The W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR) is an archaeological research institution located in East Jerusalem. It is the oldest American research center for ancient Near Eastern studies in the Middle East. Founded in 1900 as the American School of Oriental Research, it was renamed in 1970 after its most distinguished director and the father of biblical archaeology, William F. Albright.[1] Its mission is to develop and disseminate scholarly knowledge of the literature, history, and culture of the Near East, as well as the study of civilization from pre-history to the early Islamic period.
Today, the Albright Institute is one of three separately incorporated institutes affiliated with the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), the others being the American Center of Oriental Research – ACOR in Amman, Jordan, and the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute – CAARI – in Nicosia, Cyprus.[2] In 1948, the then American School of Oriental Research, also known as the Jerusalem School, played a significant role in the discovery and identification of the Dead Sea Scrolls (see below). Between 1981 and 1996, the Albright Institute, together with the Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, excavated at the ancient Philistine site of Tel Miqne-Ekron, one of the five Philistine capital cities mentioned in the Bible. With the appointment of the new director, Matthew J. Adams (2014), the institute is now engaged in the Jezreel Valley Regional Project, a long-term, multi-disciplinary survey and excavation project investigating the history of human activity in the Jezreel Valley from the Paleolithic through the Ottoman period.[3]
Located in a 1920s-period building, now a Jerusalem landmark, the Albright maintains residential and research facilities including a 35,000 volume library, publications offices, and archaeological laboratories.[4]
The institute's international fellowship program fosters a culture of intellectual integrity and respect. It provides an opportunity for students and scholars from all over the world including Israelis and Palestinians to interact and exchange information and ideas in a friendly and convivial environment, which is not duplicated in any other such institution in the region. It also promotes working relationships with related institutions in Israel and the Palestinian Authority. More than 3,000 persons participate in the Albright Institute's annual wide range of programs including lectures, reports, workshops, field trips, and social events. The institute also supports 31 ASOR-affiliated and Albright-assisted excavation, survey, and publications projects.
The Albright awards over $340,000 in grants and fellowships annually.[5] In 2014, 64 Fellows include 34 Fellows with stipends and fee awards, and 30 Associate Senior, Post-Doctoral, and Research Fellows with funding from other sources. The Albright awards three fellowships annually through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.[6] In the academic year 2012–13, the institute initiated the Seymour Gitin Distinguished Professorship, which is open to internationally recognized senior scholars of all nationalities who have made significant contributions to their field of study.
Campus
The Albright Institute campus is located at 26 Salah ed-Din St. in East Jerusalem.
Library
The Albright Institute's library is a non-circulating library open to its fellows and researchers in Jerusalem. The collection holds more than 20,000 volumes.[7] The library uses the ExLibria Alma automation system with Primo interface.[7] The catalog is available online. The institute's extensive map collection has recently been made available online free of charge.[8]
The Dead Sea Scrolls
The institute played a significant role in the discovery and preservation of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The scrolls contain approximately eight hundred separate works written between the 2nd century BCE and the 1st century CE. They include the only Jewish Bible manuscripts from that period, including a manuscript of Exodus that dates to c. 250 BCE. Manuscripts or fragments of every book in the Hebrew Bible except the Book of Esther were unearthed, as well as many other Jewish religious texts, many previously unknown. Most scholars believe that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the property of the Essenes who lived at the site of Khirbet Qumran. The Essenes were a Jewish sect active in the last century BCE and the first century CE, at the same time as the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
In the spring of 1948, the institute was contacted by a representative of Mar Samuel, the metropolitan (archbishop) of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, who wanted to authenticate four ancient scrolls that he had recently purchased from an antiquities dealer. One of the younger scholars in residence at the institute at that time, John C. Trever, recognized the antiquity of the manuscripts and photographed three of the four scrolls in the basement of the Albright under very adverse conditions. Trever was the first to photograph 1QIsaiah(a), a complete scroll of the book of Isaiah dating to approximately 100 BCE. Trever sent copies of his photographs to his mentor—famed Near Eastern scholar and former institute director William F. Albright, who sent him a telegram congratulating him on the "greatest manuscript discovery of modern times!”
In early September 1948, Mar Samuel contacted ASO—currently the Albright Institute—in Jerusalem and the then director Professor Ovid R. Sellers. Samuel showed Sellers some additional scroll fragments that he had acquired. Sellers then focused on finding the cave in which the scrolls had been found. In late 1948, nearly two years after the discovery of the scrolls, scholars had yet to locate the cave where the fragments had been found. Conducting such a search was dangerous. When the British mandate in Palestine ended on May 15, 1948, war broke out immediately, and peace would not be restored until November. The cave was finally discovered on January 28, 1949, by a UN observer, and Sellers brought his box brownie camera to take the first photos of the cave, which were soon published in Life magazine.
In 1952, Roland de Vaux, the head of the French Biblical School in Jerusalem, organized a search of the caves in the cliffs above the Dead Sea near the site of Qumran. ASOR joined this expedition, and discovered Cave 3, the cave in which the famous Copper Scroll was found. Cave 3 was the only Qumran cave to be completely excavated by professional archaeologists.
