Road Taken

Seymour (Sy) Gitin is Dorot Director and Professor of Archaeology Emeritus at the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. He is the author or editor of more than two hundred books and articles, including the new “ceramic bible” for archaeologists, The Ancient Pottery of Israel and Its Neighbors and Confronting the Past: Archaeological and Historical Essays on Ancient Israel in Honor of William G. Dever, the latter also published by Eisenbrauns.

• ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgments1. Early Years, 1936–19562. Rabbinic Studies in Cincinnati and Israel, 1956–19623. Into the Real World: The Military and Civilian Rabbinate, 1962–19674. A New Direction, 1967–1970: The Road to Archaeological Studies5. Doctoral Studies and Excavations in Israel, 1970–19796. Albright Institute: A New Beginning and a Vision for the Future, 1979–7. Albright Institute: First Decade, 1980–1989Gallery A8. Albright Institute: Second Decade, 1990–19999. Albright Institute: Third Decade, 2000–2009Gallery B10. Albright Institute: Fourth Decade, 2010–2014EpilogueAppendixesNotesReferencesIndex

“Sy Gitin reinvented American archaeology in the Middle East. A uniquely talented raconteur, scholar, and Mensch, he transformed the sleepy American archaeological school in Jerusalem into an engine propelling meaningful collaboration across daunting divides. Here’s the account—filled with remarkable scientific, political, diplomatic, and above all human surprises, and not a few great stories—of a pioneer in scholarship without borders. The result is a manual for thinking about any historical field from the actual ground up.”—Baruch Halpern, author of The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History