Providence College
Introduction
The American archaeological presence in Jerusalem has appeared in multiple and disparate guises since the 19th century, from the Protestant missionary, Holy Land adventurer, and tour guide for pilgrims, to the geographical surveyor, trained archaeologist, and scholar of biblical literature. Within this range of evangelistic, thrill-seeking, and academic approaches to Jerusalem, schools of thought have risen to power and fallen into ruin with the emergence of new data, changing historical methods and theories, and advances in dating technologies.
In this paper, I will attempt to give a brief yet broad historical survey of key American contributions to the archaeological research of Jerusalem and the region over the past 150 years. A number of recent and important publications precede me in this endeavor, and I am indebted to the works of P. King (1983), R. Hallote (2006, 2007), B. Long (2003), J. Blakely (2001), J. Davis (1996), N. A. Silberman (2003), and others whom I will mention in the course of this essay. Recurrent in many of these assessments is the prominent and transformative role played by one significant American institution: the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research located in Jerusalem (fig. 1). Established over a century ago as the American School of Oriental Research, the Albright Institute is recognized today as the oldest American research center in the Middle East dedicated to the scholarly examination of the Near East from prehistory to the early Islamic period. 1 It gained its current name from William Foxwell Albright, who served as the Institute's director during the 1920s and 1930s and who is acknowledged by many as the “father of biblical archaeology.”67 68 69 Following in Albright's footsteps, a number of archaeologists and historians—Americans, Europeans, Israelis, and Palestinians—have passed through the gates of the Albright Institute with the goal of deciphering Jerusalem and its surrounding regions. As a research center embedded in the Jerusalem landscape— geographically, intellectually, and communally—the Albright Institute continues to exercise a substantial impact on scholarly understandings of Jerusalem and its historical context.
Fig. 1. The W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem (drawing by Linda Lundbom; reproduced by permission of the AIAR).
The history of the American archaeological presence in Jerusalem falls conveniently along the temporal divide of the 19th and 20th centuries with the founding of the Jerusalem School (later to become the Albright Institute) in 1900. This chronological framework provides us with a structure in which to pursue our inquiry, but it must be emphasized that there is no single, linear, evolutionary, or progressive narrative to trace; rather, shifts, oscillations, and lacunae mark the way. Moreover, in an essay of this length I will not pretend to give a comprehensive listing of every American engaged in the archaeology of Jerusalem (or their many international collaborators) nor cite every text written on the subject. I do, however, hope to do two things: point out some of the major American figures who have given shape to the study of Jerusalem's archaeology and identify three paradigms that emerge within the historical record to describe American activity in the area.
The first paradigm is associated with methods used by many Americans during the 19th century—such as Edward Robinson—exposing what I would call an “archaeology as apologetic” paradigm—that is, an approach that subordinates scientific aims to the service of religious ones. Here, material evidence is subsumed into a wider theological construct in order to support claims for religious truths.
A second paradigm materializes with the onset of the 20th century and is directly linked to the American School in Jerusalem and W. F. Albright himself. In this paradigm, the earlier asymmetrical relationship between religion and archaeology is thrown into a more reciprocal dynamic that might be characterized as an "archaeology as dialectic” paradigm. In other words, a conversation takes place between “science” and “story” as well as an attempt to synthesize the two. In a nutshell, the discipline of “biblical archaeology” is born and nurtured through the efforts of W. F. Albright, his students, and the American School in Jerusalem; it represents to this day the overwhelming American contribution to the understanding of Jerusalem and its surroundings.
Fig. 2. Edward Robinson 1794-1863 (reproduced by permission of Union Archives of the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York).
Within this section of the essay, I also point out some intriguing moments of historical intersection between the excavation of the city of Jerusalem and the specific physical property of the Albright Institute itself.
