Andrea Berlin

Andrea Berlin is James R. Wiseman Chair in Classical Archaeology and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Archaeology. She serves as a member of the editorial boards of the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research and Tel Aviv. Her areas of interest are the archaeology and history of the Achaemenid, Hellenistic, and Roman East, Ceramic Studies; Second-Temple Judaism; and the archaeology of Israel.

Andrea Berlin has had a busy year, and is most proud of overseeing the first in a new series of ceramic handbooks, published in conjunction with the Levantine Ceramics Project: The LCP Handbook to the Late Roman Amphora 1 (LRA1), by Samuel Grady Gillett and Veronica Iacomi. “The Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Pottery” in Paneion I: Final Report on the Excavations of the Sanctuary of Pan at Banias-Caesarea Philippi will be published in a monograph in the ‘Atiqot series of the Israel Antiquities Authority. This chapter explores material she excavated over 30 years ago.

Prof. Berlin also delivered a number of scholarly papers: “Alexander the Great and the Archaeology of Celebrity” as a keynote lecture for La Sierra University; “The Destruction of Mt. Gerizim: Archaeology, History, Interpretation,” for The Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East and The American Society of Overseas Research; “Comfort Objects for Cloudy Times: A Group of Figurines from Ancient Idumea,” for the Society of Biblical Literature; “Alexander the Great at Gordion: A New Episode in an Old Story” for the BU Archaeology Program and The Cobb Institute of Archaeology at Mississippi State University; and “Life at Sardis, Before and After the Peace of Apamea” for Cornell University’s Visual Culture Colloquium.

In October 2025, Prof. Berlin organized a one-day workship at the University of Münster on Vessels and Wares of Iron Age Jordan, for the Levantine Ceramics Project. In February she was co-host and featured speaker for U.S. Fulbright/Fulbright-Israel’s anniversary celebration, where she gave a lecture “Looking at Jerusalem from Two Directions” and conducted a keynote interview with Dr. Débora Sandhaus, Chief Scientist of the Israel Antiquities Authority, on “Shared Pasts, Shared Futures: The IAA and American Archaeologists in Israel.”

This winter, Prof. Berlin was interviewed on two podcasts: The History of Cypress podcast, where she spoke on the Kyrenia ship, and Roots & Relics, where she spoke on “Excavating Everyday Life in the Ancient World” with Vinisha Agarwal. She was in the field for six weeks at the sites of Gordion and Sardis, in Turkey, training three graduate students. The most fun project of the year grew out of an interview with children’s book author Stuart Kallen for his book, Careers If You Like To Work With Your Hands. Prof. Berlin is featured in the chapter “Archaeologist.”