Primary Contact: Hani Davis
Email: hani@actcom.co.il

Dig Web Site: http://www.hum.huji.ac.il/archaeology/eingedi

5 May-8 August 2002 (in 3-week sessions)
Bethsaida

Primary Contact: Wendi Chiarbos
Email: wchiarbos@mail.unomaha.edu

Project Directors and Institutions:
Dr. Rami Arav, University of Nebraska at Omaha
Dr. Richard Freund, University of Hartford

Dig Web Site: http://www.unomaha.edu/~betsaida

Additional Information: During our 2002 season, we will be uncovering more of the Iron Age city gate complex, one of the largest and best preserved in the entire Near East. In 2001, when many other sites either cancelled or amended their seasons, we excavated from late April through August. While our number of total volunteers was down from past seasons, we are happy to report that Bethsaida is located in a safe area that we had absolutely no incidents from our 100 staff, students, and faculty on-site and in-country.

May 15-June 16, 2002
Banias Excavations

Primary Contact: Professor John Laughlin
Email: laughlin@averett.edu

Dig Web Site: http://www.banias.com

Additional Information: The season may be canceled due to the political unrest in the region. A final decision will not be made until sometime after the first of the year.

June 15-July 20, 2002
The Zeitah Excavations

Primary Contact: Ron E. Tappy
G. Albert Shoemaker Professor of Bible and Archaeology
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
616 North Highland Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15206

Email: tappy@fyi.net

Dig Web Site: http://www.zeitah.net

Additional Information: This season we will be focusing on two separate destruction levels: one dating to around 1300 BCE and the other dating around 850 BCE. Course credit is available for participation in this project and the area of the country in which we live and work is very safe.

June 16-July 26, 2002
Lahav Research Project - Tell Halif Excavation

Primary Contact: Dr. Oded Borowski, Emory University
Email: oborows@emory.edu

Secondary Contact: Dr. James W. Hardin, Mississippi State University
Email: JWH1@ra.msstate.edu

Dig Web Site: http://www.cobb.msstate.edu/dig

Additional Information: Fee (including room & board for 6 weeks) $1550

June 23 - July 19 2002
Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project

Primary Contact: Aren M. Maeir, Project Director (Bar Ilan University)
Email: maeir@h2.hum.huji.ac.il

Secondary Contact: Carl S. Ehrlich, Co-director and Coordinator of the Foreign Student and Volunteer Programs (York University)
Email: ehrlich@yorku.ca

Dig Web Site: http://www.yorku.ca/human/undergrad/abroad/brochure.html

Additional Information: Tell es-Safi is a most imposing mound dominating the border between the coastal plain and the low-lying Judean hills (the Shephela). It has - with great probability - been identified as the site of the ancient city of Gath, renowned as Goliath's hometown and one of the largest cities in Israel from biblical times. Excavations have been conducted at Tell es-Safi since an initial survey season in 1996 by an international team of staff, students and volunteers under the auspices of Bar Ilan University (Israel) and York University (Canada). The areas excavated thus far include extremely rich remains from the 13th to the 8th centuries BCE. Among the most exciting discoveries made is that of a unique siege trench that encircled the site on three sides and offers a clue to the ultimate fate of the Philistine city that existed there. For information on participation as a student or a volunteer, please contact Carl Ehrlich at ehrlich@yorku.ca. An interim report on the dig appeared in the November 2001 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

June 23 - July 26
Sepphoris

Primary Contact: Dr. Zeev Weiss, Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel. 91905
Email: zweiss@huji.ac.il

Dig web site: http://www.hum.huji.ac.il/archaeology/Zippori

June 9-July 27
Ashkelon Excavations

Primary Contact: Dr. Lawrence Stager
Email: vagliard@fas.harvard.edu

Dig Web Site: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~semitic/ashkelon_dig.html

July (all month) 2002
Hippos (Sussita) Excavations Project

Primary Contact: Michael Eisenberg
Email: hippos@research.haifa.ac.il

Secondary Contact: Prof. Arthur Segal
Email: hippos@research.haifa.ac.il

Dig Web Site: http://hippos.haifa.ac.il

July-August 2002 (6 weeks)
Yavneh-Yam

Primary Contact: Professor Moshe Fischer
Department of Classics
Tel Aviv University
69978 Ramat Aviv
ISRAEL
Tel: 00972-3-6409938
Fax: 00972-3-6406243

Email: fischer@post.tau.ac.il

Dig Web Site: http://www.tau.ac.il./~yavneyam

August 31-September 22, 2002
Kursi

Primary Contact: Charles Page
Email: cpagejcbs@aol.com

Secondary Contact: Brian Kvasnica
Email: mskvas@mscc.huji.ac.il

Dig Web Site: under construction

Additional Information: The cost of the excavation will be $2, 799 per person and includes everything. Round-trip airfare from New York, lodging, on ground transportation, all meals, tips, taxes, baggage handling, everything (except beverages) in included in the cost.

Phone Numbers:

Charles Page US office: 731. 824-2577
Charles Page cell: 731. 697-8277
Charles Page Israel cell: 011. 972. 58-939-043 (from the US)
058. 939. 043 (in Israel)
Home: 011. 972. 2. 530-0333, apartment 511
Office: 011. 972. 2. 672-2633

Brian Kvasnica home Israel: 011. 972. 2. 566. 4242
Brian Kvasnica Israel cell: 011. 972. 55. 996. 993

Har Karkom

Primary Contact: Prof. Emmanuel Anati
Email: ccspreist@tin.it

Dig Web Site: http://www.rockart-ccsp.com

Additional Information: Har Karkom was a major religious high-place in the Bronze Age. Numerous ceremonial sites, altars, pillars, orthostats, rock art grounds, funerary tumuli and other cult localities have been recorded there, while at the foothill remains of large campsites from the same period have been found. This mountain is located in the heart of the desert of Exodus, between Kadesh Barnea and Ezyon Gever. Its proposed identification with the Biblical Mount Sinai has stimulated a world wide debate (cf. E. Anati, The Mountain of God, New York, Rizzoli, 1986). Recent discoveries have added new dimensions to the site. An Upper Palaeolithic shrine indicates that this mountain had been sacred since the first presence there of Homo Sapiens. Geoglyphs, large pebble drawings on the ground of the mountain, appear as offerings to an invisible sky Entity, by Bronze Age desert people.

The forthcoming expedition plans to conduct archaeological survey and soundings, to continue the exploration of the area, including Palaeolithic sites with hut basements, flint workshops and fireplaces, to survey caves and sites from the Bronze Age, and to record rock art, shrines, altars and geoglyphs.

The setting is the desert and the team will camp at the foot of the mountain (participants are asked to bring their own sleeping-bag and tent). Fuel, water and food is brought from over 100 km. away. The group, planned to be of 20 to 30 people, will be a self-sufficient community. While in the field we will walk a great deal; when possible jeeps and other types of desert cars will be used.

Applicants should submit a curriculum and a short statement on their motivations for wishing to participate in the expedition. They should be in a perfect state of health, and are invited to acquire a general historical, archaeological and topographic background on the issues of the expedition, reading a provided list of publications. Before leaving on the expedition, participants may wish to attend a seminar on Biblical Archaeology at the CCSP.

Potential participants are also invited to spend a period of voluntary work at the CCSP, in Italy, to take part in research activities. People with skills in editing, translating, graphics and draughting, photogrammetry or data-base computer recording, may participate for periods of 3 months at dates to be coordinated in advance.

Source: The information on this page was provided by the dig project leaders/coordinators.