17吃瓜News Archives - Page 8 of 30 - American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR)

Virtual Archaeology Initiative: 2025 Dig Diaries

Posted on July 24, 2025 by Moni Islam

Virtual Archaeology Initiative: 2025 Dig Diaries

As you embark on fieldwork and research this summer, 17吃瓜invites you to make Dig Diaries and submit them to our .

Dig Diaries can be any of the following (coordinate with your project director(s) to ensure their permission):

1) a short teaching video that explains a specific process or element of an excavation/survey, how that element fits within the overall objective of the project, and/or how it fulfills some responsibility that we as archaeologists have to study, preserve, document, and make accessible the materials we excavate;

2) a video field diary recording in which you discuss research questions for your given project/season along with progress reports throughout the season to show how those research questions are met and/or how they change;
3) a digital image with explanation of the pictured stratigraphy/object/etc.

Check out our current submissions on 听辞谤听 for examples. We are also open to other kinds of virtual assets, so if you have a great idea, please feel free to share it with us. We hope that you choose to join us in developing Virtual Archaeology at ASOR. Submissions and any questions can be directed to .

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ECS Poster and Student Paper Preparation Session

Cultural Heritage Committee Seeks New Members

Fieldwork Report: David Rhys Sharpe

FOA Webinar Panel: From Tunis to Tataouine

Fieldwork Report: Aayush Umesh

Posted on July 24, 2025 by Marta Ostovich

Finding My Path

Aayush Umesh, 2025 Eric and Carol Meyers Fieldwork Scholarship Recipient听

A year ago today, I had no idea that I would become an Islamic archaeologist. My path has been full of twists and turns. In the last four years at the University of Georgia, I have completed a bachelor鈥檚 degree with double majors in theatre and communication studies and a minor in Arabic. I entered college with ambitions to attend law school. Eventually, however, I found archaeology, and tried my hand at excavation last summer at Antiochia ad Cragum, T眉rkiye. I fell in love and attended both the 17吃瓜and AIA Annual Meetings in 2024 and 2025, respectively. At the 17吃瓜Annual Meeting, I met Professor Bethany Walker, the head of the Islamic Archaeology Research Unit at the University of Bonn. Upon meeting her and listening to the work of her graduate students, the next segment of my path had been illuminated. I decided to pursue the MA in Islamic Archaeology at the University of Bonn and to accompany the university for fieldwork at Tall Hisban, Jordan, from May 18-29, 2025.

Tall Hisban is around a 30-minute drive from Madaba, the 鈥淐ity of Mosaics鈥� that houses the Madaba Map (the oldest surviving cartographic depiction of the Holy Land as a large floor mosaic on the floor of the St. George Greek Orthodox Church). Madaba today is a vibrant city boasting harmonious Christian and Muslim communities, spectacular archaeology, delicious Jordanian cuisine, talented mosaic artisans, and proximity to the capital city of Amman (which is less than an hour鈥檚 drive). Our team stayed at Salome Hotel, a gorgeous accommodation for guests in Madaba with simple yet beautiful amenities and a kind, hospitable staff.

Tall Hisban is a breathtaking site with millennia of occupation, with excavated material culture representing periods from Paleolithic to Late Islamic. A stroll through the site takes one up Roman stairs to Byzantine houses, through Islamic bathhouses reusing Christian baptismal basins to the entrances of previously settled underground cave systems. Old and new are engaged in a remarkable dance at Tall Hisban, best captured by the abundant spolia utilized in its diverse features鈥� constructions as well as in the tell鈥檚 modern residential surroundings.

I was assigned to a square which had been identified in a previous season as an Ayyubid-era kitchen. Our goal was to continue excavating this square, passing the Ayyubid layer and investigating those beneath to determine the usage of the space in earlier Islamic eras. Our objective this excavation season was to gain a better understanding of the dietary practices of the inhabitants of Tall Hisban by comparing data procured at the tell to data procured at a nearby wadi (valley) that had been historically used for agricultural purposes. As such, many soil samples were taken during excavation for botanical analysis, particularly in areas high in charcoal or surrounding excavated cookwares. Some of the most outstanding discoveries were tabuns, or traditional clay ovens, which contain a multitude of data.

Upon returning to the hotel each afternoon, the group would reconvene for pottery washing and counting after a nap. It was inspiring watching Prof. Walker identify the period or region of any given sherd in seconds! Pottery washing was a great educational experience because I was able to acquaint myself with many types and periods of wares including Byzantine, Umayyad, Abbasid, Ayyubid, Mamluk, and Fatimid.

