Consortium for Classical and Mediterranean Archaeology
News and Events 
Featured Project: The Yotvata Project
The Yotvata Project: Yotvata is the modern name of an oasis with saline marshes located in Israel’s southern Arava (rift valley), about 25 miles north of Eilat and Aqaba on the Red Sea. The name Yotvata is based on the possible identification of the oasis with Biblical “Jotbathah, a land with brooks of water” (Deut. 10:7), one of the Israelites’ encampments during their desert wanderings. The water springs and location made Yotvata a focus for settlement in different periods, with a number of ancient sites located around the oasis.
Featured Faculty: Professor Sheila Dillon
Professor Sheila Dillon Associate Professor, Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies, and Classical Studies, Duke University) received the James R. Wiseman Book Award for 2008 from the Archaeological Institute of America, for Ancient Greek Portrait Sculpture: Contexts, Subjects, and Styles, Cambridge University Press, 2006).
Professor Dillon’s work focuses on representations of women, Greek portraiture and images of war in classical art. She was a member of the Aphrodisias Excavations from 1992-2003, collaborating on the study and publication of Roman Portrait Statuary from Aphrodisias (Philipp von Zabern, 2006). She is co-editor of Representations of War in Ancient Rome (Cambridge University Press 2006) and is currently working on the votive sculpture from the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace.
Professor Jodi Magness (Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism, Departments of Religious Studies and Classics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) received the 2008 Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award from the Archaeological Institute of America. Professor Magness’ research focuses on Palestine in the Roman, Byzantine, and early Islamic periods, including ancient pottery, ancient synagogues, Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Roman army in the East. Her book, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Eerdmans 2002) won the 2003 Biblical Archaeology Society’s Award for Best Popular Book in Archaeology in 2001-2002. Professor Magness is co-director of excavations at the late Roman fort at Yotvata in Israel.