ASOR is pleased to offer 10 Student Travel grants of $250 each for the 2026 Annual Meeting in Chicago this November. Students must be enrolled at an ASOR Institutional Member School to qualify for these grants. Applications are open until August 24, 2026: www.asor.org/fellowships/...

It’s good to see @UChicago pivot so quickly in the Great Canvas Shutout, but I normally just use an alarm clock

The AAUP & @aft.org stand in solidarity with UM Faculty Senate Chair Derek Peterson. Right-wing attacks on his commencement speech are a direct threat to academic freedom. University leaders must stop apologizing to political agitators & start defending their faculty & protected speech. 👇

IRAQ Vol. 87 (2025) www.cambridge.org/core/journal... @cambup-archaeology.cambridge.org @augustamcmahon.bsky.social @panktroels.bsky.social

Make college affordable. Fund research. Protect faculty's right to teach and students' right to learn. Expand workers' rights. These are core pillars of AAUP and AFT's national policy platform, the Blueprint for Strengthening and Transforming Higher Education. @aft.org @afthighered.bsky.social

Archaeological Dig Uncovers Ancient Race Of Skeleton People https://theonion.com/archaeological-dig-uncovers-ancient-race-of-skeleton-pe-1819565415/

A celebration of the extraordinary depth and beauty of Iranian history & culture ✨💙 “Ancient Iran in the ISAC Museum: From Prehistory to the Achaemenid Period” by Abbas Alizadeh, Research Assoc Prof of Iranian Archaeology. Download & purchase: isac.uchicago.edu/research/publications/ISACMP/isacmp3

#Nippur 2026 is over. We squeezed out ten days of excavation, but global events took over. Now on the fourth day of our extended trip back home and we are actually further from Chicago than we were on site. 🏺

#Nippur day off means a walk round the site, including inspection of the ziggurat of Enlil. Erosion is worsening with climate change and we hope to gain funding to restore and conserve it soon. 🏺

Back to work at #Nippur #Mesopotamia. We are continuing research on the southern urban edge, examining variations in occupation density and diversity from 3rd to 1st mill BCE. @ISAC_UChicago 🏺

#Nippur 2026 at last. #Mesopotamia 🏺

🧑‍🏫 Visiting Ass. Professor in Anthropology (Archaeology) 📍 Hamilton College, USA 🔬 Teach undergrad archaeology courses, methods & theory, mentor students 🎓 Eligibility: ABD/PhD in Anthropology/Archaeology ⏳ Deadline: 15 Mar 2026 🔗 higherjobz.com/visiting-pro... #FacultyJobs #Archaeology#AcademicJobs

💰 Fully Funded | Egyptology Postdoc 2026 | University of Vienna, Austria 🔬 Egyptian Archaeology research, excavation, GIS & digital heritage methods 🎓 Eligibility: PhD in Egyptology ⏳ Deadline: 14 Mar 2026 🔗 higherjobz.com/egyptology-p... #PostdocJobs #EgyptologyResearch #AcademicJobs @univie.ac.at

Inscribed clay cylinders reveal Nebuchadnezzar II’s restoration of the Kish Ziggurat A new study presents two inscribed clay cylinders that bear direct textual evidence of King Nebuchadnezzar II’s restoration work at the ziggurat of Kish... More info: archaeologymag.com/2026/01/clay...

Board of Peace - Season 1

I have eaten shark in Yemen (which sounds like a possible title for my memoirs), and it is delicious. It makes total sense that the Neolithic population of the region were onto it.

“It's disappointing to see universities fold under pressure to terminate faculty for expressing themselves online, as if the First Amendment is an expediency to be discarded at a whim.”

Am I a bad person for laughing at this?

Hello! A little Sunday evening survey... 📝 We're looking for examples where info or resources concerning achievements of 🏺⛏️ #trowelblazing women in archaeology, geology or palaeontology have been removed or vanished from public sources in the past year due to external pressures... Pls repost!