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Having completed a minor in Arabic at UGA, I was thrilled to have this opportunity to develop my skills in spoken Arabic, particularly in the Jordanian dialect. I learned many helpful field vocabulary words from Jordanian workmen onsite including the words for trowel, pottery, shovel, dustpan, glass, pickaxe, and more! The team had one free weekend, and while most used this time to visit Petra, I decided to visit Amman instead with Prof. Walker and another teammate. We spent some time at the Jordan Museum, where I was able to stand just inches away from both the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Ain Ghazal statues. We then visited the Amman Citadel as well. The Jordan Archaeological Museum is located on the citadel, and features excavated artefacts from Tall Hisban and many other sites in Jordan.

My time at Tall Hisban was nothing short of life-changing. Through this experience, I made over a dozen friends at the University of Bonn, which will make my transition far easier as I relocate to Germany this fall. I am thrilled that I have found my path鈥擨slamic archaeology鈥攁nd have been given the opportunity to study with one of the world鈥檚 leading Islamic archaeologists. I look forward to returning to Tall Hisban in future excavation seasons and continuing the work that we did this summer.

Aayush Umesh is a recent graduate of the University of Georgia with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Communication Studies. He hopes to become a professor in Islamic archaeology at a major research university, focusing in the Levant and/or South Asia. He will soon begin a Master of Arts degree in Islamic Archaeology at the University of Bonn, supervised by Prof. Bethany Walker.

Tall Hisban Project:

Want to help more students and early career archaeologists get into the field? Donate to the cause today by selecting 鈥淔ieldwork Scholarships鈥� as your gift purpose!

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2025 Fieldwork Updates

Posted on July 14, 2025 by Marta Ostovich

2025 UPDATES FROM THE FIELD

It is a busy and exciting time of year for many ASOR-affiliated projects. Below are some links to updates and stories from the field on social media. Click to read the latest edge-of-the-trowel news from the field. Survey, excavation, processing artifacts, conservation, visiting other sites, talking to the public, hosting outreach events鈥攖hese accounts offer a slice-of-life picture of archaeology in action.

(Egypt) Excavation of tombs revealing the lives of people in the border town of Aswan.
听(Iraq) Investigation of a multi-mound site in the Erbil Plain.
(Iraq) Middle Bronze Age city excavations in the Erbil Plain plus a workshop on cuneiform tablet conservation.
(Spain) Excavations of a medieval Islamic domestic complex plus a conference on Islamic archaeology.
(Italy) Excavation and geophysical survey of a Punic settlement on an island off the coast of Sicily.
听(Turkey) Survey of the ancient site of Phoenix in the Marmaris region.
听(Turkey) Survey project investigating the imperial strategies of the Hittite Empire, as well as the response of the local populations to Hittite imperialism
(Turkey) Bioarchaeology of Syedra: reconstructing lived experiences through human skeletal remains at Syedra with a focus on Roman and Byzantine periods.
(Turkey) Excavation and conservation of a Late Bronze Age palace and city.
(Israel) Excavation of monumental remains of temples, palaces, and fortification systems in the Judean Lowlands.
(Egypt) Research and conservation of the ancient Thmuis, a Greco-Roman city in the Nile Delta.
(Turkey) Excavation of a Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Hellenistic urban center in the Konya Plain.

Projects with Upcoming Fieldwork

(Iraq): Excavation of a settlement in the Baizan Valley, occupied from the 4th millennium BCE through the Islamic periods.
听(Iraq) Mosul Dam archaeological project of University of Palermo and Duhok Directorate of Antiquities.

Stay tuned from more news from students and researchers later this summer and fall both on the 17吃瓜website and social media.

If you鈥檇 like to include updates from your on this list, .

Interested in affiliating your project with ASOR? 听

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ECS Poster and Student Paper Preparation Session

Cultural Heritage Committee Seeks New Members

Fieldwork Report: David Rhys Sharpe

FOA Webinar Panel: From Tunis to Tataouine

Fieldwork Report: Lonnie Reid

Posted on July 8, 2025 by Meg Heaney

Magnetometry in the Erbil Plain

Lonnie Reid, 2024 Fieldwork Scholarship Recipient.听

My name is Lonnie Reid and thanks to ASOR鈥檚 scholarship, I had the opportunity to go to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq as a part of the Rural Landscapes of Iron Age Mesopotamia Project (RLIIM), run by Dr. Petra Creamer. For my report, instead focusing just on a specific trench, as we had multiple open this season, I will talk mainly about our main survey method, magnetometry.