The Albright Institute continues to play a role in scrolls scholarship to the present day. In the 1990s, Board Chair Joy Ungerleider established a Dorot Dead Sea Scrolls fellowship at the Albright to enable young American scholars to work on the scroll fragments in the nearby Rockefeller Museum. One of the first holders of this fellowship was Sidnie White Crawford, board chair and former president of the institute, who lived and worked at the Albright from 1989 to 1991 on the editions of several Deuteronomy manuscripts from Cave 4, and the Reworked Pentateuch manuscripts, also from Cave 4. The Albright has hosted many scrolls scholars while they pursued their research, including Eugene C. Ulrich (University of Notre Dame), Mark Smith (New York University), and Eileen Schuller (McMaster University). In addition, former fellow and trustee Jodi Magness (University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill) has produced the seminal work on Qumran archaeology in the twenty-first century.
The Albright's excavations at Tel Miqne Ekron is a joint project with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and was excavated from 1981 until 1996 under the direction of the Albright's Dorot Director and Professor of Archaeology, Seymour Gitin, and Professor Trude Dothan of the Hebrew University. The excavations have led to one of the most important archaeological discoveries in Israel in the 20th century, perhaps second only to that of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 1996, a significant artifact for the corpus of Biblical Archaeology was recovered, a monumental dedicatory inscription of the seventh-century king of Ekron Ikausu. The inscription not only securely identifies the site by mentioned the name Ekron, but it gives a king-list of the rulers of Ekron, fathers to sons: Ya'ir, Ada, Yasid, Padi, and Ikausu, and the name of the goddess Patgayah to whom the temple is dedicated.
Both Padi and Ikausu are mentioned in the seventh century BCE Neo-Assyrian Royal Annals as kings of Ekron, thus providing a basis for dating their reigns. This makes the Ekron Inscription prime documentary evidence for establishing the chronology of events relating to the late biblical period, especially the history of the Philistines. The Goddess Patgayah refers to the Aegean mother goddess of Delphi, and Ikausu meaning the Achaean or the Greek may point to the Greek heritage of the Philistines or reflect contact between the Philistines and their ‘homeland’ Greece in the Archaic period of the 7th century, during which there was intensive economic and cultural exchange.
Albright Live YouTube Channel
The institute runs the Albright Live YouTube Channel, which features original content developed by the institute, including lectures, workshops, and other live and recorded content. The includes the series The Shmunis Family Conversations in the Archaeology and History of Ancient Israel with Israel Finkelstein.[9] The series is set up as an interview-style conversation between Albright Institute Director Matthew J. Adams and archaeologist Israel Finkelstein. Overall, 27 episodes covered the rise of Ancient Israel as evidenced by archaeology, ancient Near Eastern textual sources, the Bible, and archaeology from the Late Bronze Age through the Hellenistic Period.
Meals by Hisham
Meals by Hisham is a fundraising program developed by former Director Matthew J. Adams and Albright Chef Hisham M'farreh in response to the closing of the institute during the COVID-19 pandemic.[10] The program features appetizers, dinners, and deserts offered twice weekly for pickup and delivery.[11]
Egyptologist Flinders Petrie lived with his wife at ASOR–Jerusalem in 1933, and died there in 1942.
Related Research Articles
The Philistines were an ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan during the Iron Age. The Philistines originated as an immigrant group from the Aegean that settled in Canaan circa 1175 BCE. Over time, they gradually assimilated elements of the local Levantine societies while preserving their own unique culture. In 604 BCE, the Philistine polity, after having already been subjugated for centuries by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, was finally destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. After becoming part of his empire and its successor, the Persian Empire, they lost their distinct ethnic identity and disappeared from the historical and archaeological record by the late 5th century BCE.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period. They were discovered over a period of 10 years, between 1946 and 1956, at the Qumran Caves near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, the Dead Sea Scrolls are considered to be a keystone in the history of archaeology with great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the oldest surviving manuscripts of entire books later included in the biblical canons, along with extra-biblical and deuterocanonical manuscripts that preserve evidence of the diversity of religious thought in late Second Temple Judaism. At the same time, they cast new light on the emergence of Christianity and of Rabbinic Judaism. Almost all of the 15,000 scrolls and scroll fragments are held in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum, located in the city of Jerusalem. The Israeli government's custody of the Dead Sea Scrolls is disputed by Jordan and the Palestinian Authority on territorial, legal, and humanitarian grounds — they were mostly discovered following the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank and were acquired by Israel after Jordan lost the 1967 Arab–Israeli War — whilst Israel's claims are primarily based on historical and religious grounds, given their significance in Jewish history and in the heritage of Judaism.
Ekron, in the Hellenistic period known as Accaron was a Philistine city, one of the five cities of the Philistine Pentapolis, located in present-day Israel.
Lawrence E. "Larry" Stager was an American archaeologist and academic, specialising in Syro-Palestinian archaeology and Biblical archaeology. He was the Dorot Professor of the Archaeology of Israel in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University and was Director of the Harvard Semitic Museum. Beginning in 1985 he oversaw the excavations of the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon, the Philistine port city.