Finally, a more recent paradigm—or I should say paradigms—may be discernible in the last quarter of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st. Here, a selfconscious acknowledgment of archaeology's value-laden past marks the discipline, especially for a site as historically fraught as Jerusalem. Drawing from—yet transcending—a number of recent schools of thought, this approach wears lenses with a much larger methodological and geographical scope than scholarship may have worn at mid-century, but perhaps with a less distinct focus. For lack of a better description, one might call this an “archaeology as pluralistic” approach because it accommodates multiple methods and perspectives, such as recognizing the importance of gender in the archaeological record, using new technologies for establishing chronology, and generating projects that are not so much “site-specific” as regional in scope. It therefore accommodates compound and complex historical reconstructions of the past, cultivating dialogue and interchange among diverse national, religious, and ethnic groups. In this paradigm, Jerusalem is understood within its larger geographical context and in relation to vast cultural and political exchanges within the larger Mediterranean basin and beyond. The Albright Institute currently represents this sort of hub of investigation in the city of Jerusalem. As a locus for scholarly inquiry spanning more than a century, the Albright Institute may be seen to have risen out of the first paradigm, been defined by the second paradigm, and now acts as an agent of the third. Thus, the Albright Institute serves as a virtual barometer for shifting paradigms over the last 150 years, indexing, witnessing, reflecting, and participating in the transformations that mark the American archaeological presence in Jerusalem.
Fig. 3. Robinson's Arch photographed by Frank Mason Good (copyright © Courtauld Institute of Art; reproduced by permission).
The 19th Century: An Apologetic Paradigm
American archaeology in Jerusalem during the 19th century took varied forms, from the visual and literary mapping of sites through photography, drawings, and diary entries to scientific surveys and excavations. The leading American pioneer in the scientific exploration of Jerusalem was E. Robinson (1794-1863), a professor of biblical literature trained at Andover Theological Seminary in Massachusetts (fig. 2) (King 1983: 1-5). Robinson traveled to Palestine in 1838 and 1852, two journeys that would serve as the basis for his monumental three-volume composition, Biblical Researches in Palestine and Adjacent Countries (Robinson 185670; King 1975: 55-65; Williams 1999). As early as 1842, after the appearance of just the first two volumes, Robinson's meticulous methods of surveying the geography, measuring sites, analyzing Arabic names and linguistic clues, and recording his observations in extensive detail brought notice from the Royal Geographical Society and he was awarded their Patron's Gold Medal (Davis 2004: 4).
Fig. 4. Michael Avi-Yonah's model of the Herodian Temple, showing arched entrance identified by Edward Robinson (courtesy, www .HolyLandPhotos. org).
One of Robinson's most famous discoveries in Jerusalem has come to be called “Robinson's Arch”—a huge mass of stones projecting to this day from the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount wall (fig. 3). Robinson writes that he initially thought these “large stones jutting out from the western wall. . . seemed to be the effect of a bursting of the wall from some mighty shock or earthquake” (Robinson 1856: 287). But upon reexamination, and in consultation with the primary sources—not the Bible this time, but Josephus—Robinson confirms their intentional placement and identified the stones as “the commencement or foot of an immense arch” (Robinson: 1856: 287-88; Gibson 2003: 88-90) used in the Herodian period to support a structure leading from the western perimeter. This interpretation has contributed significantly to the understanding of Jerusalem's Ist-century Temple Mount area and its points of access. It has also served as a basis for Jerusalem reconstructions, such as Michael Avi-Yonah's model of the Herodian Temple in fig. 4 (Ritmeyer 2006: 15).
Robinson's work on Jerusalem—as well as other locations from Egypt and the Sinai to the Dead Sea and the Galilee—serves as an exemplar of systematic study of topography (Kuklick 1996: 20, 155). Yet, like his less scientific contemporaries, his explorations were explicitly and unapologetically linked to his religious convictions, as evidenced in his preface to the final printing of the volumes. Robinson writes:
The author now lays before the Christian public the present work, comprising the observations made during his two visits to the Holy Land. . . . May the Great Head of
Fig. 5. Barclay's Gate: lintel over doorway from Herodian structure in Jerusalem (photo: author).
The Church cause these volumes still further to subserve the high interests of Biblical learning and religious truth (Robinson 1856: 1, vi).
Robinson's approach reveals a subordination of scientific ends to religious ones and exemplifies a certain tension between archaeology as science and archaeology as religious vocation that often typifies this period. A number of other 19th-century examples illustrate this approach to varying degrees.
