Jerash Hippodrome Excavations 1984-1996

PUBLISHED 2020. Please view the webpage for the volume here.

Ina Kehrberg-Ostrasz graduated with two Hons in Classical & Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Sydney where she completed her postgraduate thesis on Cypriot ceramics. She has worked for over 35 years in Jordan, beginning with the 1975-1978 USYD excavations of Teleilat Ghassul, and as resident archaeologist at Jarash from 1983 directing, co-directing and collaborating with several long-term archaeological projects. As archaeologist–ceramacist of the Jerash Hippodrome Project 1984-1996, directed by her late husband architect Antoni Ostrasz, she was awarded the Harvard/White-Levy grant in 2004 to prepare Antoni’s manuscript “The Gerasa Hippodrome. A Provincial Roman Circus”, for publication, including her studies on archaeological material (forthcoming). Her other main projects were “The Jarash City Walls Project: Excavations 2001-2003” (Dir., with co-Dir. J. Manley), final report published in 2019, and “Ceramic Studies: Jarash Upper Temple of Zeus Complex, Excavations 1996-2000” (Dir. J-P Braun; she collaborated as 1996-2000 IFAPO Fellow), preparation for publication in progress. She was consultant on other archaeological projects in Jordan, including the ‘Jarash Hinterland Survey 2005-2010’ (Dirs D.Kennedy & F.Baker), as well as at Gadara. She returned home to Sydney in 2004 when she became Hon. Research Fellow at the University of Sydney, and since 2016 has been a Visiting Fellow at ANU in Canberra. She has co-supervised various theses at the University of Sydney, the Macquarie University and overseas on material cultures of Classical periods sites in the Levant; she has published several books, including her thesis, and numerous articles on ceramics and their cultural-historical settings. She has managed the Archaeological Laboratory at the University of Sydney since 2005 and given Masterclasses on ‘Reading ceramics and other artefacts’ at ANU in 2017 and 2019.