Israel Finkelstein is an Israeli archaeologist, professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University and the head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa. Finkelstein is active in the archaeology of the Levant and is an applicant of archaeological data in reconstructing biblical history. He is also known for applying the exact and life sciences in archaeological and historical reconstruction. Finkelstein is the current excavator of Megiddo, a key site for the study of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the Levant.
The American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR), founded in 1900 as the American School of Oriental Study and Research in Palestine, is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization based in Alexandria, Virginia, which supports the research and teaching of the history and cultures of the Near East and Middle Eastern countries. ASOR supports scholarship, research, exploration, and archeological fieldwork and offers avenues of disseminating this research through their publications. ASOR also provides support for undergraduates and graduates in institutions of higher education around the world pursuing studies of the history and cultures of the Near and Middle East.
Gath or Gat was one of the five cities of the Philistine pentapolis during the Iron Age. It was located in northeastern Philistia, close to the border with Judah. Gath is often mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and its existence is confirmed by Egyptian inscriptions. Already of significance during the Bronze Age, the city is believed to be mentioned in the El-Amarna letters as Gimti/Gintu, ruled by the two Shuwardata and 'Abdi-Ashtarti. Another Gath, known as Ginti-kirmil also appears in the Amarna letters.
The Israel Exploration Society (IES), originally the Jewish Palestine Exploration Society, is a society devoted to historical, geographical and archaeological research of the Land of Israel. The society was founded in 1914 with the object of studying the History and Civilization of Palestine and of disseminating its knowledge.
John C. Trever was a Biblical scholar and archaeologist, who was involved in the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Frank Moore Cross Jr. (1921–2012) was the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages Emeritus at Harvard University, notable for his work in the interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, his 1973 magnum opusCanaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, and his work in Northwest Semitic epigraphy. Many of his essays on the latter topic have since been collected in Leaves from an Epigrapher's Notebook.
4QMMT, also known as MMT, or the Halakhic Letter, is a reconstructed text from manuscripts that were part of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumran in the Judean desert. The manuscripts that were used to reconstruct 4QMMT were found in Cave 4 at Qumran between the years 1953 and 1959. They were kept at the Palestinian Archaeological Museum, now known as the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem.
William M. Schniedewind holds the Kershaw Chair of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Studies and is a Professor of Biblical Studies and Northwest Semitic Languages at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Philistine Bichrome ware is an archaeological term coined by William F. Albright in 1924 which describes pottery production in a general region associated with the Philistine settlements during the Iron Age I period in ancient Canaan. The connection of the pottery type to the "Philistines" is still held by many scholars, although some question its methodological validity.
The Isaiah Scroll, designated 1QIsaa and also known as the Great Isaiah Scroll, is one of the seven Dead Sea Scrolls that were first discovered by Bedouin shepherds in 1946 from Qumran Cave 1. The scroll is written in Hebrew and contains the entire Book of Isaiah from beginning to end, apart from a few small damaged portions. It is the oldest complete copy of the Book of Isaiah, being approximately 1000 years older than the oldest Hebrew manuscripts known before the scrolls' discovery. 1QIsaa is also notable in being the only scroll from the Qumran Caves to be preserved almost in its entirety.
Jonas Carl Greenfield was an American scholar of Semitic languages, who published in the fields of Semitic Epigraphy, Aramaic Studies and Qumran Studies, and a distinguished member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
Jeffrey R. Chadwick is an American professional archaeologist and university professor. He serves as Jerusalem Center Professor of Archaeology and Near Eastern Studies at the Brigham Young University Jerusalem Center in Israel, and as Associate Professor of Religious Education at Brigham Young University in Utah, USA. He is also a senior field archaeologist and director of excavations in Area F at the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project in Israel.
Millar Burrows was an American biblical scholar, a leading authority on the Dead Sea scrolls and professor emeritus at Yale Divinity School. Burrows was director of American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, and later president of the American Schools of Oriental Research. His grandson, Edwin G. Burrows (1943–2018), was an American historian and winner of the Pulitzer Prize (1999).
Seymour Gitin is an American archaeologist specializing in ancient Israel, known for his excavations at Tel Miqne-Ekron. He was the director of the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR) in Jerusalem from 1980 to 2014.
The Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription, or simply the Ekron inscription, is a royal dedication inscription found in its primary context in the ruins of a temple during the 1996 excavations of Ekron. It is known as KAI 286.
Eileen Marie Schuller is a professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Schuller is an official editor of the Dead Sea Scrolls. She teaches undergraduate and graduate studies in the Biblical field. Over a span of 30 years, her involvement in the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls has led to numerous contributions in authenticating the discoveries found in the caves near the Ancient Qumran settlement.
King, Philip J. American Archaeology in the Mideast: A History of the American Schools of Oriental Research (1983).
Clark, D.G. and V.H. Matthews 100 Years of American Archaeology in the Middle East: Proceedings of the American Schools of Oriental Research Centennial Celebration (2003).
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