In the 1850s, James T. Barclay became the first appointee of the American Christian Missionary Society of the Disciples of Christ and went to Jerusalem on a mission to the Jews (Blowers 1993: 494-513). About a decade after Robinson's arch discovery, Barclay gained access to the Temple Mount and identified a lintel that once formed another entrance to the Herodian Temple complex, now called Barclay's Gate—currently part of the women's section of the Western Wall and visible in fig. 5 (Ritmeyer 2006: 15; Blowers 1993: 497; Hallote 2007: 28; Gibson 2003: 97).
Barclay was one of the first Americans doing serious photographic work in Jerusalem, documenting the city's monuments and then showing them in panoramic display in the United States (Hallote 2007: 28; Davis 1996: 73). Rachel Hallote has
Fig. 6. "Women Grinding at the Mill" from Hurlbut and Kent, Palestine Through the Stereoscope (courtesy, The Pitts Theology Library, Candler School of Theology, Emory University).
Recently argued that, in comparison to their European counterparts, Americans excelled in the use of photography as a distinct approach toward the archaeology of Jerusalem and the Holy Land (Hallote 2007: 26). While many of these efforts were aimed at documenting the archaeological record—such as those made outside of Jerusalem by the American Palestine Exploration Society71—others were more commercial in origin. For example, in 1881, the American Colony Photo Division commissioned photographers to take pictures that were to be sold as prints and later as picture postcards, but to this day they are noted for their archaeological value (Hallote 2007: 32-34; Gibson 2003: 170-71).
The marriage of Holy Land archaeo-photo documentation and personal religious practice characterized a number of American expeditions to Jerusalem during the last decade of the 19th century. The American photographer R. E. M. Bain joined up with Protestant ministers J. Vincent and J. W. Lee to document the life of Jesus in Jerusalem and the Galilee in their famous 1894 publication, Earthly Footsteps of the Man of Galilee (Hallote 2007: 29). Burke Long has written eloquently and at length on “Protestant Christian renderings of the Holy Land,” as well as the pseudo-science deployed in such ventures. He points out that Earthly Footsteps discloses up-front that the authors define their archaeological methods and photographic equipment as “harmless, scientific instruments” used to stake out Christian territory (Long 2003: 53; Davis 1996: 27-52).
This is similar to the approach used by two other Americans, J. L. Hurlbut and C. F. Kent, who documented Jerusalem and Palestine in their Biblical Geography and History, published in 1900 (Long 2003: 89). Through the use of 200 stereoscopic photographs (such as fig. 6), these records are as much ethnographic studies of what they encountered in their travels as geographic or archaeological. Long has discussed this form of “geopiety” as an effort not only to document the sacred landscape but to document the “non-Biblical other” currently inhabiting it (2003: 108-29).
Fig. 7. Frederick Jones Bliss 1857-1939 (courtesy, The Palestine Exploration Fund, London).
A possible exception to the 19th-century apologetic paradigm is that of F. J. Bliss (1857-1939; fig. 7). Bliss came from an American missionary family, but through his on-site archaeological training with W. M. Flinders Petrie helped to set the standards for modern archaeological methods and research in Jerusalem. Bliss worked for the British Palestine Exploration Fund digging at Tell el-Hesi in 1890 for two years and then moved to Jerusalem with an assignment to trace the southern and eastern walls of the city during the Herodian period. He excavated and photographed Jerusalem from 1894 to 1897, assisted by the Scottish architect A. Dickie, and often used bold yet controversial underground tunneling methods to avoid disturbing historical edifices and properties above ground (Hallote 2006: 121-30; Davis 2004: 32; Pixner 1997: 22-31, 64-66; Gibson and Jacobson 1994: 150-60).