No no, do all this but stop in Mesopotamia. 😀

I feel seen

At minimum, she needs a decent carving knife and some spices. This ‘feast’ explains a lot.

Can’t believe all these people are running a marathon through "war torn" Chicago today

#WarTorn Chicago

AAUP President Todd Wolfson unpacks the dangerous consequences of the Trump administration’s compact, which aims to exert ideological control over universities and colleges. As Wolfson makes clear, this partisan incursion into higher education affects ALL sectors. @proftwolf.bsky.social

Babylonian map of the world (© The Trustees of the British Museum) and c. AD 1620 Portuguese map of Basra, Iraq (© Hugo Refachinho / CC BY-SA 4.0). Despite both depicting the Shaṭṭ al-ʿArab river, they are completely different, showcasing maps' subjectivity 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

This. Many colleagues want to be helpful but clearly should just say no. Nagging reviewers is the worst part of my editor job.

No, we’d prefer to accept PhD applicants for 2026, but the previously lucky departments have joined with the unlucky in solidarity. Awesome colleagues! www.insidehighered.com/news/admissi...

A lot of overlap with subjects for which PhD admissions are paused for 2026 at UChicago. We are not unionised.

No PhD admissions for Middle Eastern Studies at UChicago in 2026. MES includes modern and all aspects of the ancient Near East: cuneiform languages, Egyptology, archaeology 🏺 www.insidehighered.com/news/busines...

UChicago’s phoenix is flying backwards into the ashes. #AcademicSky www.chronicle.com/article/they...

The government is “using levers of power that are completely unrelated to the underlying allegations…Cutting off research for diabetes, cancer, heart disease will not improve the safety of Jewish faculty & students on campus & will not address antisemitism.” —Mia McIver, AAUP Executive Director

FEATURED JOB: Klarman Postdoctoral Fellowship [Up to 3-Year Appointment] College of Arts & Sciences, Cornell University - New York networks.h-net.org/jobs/68922/c... #edusky #academicsky #humanities #socialsciences

If you want to hear the latest news from one of Iraq's most iconic sites, and how excavations work, episode 77 is for you

New volume of IRAQ Vol. 86 (2024) www.cambridge.org/core/journal... @universitypress.cambridge.org @augustamcmahon.bsky.social @petramcreamer.bsky.social

Day 3 of the Summer Institute begins! “Academic freedom is a job condition, not a privilege…this is a matter of democratic education.” —Rana Jaleel, Chair of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom & Tenure, Morning Plenary “Protecting Academic Freedom: How to Build an Effective Issue Campaign.”

So nice to chat to @jonjtaylor.bsky.social about our 2025 #Nippur excavations. Check out Episode 77! www.wedgepod.org/episode-list/

More archaeology of archaeology. ‘His Majesty’ [#NotMyKing either] in this case was George VI. #Nippur #PostExcavation 🏺

The archaeology of archaeology. #Nippur 🏺

Mood

I want to take a moment to share an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence's grievances against King George III. Sound familiar?

Every damn day I read things like this and it’s like a continuous stream of stories from The Onion. Except it’s not. Where is Congress?

Happy May 1st! Academics, keep fighting the regimes and budget cuts. Education should not be devalued. And neither should research. Try to opt out of projects that involve highly predatory journals or publishers. They charge top tier & we get nothing? Enough! Our labor matters! #academicsky

#MayDay2025 Resist

Trump’s executive order on accreditation is yet another attempt to dictate what is taught, learned, & said by college instructors & students. Threats to remove accreditors are transparent attempts to consolidate power in the hands of the administration in order to stifle teaching & research. 🧵

“If a pact is formed, the universities shall “commit meaningful funding to a shared or distributed defense fund”. The fund will be in turn used to provide “immediate and strategic support to any member institution under direct political or legal infringement.” #defendhighered

If you're for taxing university endowments (which support student aid and programs) but decreasing taxes on the wealthy, then don't pretend you're about fairness. You're about hypocrisy and plutocracy.

Harvard will not comply. “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.” — Harvard President Alan M. Garber www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...