But before we jump in, Qach Rresh is a Neo-Assyrian site in the Erbil plain that appears to be a transition center for goods going in and out of the major nearby city. Due to this, there are items of everyday transport on site such as pottery and arrowheads, and some things that you wouldn鈥檛 see everyday, but that鈥檚 a topic for another time.

A magnetometer is a survey device that senses the slight magnetic changes in the atmosphere using the poles on either side of the device. The poles sense magnetic fields for about a meter in every direction. The device is so sensitive that the person operating it cannot wear any amount of magnetic clothing or have electronic devices on them. So sadly, while we were marching up and down rows of wheat for an hour or two at a time, we couldn鈥檛 have music or a podcast going.

A magnetometer works by taking a reading of the magnetic field every second. So to keep the readings from overlapping, we would have to walk at a constant pace of a meter per second, up and down a tape measure grid, so that we would know we are walking straight and at pace at all times. Funnily enough, the technology for magnetometers has remained fairly consistent over the years, meaning it鈥檚 old, so there鈥檚 a bit of manual adjusting we had to do before every use. The poles that measure magnetism can come off for easier transportation, meaning that we had to level them before each use to make sure that the poles were reading at the same height. Also to make sure the readings are stable, we had to hold the magnetometer out in front of us, which was also just as draining as walking. It appears light as parts are made of PVC material, but I promise, balancing those sensors on the sides is no joke.

The magnetometry team was always comprised of three people, one person holding the device and walking, and the other two would set up and move the grid system, so that as soon as one twenty by twenty square block was done, another could immediately start. I think the record for the most blocks done in a day was 16. Once you get into a groove, it鈥檚 pretty zen. But as I mentioned before, the lack of music does make it a long endeavor.

But why is magnetometry important? It鈥檚 a non-destructive survey method that allows archaeologists to plan out where they want to set up trenches, without needing to make an initial trench. This allows for areas with potential interest to be found sooner than just by choosing a spot based on the topsoil or by location near previous trenches.

Finally, I mentioned that the magnetometer has not really had a technological update in a few decades, so how do we process the data? Well the magnetometer itself does not know where it is within space, so that鈥檚 why we have to time out our steps at a meter per second. The machine does know that we walk up and down a grid in a zigzag pattern and whichever direction we face to begin with, must be the same direction for all of the squares to keep the data consistent. When uploading the raw data to the computer, it comes out as pixels, some shade of grey between black and white. The more white an area is, the more magnetic it is and the darker an area is, the less magnetic it is. Different types of stones and other materials will have their own magnetic signature. For example, basalt shows up black as it has little magnetism, whereas limestone is a medium gray, but mudbrick appears white. So eventually, you get a magnetic map of the area that shows where potential buildings used to lie due to the magnetic presence of the building materials.

Magnetometry might have been the most intensive yet fun part of my fieldwork this past summer. But the trip wasn鈥檛 just all digging and marching. On the weekends we would make day trips to other archaeological sites in the greater Erbil area, and mingle with some of the locals and friends of the project. Our adventures included visiting Shanidar Cave, the bazaar, and a still standing aqueduct in Jerwan.

Want to help more students and early career archaeologists get into the field? Donate to the cause today by selecting 鈥淔ieldwork Scholarships鈥� as your gift purpose!

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ECS Poster and Student Paper Preparation Session

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FOA Webinar Panel: From Tunis to Tataouine

Thank You Fiscal Year 2025 Donors

Posted on July 2, 2025 by Moni Islam

Thank You Fiscal Year 2025 Donors

We did it (once again)!

This fiscal year (July 1, 2024鈥揓une 30, 2025) was a resounding success for ASOR. The reason? You, our members and donors!

While participation has always been high with 17吃瓜members, the percentage of members who have donated $5 or more above their membership dues sharply increased during the past two years. This is in part thanks to a new membership module that makes it easier to include a 鈥渁dd-on鈥� gift or credit card fee contribution when making any 17吃瓜purchase. Because membership dues and subscription fees account for only about 25% of ASOR鈥檚 annual revenue, these additional gifts are transformative.

This year, a record 924 people made a gift of $5 or more! Another 211 people made a gift of less than $5 (primarily donations to help with credit card fees), making for a total of 1135 donors. Moreover, the total of all donations in FY 2025 was more than $500,000. Please click on the FY 2025 Honor Roll of Donors to see a list of people who gave at all levels. We are in the process of updating the Lifetime Honor Roll of Donors, so please check it now (and next month) to see the amazing list of lifetime supporters. We are updating and checking these lists, so please contact us with any corrections or comments (info@asor.org).

