Post-Doc, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
Research Project Professional, Ashkelon Excavations
Thesis Title: Society and Economy under Empire at Iron Age Sam'al (Zincirli Höyük, Turkey)
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David Schloen
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About
I am an archaeologist with a focus on the Bronze and Iron Ages of the Levant and Anatolia, as well as the Neo-Assyrian empire. More generally, I am interested in responses to the expansion of ancient empires, household organization and economies, the emergence of money and market economies, and the place of the dead and mortuary cult in ancient society.
I recently received a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Archaeology from the University of Chicago. I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago (also affiliated with the Semitic Museum, Harvard University), working on the publication of the Middle Bronze Age gates and ramparts excavated in the 1980s and 1990s at the Canaanite seaport of Ashkelon, Israel.
I have excavated in several places across the eastern Mediterranean and Near East, but for the past six years, I have been an area supervisor at Zincirli, Turkey, the Iron Age city of Sam'al. Based on three seasons of excavation in a residential neighborhood of Zincirli's lower town (Area 5), my dissertation research investigates the extent to which incorporation into the Assyrian empire was transformative of the daily social and economic lives of the inhabitants of this neighborhood and whether such transformations were imposed from above or emerged from below.
Recently, my other research and writing has focused on the mortuary stele of KTMW, inscribed with a banquet scene and an Aramaic inscription, which was found in the first few days of our excavations in Area 5 at Zincirli. As this is the first stele of its kind to have been discovered in situ in a systematic excavation, I am particularly interested in what the architectural and larger urban context of this stele can tell us about the relationship among extended social groups, the dead, and local or family gods in Syro-Hittite culture.
Contact Information
| Address: | Oriental Institute |
