After 34 years, Seymour (Sy) Gitin has retired as director of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR). During the decades of his leadership, the Albright has flourished, with the number of fellowships increasing and the library expanding.
Gitin has authored or edited 196 publications and received 34 grants, fellowships and awards. His excavation of the Philistine site of Tel Miqne-Ekron (with Trude Dothan) has revealed a new chapter of Philistine history.
Located in east Jerusalem just around the corner from the Garden Tomb (and a short walk from Damascus Gate, the École Biblique, the Rockefeller Museum and the Israel Antiquities Authority), the Albright has served as a haven for archaeologists for over a century. Established as the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem in 1900, the institution was later renamed after one of its most famous directors, William F. Albright, who directed the institution for over a decade.
With the mission “to develop and disseminate scholarly knowledge of the literature, history and culture of the Near East, as well as the study of the development of civilization from prehistory to the early Islamic period,” the Albright serves and assists American projects in Near Eastern studies. It serves as a bridge between foreign excavations and scholars and the archaeological community in the Middle East.
The institution is affiliated with ASOR (the American Schools of Oriental Research) and has programs and fellowships for doctoral and post-doctoral research, as well as a slew of internships, field work programs and publication projects. In addition to all of this, the Albright hosts lectures and organizes scholarly presentations and study tours. Providing residential and research facilities for its fellows—replete with a vast library, lovely patio and even a barbeque—it is an invaluable resource for American scholars and excavations.
Gitin is succeeded by Matthew J. Adams,a director of the Jezreel Valley Regional Project and senior staff member on the Megiddo Expedition. With a background in Egyptology and Near Eastern archaeology, he is well equipped to direct the Albright.
Adams is also the keynote speaker at the Bible and Archaeology Fest—an annual seminar organized by the Biblical Archaeology Society with contributions from some of the leading scholars in Bible and archaeology—in beautiful, sunny San Diego this November.
After 34 years, Seymour (Sy) Gitin has retired as director of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR). During the decades of his leadership, the Albright has flourished, with the number of fellowships increasing and the library expanding.
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