Bliss's final report on Jerusalem of 1898 included detailed descriptions, accurate plans, and extensive photographs of Jerusalem. Hallote, in her book dedicated to Bliss and the American exploration of Palestine—Bible, Map, and Spade—has called Bliss “a crossover figure” caught between the missionary and archaeological goals of the period (Hallote 2006: 2-3). Long after Bliss's death, W. F. Albright would write in an entry for the Dictionary of American Biography that Bliss was “the father of Palestinian archaeology” (Albright 1965: 44-45), attesting to Bliss's prominent place in the history of American archaeologists in Jerusalem and to the advances his approach brought to the field, paving the way to archaeological practices of the 20th century (Hallote 2006: 1).
Figs. 8-10. The American School in Jerusalem under construction and newly opened in 1925 (courtesy, American Schools of Oriental Research).
The 20th Century: A Dialectic Paradigm Albright—The Institute
A transitional moment in the history of the American archaeological presence in Jerusalem occurred in 1895 when J. H. Thayer—President of the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis and a Harvard professor of New Testament—delivered a speech calling for the establishment of an American School in Palestine. He noted that the “French Catholic School” had already beaten Americans to the punch and urged his compatriots to follow in the footsteps of Robinson and others in the exploration of the Holy Land, specifically noting that this would hold great “promise of usefulness alike to Biblical learning and missionary work” (Long 2003: 132; King 1983; 25). Within five years, at the turn of the new century, the American School set up shop in Jerusalem.
Fig. 11. William Foxwell Albright, 1891-1971 (photograph by Fabian Bachrach, courtesy Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Archives).
Fig. 12. Excavations in front of the Albright Institute in 1927 (courtesy, American Schools of Oriental Research).
Initially founded in 1900 as the American School of Oriental Research (ASOR) in Palestine, the newly formed American presence did not originally have a permanent site, and for some 20 years moved around to a number of different locations, renting space for research and classes that were conducted at that time. This changed in 1921, when ASOR was incorporated and became the American Schools of Oriental Research, and construction began soon afterward on an edifice (figs. 8-10) under the auspices of a generous donor after whom the structure was initially named: the Jane Dows Nies Memorial Building (Blakely 2001: 127; King 1983: 74). The building was finished in 1925 and came to be known widely as ASOR's Jerusalem School. Later additions and renovations were made in 1930, 1985, 2003, and 2009.
The construction of the Jerusalem School took place under the supervision of its director—one William Fox Albright (fig. 11)—hence the many publications dedicated to the so-called “House that Albright Built.”72 But it was not until 1970 that the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research was incorporated as a separate body from ASOR and the building was formally named after Albright.
I will return to Albright and his contribution in a moment, but I would like to make a small detour here in order to point to a number of Jerusalem excava-
Fig. 13. Plan of 1972-74 excavations of "third wall" in proximity to Albright Institute (reproduced by permission of E. Netzer).
Tions that took place at the Jerusalem School's own doorstep, literally putting it on the archaeological map. In the 1920s and 30s, while the Jerusalem School was being established—physically and organizationally—excavations in proximity to it revealed important configurations of Jerusalem in the Second Temple and Early Byzantine periods. The first excavation of substantial importance took place in 1925-27 (and again in 1940) when E. L. Sukenik and L. A. Mayer excavated a wall north of Jerusalem's Old City that ran directly up to and along the property line of the Jerusalem School (fig. 12) (Albright 1925: 19-21; Butin 1927; 1-3; Sukenik 1927; 8-9). Albright, who was director at the time, actively supported the Jerusalem excavation and wrote a number of reports about its progress in the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (BASOR) and Jewish Quarterly Review. A scholarly debate arose from the wall's discovery as to whether or not it was the one Josephus described as being built by Agrippa I as a northern defense or a wall built later, when Titus laid siege to Jerusalem. Fifty years later, still without scholarly consensus, in 1972-74, excavations were continued by S. Ben-Arieh and E. Netzer (1979; 140-41). As seen in their reconstruction (fig. 13), near the Albright Institute a number of towers were revealed on the northern face of the wall, indicating that it was intended to face the north, thereby establishing its date to the time of Agrippa I and not as a wall built by Titus to face inward, toward the Old City (Broshi 1975; 1, 18-21). A large stone of Jerusalem's Third Wall is still visible in the back garden area of the Albright Institute, and portions of the wall can be seen every two years in front of the Albright when the city opens up the street to do maintenance work.
