Publications

     In 2008, during the cataloguing of some pre-Partition documents at Malakand Fort - in the former North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan - the author unveiled a significant group of unpublished documents referring to archaeological matters. The archival study, focused on three folders containing a total of 348 documents covering a period spanning from 1895 to 1937.

The corpus covers nearly forty years of British rule over the Malakand territories, and diplomatic contacts with the nearby Native States, like Swat. The corpus contains documents of different characters: from official notifications, to demi-official letters, annotated proofs and drafts, minutes, and copies of telegrams. The corpus documents in a very detailed way, often day by day, the genesis and evolution of the archaeological research in Malakand and Swat. The character of the protagonists, the evolution of the legal context, but also the gradual expansion of the field research, is revealed throughout the entire corpus. Contrasts and solutions concerning the protection of the archaeological heritage, the different approaches of the officers and scholars involved in the field over the years, as well as the feedback received from faraway head offices, all and more than this is accurately registered in that remote British outpost that was Malakand Fort.

At Malakand Fort three generations of brave British officers proved themselves within a complex environment, and a surprisingly vast range of duties. Moreover, the special interest attached to the corpus derives from some groups of documents, letters from and to Sir Aurel Stein, some of them in copy, others in original autographed manuscripts. These documents are all connected to the explorations of Sir Aurel Stein in Swat. A first group is linked to his 1926 trip to Swat and to his identification of the Indian Aornos of Alexander’s historians. The other three groups are related to three failed plans by Stein to carry out new explorations in Swat in 1928, in 1931, and in 1933.

The work presents the archival material in chronological order, and - through them - it attempts at reconstructing the history of the archaeology of the Malakand area and Swat.

The third volume of the publication series of the Russian Archaeological Mission at Giza contains the results of the archaeological research of the ancient Egyptian rock-cut tombs of the Old Kingdom, located to the south from the tomb of Khafraankh (G 7948), on the eastern edge of the Eastern Field of Giza Necropolis. In the course of excavations cult chapels with epigraphic material and burial shafts were discovered. The book consists of the publication of the excavated tombs and the analytical part. It includes the analysis architecture, epigraphy and archaeological context of the burials, the study of ceramic and anthropological materials and finds, discussion problems of dating the tombs, aspects of architecture and relief decoration.

Final Report on the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Excavations Directed by E.L. Sukenik and S. Yeivin, with the Participation of N. Avigad

This monograph presents the final excavation report of the Iron Age fortress at Tell Qudadi (Tell esh-Shuna) situated on the northern bank of the Yarkon river estuary in the central coast of Israel. The main excavations were conducted in 1937-38 and were published in a very preliminary form, dating the first phase of the fortress to the 10th or 9th century BC, whereas the second phase, attributed by the excavators to the northern Israelite kingdom, was ascribed to the latter part of the 9th century BC until 732 BC, when it was destroyed during the military campaign led by Tiglath-pileser III. Such a reconstruction of events was unreservedly accepted by other scholars. The present authors offer a new chronological scheme for two architectural phases of this impressive Iron Age fortress, suggesting a new chronological affiliation of the fortress to the period between the second half of the 8th and the first half of the 7th centuries BC. Accordingly, the site formed an integral part of the sophisticated logistical network that was created on behalf of the Neo-Assyrian rule. The study of the site's Iron Age IIB pottery assemblages enables a reassessment of a number of contested chronological issues in a wider Mediterranean setting.

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Contributions by A. Vered and D. Bar-Yosef Mayer

Sha‛ar Hagolan is a major Pottery Neolithic site (dated to ca. 8400–8000 cal BP) that spreads over ca. 20 hectares near the Yarmuk River, Israel. Eleven excavation seasons (in 1989–1990 and 1996–2004) had been conducted at the site by Prof. Yosef Garfinkel on behalf of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The excavations exposed ca. 3,000 sq.m. of the Yarmukian village. The site is well known for the planning of the settlement, specifically its courtyard buildings, each occupying several hundred meters and separated by systems of streets or alleys and passageways, and a well. The excavations yielded a wealth of archaeological material including pottery, flint, ground stone, very rich art objects and figurative items, as well as faunal and floral remains. These data supply a wealth of information on the Yarmukian economy and social life.

The 1331 ground-stone implements, which are the focus of this volume in the Sha‛ar Hagolan publication series, were retrieved from the large courtyard buildings. The main contributions of this report are threefold. Firstly, it gives a full and comprehensive descriptive account of the entire ground-stone assemblage of Sha‛ar Hagolan and thus enables comparison to other ground-stone assemblages and databases. Secondly, the structure of this book, divided into chapters each dealing with a specific tool type or group of types, allows us to focus on the specific characteristics and distinctive traits of the tools, including their typology, morphology, technology of production and other aspects. Finally, we offer a comprehensive discussion of the assemblage and the Yarmukian ground-stone industry.

