Daniel Master, Ph.D.
Professor of Archaeology | Wheaton College
Wheaton, IL, UNITED STATES
Dr. Master’s research is focused on the excavation of ruins of Tel Ashkelon and Tel Shimron, two archaeological sites in modern Israel.
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Biography
For more than twenty-five years, Dr. Master's archaeological research has been part of the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon. The ancient city of Ashkelon was founded in the Stone Age and remained a major port until the end of the Crusades. This market town linked ancient highland kingdoms like Israel and Judah to lucrative Mediterranean markets. The Leon Levy Expedition has finished new excavation, and he is working to publish the results of our many seasons of digging.
Beginning in 2016, he began a new project at Tel Shimron, in Northern Israel. In cooperation with his co-Director, Mario Martin of Tel Aviv University, he is investigating the largest city in the Jezreel Valley. This excavation is sponsored by the Museum of the Bible. Once again he will be investigating the Stone Age through the Medieval Period, but this time at an inland agricultural center. He is looking forward to taking another journey through the history of the ancient world.
(Photo credit: Todd Rosenberg Photography)
Education (4)
Harvard University: Ph.D., Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations 2001
Dissertation: The Seaport of Ashkelon in the Seventh Century BCE: a petrographic study
Harvard University: M.A., Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations 2000
Miami University: M.A., Ancient History 1995
Philadelphia College of Bible: B.S., Bible 1992
Areas of Expertise and Research Interests (6)
Archaeology
Ancient Israel
Philistines
Historical Geography
Petrography
Old Testament Literature
Links (2)
Media Appearances (4)
Biblical archaeology’s top 10 discoveries of 2016
Christianity Today
2016-12-28
Some of the secrets of the Philistines, the nemesis of the ancient Israelites, are expected to be revealed as archaeologists study remains excavated from a cemetery at Ashkelon. The excavations took place over the last three summers, but were revealed only in 2016. Although most of the main cities of the Philistines have been excavated, there is still a lot of important information that has eluded scholars. But that may change with the new information gleaned from these burials. “It was just a goldmine of a cemetery,” said Daniel Master, a Wheaton College professor who co-directs the excavation...
A bone to pick about Philistines
Discover Magazine
2016-12-10
“Seeing the Philistines face to face . . . allows us to proceed for the first time from a really solid foundation,” says Daniel Master, Ashkelon co-director and Wheaton College archaeologist. Master and Aja were tipped off about the cemetery in 2013, when a retired Israeli surveyor insisted he’d found human bones and pottery just outside Ashkelon’s gates during a construction project decades ago. Aja probed the grounds with a backhoe until he struck bone, locating the long-lost burial grounds...
Philistine cemetery found in Southern Israel
NewHistorian
2016-07-12
Archaeological research into the Philistines, an ancient people who ruled Ashkelon from 1150 BCE to around 604 BCE, has long focused on deciphering the way they lived and where they came from, as little has been discovered regarding their origins. However, this may just have changed according to Wheaton College’s Daniel Master, an archaeologist and the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon co-director. In a recent New York Times article, Dr. Master recounted the team’s new discovery: a cemetery that may have been harboring artifacts and human remains for 3,000 years – or perhaps even longer. This would be the first Philistine cemetery ever discovered, the archaeologist added, remarking that with the site located right next to the once-Philistine metropolis, it was unmistakable...
Unearthed bones bring Philistines to life
Harvard University
2016-07-10
“It was just a goldmine of a cemetery,” said Daniel Master, an archaeology professor at Wheaton College in Illinois and a co-director of the Harvard-backed Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon, which carried out the first-ever excavation of a Philistine burial ground, found at the site in 2013. “Every kind of idea we would want was there.”...
Academics and Published Research (2)
Courses Taught
- Archaeology - Archaeology of Syria-Palestine - Archaeological Method and Theory - Historical Geography - Old Testament Archaeology - Religions of Israel and the Ancient Near East - Advanced Seminar: Ashkelon and the Ports of the Mediterranean - Advanced Seminar: Greeks in the East - Advanced Seminar: Advanced Historical Geography - Advanced Seminar: Ancient Economy - Advanced Seminar: Social Background of the Biblical Writers - Advanced Seminar: Tell Dothan - Advanced Seminar: Maritime Archaeology - Advanced Seminar: The Late Bronze Age Transition in Palestine Biblical Studies: - Old Testament Literature - Exodus - Deuteronomy
Research
- Tel Shimron Excavations - 2016-17 Curator, Israel Museum, Ashkelon: A Retrospective, Exhibition at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem - 2016- Co-Director, Tel Shimron Excavations - 2012-2014 Co-Curator, “Masters of Fire: Copper Age Art from Israel,” Exhibition at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University - 2011-2013 General Editor, Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology and the Bible - 2008-9 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, Albright Institute for Archaeological Research, Jerusalem - 2007- Field Director, Co-Principal Investigator, Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon - 2007- Research Associate, Harvard Semitic Museum, Harvard University - The Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon
Select Articles, Chapters, Reviews, and Other Publications (7)
The Basilica, Bouleuterion, and Civic Center of Ashkelon
American Journal of Archaeology
Ryan Boehm, Daniel M. Master, and Robyn LeBlanc
2016
Imported Cypriot Pottery in Twelfth-Century Ashkelon
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
Daniel M. Master, Penelope A. Mountjoy, and Hans Mommsen
2015
Ashkelon as a Maritime Gateway and Central Place
Ashkelon 5: The Land behind Ashkelon
George A. Pierce and Daniel M. Master
2015
Economy and Exchange in the Iron Age Kingdoms of the Southern Levant
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
Daniel M. Master
2014
The Southwestern Border of Judah in the Ninth and Eighth Centuries B.C.E.
Material Culture Matters: Essays on the Archaeology of the Southern Levant in Honor of Seymour Gitin
Jeffrey A. Blakely, James W. Hardin, and Daniel M. Master
2014
Buy Low, Sell High: The Marketplace in Ashkelon
Biblical Archaeology Review
Daniel M. Master and Lawrence E. Stager
2014
An early Iron Age assemblage of faience beads from Ashkelon, Israel: chemical composition and manufacturing process
Journal of Archaeological Science
Michael B. Toffolo, Eugenia Klein, Rivka Elbaum, Adam Aja, Daniel M. Master, Elisabetta Boaretto
2013