Another Jerusalem excavation took place directly on the grounds of the Albright Institute in 1932 when a series of vaults and rooms with skeletons, pottery, and coins was discovered in the back of the building under the tennis courts, now the Albright's current parking lot (figs. 14-16). The work was carried out by staff of the Jerusalem School and the finds reported in 1932 in BASOR by M. Burrows,
Figs. 14-16. 1932 excavations and findings at the back of the Albright Institute near tennis courts (courtesy American Schools of Oriental Research).
The director of the Jerusalem School at that time. In collaboration with colleagues from the British School and the Ecole Biblique, Burrows dated the finds to the late 5th and early 6th centuries based on the coins and pottery found there. Because of epigraphic and numismatic evidence found within the tombs, Burrows speculated that the group could have been made up of Monophysite monks. He writes in BASOR, no doubt with some amusement, “Can it be that our grounds harbored in those days a monastery of heretics?” (Burrows 1932: 35). These combined ex-
Fig. 17. William Foxwell Albright (courtesy American Schools of Oriental Research).
Fig.18. Ruth Norton Albright (courtesy William Dever).
Cavations revolved around the property of today's Albright Institute and help to illuminate the ancient landscape of Jerusalem from the Roman through the Early Byzantine periods. It is, however, to the very discipline of biblical archaeology that emerged from and revolved around the Albright Institute and Albright himself that I now turn.
Albright—The Man
Any discussion of the American contribution to the archaeology of Jerusalem and the region must give serious consideration to the formation of biblical archaeology as a discipline and the giant figure who developed it, William Foxwell Albright (1891-1971) (figs. 11, 17). Albright was born in Chile to Protestant missionary parents and came from an evangelical Methodist religious background. He has been referred to as a brilliant philologist who taught himself ancient and modern languages, and at the early age of 12 had memorized every book on ancient history and archaeology he could lay his hands on (Wiseman 1972: 346). Albright's academic training was interdisciplinary in nature, encompassing the study of history, literature, geography, paleography, epigraphy, and religions of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, and the Levant (Blakely 2001: 129; Gitin 2002: 5). He received his Ph. D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1916 and married Dr. Ruth Norton, a Sanskrit scholar, in 1921; the couple had four sons. A photograph of Ruth Norton Albright in later years was taken by William Dever at the Albright Institute in 1972 after her husband's death (fig. 18) (Dever 1993: 29).
Albright served as the Jerusalem School director for 12 years, from 1920 to 1929, and then again from 1933 to 1936. He was innovative in bringing together Protestants, Jews, and Catholics under one roof for open, scholarly discourse and was considered an ecumenist among colleagues (Gitin 2002: 5; Wiseman 1972: 348). While directing the school in the 1920s, Albright actively supported Jerusalem excavations, as demonstrated in the Sukenik digs previously mentioned. But most of
Fig. 19. The Albright Institute in 1980s (photo by David Harris; reproduced by permission of the AIAR).
Albright's own excavation activity was outside of the city at sites such as Bethel, Tell el-Ful just north of Jerusalem (e. g., Albright 1923: 1-3), and Tell Beit Mirsim (King 1983: 80-84; Cobbing 2002: 345-62). It was particularly at Tell Beit Mirsim (1926-1932) that Albright developed the archaeological standard that revolutionized the study of stratigraphy to this day. Here, he created a ceramic typology by categorizing stylistic changes in potsherds and indexing chronological variations among different pottery types. He then correlated these types with the stratigraphy of the site and was thus able to discern relative dates of occupation at different levels (King 1983: 80).
Albright was well aware of the major changes taking place in the field and how approaches differed radically from those practiced while he was earning his own doctoral degree. He begins his 1930 article, “A Millennium of Biblical History in the Light of Recent Excavations,” with: “During the past ten years the study of Palestinian archaeology has made great progress, and now rests upon an entirely different basis of method and interpretation” (Albright 1930: 441-61). For Albright, the ceramic typological advances were just one part of a larger endeavor to marry literary studies of the Bible with the science of archaeology. As noted by Peter Machinist, Albright's quest for a scientific approach brought to his study of biblical literature
Fig. 20. Gates of the Albright Institute today (photo, Gary Glassman).
