Press Releases |
| AIA LECTURE BY DR. ERIC CLINE
WILL EXAMINE JERUSALEM'S HISTORY OF CONFLICT
Lincoln, Neb.'Dr. Eric Cline, Chair of the Department of Classical and Semitic Languages and Literatures at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., will present a lecture entitled 'Jerusalem Besieged: 4,000 Years of Conflict in the City of Peace' on Sunday, September 18 at 2pm in Richards Hall Room 15 on the University of Nebraska'Lincoln city campus.  Eric H. Cline in Jerusalem, June 2004. The lecture is free and open to the public. The lecture is the first in the 2005-2006 Lincoln-Omaha Society of the Archaeological Institute of America's lecture season. Cline will be available after the lecture to sign copies of his book, Jerusalem Besieged: From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel. Jerusalem, whose name to some means the 'City of Peace,' has been anything but peaceful during the past four millennia. A new study by Cline indicates that there have been at least 118 separate conflicts in and for this city since 2000 B.C.E.'conflicts which ranged from local religious struggles to strategic military campaigns and which embraced everything in between. Jerusalem has been destroyed completely at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked an additional 52 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, been the scene of 20 revolts and innumerable riots, had at least five separate periods of violent terrorist attacks during the past century, and has only changed hands completely peacefully twice in the past 4,000 years. Many of these conflicts left evidence in the archaeological record and recent discoveries have shed new light on many of these successive struggles, including those involving Egyptians, Canaanites, Israelites, Jebusites, Neo-Assyrians, Neo-Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Moslems, and Crusaders. This study of 4,000 years of conflict in a single city also illustrates how archaeology, politics, and nationalism are frequently linked in the troubled environment of the Middle East today, especially when ancient conflicts and their archaeology are used as propaganda by modern military and political leaders. 'The lecture will incorporate both history and archaeology, as well as modern politics, and will show that the ancient and medieval battles are very much alive in the present, especially in the propaganda and speeches of those involved in the modern conflicts of the Middle East,' Cline said. Cline has previously taught at the University of Cincinnati, Stanford University, and Xavier University. He has excavated throughout the Middle East and Greece, including in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Crete. Cline is currently Senior Staff Archaeologist at the Megiddo Excavations in Israel. He has authored several books, including Jerusalem Besieged: From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel (Michigan 2004), which was a main selection of the Discovery Channel Book Club, and The Battles of Armageddon: Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley from the Bronze Age to the Nuclear Age (Michigan 2000). He is also the author of more than 60 articles and book reviews. 11/9/2005 |