Please visit the publication page for volumes 3 and 5.

Vol. II complements the stratigraphic and contextual presentation of Vol. I with synthetic overviews of site formation, the evolution of urban architecture, and Early Bronze Age ceramic industries, technology (including petrography) and typology. These studies are based on research conducted on the site and its materials since 2007. Further chapters are devoted to the lithic industries and the rich and diverse collection of stone artifacts and small finds. Highlights of this volume include the presentation of several household inventories, a corpus of more than 350 complete ceramic forms, and fine examples of Early Bronze Age art – figurines and zoomorphs, seal impressions and painted plaques.

View Bet Yeraḥ Vol. III. Hellenistic Philoteria and Islamic al-Sinnabra. The 1933-1986 and 2007-2013 Excavations

The Shelby White and Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications presents the following book by Professor Vassos Karageorghis, former Director of the Cyprus Department of Antiquities and Dr Efstathios Raptou, Archaeological Officer of the Cyprus Department of Antiquities.

The book covers the period from the 11th cent. B.C. to ca 600 B.C. It includes ceramics, bronze and iron weapons and tools, bronze vases and armour, gold jewellery, scarabs, etc. In the chapter on historical conclusions V. Karageorghis places this material within the parameters of the Homeric world and the social and political conditions in Cyprus during the first part of the first millennium B.C.

Specialist scholars deal with topics like the scarabs, the weights, the bronzes, the skeletal remains, etc.

This is the first volume of this project, the authors are already preparing the second volume which will contain material from tombs of the 11th-9th centuries B.C., including some extraordinary bronze objects.

From the beginning of the new excavations at Troia the concept was to have two teams working side by side but with close interactions. The German team led by Manfred Korfmann concentrated on the Bronze Age and the American team led by Ch. Brian Rose on the Classical to Medieval periods. Originally the dividing line was easy to define, because then it was a common believe that after the end of the Bronze Age at Troia there was a hiatus in the sequence of the settlements. In addition it seemed that the ceramic inventory of the Bronze Age was dominated by gray wares while the later periods were characterized by red and buff wares. In the course of the project it became clear that this strict division was not possible and that there was a gradual transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age when there may have been a hiatus in the architecture but certainly not in the ceramic spectrum. Thus, also the division between the two teams merged into a joint endeavour and the new discoveries of this period are certainly one of the major achievements of the project. Accordingly, there are three volumes each planned for the Bronze Age and the Classical periods.

The first volume of the Bronze Age results summarizes the history of (more recent) research and the formation of the new excavation team. Then the applied techniques are explained in some detail and the concept for the preservation and presentation of this World Cultural heritage site. Chapter two begins with a detailed description of the site and the intensive survey that was performed in the area of the Lower City of Troia and is followed by descriptions of the archaeological and scientific methods used. The third chapter is devoted to cultural and natural environment of Troia and the reconstruction of its cultural history until the end of the Bronze Age. The second volume on the Bronze Age periods will present the results of the investigations based on stratigraphy, pottery and small finds from periods Troia I to Troia V that is the Early and the earlier Middle Bronze Age. It is in this period that Troia has always been and still is a crucial site for the chronology of the Aegean and the southern Balkans. During the excavations it became clear that there was a difference in the numbering of the major settlement units between Dörpfeld and Carl Blegen, which we will try to resolve. The third volume will be devoted to the Late Bronze Age periods Troia VI and VII and it will be shown that Troia continued to exist into the Early Iron Age or at least was not forgotten.

From 1969 to 1982 extensive archaeological excavations were conducted in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem under the direction of the late Professor Nahman Avigad on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Israel Exploration Society, and the Department of Antiquities (now the Israel Antiquities Authority). During these excavations remains of fortifications, public buildings, and domestic dwellings were found, as well as numerous artifacts from all periods of the continuous settlement of this area, dated from the end of the Iron Age through the Ottoman period.

Among the major discoveries made during the Jewish Quarter Excavations are fortifications, including the city wall dated to the reign of Hezekiah and a northern portion of the First Wall that protected the Southwestern Hill of Jerusalem during the First and Second Temple periods; luxurious residences of the Upper City of Jerusalem dated to the late Second Temple period, including the Palatial Mansion; the Cardo and the Nea Church of the Byzantine period; a bazaar and a public architectural complex including a large hall dated to the Crusader period; and portions of the southern fortifications of the Islamic period city. These and other finds from the excavations in the Jewish Quarter have changed many long-accepted ideas regarding the size and topography of ancient Jerusalem.

