Directors:
Finkelstein is the Laureate of the Dan David Prize in the Past Dimension, Archaeology, 2005. In 2009 he was named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture and in 2010 received a doctorate Doctorate honoris causa from the University of Lausanne. Finkelstein is the winner of the Prix Delalande Guérineau (2014), awarded by the Institut de France, l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.
Matthew J. Adams
Management of the Expedition:
Margaret Cohen
Dr. Margaret Cohen has taught ancient history and religious studies at Penn State University and Lycoming College in the U.S. Her research interests include compositional history of the biblical text, Iron Age cult, and ancient foodways, and her current project explores the role of the Jezreel Valley as depicted in the Hebrew Bible, and as supported by archaeology of the Iron Age, specifically as relates to the politics of food. She has excavated at numerous archaeological sites in Israel, Jordan and Egypt and is currently an associate fellow at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem.
Sivan Einhorn
Sivan is responsible for much of the behind-the-scenes work that allows research at Megiddo to happen. She has worked year round in the Megiddo office at TAU for the last 12 years. Sivan holds a Master’s Degree from the Tel Aviv University in which she researched the microarchaeology of destruction layers at archaeological sites. From her graduate studies to her current responsibilities managing both the Megiddo Expedition and the excavations at Kiriath-Jearim, Sivan has been working alongside Israel Finkelstein for the past decade.
Field Archaeologists:
Melissa Cradic
https://berkeley.academia.edu/MelissaCradic
Dr. Melissa Cradic received her PhD in Ancient History & Mediterranean Archaeology from the University of California-Berkeley in 2017. She has taught courses in archaeology, art history, and anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley, Boston University, and most recently at Sonoma State University. Her research, which has appeared in BASOR and Levant, focuses on burial practices, ancestor veneration, and memory in the second millennium BCE Levant. She has been a member of The Megiddo Expedition since 2008, beginning in Area K where she worked under Mario Martin from 2008-2012. Since 2014, she has served as the supervisor of Area H, where an impressive Canaanite tomb was recently uncovered. She looks forward to pursuing further research on the tomb and other burials in the upcoming excavation season.
Zach Dunseth
https://telaviv.academia.edu/ZachDunseth
Zach is a Ph.D. candidate working in Geoarchaeology under the supervision of Prof. Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University and Prof. Ruth Shahack-Gross of the University of Haifa. His dissertation focuses on the Intermediate Bronze Age (c. 2500-1950 BCE) settlement phenomena in the arid Negev Highlands through a microarchaeological perspective. Zach received his B.A. in Archaeology and Classics at George Washington University in Washington, DC, followed by an M.A. in Archaeology of Ancient Israel at Tel Aviv University.
Zach has excavated extensively in Israel, including Megiddo (2008, 2012-present), Tel Kabri (2009, 2013), Kirath-Jearim (2017), and for his PhD has led geoarchaeological investigations at a number of Early Bronze (c. 3600-2500 BCE) and Intermediate Bronze Age (c. 2500-1950 BCE) sites in the Negev Highlands (2012-present).
Erin Hall
https://telaviv.academia.edu/ErinHall
Erin is a Ph.D student in Tel Aviv University’s Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures. Her doctoral studies focus on cult in the Northern Kingdom of Israel from the Iron I-IIB. Erin also completed her M. A. at Tel Aviv, and her thesis dealt with an early Iron Age hoard of metallic objects from Megiddo’s Area Q.
Assaf Kleiman
https://telaviv.academia.edu/AssafKleiman
Assaf Kleiman is a Ph.D candidate at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University. His M.A thesis dealt with the Iron Age IIA ceramic assemblage exposed during the 1970’s at Tel Aphek. In his doctoral studies, he examines the settlement history and material culture of the border regions between the Northern Kingdom and Aram Damascus. He also a senior staff member of the Kiriath-Jearim expedition.
Yana Levinger
Yana is currently finishing her second year of her undergraduate studies at Tel Aviv University. She did her field school at Tel Megiddo in 2016 and has since become a member of the expedition. Yana is also a staff member of the Kiriath-Jearim and Masada Expeditions.
Eythan Levy
https://telaviv.academia.edu/EythanLevy
Eythan Levy holds degrees in Computer Science (PhD 2009), Ancient Oriental Languages (MA 2012) and Archaeology (MA 2015). His main research interests are biblical archaeology, Iron Age chronology, Egypt and the Levant, west-Semitic epigraphy and computer applications in archaeology. His former field experience includes Megiddo, Hazor, Tel Rehov, Dor, Khirbet Qeiyafa and Lachish. He is currently pursuing a PhD in archaeology at Tel Aviv University, under Profs Israel Finkelstein and Eli Piasetsky, on the subject of Iron Age chronology.
Juliette Mas
https://ulg.academia.edu/JulietteMas
Dr. Juliette Mas is an archaeologist, specialized in Near Eastern pre-classic pottery and domestic architecture. She defended her PhD in 2013 at the University of Lyon (France) before being awarded a Post-doctoral fellowship (2013-2016) at the University of Liege (Belgium). She is currently a grantee of the Getty Institute and of the Leon Levy Foundation within the framework of the Shelby White – Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications (Harvard University, USA) and she is an associated researcher of the UMR 7192 – PROCLAC (CNRS, EPHE, Collège de France). Since 2001, Juliette Mas is involved in different international archaeological missions working in the Near East.
Jen Thum
https://brown.academia.edu/JenThum
Jen Thum is a Ph.D. candidate at Brown University’s Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World. She has an M.Phil. in Egyptology from Oxford and a B.A. in Archaeology from Barnard. Jen’s Ph.D. dissertation is a study of rock inscriptions that were set up by Egypt’s kings in strategic locations at the edges of their empire. Jen has been a member of the Megiddo team since 2006, and currently serves as a field archaeologist and the registrar in Area K. She has also contributed three chapters to Megiddo VI, which focus on mixed Egyptian-Levantine artifact assemblages.
Naama Walzer
https://telaviv.academia.edu/naamawalzer
Naama completing a Master’s Degree under the supervision of Prof. Israel Finkelstein. Her thesis focuses on the Intermediate Bronze Age in the Judean Shephelah. Naama has worked on numerous sites across Israel and is a staff member of the Masada, Kiriath-Jearim and Meggido Expeditions. In addition to her field work at Megiddo, she also manages the Expedition’s on-line presence.
Technology in the Field
Peter Ostrin
Peter Ostrin provides IT and data recording support for the Megiddo Expedition. Peter works full time in high tech but is passionate about archaeology and looks forward to each dig season. He has studied Archaeology and Cultural Heritage at the University of Leicester and holds a Masters in Computer Science from Rice University. Peter is interested in how current technology can assist in excavation and interpretation and works alongside the archaeologists to help record and manage the enormous amounts of data generated during and after a season.
Collaborators in the Archaeosciences
Dafna Langgut (archaeobotany), Tel Aviv University
Lidar Sapir-Hen (archaeozoology), Tel Aviv University
Meirav Meiri (ancient DNA), Tel Aviv University
Rachel Kalisher (osteology), Brown University
