During the 2001 excavation season at Göbekli Tepe, a fragment of a small miniature mask depiction was found in Enclosure D. The fragmentarily preserved object was originally ovaloid in form, the back is concave. It features a very prominent nose and large, nearly open-worked eyes. An indention supposedly depicting the mouth is rather small, on…[Read more]

This is the abstract for my paper presented on 31 January 2019 in the third Public Archaeology Twitter Conference. The theme of this year’s conference is STORYTELLING. My paper is a re-telling of an archaeological excavation, inspired by John Swogger’s re-imagining of a peer-reviewed archaeological journal article in comic format. Read the…[Read more]

Die agrarische Wirtschaftsweise ist eines der definierenden Elemente des Neolithikums in Schleswig-Holstein. Doch ist es plausibel, dass diese Form der Ökonomie in gleicher Weise über mehr als 2000 Jahre betrieben wurde? Lassen sich einzelne Landnutzungsphasen identifizieren? Welches waren die bevorzugten Siedlungsräume der neolithischen Be…[Read more]

This A3 poster shows the difference between the structures of academic and journalistic pieces of writing. I call these the ‘Academic Triangle’ and the ‘Journalistic Triangle’. There’s lots of great advice online to help you write one way or the other. But this poster contrasts the two styles side-by-side, using an important archaeological paper…[Read more]

In accordance with current perceptions, the Neolithic landscape of Southern Scandinavia appears to be dominated by two innovations that are connected to the transition to the Neolithic in this region: agriculture and monuments such as megalithic tombs or Single Grave burial mounds. So it seems natural to assume that these aspects also dominated…[Read more]

The Neolithic and Bronze Age burial ground of Flintbek provides a well-documented case study of a monumental landscape, whose shaping and development through ritual practices of monument building can be studied over the course of centuries. The minute excavation and data analyses (Mischka 2011a) enable a discussion of the interrelations between…[Read more]

Over the course of the twentieth century a number of experimental studies have
investigated the construction of megalithic monuments such as Stonehenge
(Atkinson, 1956; Osenton, 2001; Parry, 2000; Pavel, 1992; Ravilious, 2010;
Richards & Whitby, 1997). These studies have typically highlighted the challenges
posed — or benefits offered — by one…[Read more]

This is the presentation of a conference paper at the Theoretical Archaeology Group conference 2018 (Chester). The conveners of the conference session ‘Practising Creativity: Experimentation, Mistakes and Successes in Art-Archaeology’, James Dixon and Seren Griffiths, ask participants to discuss experimentation in art-archaeology. Artists have…[Read more]

This is a visual abstract for a conference paper at the Theoretical Archaeology Group conference 2018 (Chester). The convener of the conference session ‘Steaming Plant or Steam Punk? Researching Industrial Archaeology and Heritage in the 21st Century’, Mike Nevell, referred to the conference (2008) and published volume (2009) ‘Crossing Paths or S…[Read more]

Dante Alighieri’s Inferno (1314) portrays Hell as an alienated realm, in which the doomed spirits must spend eternity in isolation and regret. Franz Liszt’s two-movement Dante Symphony (1857), based on the Inferno and Purgatorio, gives musical form to Dante’s textual expressions of agony. These evocations of suffering are enhanced by Lisz…[Read more]

This article discusses the identity of the Daniel character mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel.

This article discusses the identity of the Daniel character mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel.

Syllabus for my course 3UU3, Buddhism in East Asia planned for Winter term 2019

This is the version of the syllabus for Asian Meditation Traditions at the end of the first term in which I offered it–Fall 2018.

Draft version of syllabus for graduate seminar on Nirvana Sutra

This article is a detailed review of Constructions of Space III: Biblical Spatiality and the Sacred, ed. Jorunn Økland, J. Cornelis de Vos, and Karen J. Wenell (Bloomsbury, 2016); and The King and the Land: A Geography of Royal Power in the Biblical World, by Stephen C. Russell (Oxford University Press, 2017).

This article considers the impact of both historical and digital transhuman practices in archaeology with an eye toward recent conversations concerning punk archaeology, slow archaeology, and an archaeology of care. Drawing on Ivan Illich, Jacques Ellul, and Gilles Delueze, the article suggests that current trends in digital practices risk both…[Read more]

The paper argues that the pesaḥ is a ritual with no origins in the literature we have, from the earliest recoverable fragment, through the first revision that introduces as many problems as it aims to solve, to subsequent extensions in multiple directions, with no arc, no trajectory, no telos, but recurrent hermeneutic expressive engagement.

This presentation shows how research plays a vital role in the protection of war memorials in England, in both their physical conservation and legal protection. It draws on the First World War Memorials Programme that ran between 2014 and 2018, a joint initiative by Historic England, Imperial War Museums, War Memorials Trust, and Civic Voice, and…[Read more]

A 13-page paper discussing potentially latent art work in and around the mysterious Peruvian Band.