Benefactor ($20k+) 鈥� 8
Patron ($10,000鈥�19,999) 鈥� 8
Friend ($5,000鈥�9,999) 鈥� 12
Sponsor ($1,000鈥�4,999) 鈥� 33
Sustainer ($500鈥�999) 鈥� 27
Supporter ($250鈥�499) 鈥� 34
Contributor ($100鈥�249) 鈥� 196
Donor ($25鈥�99.99) 鈥� 107
Ally ($5鈥�24.99) 鈥� 499
Gifts under $5 鈥� 211

Donor Participation Since 2016

0 200 400 600 800 1000

405

402

457

461

377

509

363

456

905

924

FY16 FY17 FY18 FY19 FY20 FY21 FY22 FY23 FY24 FY25

Number of Donors

Why does high donor participation matter?

Nearly half of ASOR鈥檚 membership contributed this year鈥攁n achievement that sets 17吃瓜apart from nearly every other learned society. Moreover, the high level of donor participation from our membership is viewed positively by foundations and major donors outside 17吃瓜and helps 17吃瓜attract support from them.

Your donations also enable 17吃瓜to carry out our mission. Subscriptions and memberships only account for about a quarter of our annual budget, so we rely on grants and donations from our members and friends. Every contribution, no matter the size, helps sustain our work. Thank you again for your support. Truly, every donor is important, and every gift is meaningful.

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Fiscal Year 2025 Honor Roll

17吃瓜Legacy Circle Members

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Fieldwork Report: Gabbi Graber

Posted on June 5, 2025 by Marta Ostovich

Memorized Movement

Gabbi Graber, 2024 Stevan B. Dana Fieldwork Scholarship Recipient

My alarm goes off at 4:50 a.m. and in a blur of confusion it takes a moment to remember that I am not in my bed in Alabama but instead am in a kibbutz in Israel. It鈥檚 day four and I have learned and practiced the exact time I need to make sure my bag is packed, coffee is made, and my water bottles are filled. In this flurry of well-practiced movement, everyone silently packs into the same car we鈥檝e ridden in all week to arrive at Tel Burna before 6:00. The Shephelah hills roll around us as we listen to a dramatic Disney soundtrack calling forth nostalgia and lyrics long since memorized. We make the final ascent up to the site as the sun rises behind Tel Burna.

It feels almost instinctual that the first order of business, before the sun even begins to beat down, is to lift and place shade cloths over the open squares. People begin to scatter to their respective spaces as the area supervisor, makes the necessary adjustments for the day and communicates with the square supervisors. Seamless rotations of who is picking and who is cleaning allow for needed water breaks as the level of ground slowly lowers. As we dig, our eyes become better at spotting the indicative sherds from the body sherds. A sharp jar goes up my elbow as I hit the stone that will be the first evidence of a wall cutting straight through our square. A loud voice breaks us from the focus, and everyone grabs their preferred breakfast items knowing what will sit well with still four more hours of digging. As I work with a patishe, I listen to the conversation of the Dig Director, area supervisor, and my square supervisor about the pattern of the walls and where we will need to open a new square. I check my watch and with not much time left to dig in the day I swiftly switch to sweeping the square starting in a corner to move cohesively with the others in my unit. What I thought was bedrock on day one I now know to be the packed dirt we will remove tomorrow. Many hands make the end of the day move faster as we organize tools, lower shade cloths, and pack up the cars. The drive back to the kibbutz involves more singing of childhood songs, laughing at inside jokes, and wistful longings of a post-dig ice cream.

We each grab a brush and bucket of pottery, and I am always drawn to a bucket that was from the square I dug. Pottery washing clumps us back together as we recall different sherds and the squares they came from. Every ear is bent towards the main table where the experts sit examining and reading pottery as the square supervisors talk through their square. They casually lift a sherd and quickly place it in its period. This leaves volunteers and students alike astounded at the practiced eye of a well-seasoned archaeologist able to date a sherd by touch and sight alone.

To think that I knew none of this a mere four days ago is astounding. There is still much to learn and as I heard well-experienced archaeologists in the field say 鈥渨e鈥檝e never seen this before鈥� or I think about potentially being a square supervisor in the future. A mere four days ago I did not know what a tag was, and now I have the license number memorized. And while the pick does not feel comfortable in my hand it feels more natural that it did on Monday. I knew as soon as my first day in the field was over that I wanted to spend more days, months, summers, and years becoming seasoned and trained in this profession, for each day on site becomes a day of new discoveries in the art of what becomes practiced and perfected memorized movement.

