BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

2023 Dig Scholarship Winners

Congratulating BAS’s 2023 Scholarship Winners

Priscila Dantas de Moraes, winner of a 2022 BAS Dig Scholarship. Courtesy de Moraes.

For almost four decades, the Biblical Archaeology Society has been connecting volunteers with the opportunity to participate in some of the most exciting and groundbreaking archaeological excavations in the Near East and around the Mediterranean. In this pursuit, BAS puts together a yearly list of dig sites looking for volunteers, in addition to offering dig scholarships. For the 2023 excavation season, BAS received many incredible applicants for our dig scholarship program and we are pleased to highlight this year’s ten winners. All images courtesy the scholarship recipients.

In the free eBook, A Digger’s Life: A Guide to the Archaeology Dig Experience, step into an archaeological excavation and find out what it takes to find, prepare for, and work on a dig.

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Martha Jeske: Shikhin

Martha Jeske is a classical schoolteacher from East Texas. At home in the outdoors, she enjoys gardening, beekeeping, reading, and travel, as well as spending time with family and friends. She is excited to participate in the Shikhin Excavation Project and is grateful to the Biblical Archaeology Society for providing her the opportunity to do so.

Maria Cambra: Tel Abel Beth Maacah

Maria is a pastor’s wife and mother to three beautiful children. She and her family have lived and served overseas for more than 23 years, but are currently residing in the U.S. She loves Jesus and is excited, thankful, and humbled to be a part of her first dig in the Holy Land!

Ever Gowins: Hazor Lower City

Ever Gowins is a junior archaeology major with an anthropology minor at the University of Evansville. She will help excavate Hazor’s Lower City.

Chantel Heister: Tel Azekah

Chantel Heister is a doctoral student in New Testament at Emory University. Her work examines ancient Jewish and early Christian literature alongside iconography from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Her writing has appeared in the journal Currents in Biblical Research. Prior to her doctoral studies, Heister worked as an editor and journalist.

Asia Lerner-Gay: Tel Azekah

Asia Lerner-Gay is a Ph.D. student of Hebrew Bible at Emory University. Her research interests include material culture analysis, iconographic interpretation, and gender critical scholarship. Tel Azekah marks her first trip to Israel and her first archaeological dig.

Ehud Mayer: Legio

Ehud Mayer comes from the land down under in Australia and is a recent graduate of Monash University majoring in Archaeology and Ancient Cultures. He is passionate about Greco-Roman history and teaching others about it. Besides volunteering his time at the local Greek history museum, Ehud creates educational animated content online on topics about ancient history.

Sadrack Nelson: Tel Shimron

Sadrack Nelson is a native of Haiti and a graduate of Trevecca Nazarene University and Emory University. He is currently a third-year doctoral student in Hebrew Bible at Boston College. His research interest lies at the intersection of religion and politics in the Hebrew Bible. He is interested in the socio-political character of Israelite religion as reflected in the biblical text and exploring the foundation of ancient Israel’s political imagination.

Lindsay Radice: Tel Hadid

Lindsay Radice is a theology teacher at St. Mary’s High School in Annapolis, Maryland, and an adjunct professor in catechetics at the Catholic University of America. She joined the faculty at St. Mary’s High School in 2018, after over a decade working in religious education and catechetics in higher education, secondary education, and parish settings. She is a passionate teacher who loves helping her students connect archaeological discoveries to the world of the Bible.

Lauren Springfield: Shikhin

Lauren Springfield is a fourth year at the University of Louisville. Lauren’s individualized major includes studies in psychology, philosophy, and anthropology. Lauren is passionate about learning, exploring the role of consciousness in interpersonal and intercultural interaction, holistic healing, and broadening awareness of both the self and the world at large.

Alex Zang: Tel Shimron

Alex Zang is a second-year undergraduate at Brown University concentrating in Chemical Biology and Archaeology and the Ancient World. His academic interests include pathological ancient DNA and bone histology in the Bronze Age Near East.

For more information on how you can volunteer to join an archaeological excavation, visit our digs page. Whether you’re interested in the worlds of Kings David and Solomon, want to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and the apostles, or work in an ancient Phoenician city, we’ve got an archaeological dig for you. Dozens of archaeological digs in Israel, Jordan, and elsewhere are looking for volunteers to help them excavate history.

Read more in Bible History Daily:

Digging In: El-Araj

Digging In: Tel Shimron