Ceramic Finds: Typological and Technological Studies of the Pottery Remains from Tell Hesban and Vicinity

PUBLISHED 2012. Please visit the publication's webpage.

Larry Herr began excavating in Jordan in 1971 at Tall Hisban (also spelled Tell Hesban/Tell Heshbon) and continued there until 1978, studying pottery typology with James A. Sauer during the excavation seasons. From 1984 to 2008 he worked with the Madaba Plains Project at Tall `Umayri as Chief Archaeologist and Co-Director with colleagues Lawrence T. Geraty and Douglas R. Clark. He has also worked in close consultation with ceramic technologist Gloria London. He obtained his PhD at Harvard University in 1977 under George Earnest Wright and Frank M. Cross, Jr. writing a dissertation on the development of alphabetic scripts on Northwest Semitic seals during Iron Age II. But since then he has specialized in the typologies of ancient pottery through time in the southern Levant. He is also interested in the comparative stratigraphy of Bronze and Iron Age sites in the southern Levant. He is an active lifetime member of the American Schools of Oriental Research and now is most active in publishing the seasonal and final reports of the `Umayri excavations of the Madaba Plains Project.