Want to help more students and early career archaeologists get into the field? Donate to the cause today by selecting 鈥淔ieldwork Scholarships鈥� as your gift purpose!

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Fieldwork Report: Dominique Langis-Barsetti

Posted on May 29, 2025 by Meg Heaney

The Joys of Thinking on Your Feet

Dominique Langis-Barsetti, 2024 Katherine Barton Platt Fieldwork Scholarship

For many, archaeology is either an epic tale of breathtaking ruins, jaw-dropping finds, and exciting adventures in faraway lands, or a story of trowels, brushes, and dirt, and the delicate fragments of the past they reveal. For students coming to the field for the first time or joining a new project, the awe and wonderment associated with those visions of archaeology are very well in the cards. For those of us helping to run those projects and involved in making the archaeology happen, a field season is more often than not an exercise on thinking on your feet and embracing the chaos. A chaos that you must somehow harness, tame, control, and put to good use. This is all the more true when you work at one of the largest archaeological sites in T眉rkiye (fig.1), on a topographically-complex mountaintop, with a large team of local and international collaborators. But without the challenges, archaeology would not be nearly as much fun.

The 2024 season of the Kerkenes Project started with an eight-week delay, as we arrived in the field in mid-June. Despite this setback, we were determined to make as much of our time abroad as we could, both for the sake of our research agenda and for the field school students who had accompanied us. As the ground of our ancient 271-hectare city was now dry and sunbaked, we had to (mostly) put aside the extensive program of electrical resistance we usually carry out every year and jump straight into excavations.

The original plan for the season involved dismantling a section of an unstable wall. Despite our best efforts to preserve it, the western wall of one of the city鈥檚 large columned halls had been crumbling away since it had first been exposed a decade ago. Unlike most walls at Kerkenes, which are composed of large facing stones holding in a core of rubble fill, this wall was part of a large room that had been built without facing stones. Originally, the stabilizing role of the missing facing stones had likely been fulfilled by wooden planks used a cladding, but with the wood now entirely gone, the rubble core was spilling out. The goal of the season鈥檚 excavations was thus to remove the rubble core down to the wall鈥檚 foundations (fig. 2). Documenting any evidence of construction techniques encountered in the process was a priority, particularly the placement and arrangement of wooden beams and posts incorporated into the structure. A small section of the same wall taken apart nearly a decade ago suggested that we might find the remains of large wooden posts at somewhat regular intervals within the fill. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that the wall鈥檚 structure was in fact much more complex. Since a portion of my doctoral research focuses on Iron Age construction techniques at the site, I was grinning much more widely than the students who had to spend several sweltering summer days carefully articulating the carbonized wooden remains. In the end, we discovered a series of half-round tie beams placed within the foundations of the wall, with pairs of posts placed atop them. Unfortunately, most of the wood had been reduced to ash by the devastating fire that destroyed the city over 2500 years ago, but some carbonized fragments are just large enough to let us hope for dendrochronological dates.

Amid one of the hottest summers on record, weeks after rains had stopped softening the soil of the central Anatolian plateau, we therefore had to come up with a plan to survey at least one 20听m by 20听m grid using electrical resistance. Although curtailed, the geophysical survey season could not be entirely cancelled since it represented an integral part of the field school. While in T眉rkiye, students learn about geophysical surveying, gain firsthand excavation experience, spend time with a variety of archaeological specialists, and are immersed in the life of a small central Anatolian village. With a much-shortened 2024 season, we had to come up with ways to make sure our students would still get the opportunity to learn the skills they had travelled halfway across the world to explore. This led to a rather intensive program, where lectures taking place during some of our off time replaced some of the hands-on experience that could not be accommodated. Despite the less-than-optimal conditions, students still spent two days learning geophysical survey techniques. After an intensive round of lectures, they gained practical experience through a survey of the excavation compound鈥檚 yard. In doing so, they learned about surveying in different environmental conditions, how to adapt to non-ideal ones, and what happens when equipment breaks. But surveying a small grid sandwiched between a dorm, a tractor, and a garden can only teach you so much. As the geophysical instructor, it was up to me to find a portion of the site where electrical resistance could still be carried out. We were now more than a month after the typical end of the geophysics season, at a time of the year when most of the clay-rich ground of the site is barely softer than the granite bedrock. Under those conditions, the logical solution was to survey a portion of the site that is normally too wet for electrical resistance. This meant driving around the site following the path of the ancient city鈥檚 water management system until I found a patch large enough and moist enough for a proper survey. In the spring, the different streams and reservoirs are usually too full of water to be surveyed. As we were now nearing the height of summer, much of those had dried up, revealing ground we usually could not access. To their credit, the students got through an entire grid by themselves, quickly learning the main aspects and challenges of geophysics as we collected new 鈥� and useable! 鈥� data (fig. 3).