New vocabulary like “collection of data,” “rational,” “empirical,” and “facts" (Machinist 1996: 393). He may not have used archaeology to prove the Bible in the same way 19th-century scholars had,73 but there is no question that he sought to advance biblical studies by adding to it a new dimension—the archaeological record. Albright read biblical texts against the backdrop of material evidence, and material evidence against the backdrop of Biblical texts, bringing the two into dialectical conversation with the aim of gaining a deeper understanding of both. In 1969, Albright describes this approach “as the systematic analysis or synthesis of any phase of Biblical scholarship, which can be clarified by archaeological discovery” (Albright 1969: 8-9; also quoted in Gitin 2002: 5).
Albright privileged the chronological and typological ordering of data, the method that still forms the backbone of the archaeological discipline today despite its variant schools. S. Gitin, current director of the Albright Institute, writes that in fostering this approach, “Albright forged a new agenda for Biblical studies and created the discipline of Biblical Archaeology” (Gitin 2002: 5). Dever enumerates the aspects of Albright's method that continues to remain crucial:
(1) the emphasis on the importance of new evidence, especially those data deriving from archaeological sources; (2) the necessity for changing one's mind in the light of new evidence; (3) the importance of integrating textual and artifactual / material culture data; and (4) the implicit (though not realized) thrust toward a new hermeneutic in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern historiography (Dever 1993: 30).
Albright's pioneering contributions to the scholarly community in Jerusalem, his excavations of the areas surrounding Jerusalem, and his advances in biblical studies were based on his openness to new data from archaeological sources and his desire to bring precision to archaeological fieldwork and stratigraphy in ancient Syria-Palestine (Dever 1993: 31).
A number of publications have appeared in the last decades both defending and critiquing Albright's contribution to archaeology and Biblical studies. 74 One of the reasons that Albright's theories have received so much attention is due to the powerful legacy and influence Albright continues to exert on the field. First, he was a prolific writer and his works—reaching beyond 1,100 articles and books combined—literally dominated the field quantitatively and qualitatively (Wiseman 1972: 347; Machinist 1996: 386). Second, Albright was editor for more than 37 years (1931-68) of one of the key journals for the archaeology of both Jerusalem and the larger region—the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research—further shaping the field of ancient Near Eastern studies. Third, Albright left his mark on a generation of students—N. Glueck, G. E. Wright, J, Bright, F. M. Cross, and D. N. Freedman—who have formulated and defined the fields of biblical studies and archaeology, particularly on the American scene, lending long legs to the Albright legacy. Other schools of thought have developed as well, sometimes in conjunction with or in response to Albright's theories, and intersected with each other at the Albright Institute in Jerusalem. A look at the contemporary picture of the Albright Institute may offer some indication of the third paradigm characterizing the American archaeological presence in Jerusalem.
Into the 21st Century: A Pluralistic Paradigm
Ironically, it may be at the very time that the American Jerusalem School underwent its name change to the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (fig. 19) that another paradigm emerged marking a shift away from the very discipline of “biblical archaeology” that W. F. Albright had constructed, or at least away from its nomenclature. Biblical archaeology—a linguistic construct fusing the two distinct disciplines of biblical literary studies and Syro-Palestinian archaeology—came under the critical scrutiny of scholars in the final quarter of the 20th century for the dominant role biblical texts (and some religious agendas) had played in the interpretation of archaeological data. Indexing this paradigm shift was the name change of the longstanding, 60-year-old journal, The Biblical Archaeologist, which was first published by ASOR in 1938 with its opening article—“What Were the Cherubim?” (vol. 1, no. 1, page 1)—a decidedly literary biblical approach by none other than W. F. Albright. In 1998, the journal reinvented itself with a new title: Near Eastern Archaeology. The editor, David Hopkins, writes:
The new title for our journal necessarily projects a new image and appears for a new orientation to the archaeology of the Near East. In reality, this orientation, which endeavors to embrace the “ancient worlds from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean,” has for many years supplied the magazine's editorial policy. Thus, regular readers will
Hardly notice any change in the scope or tenor of the journal's contents (Hopkins 1998: 1).
