Dead Sea: The Babatha Archives

An Interview with Morag Kersel

In the final interview of the 2012-2013 academic year, we hear from Morag Kersel, assistant professor of Anthropology at Depaul University, and co-director of the Galilee Prehistory Project in Israel and the Following the Pots Project in Jordan. In this discussion, Professor Kersel shares insights from her research on the trade in antiquities from the Middle East, her thoughts about looting, trafficking, and collecting ancient artifacts, and some of her experiences as a contractor for the U.S. Department of State. You can learn more about Professor Kersel’s exciting work in her new book, co-authored with Christina Luke, U.S. Cultural Diplomacy and Archaeology: Soft In the final interview of the 2012-2013 academic year, we hear from Morag Kersel, assistant professor of Anthropology at Depaul University, and co-director of the Galilee Prehistory Project in Israel and the Following the Pots Project in Jordan. In this discussion, Professor Kersel shares insights from her research on the trade in antiquities from the Middle East, her thoughts about looting, trafficking, and collecting ancient artifacts, and some of her experiences as a contractor for the U.S. Department of State. You can learn more about Professor Kersel’s exciting work in her new book, co-authored with Christina Luke, U.S. Cultural Diplomacy and Archaeology: Soft Power, Hard Heritage (Routledge Studies in Archaeology, 2013).Power, Hard Heritage (Routledge Studies in Archaeology, 2013).

Brian Rose Interview

In this podcast, Christian Cloke sits down with Brian Rose, the James B. Pritchard Professor of Archaeology in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and Curator-in-Charge of the Mediterranean collection of University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Professor Rose is a Trustee of the American Academy in Rome, the English-language editor of Studia Troica, former Vice President of the American Research Institute in Turkey, and former President of the Archaeological Institute of America, a position he held from 2007 to 2011. Currently he is the AIA’s 2012/2013 Joukowsky Lecturer, which brought him back to Cincinnati, where he taught in UC’s Classics department from 1987 to 2005.

An Interview with Jodi Magness

In the first of a new series featuring interviews with leading scholars in the study of the ancient world, Christian Cloke sits down with Professor Jodi Magness of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill to discuss her research on Qumran, past and present fieldwork at sites like Yotvata (a Roman fort in southern Israel) and Huqoq (a village and synagogue site in Galilee), and learn about eating donkey and camel in the desert. For more on Professor Magness, see her website: http://jodimagness.org/ To read more about the Dead Sea Scrolls online, visit the Digital Dead Sea Scrolls Project: http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/ Produced and recorded by Christian Cloke; featuring Vivaldi's Gloria.

Classics: Economic Crisis! Ancient coins and hoards

Historian David Schwei and Archaeologist Chris Cloke (UC Classics) report live while on-site in Greece, where they discuss coins found during excavation. Learn how ancient coins were made, how the Greek and Roman economies worked, and what we can learn from coins’ images as well as where they are found. The hosts discuss how the tradition of including rulers' portraits on money began with Alexander the Great and continues even today with monarchs such as Queen Elizabeth II. They also explain how people in the ancient world hoarded their coins in times of strife or economic uncertainty, and unwittingly created some of archaeology’s most amazing finds. Written by David Schwei; featuring Christian Cloke, David Schwei, and Sarah Lima; produced by Christian Cloke and Sarah Lima; featuring Vivaldi's Gloria; recording and editing by R. Aaron Allen Productions.

Dead Sea: The Babatha Archives

Join ancient historian Lindsey Haines (UC Classics) for “This Year in History, 1961” and learn about Yigael Yadin’s discovery of the Babatha Archives in the Cave of Letters at Nahal Hever in eastern Israel. This remarkable archive of documents, dated to the 2nd century A.D., contains the personal legal papers of a woman named Babatha. Learn about this remarkable ancient woman’s struggles to retain her property, care for members of her family, and secure her finances during trying political times when women’s legal rights were not always assured. Written and performed by Lindsey Haines; produced by Christian Cloke and Sarah Lima; featuring Vivaldi's Gloria; recording and editing by R. Aaron Allen Productions.