To make up for the absence of some of our specialists, the senior staff present in the field shared some of their own skills with the students in small workshops that do not normally take place. As the peculiarities of this season鈥檚 excavation plan meant very little osteological material was recovered, the students instead participated in the exhumation and preparation of new additions to our animal reference collection. Under the guidance of a specialist post-doctoral student, they excavated and cleaned modern remains, probably learning more than they wanted about cow and turtle anatomy and the decomposition process (fig. 4). To replace weeks and weeks of repetitive trench recording, the students were initiated to photogrammetry by making their own 3D model of a rubber duck and recorded artefacts with our handheld structured light scanner. They got a taste of the cutting-edge tendencies at Kerkenes when robots came for a test drive at the site, and everyone got to try the latest version of the DATCH heritage recording application for the HoloLens听2 mixed-reality headset (fig. 5).

In addition to teaching activities within the team, the Kerkenes Project also partakes in several educational and outreach activities every year, teaching the local community and visitors to the site about the archaeology of Kerkenes. Less time in the field meant fewer chances to carry out those activities, so we got creative. Literally. In conjunction with the team from U艧akl谋 H枚y眉k鈥攁 mounded site located 7听km from Kerkenes鈥攚e visited a women cooperative in the nearby town of Sorgun that paints ceramic vessels according to different decorative traditions. Archaeologists and ceramicists discussed ornamental techniques and motifs, comparing ancient and modern approaches. We introduced the participating cooperative members to decorative styles common in the region during the Iron Age, and they in return shared their knowledge of pigments and painting methods. We hope this leads to a revival and reinterpretation of ancient local motifs in the future (fig. 6).

Another of Sorgun鈥檚 women-led cooperatives specializes in the crafting of glass beads and figurines. One of the artists at the heart of this initiative visited the Kerkenes dig house and shared with us their process, their techniques, the materials they use, and the crafting challenges they face. We participated in the discussion by sharing images of ancient beads recovered at the site and elsewhere in the area, discussed local glass traditions going back millennia, and offered to provide them with all our empty glass bottles next season, to be melted down and remade into recycled glass beads. The enthusiasm from all participants was energizing and we hope this discussion leads to further collaborations and a melding of local crafts and archaeology.

Arriving so late in the field also meant we had a few surprise visitors. Among them was a group of professional painters and mosaicists on a week-long stay in the region. The goal of their artistic sojourn was for them to each produce two new artworks inspired by the area. We only caught them at the end of their stay, but they kindly invited us to their pop-up exhibit. Further discussion during the event led to a preliminary artistic plan for next year. We hope this collaboration comes to fruition, especially since we strive to include more local interpretations and impressions of the site into the narrative surrounding Kerkenes, which is currently mostly focused on the archaeology.

Overall, the 2024 Kerkenes field season was a success, despite the many challenges we faced. As an associate director on the project, many of those challenges land squarely on my desk, often with very little notice. Solving them usually comes down to a happy marriage of archaeological knowledge, logistical creativity, out-of-the-box thinking, and an open mind. And just a touch of crazy. For flavour. Some days this means driving the steep slopes of the sites for an 鈥渁dventure鈥� with students who did not get to spend as much time exploring those slopes themselves while also being on the lookout for that darker green hue indicative of retained moisture and softer soil. Sometimes it means making make-shift lanterns so the team can have some fun playing boardgames while the storm that knocked out our power blows past. And sometimes it means converting excavation equipment into firefighting gear when the dead tree next door catches fire in the middle of the night. We do archaeology for a chance to learn about the past, solve ancient mysteries 鈥� however mundane 鈥� and explore the unknown, so we have to be ready 鈥� and willing 鈥� when the unknown finds us.

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Want to help more students and early career archaeologists get into the field? Donate to the cause today by selecting 鈥淔ieldwork Scholarships鈥� as your gift purpose!