This volume is the sixth of the final reports of the excavations in the Jewish Quarter. It presents the finds from Areas J and N, including architectural remains and small finds. These range in date from the end of the First Temple period to the Late Roman period. The most significant of the remains are domestic dwellings, a Herodian stone street pavement and the remains of a public building that stood within the camp of the Roman Tenth Legion, which was garrisoned in the Roman colony of Aelia Capitolina. These remains supplement and complete the findings from Area E (reported in Volume III of the Jewish Quarter publications). Volume six also presents the finds from Area Z, a small excavation area where an important assemblage of Hellenistic pottery vessels was uncovered.

This volume is the final report of excavations carried out in the Hebron hills and the Negev desert in 1967-1980 on behalf of Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem and the University of Arizona. They were pioneering, multidisciplinary projects that helped to illuminate what was then a poorly known “Dark Age” in the cultural history of ancient Palestine, a nonurban interlude of pastoral nomadic movements over several centuries (ca. 2400–2000 B.C.E.) between the great urban civilizations of the early Bronze Ages. Eighteen appendixes by specialists in many disciplines analyze all aspects of material culture and human and animal remains. A history of previous scholarship and a synthesis of the EB IV period in both Israel and Jordan conclude the volume, which will be a landmark study for many years.

William G. Dever, who began EB IV studies with his Harvard doctoral dissertation in 1966, is Distinguished Professor of Archaeology at Lycoming College and Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology Emeritus at the University of Arizona. He is also an adjunct Professor of Archaeology at Pennsylvania State University.

 With contributions by Loghman Ahmadzadeh and Mehdi Omidfar, and appendices by John R. Alden, Leah Minc, Jacques Connan, John Zumberge,  and Kendra Imbus

After a decade-long hiatus in the years of World War II, archaeological fieldwork was resumed in Iran in 1948. In that year, the Oriental Institute returned to its long tradition of archaeological research by sending Donald McCown to the lowlands of southwestern Iran to conduct a series of surface surveys to find a multi-period site for excavation. For his survey, McCown chose the Ram Hormuz region, southeast of lowland Susiana and the region south and east of the provincial town of Ahvaz down to the Persian Gulf. McCown recorded 118 sites in the Ram Hormuz and Ahvaz areas and eventually chose for excavation the large prehistoric mound complex Tall-e Geser. Three months of excavation in 1948 and 1949 yielded materials that were kept in Chicago for many years. Apart from short articles, the site was never fully published.

In Part 1 of this two-part volume, Abbas Alizadeh and colleagues have undertaken a final publication of the site. This task was undertaken because of a number of important considerations. First, the excavations at Geser have been cited as justifying the division of the Uruk period in southwestern Iran into Early, Middle, and Late phases. Second, Geser remains the only systematically excavated site in the Ram Hormuz region — a strategic location between the Susiana and Mesopotamian alluvium and the Zagros highlands of southwestern Iran. Third, Geser has produced a very extensive body of archaeological materials dating to the comparatively less understood proto-Elamite period, roughly the first few centuries of the third millennium bc. And finally, with the exception of a 700-800-year gap following the proto-Elamite phase, Geser remains one of the only sites in the Near East to have a very long and generally uninterrupted depositional sequence, in this case spanning from the fifth millennium BC to the Safavid period. The site’s crucial location, its importance in the archaeological literature, and its long stratigraphic sequence made it imperative that the original excavation results from Geser be published in anticipation of a time when the site can be re-excavated.

Part 2 of this volume presents the results of regional surveys conducted in the Ram Hormuz plain from 2005 to 2008, which were undertaken by Alizadeh and colleagues with the goal of understanding the semi-nomadic, mobile component of lowland Susiana and its hinterlands through time.

View this publication in its entirety at the Oriental Institute website

This monograph describes the results of the archaeological excavation at the site of Tell Jemmeh, Israel, undertaken by the Smithsonian Institution and directed by Gus W. Van Beek during the years 1970–1990. All the artifacts from the excavations were shipped from Israel to Washington, D.C., and have been restored, studied, and analyzed in the National Museum of Natural History for the past four decades. The site is a strategic and large mound located near Gaza and the Mediterranean coast. It was inhabited continuously for at least 1,400 years during the Middle and Late Bronze Age, the Iron Age, and the Persian period. The highlights of this excavation are the findings of a large and affluent courtyard house from the Late Bronze Age, a sophisticated well-preserved pottery kiln from the early Iron Age, a complex of Assyrian-related administrative buildings during the late Iron Age, and a complete granary of the Persian period. This is a detailed and final report on all of the excavation results, including the architectural remains, stratigraphy, pottery, and other finds. In addition, several more detailed and focused studies of certain aspects of the site’s material include (among others) chapters on imported, decorated, Philistine, Assyrian-style and Greek pottery and chapters on figurines, sealings, jewelry, amulets, scarabs, cylinder seals, flint, coins, ostraca, and fauna. The volume is richly illustrated with nearly 1,000 figures showing field photographs, plans, sections, and drawings and photographs of artifacts. The significance of the results is summarized and discussed in the final chapter.