Semantics were everything, and the switch in name signified that the field of Near Eastern archaeology had found its own voice, not so much sans bible, but with biblical texts playing only a limited role among a multitude of other data. In addition, Hopkins' editorial points to another aspect of the recent paradigm by situating the study of Jerusalem and surrounding areas within a much larger geographical area, “from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean.” This lens on context characterizes just one of a number of elements—geographical, methodological, and dialogical—integral to the archaeology as a pluralistic paradigm. To examine aspects of this paradigm further, I turn to current scholarly discussions about the state of the field and then to the study of Jerusalem at the Albright Institute today.
Recently, numerous scholars have written about contemporary methods, agendas, and problems in the field of Near Eastern archaeology and have argued for a future approach that is pluralistic in nature. I will limit myself to only two essays by Americans here, one by W. Dever and one by E. Meyers (both past directors of the Albright Institute), that shed some light on the political, academic, and methodological controversies that grip the field at the beginning of the 21st century. De-ver's essay, “Syro-Palestinian and Biblical Archaeology: Into the Next Millennium,” offers a succinct summary of present-day critical issues and submits suggestions for the upcoming century. Stating for the record that “the Albrightian era is over” (Dever 2003: 519), Dever points to the importance of and necessity for new technologies and theories to provide a working framework within which to interpret archaeological data. In the realm of new technologies, Dever singles out recent advances made by more precise Carbon 14 dating, neutron activation analysis, Geographical Information Systems (GIS), and computer-generated three-dimensional spatial modeling of artifact clusters (p. 514). In the area of theory and method, he underscores the value of postprocessual approaches—as set forth by theorists such as I. Hodder, T. Earle, and R. Preucel (Hodder 1986; Earle and Preucel 1987: 501-38; Preucel 1991)—for being “deliberately eclectic” in methodology, not buying into a single way of doing archaeology, avoiding positivist presuppositions, placing an emphasis on culture in the larger sociocultural sense, and accommodating the reality of multiple pasts (Dever 2003: 516-17). In relation to the study of ancient Israel, Dever argues that “archaeological data now take precedence over texts as a primary source for history-writing” (pp. 520-21), thus marking a shift away from the dialectical balance between text and artifact that defined the second paradigm decades ago. Dever applauds approaches that allow for the interplay between texts and artifacts (Hodder's con-text archaeology) and asserts that the postprocessual lens is now the dominant approach among American archaeologists (p. 516). He also points to the method's engagement with social issues and “its willingness to be culturally and even politically involved,” raising questions about ownership of the past and the political role that archaeology plays in constructing stories of national heritage. In this tricky zone of archaeo-political discourse, Dever asserts that the “metanarrative must be resisted,” and instead, “we must seek to construct and tolerate 'multiple pasts,' none of them perfect reflections of reality” (pp. 518-19).
Meyers focuses on this very notion of multiple pasts and attempts to sort out exploitations of archaeology that further political goals in his recent essay, “Israel and Its Neighbors Then and Now: Revisionist History and the Quest for History in the Middle East Today” (2006: 255-64). Addressing misunderstandings around the relationship of modern Israelis and Palestinians to different groups of ancient peoples, Meyers draws from current scholarship to underscore the importance of a common ancestry for both Palestinians and Israelis from within the ancient Canaanite community. He states that the irony of modern politics is that the Palestinians are in fact “blood cousins” of the modern-day Israelis (2006: 260). Here, then, is the ancient basis for modern dialogue. “In pursuing truthful historical reconstruction,” Meyers contends, “a strong case for pluralism can be made for then and for now” and the varied and complex archaeological record “is rich enough for all to share and could, if properly understood, serve to promote dialogue between Arabs and Israelis” (2006: 255, 262).
