NEW ASOR-AFFILIATED PROJECTS: MAY 2022
, Iraq (Rocco Palermo)
Gird-I Matrab: picture of the main mound
The Gird-I Matrab Archaeological Project (gMAP) investigates the daily life of a small rural settlement in Northern Iraq, its economy, and the impact of climate transformation on the site and its inhabitants from the age of Assyrians to the heirs of Alexander the Great. Gird-I Matrab (“the dusty mound” in Kurdish) is located in the plain of Erbil, in North Iraq. It was already known by Iraqi archaeologists in the 1970s, but only systematically surveyed by the Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey team in 2012 and 2020. The site consists of a group of five low mounds orbiting around a central – slightly higher – one. Geophysical survey carried out in October 2020 have revealed a large and architecturally complex building, whose spatial extent and architectural features indicate a potential administrative function, most likely dated to the last centuries of the 1st millennium BC.
Visit of local representetives with Project Director Dr. Rocco Palermo
While the buried remains have not been physically uncovered yet, the presence of such an articulated building on a relatively small site in North Mesopotamia, might directly provide new dimensions to our understanding of the rural communities of the region in the Hellenistic and following periods.
gMAP plans to investigate the site through and integrated, multi-scalar approach that combines traditional techniques with the use of state-of-the-art technology and scientific analyses.
, Israel (Michael Eisenberg and Arleta Kowalewska)
Hippos Excavations Project is one of the main continuously running Classical archaeology research expeditions in Israel. Since the year 2000 our international team has excavated the site of Hippos (Sussita) and its environs. Hippos is located upon Mt. Sussita just east of the Sea of Galilee, overlooking the lake and Eastern Galilee.
Hippos’ remains present a continuous sequence from its foundation as Antiochia Hippos in the Hellenistic period (2nd cent. BCE) until the devastating earthquake at 749 CE at the end of the Umayyad rule. As the regional polis and one of the Decapolis it reached its peak during the Roman period. At least seven churches were built in the city during the Byzantine period when it was the see of a bishop.
, Jordan (Chad Hill and Yorke Rowan)
Chad Hill and Yorke Rowan.
This project investigates the social and economic role of ancient animal hunting traps known as “desert kites” during a time of dramatic changing land use, human migrations, and shifting economies. Located in a hyper-arid, basaltic desert, these structures were built as mass-kill traps for ungulates in the later prehistory of the region.
Aerial view of a kite taken by a drone. Photo credit: Chad Hill.
Each chain includes dozens to hundreds of individual traps, spanning tens of kilometers, linked by intricate wall networks that functioned to create one enormous system. These represent a remarkable ancient infrastructural investment in labor, significant social organization, and the ability to generate subsistence surpluses in a marginal environment. This new study of desert kites, in context, focuses on the economy of this desert infrastructure and the social organization of largescale prey-manipulation strategies, to offer new insight into subsistence adaptations in marginal environments. The results from this research have the potential to transform knowledge of human responses and adaptations to arid environments in prehistory.
, Torre d’en Galmés, Spain (Alexander Smith, Amalia Pérez-Juez, and Paul Goldberg)
MAP team.
The Menorca Archaeological Project (MAP) is an interdisciplinary group of Spanish and American collaborators that currently focuses on the diachronic investigation of the site of Torre d’en Galmés on the Balearic Island of Menorca. Torre d’en Galmés is one of the largest prehistoric sites on the Balearic Islands, having received international attention from archaeologists for decades. The site’s importance is due both its size and temporal scope. Within the remains of Torre d’en Galmés, one can see on display the early indigenous inhabitants of the island, the impressive remains of the Talayotic culture from the island’s Iron Age, and evidence of Carthaginian and Roman interactions well into the first centuries C.E.
Torre d’en Galmes, aerial view of SpU 9. Photo credit: Alexander Smith.
Long after the site was abandoned during the third or fourth centuries C.E., Torre d’en Galmés was settled once more by Islamic communities that made the island their home during the medieval period. In 1287 C.E., the Islamic settlers were forced to leave the island by King Alfonso III of Aragon, and the rapid depopulation saw the abandonment of sites across the island. Torre d’en Galmés never again saw significant occupation. What remains then is an incredible window into medieval Islamic life in this rural part of Menorca, with dozens of structures preserved, exhibiting the daily life of this group. MAP is dedicated to the archaeological study of the complex history of Torre d’en Galmés, in particular the Islamic medieval remains that have been largely overlooked on the site.
ASOR-Affiliated Project Renewals
, Israel (Mark Letteney, Matthew J. Adams, Yotam Tepper, and Susan Cohen)
Legio is the site of the sprawling base of the Roman VIth Ferrata Legion. Established during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian (117–138 A.D.), the base controlled imperial roads, with direct access to the GalileeԻ inland valleys of northern Palestine—important centers of the local, occasionally uproarious, Jewish population. Excavations so far have demonstrated clear ties to major political and cultural events in the formative years of Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity and have provided an incredible new window into the Roman military occupation of the eastern provinces.
, Turkey (Tim Harrison and Elif Denel)
Tell Tayinat from above: Photo by Murat Akar, courtesy of the Tayinat Archaeological Project.
The Tayinat Archaeological Project (TAP) is investigating the archaeological history of the Bronze and Iron Age site of Tell Tayinat, which served as the capital of a succession of small territorial states centered in the Amuq Plain in the North Orontes Valley, Turkey. During the Iron Age, Tayinat was called Kunulua, royal city of the Neo-Hittite Kingdom of Palistin/Patina/Unqi, and Kinalia during the Neo-Assyrian imperial period.