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Michael Press

 

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Michael Press
Ph.D. Harvard University Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations 2007
B.A. Brandeis University Anthropology 1997
CAST Research Fellow
DIA Fellow, Fall 2010

Michael's research focuses on the intersection of cultural, political, and ethnic boundaries in ancient Israel and the Levant, and the transmission of techniques and cultural ideas across these boundaries. He has also conducted research on the archaeology of religion in the Bronze and Iron Age Levant. Over the last several years, Michael has been involved with excavation and publication projects at the sites of Ashkelon, Achziv, and Tel Burna in Israel, and has used groups of artifacts such as clay figurines as a means to investigate his research interests.

Current Project: Digital Historical Atlas for Israel

Archaeologists and other historical researchers in the southern Levant are fortunate to have available, as a major source of data, historical aerial photographs and maps spanning the entire twentieth century and beyond. These resources, however, have generally been underutilized, because they have been either difficult to access in the past or even unknown. The goal of this project is to demonstrate the range and applicability of this data to archaeological as well as other forms of research: using GIS and photogrammetric applications, my plan is to conduct a study of ancient and modern landscapes in Israel. In particular, Michael is interested in investigating modern land use and human modifications at archaeological sites, from the late nineteenth century to the present. To begin, he is currently working on a pilot project involving a study of the Ashkelon region.

Selected publications, grants, and awards

Forthcoming The Iron Age Terracottas of Ashkelon and Philistia (to be published by Eisenbrauns in the Final Reports of the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon monograph series)

2011 "A Problem of Definition: 'Cultic' and 'Domestic' Contexts in Iron Age Philistia. Pp. 361-89 in Household Archaeology in Ancient Israel and Beyond. Ed. A. Yasur-Landau, J. Ebeling, and L. Mazow. (Leiden: Brill)

2009 "A Reexamination of Aegean-Style Figurines in Light of New Evidence from Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Ekron". BASOR 353: 39-74. (with David Ben-Shlomo)

ASOR/Dorot Foundation Aviram Prize, 2011, for "(Pytho)Gaia in Myth and Legend: The Goddess of the Ekron Inscription Revisited"

White-Levy publication grant, 2011-2013, for The Tel Achziv Publication Project – The 1963-1964 Moshe Prausnitz Excavations on the Tel (with Dr. Assaf Yasur-Landau)