DIGS

Excavate Israel's Grandest Ancient Coastal City

The site of Caesarea Maritima, on the northern coast, is one of the largest archaeological sites in Israel. It was founded as a Hellenistic anchorage settlement and developed into a significant and elaborate Roman city with a manmade harbor under Herod the Great in 22-10 BC. From then through the Byzantine period, it was the capital of the province of Palestine, and larger than Jerusalem. Archaeological projects from numerous consortia groups have been conducted for the last 50 years, uncovering significant parts of the central city, the harbor, the Augustan Roman temple, the Byzantine octagonal church, and the Crusader church and city walls. However, little is know of the city during the Early Islamic period. Debates over the nature of the Levantine coast from the seventh-tenth centuries characterize it either as a depopulated no-man’s land frontier with the Byzantine-controlled Mediterranean or interspersed with key settlements actively engaged in trade and exchange. According to Islamic sources, Caesarea (Arabic: Qaysāriya), was a ribāṭ, a type of site that similarly either functioned as a military-religious lookout station or commercial waystation. Our renewed excavations of the city will seek to investigate the answers to these questions, searching for the Early Islamic occupation of the city and what it reveals on the nature of how classical cities transformed in the Early Islamic period and the larger regional Levantine coast in the early Medieval period. It will also examine the nature of Caesarea’s last settlement as a small Bosnian community in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Our excavation will shed new light onto the cultural layering and evolution of the city from the classical epoch to the Islamic era.

Volunteers will live near the site and engage in the daily tasks of excavation, learning on-site hands-on techniques in stratigraphic excavation, artifact recovery, and drawing sections. They will work under square and area supervisors who will be doctoral students in archaeology from other universities. Over the course of the four weeks in the field, volunteers will learn how to record excavations on site, how to keep a dig diary, how to excavate using heavy (picks and shovels) and light (trowels and handpicks) equipment, how to measure and draw daily site plans, how to recognize and sort artifacts, how to use a dumpy level instrument to obtain exact elevations in relation to sea level, and how to draw excavation trench sections and interpret stratigraphy – the key to understanding archaeological methodology. In the early evening, volunteers will wash and sort pottery and bone, sort other artifact categories for restoration and conservation (such as glass and metal), learn how to group and identify ceramics and process them qualitatively for later analysis, and learn how to draw ceramic vessels from recovered sherds. Volunteers will also be able to work with staff and learn digital modeling and mapping skills from Total Station surveying and 3D modeling. The study abroad program will be about 40 hours a week of excavation and material culture processing. Volunteers will excavate from Sunday to Thursday (five days a week), working from 6 am-12 pm on-site and 5-7 pm at the lab.

The focus for the 2025 season will be in Area NC (northern city). Area NC will excavate a 19th-century Bosnian house that sits directly on top of the main north-south Crusader road.

 

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Learn More about Caesarea Maritima

OnSite: Caesarea Maritima

Details

Geographic Location

Northern Coastal Plain, Israel

Dates of the Dig

June 8 - July 5, 2025

Minimum Stay

1 Week

Application Due

Saturday, March 1, 2025

Academic Credit/Cost per Credit/Institution

3 to 6 credits are offered by the University of Haifa. Contact for more details

Accommodations

Volunteers will be housed at the Caesarea Sea Center, located on the coast at Kibbutz Sdot Yam between Netanya and Haifa. Volunteers will stay three to four to a room with a bathroom and A/C. At the Caesarea Sea Center you can enjoy a sandy beach, green lawns, and a beach cantina. Visit this website to learn more and view photos. The Caesarea Sea Center will provide participants with a packed first and second breakfast, lunch, and dinner daily in their dining hall. The dining hall is Kosher.
All program directors and participants are required to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 prior to departure in order to participate in faculty-led study abroad programs. The University of North Carolina Greensboro reserves the right to cancel or alter the program format, or to change costs in case of conditions beyond its control.

Cost

Directors

Contact

Asa Eger

[email protected]

To learn how you can get involved, visit their website.