Tall El Hammam Excavation Project Field Manual

Updated for Season Ten, the Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project Field Manual is designed to provide current and candidate supervisors with the latest information about the excavation and data collection protocols and methodologies employed at the site. Every volunteer member of the TeHEP excavation team, along with anyone interested in this exciting excavation project or archaeology in general, is encouraged to read it.

The Tall al-Hamman Excavations, Volume 1 is the first in a series of reports on the Tall al-Hammam Excavation Project, directed by Steven Collins of Trinity Southwest University and assisted by Gary Byers and Carroll Kobs, assistant dig directors. Co-author Mike Luddeni has been dig photographer since the inception of the Project. Excavations began in Jordan in 2005–2006 and have continued annually, without break, up to the present. This volume presents an overview of the site, with a period-by-period overview of Tall al-Hammam and its relationship to other sites in the vicinity in the Jordan Valley. It also includes the pottery profiles and assemblages and artifacts discovered in the course of these seasons. Future volumes will include in-depth excavation reports for specific areas of the Tall.

The Tall al-Hamman Excavations, Volume 1 is the first in a series of reports on the Tall al-Hammam Excavation Project, directed by Steven Collins of Trinity Southwest University and assisted by Gary Byers and Carroll Kobs, assistant dig directors. Co-author Mike Luddeni has been dig photographer since the inception of the Project. Excavations began in Jordan in 2005-2006 and have continued annually, without break, up to the present. This volume presents an overview of the site, with a period-by-period overview of Tall al-Hammam and its relationship to other sites in the vicinity in the Jordan Valley. It also includes the pottery profiles and assemblages and artifacts discovered in the course of these seasons. Future volumes will include in-depth excavation reports for specific areas of the Tall.

The fascinating, true account of the quest for one of the Old Testament’s most infamous cities. Like many Christians today in the academic world, Dr. Steven Collins felt pulled in different directions when it came to apparent conflicts between the Bible and scholarly research and theory—an intellectual crisis that inspired him to lay it all on the line as he set off to locate the lost city of Sodom. Recounting Dr. Collins’s quest for Sodom in absorbing detail, this adventure-cum-memoir reflects the tensions that define biblical archaeology as it narrates a tale of discovery. Readers follow “Dr. C” as he tracks down biblical, archaeological, and geographical clues to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, narrowing the list of possible sites as he weighs evidence and battles skeptics. Finally, he arrives at a single location that looms as the only option: a massive ancient ruin called Tall el-Hammam in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Many scholars who were initially opposed to Dr. Collins’s theory now concede that history books may need to be rewritten in light of his groundbreaking discovery. It—along with several other recent finds—is challenging the assumptions of academics and asserting a new voice in the controversy of biblical archaeology and the dispute over using the Bible as a credible historical source. *** From respected archaeologist Dr. Steven Collins and award-winning author Dr. Latayne C. Scott comes the fascinating, true account of the frustrating search and exciting excavation of the city the Bible calls Sodom, which scholars and others had “misplaced” for hundreds of years. Like many modern-day Christians, Dr. Collins struggled with what seemed to be a clash between his heritage of belief in the Bible and the research regarding ancient history and human evolution. This crisis of faith led him to embark on a quest to put both his archaeological education and the Bible to the test by seeking out the lost ancient city, an expedition that has led to one of the most exciting finds in recent archaeology. Challenging the assumptions of academics around the world, Discovering the City of Sodom may well inspire a revision of the history books. Dr. Collins has become a new voice in the controversy over using the Bible as a credible source of understanding the past—and opened a new chapter in the struggle over the soul of biblical archaeology.

This volume is a critical study of recent archaeology in the Western Wall Plaza area, Jerusalem. Considered one of the holiest places on Earth for Jews and Muslims, it is also a place of controversy, where the State marks ‘our’ remains for preservation and adoration and ‘theirs’ for silencing. Based on thousands of documents from the Israel Antiquities Authority and other sources, such as protocols of planning committees, readers can explore for the first time this archaeological ‘heart of darkness’ in East Jerusalem. The book follows a series of unique discoveries, reviewing the approval and execution of development plans and excavations, and the use of the areas once excavation has finished. Who decides what and how to excavate, what to preserve – or ‘remove’? Who pays for the archaeology, for what aims? The professional, scientific archaeology of the past happens now: it modifies the present and is modified by it. This book ‘excavates’ the archaeology of East Jerusalem to reveal its social and political contexts, power structures and ethics. Readers interested in the history, archaeology and politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will find this book useful, as well as scholars and students of the history and ethics of Archaeology, Jerusalem, conservation, nationalism, and heritage.