2022 STAFF
DAVID ILAN
Director of Excavations
Dr. David Ilan is Director of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology at the Jerusalem campus of the Hebrew Union College. Dr. Ilan was the Zemsky Visiting Professor of Judaic Studies at John’s Hopkins University in 2006-7. His publications deal with a wide range of subjects: the Middle Bronze Age of the southern Levant, the archaeology of death, northern Israel in the early Iron Age, community and archaeology and the problem of antiquities plunder and trade. He is currently preparing a series of final publications on the Tel Dan excavations with the staff of the Nelson Glueck School and a book on the religion and iconography of the Chalcolithic Period in the Levant.
YIFAT THAREANI
Co-director of Excavations
Dr. Yifat Thareani is a Research Archaeologist at the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology at the Jerusalem campus of the Hebrew Union College and current co-director for the excavations at Achziv. Dr. Thareani has served on the Tel Dan excavation staff as co-director for the 2006, 2008, and 2012 seasons and is responsible for the final publication of the Iron Age II remains at the site. Her recent research explores questions related to cultural responses to various control strategies (empires and local kingdoms) and their reflection in the archaeological record. The material culture from Tel Dan serves as a case study for the examination of the relationships between the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Aram-Damascus and the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the region.
JONATHAN GREER
Associate Director of Excavations and Staff Zooarchaeologist
Dr. Jonathan Greer is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary and director of the Hesse Memorial Archaeological Laboratory. His publications include technical analyses of animal bone remains as well as works dealing with the integration of biblical texts and archaeological materials, especially those from Tel Dan. He is currently working on a project aimed at understanding the relationship between biblical priestly prescriptions and archaeological remains from cultic sites in the Levant.
LEVANA ZIAS
Excavation Registrar
Ms. Levana Zias is an administrator and Research Archaeologist at the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology at the Jerusalem campus of the Hebrew Union College. In addition to serving as the registrar for the site, Ms. Zias is responsible for the analysis of the Hellenistic and Roman Period remains.
AARON BURKE
Collaboration Partner, Turning Points Research Project
Aaron A. Burke is Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, and member of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he is also editor-in-chief of the Cotsen Press. He received his Ph.D. with a focus in Levantine Archaeology from The Oriental Institute at The University of Chicago in 2004. From 2011 to 2014, as director of the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project, he conducted excavations of a New Kingdom Egyptian fortress in Jaffa, Israel, which were funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2017 he inaugurated, with David Ilan, Turning Points, a research program aimed at exploring the transition between the Late Bronze Age and early Iron Age (ca. 1200-1000 B.C.) in the southern Levant.
JASON KALMAN
Director of the Pre-Excavation Jerusalem Study Program
Prof. Jason Kalman is Associate Professor of Classical Hebrew Literature and Interpretation and the Gottschalk-Slade Chair in Jewish Intellectual History at the Cincinnati School of HUC-JIR. He received his Ph.D. in 2005 from the Department of Jewish Studies at McGill University and is a research fellow affiliated with the University of the Free State, South Africa. He also holds a degree in education and MA from McGill. He specializes in the history of Jewish biblical exegesis and his specific research interests include Dead Sea Scrolls reception history, rabbinic anti-Christian polemic, medieval intellectual history as reflected in biblical commentary, and biblical interpretation after the Holocaust.