David Schloen specializes in the archaeology and history of the Levant in the Bronze and Iron Ages (ca. 3500 to 300 BCE). His archaeological fieldwork began at Ashkelon in Israel, where he served as associate director and co-edited the series of excavation reports. He has also conducted excavations at Yaqush, a village of the Early Bronze Age (3500–2500 BCE) on the northern Jordan River in Israel, and at Alalakh near Antakya (Antioch) in Turkey, a prominent city of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages (2000–1200 BCE); and he has ongoing excavation projects at Sam’al (Zincirli) in Turkey and at the Canaanite-Phoenician site of Tell Keisan near Haifa in Israel. His aim is to synthesize archaeological and textual evidence to understand the early cities and kingdoms of the Eastern Mediterranean and how they were organized, socially and economically. Schloen is also the Director of the University of Chicago’s Program in Digital Studies of Language, Culture, and History. He has a strong interest in digital humanities, especially the phenomenological critique of disembodied artificial intelligence and the use of “top-level” formal ontologies for semantic integration of data across diverse projects and recording systems.

To learn more about David Schloen's research and publications, please visit his profile page at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.