For more information, and a PDF download of the publication, visit the Smithsonian website

The Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel initiated an archaeological salvage project in portions of the central and southern Negev (Israel). As a participant in the Negev Emergency Survey, Mordechai Haiman’s field crew surveyed, from 1979-1989, 450 kilometers in the western Negev Highlands, and identified 1,500 sites. He also directed excavations at 33 sites. Funded by a grant from the Shelby White and Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications, this fieldwork was reanalyzed for publication. The contents of this final report touch upon various aspects of Haiman’s excavations and surveys including methodologies, lithic material, pottery, fauna remains, petrographic analysis and more.

View the publisher's webpage to order.

     Over a century of excavations by the Athens Archaeological Society at Eleusis have brought to light an extensive settlement spanning the third and the second millennia B.C. Besides being one of the most important commercial hubs and economic centers of the Bronze Age Aegean, that settlement is important because it is the predecessor of the later Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore.
These two volumes constitute the systematic publication of the prehistoric settlement at Eleusis. They include a detailed analysis of the stratigraphy, architecture, pottery, and small finds, which is used to reconstruct the formation and early history of one of the most important ancient Greek religious sites.

View this publication and others at the author's website:
http://michaelcosmopoulos.org/research/books-2/

In 1912 R. A. S. Macalister published reports on his Palestine Exploration Fund excavations at Tell Gezer in central Israel, including notice of having traced almost a full mile of defense walls around the site. Now, a century later, a detailed reassessment of these fortifications is provided in the release of Gezer VII: The Middle Bronze and Later Fortifications in Fields II, IV, and VII

This volume, by Mississippi State University, Cobb Institute of Archaeology Director Joe D. Seger and Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures Professor James W. Hardin, features excavation work directed by Seger and his staff at Gezer between 1968 and 1974 under the sponsorship of Hebrew Union College and Harvard University. Its major focus is on the area of Macalister's "Southern Gate" in Field IV, and along his "Inner" and "Outer" wall systems on both the southern (in Field II) and northern (in Field VIII) sides of the site. The volume contains much new data providing a confident dating of the Southern Gate complex and the Inner Wall system to the late Middle Bronze Age between 1700-1500 B.C.E. MB age occupation levels yielded a hoard of gold jewelry and early evidence of alphabetic writing along with other domestic artifacts and installations from within rooms of an intramural storage complex.

Reinvestigations of segments of the Outer Wall system provided support for a date of origin in the Late Bronze period ca. 1400 B.C.E. along with confirmation of Macalister's conclusion that a major rebuilding of these fortifications took place during the Selucid era in the second century B.C.E.

Wadi Hammeh 27, an Early Natufian Settlement at Pella in Jordan is a detailed report on one of the most important Natufian sites to have emerged in the past thirty years and an integrated analysis and interpretation of subsistence strategies, settlement patterns and ritual life in one of the world's earliest village communities. The 14,000-year-old settlement of Wadi Hammeh 27 is one of the most spectacular sites of its kind, featuring the largest, most complex pre-Neolithic architectural complex yet discovered in the Middle East, an unparalleled series of artefact caches and activity areas, and a rich corpus of late Ice Age art pieces.

Winner of the 2013 American Schools of Oriental Research G. Ernest Wright Award! This award is given to the most substantial volume dealing with archaeological material, excavation reports and material culture from the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean.

"This book is a treasure-trove for researchers specialising in the Natufian period and is a most significant addition to the data base of the Early Natufian in particular." Anna Belfer-Cohen, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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With contributions by Megan Cifarelli

Hasanlu V provides archaeologists with a new, more accurate chronology of Hasanlu, the largest and arguably the most important archaeological site in the Gadar River Valley of northwestern Iran. This revised chronology introduces Hasanlu Periods VIa, V, and IVc for the first time. Based on new findings, the report overturns current constructions of the origins of the archaeological culture in Hasanlu, which sought to link the Monochrome Burnished Ware Horizon (formerly known as the Early Western Grey Ware Horizon) to the migration of new peoples into western Iran in the later second millennium B.C. Hasanlu V shows instead that the Monochrome Burnished Ware Horizon developed gradually from indigenous traditions. This reappraisal has important implications for our understanding of Indo-Iranian migrations into the Zagros region.

"This handsomely produced book is a welcome addition to the long-delayed publication of the important site of Hasanlu, in Iranian Azerbaijan. The site was excavated by a University of Pennsylvania team, together with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Archaeological Service of Iran from 1956-1977. . . . A valuable volume."—Ancient History Bulletin

For more information, visit the Hasanlu V page on the University of Pennsylvania Press website.