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Fieldwork Report: Christos Theodorou

Posted on May 20, 2025 by Gabriella Velasquez

Ash the World Turns or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Heat in a Bronze Age Oven: Excavations at Kissonerga-Skalia, Cyprus

Christos Theodorou, 2024 Meyers/Wright Fieldwork Scholarship Recipient

When exploring areas around the coastal southwestern Cypriot village of Kissonerga, one is struck by the abundance of prehistoric settlements in the region amidst the hotels, tavernas, and banana fields. A cursory look at the academic literature or a quick online search reveals even more ancient activity, from the Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age periods, that are obscured by modern development. It is in this setting that I had the privilege of returning this summer to continue my studies of Cypriot archaeology 鈥� back to the Bronze Age site of Kissonerga-Skalia for my second non-consecutive season.

Skalia is wildly interesting, with Chalcolithic tombs and signs of settlement from the Early Cypriot period (c. 2400 BCE) to the beginning of the Late Cypriot period, after which the site was abandoned (c. 1600 BCE). 17吃瓜 two generations before abandonment, a large complex was constructed over the older habitations. This features monumental walls (including a unique 鈥楽鈥� shaped wall), a considerable courtyard, numerous pyrotechnic installations, and areas with signs of intensive production. It is this complex from the final phase of occupation where the current excavations at Skalia are focused.

My tasks at Skalia in 2022 concentrated on excavating through the collapsed material of a plaster-lined oven (one of two in our trench), defining the extent of the oven and nearby basins, and identifying the surface level. Ultimately, it was discovered that the two pyrotechnic features were actually one massive four-meter-wide oven underlying the final phase floor. I would spend the 2024 excavation season on-site within this oven: hot, covered in ash, and contented. Additionally, I underwent supervisor training and managed the log of accumulated chipped stone on site.

Work in the half-sectioned oven was relatively straightforward. The idea posited by our trench supervisor was that after the oven fell out of use, it was filled with debris during a dumping and leveling episode, and the final phase floor was constructed over the feature 鈥� placing the oven into a timeframe referred to as Early Final Phase. Amidst the infill of large stones, blocky chunks of oven material, crumbly orange and brown soil, thick layers of white lime plaster, and 鈥� ash, ash, ash 鈥� we found a bit of bronze (likely from tweezers), large chunks of really nice charcoal (a rarity on site, despite the number of pyrotechnic features. Also, significant for dating and identifying the type of fuel used in the oven), an abundance of discarded ground stone tools, and Skalia鈥檚 very first coprolite (!).

All the removed fill from the oven was collected for floatation, and I eagerly anticipate what archaeobotanical remains turn up. Keep an eye out for the final report from this season to the Cypriot Department of Antiquities, as some novel features associated with our giant oven will undoubtedly be revealed, as well as thoughts on its possible functionality. In the end, it will be interesting to see how this Early Final Phase feature relates to the larger context of the nearby Late Final Phase courtyard, oven (identified as a malting kiln for beer production), and the unique adjoining room recognized for its deposition of modified bovid skulls located under one of the many benches which lined the walls (a potential foundation deposit).

At its earliest levels, Kissonerga-Skalia will be integral in studying the changes on the island during the transition from the Chalcolithic into the Early Bronze Age. Additionally, current work in the commercial production complex that supplanted the older village settlement, investigations into its subsequent abandonment, and regional interconnectivity throughout Cyprus and abroad will bring many vexing questions to focus.

So, until next year鈥�

I am indebted to Skalia鈥檚 director, Dr. Lindy Crewe (Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute), Ian Hill (Heritage Archaeological Research Practice), our trench supervisor, Dr. Ellon Souter (蔚委渭伪蟽蟿蔚谓蟿喂蟽魏慰蟿苇魏), and the rest of the staff for their invaluable guidance. My sincerest thanks and appreciation go out to Drs. Carol and Eric Meyers, for their generosity in providing the financial resources that have enabled me to return and continue my studies in prehistoric Cypriot archaeology, and 17吃瓜for providing generations of archaeologists with incalculable scholarships, grants, fellowships, and support.

听

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Message from ASOR’s Board Chair

Posted on May 15, 2025 by Marta Ostovich

Message from ASOR鈥檚 Board Chair

Dear 17吃瓜friends:

In about 6 weeks, we will conclude another successful 17吃瓜fiscal year (June 30). This year, by working together, we have made substantial progress in increasing ASOR鈥檚 capacity to fulfill our mission in the face of unexpected headwinds.

You, as an 17吃瓜member and friend, support our solid foundation鈥攕trong publications, an engaging annual meeting, enhanced support for fieldwork, and careful stewardship of funds. Conflicts around the world continue to impact our annual meeting attendance and will affect summer fieldwork opportunities. Nevertheless, your membership and gifts advance our shared goals.

This year, 2025, marks the conclusion of one major initiative and the beginning of another.

