentations might involve the intertextual or intermedial dynamics at work in the accounts of violence from various sources. Presenters are also invited to explore the socio-political and religious functions of violence, noting especially the patterns observed across the cultures of the ancient Near East.

What’s Up With That?: Museum Objects that Defy Interpretation (Workshop)

Session Chairs: Ashley Arico, Art Institute of Chicago; Carl Walsh, New York University; Jen Thum, Harvard Art Museums

Description: All museums have *that questionable object.* Maybe it’s banished to the depths of storage, or has been on view for some time amid raised eyebrows. In this workshop, researchers and museum professionals will present puzzling objects from museum collections, in the hopes of getting some answers from our community of scholars. Each participant will present what is known about their unusual object(s) and what they hope to elucidate. Research questions may explore authenticity or provenance, seek comparanda from other cultures, or engage in new ways with the material aspects of objects.

Each presentation will be followed by a brief group discussion including both participants and attendees. The panel as a whole will conclude with a broader discussion about topics such as the complexities of stewarding objects whose authenticity and histories are unclear and the importance of studying fakes. Bring your niche knowledge and detective skills and see if you can help us solve one of these mysteries!

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