Research interests

• Archaeology of Israel in the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods
• Archaeology of ritual and halakhah
• Material culture of early Judaism
• Second Temple period and early rabbinic literature

Projects:

• Participation in the study and publication of the excavations of the Middle Paleolithic site of Amud Cave
• Area supervisor in the excavations at the Lower Paleolithic site of Revadim
• Flint in the Galilee
• Co-director of excavations in the Middle Paleolithic open-air site of 'Ein Qashish'

• Expanding the ethnic, historical and theological insights that come from the geographical mapping of archeological findings such as names.

• Enriching our understanding of the relationship between Archaeology and the biblical text through the comparison of archaeological and biblical onomastica.

• New approaches to statistical authenticity testing of unprovenanced groups of artifacts.

Projects:

• Creating and maintaining a website—onomasticon.net—a comprehensive collection of personal names and their various characteristics from the Iron II Southern Levant. The personal names were collected from epigraphic artifacts found in archaeological excavations of Israel, Judah, and neighboring kingdoms. These artifacts were gathered from corpora, excavation reports, books on Iron Age II epigraphy, and relevant journal articles. The onomasticon can be easily searched according to its different categories, such as name, artifact type, artifact site, territorial affiliation, and prefixed/suffixed theophoric element. The website includes a list of articles illustrating the use of this digital tool for onomastic, archaeological, and biblical research.

• Creating a database of all personal names mentioned in the Bible in the context of the Land of Israel and Transjordan during the First Temple period. Each entry in the database includes an individual mentioned in the bible with all the forms of his/her name(s), biblical source for the name(s), date by century, political affiliation, type of name, theophoric element, and more.