On Saturday evening of the Annual Meeting in Boston, we will celebrate ASOR鈥檚 125th anniversary and the successful completion of the . So far, you have helped us raise $4.6 million. We鈥檙e nearly there! Your support of this fundraising initiative enables 17吃瓜to thrive and innovate despite challenges to the humanities and threats to cultural heritage around the world. Discounted tickets for the anniversary celebration are available, and we encourage all friends, members and supporters to join us.

As the 17吃瓜2025 fundraising effort winds down, we have already begun another key initiative: to update our strategic plan for the years 2026 鈥� 2030. Our President, Sharon Herbert, and President-Elect, Jane DeRose Evans, are leading a task force to consult members, develop the plan, and send it to the Board of Trustees.

As we near the end of the fiscal year (June 30), I ask you to consider an unrestricted gift to ASOR. We are currently about $40,000 short of our Annual Fund goal of $140,000. The Annual Fund allows 17吃瓜to deliver its programs effectively. Changes to federal grants impact staff support and our cultural heritage work, so your participation is even more important this year.

If you have already contributed this fiscal year, thank you. If you haven鈥檛 yet made a gift (or if you have contributed but can make another gift to help at this challenging time), I hope you will join me in giving before June 30. I deeply appreciate your support.

Best regards,

Sheldon M. Fox
Chairman, Board of Trustees

听

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Fieldwork Report: Ofelia Tychon

Posted on May 14, 2025 by Marta Ostovich

Getting to Know Rural Assyrians

Ofelia Tychon, 2024 Katherine Barton Platt Fieldwork Scholarship Recipient听

This spring, I got a chance to be part of the excavation team for the Rural Landscapes of Iron Age Imperial Mesopotamia (RLIIM) Project, now in its third season. The project, run by Prof. Petra Creamer of Emory University, brought together international scholars from Cambridge University, J.W. Goethe University-Frankfurt am Main, Johns Hopkins University, Montana State University, University of California, Los Angeles, University College London, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and Utah State University, in addition to the local professionals from the Directorate General of Antiquities and Heritage of the Kurdistan Region.

The RLIIM site is located near Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, which is part of the area usually referred to as the ‘Assyrian Heartland鈥�. The Neo-Assyrian Empire expanded from its heartland to reach from the Arabian Gulf to the Mediterranean, including Egypt, between the 9th and 7th centuries BCE, and is often seen primarily as an aggressively expansionist empire, fuelled by conquests and associated booty, tributes and deportations, which has driven the sort of scholarship that is produced about Assyria.

Historically, most excavations in the Iraqi Kurdistan, where the Assyrian heartland was located, have focused on major urban sites, and particularly monumental architecture, with even urban living quarters rarely excavated. While this is slowly changing, as surveys that uncover rural sites have been and still are being undertaken, excavations of small, rural Iron Age sites continue to be extremely rare, and RLIIM is proudly one of the few. RLIIM seeks to reconstruct how Imperial Assyria impacted rural landscapes and its rural populations, particularly why this site (and others like it) existed in a relatively marginal agricultural area, which populations settled in these rural areas and how they organized, as well determining the extent (or lack thereof) of continuity between the late Assyrian and post-Assyrian periods.

During the 7-week 2024 season, the RLIIM team was able to significantly expand its three existing trenches and opened up a fourth one. Trech A, where I spent most of my time during the season, houses a large mudbrick building with a courtyard. The nature of the soil in the area means that distinguishing mudbrick is a challenge and requires great concentration from the excavators (and perfect morning light!).

An important part of the RLIIM project is the analysis of the faunal and archaeobotanical remains. Numerous samples were collected and sent for analysis at the end of the season, and we eagerly await the results. As with most archaeological projects, pottery processing is an integral element of the efforts. Thousands of sherds were processed on site, and the analysis thereof is helping in creating an updated late Assyrian vs post-Assyrian pottery typology, something that is particularly helpful when analysing surface survey results, which are vital in order to understand the settlement pattern change that took place after the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

The team did not just spend their time at the site. We were able to travel to key locations in the region on our days off, including the Neo-Assyrian period Jerwan Aqueduct, Faida Canal, Khinis reliefs and Bastora Dam sites, as well as visiting the Cambridge University鈥檚 Shanidar Cave project famous for its Neanderthal remains.

The 2024 season concluded just as the weather in Kurdistan was heating up well into the 100s, but the work continues on the analysis of the data gathered by the team. I look forward to coming back next spring armed with more knowledge acquired via this analysis.

听

Twitter/X @ofeliatweets

RLIIM Project:

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