Religious Studies in the News

Erin Darby travels to Jordan, Switzerland, and Israel for Summer Research

On May 30, Dr. Darby begins her annual summer research trek. The first stop will be Amman, Jordan where Erin and her husband Robert (UT School of Art) will be giving a public lecture on their site 'Ayn Gharandal and the inscription unearthed by UT students there last summer. They will also be using Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), a special type of photography, to record all epigraphic remains from previous field seasons. Erin will then head to Basel, Switzerland to present her paper, "Reaction, Reliance, Resistance?: Judean Pillar Figurines in the Neo-Assyrian Levant," at the 9th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Following the paper, Erin and Robert will return to Jordan where they will conduct a short 10-day field season at 'Ayn Gharandal, excavating the officer's quarters in the Roman fort and preparing for the 2015 UT Dig Jordan Study Abroad program. On June 30th, Erin will cross the border into Israel, where she will spend a month working on material cultural remains from an Israelite site in southern Israel called En Hatsevah. Finally, Erin and Robert will cross back into Jordan to complete RTI photography on 'Ayn Gharandal material, returning home on August 5th.