CRANE

Dear Colleagues,

SNELA 2022 is now accepting paper submissions via its website.

The third international meeting of the Society for Near Eastern
Landscape Archaeology (SNELA) will be held between March 2nd – 4th,
2022, under the auspices of the Faculty of Letters of Istanbul
University.

The theme for SNELA 2022 is “The Archaeology and Anthropology of
Resource Use in the Near East.” The meeting aims to bring a
theoretical perspective for the resource use in a rich and broad
geography.

 The main themes of the 2022 meetings are:

·      Social approaches to the archaeology and anthropology of resource use,
·      Types of resource use and long-distance trade,
·      Ancient techniques and transfer of technology,
·      Evaluating political economy and social complexity through resource use,
·      The impacts of resource use on the paleo-environment.

Valuable/semi-valuable stones, minerals, salt, bitumen, trees, and
other plants, water, and other natural resources that have been deemed
a vital part of human life for millennia will be discussed from an
interdisciplinary perspective regarding their social, political, and
economic aspects.

SNELA 2022 has three invited speakers who are leading scholars in
their fields. Kristian Kristiansen, Aren Maeir, and Jan Gerrit Decksen
will bring a comprehensive perspective that extends from textual
evidence to theoretical frameworks, enrich the meeting with
round-table discussions.

We are inviting the scholars and researchers to submit their original
research, which may be presented in one of oral sessions or as a
poster. Abstract submissions will take place between May 9, 2021
through June 15, 2021. The submission must conform to one of themes
and material groups along with the temporal extent of SNELA 2021 that
are mentioned under the About tab of the webpage. Interested scholars
are welcome to register here.

SNELA 2022 is currently planned as in person attendance. It might
shift to a virtual conference depending on the situation with the
Covid-19 pandemic. For questions, please contact Gonca Dardeniz Arikan
(goncadardenizarikan@istanbul.edu.tr).

The ancient site of Gezer commands one of the principal routes into the central highlands towards Jerusalem, and has attracted numerous archeological expeditions for well over a century. This interest is in large part due to Gezer’s importance as a type-site during the Bronze and Iron Ages, as well as its appearance in texts in connection with Solomon and Simon Maccabeus. CRANE’s recently established “Gezer Project”, is a unique and ambitious attempt to create more accessibility to the vast volume of data accumulated in three separate generations of excavations which have produced an exceptional stratified sequence of occupation. The primary goal is to integrate all of this information into one searchable database with the ability to analyze and query across all Gezer excavation projects, and to eventually conduct comparisons with other contemporary sites in the region. “We’re adding legacy data from the Phase I Hebrew Union College/Harvard Semitic Museum excavations,” says Stanley Klassen, CRANE Data Integration Manager at U of T’s Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations, “along with Phase II from the seventies, and data from the recent Tandy excavations. Which is really exciting.”

Creating such a database was the dream of the late John S. (Jack) Holladay, Jr., director of the Gezer Gate excavations in Field III of the Phase I expedition. Klassen is using the OCHRE (Online Cultural and Historical Research Environment) database management system to fulfill that dream. In addition to Klassen, others involved in adding data include Charles Wilson, a PhD student in Near Eastern Art and Archaeology at the University of Chicago who helped initiate the Gezer Project in OCHRE, as well as Steve Ortiz and Sam Wolff, the co-directors of the Tel Gezer Excavation Project, with the assistance of Sandra Schloen and Miller Prosser of OCHRE Data Service.  Klassen supervises CRANE students as part of U of T’s Work Study program, and during the last two years, he’s had some of them work “almost exclusively to integrate the Gezer data from Field III. As of now, we’ve got all of the information describing nearly eight hundred loci added to the system.” The next step is to add more complete descriptions of the artefacts, and details and images of the pottery, in addition to all the discoveries from the other Gezer projects.

Once the Gezer Project goes online, researchers will be able to access the Gezer data along with the tens of thousands of digital files available. Gezer specific queries can be conducted as well as “cross-project” inquiries with other sites in the OCHRE database system. The potential for others to ask questions of the information entered is extremely important. An example Klassen gives is that the destruction of the early Iron IIA four-entry gate in Field III is dated by the Phase I team to around 925 B.C.E: “There are others who want to date it to the ninth century. So getting this data out there detailing the stratigraphy and the pottery, and having all of the information in OCHRE and on the web, is very important, particularly for the formative period of the Iron IIA.”

Written by Jaime Weinman.

By Dominique Langis-Barsetti

Reposted from Near Eastern Archaeology, Vol. 84, No. 1, March 2021

Abstract

The Computational Research on the Ancient Near East (CRANE) Project, directed by Tim Harrison of the University of Toronto, has united scholars from a variety of disciplines across several institutions around the globe since 2012. Originally focused on the Orontes Watershed of southern Turkey and northwestern Syria, the goal of the project is to provide researchers with a collaborative framework in which to leverage the full array of data produced by archaeology in order to shed light on the rise and development of complex societies in the region. The pooled resources and skills of collaborators have allowed the project to visualize and model connections between social, economic, and environmental factors across a range of temporal and regional scales.

By Julie Unruh and Cricket Harbeck

Reposted from Journal of the Institute of Conservation, Vol. 44, No. 1, 2021

Abstract

Conservation treatments are optimally informed by consideration of all options and materials, with time dedicated to research, analysis and testing, and performed with the benefit of an adequate budget and time frame that allows for a careful treatment. In practice, treatment decisions are often crucially shaped by other factors, including the availability and accessibility of materials and equipment, the experience and treatment habits of the conservator, budget constraints, time available for research and testing, treatment deadlines, and the needs of or requests from invested parties. This article discusses the treatment of a seventh century BCE clay cuneiform tablet that was conserved at several different venues over five field seasons at the Tayinat Archaeological Project in Turkey. It focusses on treatment decision-making in response to limited resources, deadlines, and research and display needs, with the intent of adding to the growing body of conservation literature that investigates how conservators problem-solve.