David Schloen

David Schloen is a Professor of Archaeology in the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations of the University of Chicago, where he is also an Associated Faculty member of the Divinity School. He specializes in the archaeology and history of the Levant in the Bronze and Iron Ages (ca. 3500 to 500 BCE). His archaeological fieldwork began in 1989 in the long-running Harvard University excavations at Ashkelon on the south coast of Israel, where he served as associate director from 1994 to 2004 and co-edited the series of excavation reports. He has also directed excavations at Tel Yaqush, a village of the Early Bronze Age (3500–2500 BCE) on the northern Jordan River in Israel, and at Alalakh in the Plain of Antioch (modern Antakya) on the Turkish-Syrian border, a prominent city of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages (2000–1200 BCE). He has ongoing excavation projects at three sites: the Aramean city of Sam’al (modern Zincirli Höyük) in the Gaziantep province of southeastern Turkey; the Canaanite-Phoenician site of Tell Keisan north of Haifa in Israel; and the Phoenician colony site of Cerro del Villar near Málaga on the south coast of Spain.