In both of these essays mapping out agendas for the study of Jerusalem and the Near East, Meyers and Dever articulate pluralistic approaches that include the call for increased dialogue among national and religious groups in order to trace multiple and coexistent communal pasts within the archaeological record. They also point to the open-ended and pluralistic use of varied theoretical applications to render fuller, multi-dimensional understandings of the evidence. Finally, they argue for the contextualization of archaeological data in the broadest geographical, social, and cultural sense possible. I would like to conclude by bringing all of these aspects of the pluralistic paradigm home, as it were, to the Albright Institute in Jerusalem (fig. 20).
As we have seen in the first part of the 20th century, W. F. Albright was known for bringing together Protestant, Jews, and Catholics to lend their expertise to the history of the Bible and ancient artifacts. Today, the Albright Institute continues this tradition and broadens it exponentially, due in large part most recently to the efforts of its director for over the last quarter of a century (28 years at the time of writing)—Seymour Gitin. 75 The Albright Institute has come to be known as an agent for dialogue, representing a unique locus within Jerusalem for the collaborative exchange among American, European, Israeli, Palestinian, and Arab nationals. As a nondenominational and nonpolitical establishment, the Albright Institute represents what I would call a “liminal place”—in comparison to other Israeli, Palestinian, or religious institutes in the area—by carving out and maintaining a heterogeneous environment where varied groups convene and often live together. In the academic year 2007-8 alone, 15 stipended and 47 associate fellows conducted research at the Albright, hailing from places as wide-ranging as Johns Hopkins University, the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Harvard University, the University of Toronto,
Al-Quds University, Duke University, the Palestinian Department of Antiquities, UCLA, St. Petersburg (Russia), the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago, Oxford University, the University of Missouri-Columbia, Charles University in Prague, to Hebrew University in Jerusalem and beyond. Their disciplinary areas also reflect a mosaic of diversity: archaeology, Islamic studies, philology, biblical studies, history of religion, Egyptology, Judaic studies, art and architectural history, epigraphy, anthropology, and the list goes on. Approximately a quarter of the fellows' projects each year (24% in 2006-7, for example) directly address the history and archaeology of Jerusalem, and the remaining projects examine Jerusalem's context, including ancient Judea and regions in the larger Mediterranean area. In addition, since 1980, more than 70 publications specifically on the history of Jerusalem have resulted from the fellowship program at the Albright Institute. 76 Each of these contributors to the scholarly canon on Jerusalem has benefited in one way or another from the dialogical and pluralistic approaches employed by those who have walked through the gates of the Albright Institute.
In closing, I highlight one pioneering endeavor at the Albright Institute that may exemplify the potential of the current pluralistic paradigm and pave the way for similar possibilities in the future. “The Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 7 th Century b. c.” project, initiated by Gitin in conjunction with the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, involves 50 scholars working in 13 different countries in the Middle East and Mediterranean basin. According to Gitin's project report, it:
Is designed to study interactions between the Assyrian center and the periphery of its empire and incorporates historical, environmental and archaeological evidence from Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece (mainland and Crete), Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Spain, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey in a cooperative study by Americans and other scholars working in these countries. 77 78
The endeavor brings together scholars from disparate backgrounds into dialogical conversation and inquiry to trace large geographical networks of intercultural exchanges in the ancient world. The plethora of interpretive voices in this interdisciplinary study sheds particular light on the development of ancient Jerusalem, which expands suddenly during this period into a much larger urban center. The project draws methodologically from a number of fields and engages new technologies, such as recent isotope analysis of silver in jewelry samples from Philistia and ancient Israel that reveal provenance as far away as Spain. 11 Likewise, petrographic analyses are being performed on store-jars from Carthage, which are typologically related to storejars from the Levant. The purpose is to determine possible commercial connections between the Levant and North Africa in the 7th century b. c.e. and thereby examine the possible economic exchange systems that may have existed in the Phoenician trading network.79
The geographical, dialogical, and methodological pluralism deployed in such a project is a striking model for future archaeological investigations. A century of history at the Albright Institute, situated within the millennia of Jerusalem, serves as the basis for new forms of knowledge about the ancient city and its surroundings. The American archaeological presence, joined with extended international partners, promises to find innovative guises for the future and to open new gateways towards the understanding of Jerusalem and its history.
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