Excavation Opportunities for AHMA Students
For AHMA students interested in learning and practicing archaeological techniques first-hand, U.C. Berkeley sponsors or is associated with a number of important excavations around the world.
- Nemea, Greece
- The site of Ancient Nemea lies in an upland valley in the modern Greek province of Korinthia, and in the eastern foothills of the Arkadian mountains. It is rich in history and relevant to many Greek myths, including the Myth of Herakles and the Myth of Hypsipyle. In 1973 the University of California at Berkeley, under the aegis of the American School of Classical Studies, began excavations at Nemea that continue today. Stephen G. Miller has been the director of this phase of the excavations which saw extensive large-scale work from 1974-1983 and again since 1997, and smaller projects, research, and publication in the intermediate years.
- Tel Dor, Israel
- The excavation of Tel Dor is currently led by Professor Andrew Stewart of UC Berkeley and co-directed by Professor Rainer Mack of U.C. Santa Barbara. It is part of an international effort, led by Professor Ephraim Stern of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, to uncover one of the richest sites in coastal Israel. King Solomon's principal harbor and a major Phoenician, Jewish, Persian, Greek, and Roman city, Tel Dor offers a unique opportunity for volunteers to learn the techniques of modern field archaeology from experienced excavators.
- Çatalhöyük, Turkey
- The Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük was first discovered in the late 1950s and excavated by James Mellaart between 1961 and 1965. The site rapidly gained international fame due to the large size and dense occupation of the settlement, as well as the spectacular wall paintings and other art that was uncovered inside the houses. Since 1993 an international team of archaeologists, lead by Ian Hodder, has been carrying out new excavations and research, in order to shed more light on the people that inhabited the site.
- The Kerkenes Dag, Turkey
- The Kerkenes Dag is a low granitic mountain in central Turkey. It has been identified with the sacred Hittite Mount Daha. It is highly probable that in the first half of the sixth century BC the upland site was chosen by the Medes for a new city, called Pteria by Herodotus, from which to control their newly gained western empire. The city is the largest pre-Hellenistic site known on the Anatolian Plateau, covering 2.5 square kilometres, enclosed by 7 km of strong defensive wall which can be seen from space. The Kerkenes Project is using a combination of techniques to plan the remains of the city, to study the urban dynamics, and to examine human impact on the surrounding region from early prehistoric times to the end of the Iron Age. Remote Sensing is used to provide a detailed overview of the city. Eventually it should be possible to make electronic reconstructions of much of the city.
- Sardis, Turkey
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The Archaeological Exploration of Sardis is an interdisciplinary program of excavation and research focused on the site of ancient Sardis, some 60 miles east of Izmir in Turkey. Sardis lies in the territory of ancient Lydia, at the foot of the Tmolus Mountains and overlooking the Hermus River plain, where evidence has been found of human activity as early as the Palaeolithic period (ca. 50,000 B.C.). Recent excavations have focused on the Archaic era, particularly the 7th and 6th centuries B.C., when Sardis was the capital of the Lydian empire and at the height of its power, and on the Late Roman era, when the city was still flourishing.
The Archaeological Exploration of Sardis is jointly sponsored by the Harvard University Art Museums and Cornell University. Excavation and research take place in the summer, once the Turkish Ministry of Culture has reviewed the proposed plan of activity and granted approval. The field staff consists predominantly of American and Turkish citizens. They include archaeologists, art historians, architects, conservators, numismatists, epigraphers, object illustrators, photographers, anthropologists, and other scientists. Since 1977, the field director has been Crawford H. Greenewalt, Jr., professor of classical archaeology at the University of California at Berkeley.