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Mara T. Horowitz

Assistant Professor of Liberal Studies

Mara Horowitz is an anthropological archaeologist using  worldwide ancient history and archaeology to teach a Global Studies curriculum. With a professional focus on the Mediterranean Bronze Age (Cyprus, Anatolia, Syria), she is also committed to public outreach, museum studies, and interdisciplinary studies with materials sciences, philology, art history, zooarchaeology, and geology. In addition to twenty-five years of fieldwork in the Mediterranean and New York, she is now founder and director of the Kalavasos-Laroumena and Arkhangelos Archaeological Research Project (K-LAARP) in Cyprus, and the Albion Experimental Archaeology Studio in Danbury, CT (https://www.facebook.com/AlbionExperimental/).

Research Interests

  • Connectivity, cultural hybridity, and international material culture style
  • Foodways and their interrelationship with material culture, environmental conditions, and resource
  • Nucleation, diffusion, and agency in craft production (ceramics)
  • Household archaeology
  • Landscapes and cultural conceptions of space and place
  • Secondary development and intermediate forms of social complexity
  • Assimilation, resistance, and identity in the borderlands of states and empires

Representative Courses

  • Migration
  • Transportation
  • Health and Human Rights
  • Food for Thought
  • Space, Place, and Collective Identity
  • Decolonization and the Arts

Publications

Horowitz, M.T. 2023. Painted Pottery Traditions of Late Bronze Alalakh. In Late Bronze Age Painted Pottery Traditions at the Margins of the Hittite State, Proceedings of the 11 ICAANE Held in Munich, 2018. Archaeopress.

Horowitz, M.T. 2022. Local Ceramics in the Battleground of Empires: Alalakh in the 14th Century BC. In Late Bronze Age Ceramic Identities, Proceedings of a Conference Held at Firenze, January 14-16, 2015, eds. M. Pucci and F. Venturi. Pisa: ETS.

Book cover

Yener, K.A., M. Akar, and M.T. Horowitz. 2020. Alalakh Excavations Volumes 2a and 2b: The LBII Levels, 2006-2010. Istanbul: Koç University Press.

Horowitz, M.T., L. Dodd, A. Green, and D. Ryter. 2020. Survey and Geophysical Research at Tell Atchana, 2006-2010. In Alalakh Excavations Volumes 2a and 2b: The LBII Levels, 2006-2010, eds Yener, K.A., M. Akar, and M.T. Horowitz. Pp. 93-125. Istanbul: Koç University Press.

 

Overturning Certainties in Near Eastern Archaeology

 

Maner, Çiğdem, Mara T. Horowitz, and Allan S. Gilbert (eds).  2018.  Overturning Certainties in Near Eastern Archaeology: A Festschrift in Honor of K. Aslıhan Yener.  Leiden/Boston: Brill.

Horowitz, Mara T., and Canan Çakirlar.  2018.  Novel Uses of Wild Fauna in the MB/LB Transition at Tell Atchana/Alalakh.  In Overturning Certainties in Near Eastern Archaeology: A Festschrift in Honor of K. Aslıhan Yener, eds. Ç. Maner, M. T. Horowitz, and S. Gilbert.  Leiden/Boston: Brill.

Morrison, Jerolyn, and Mara T. Horowitz.  2016.  Field-Based Experiments Replicating Ceramic Fabrics: Late Bronze Age Cookwares from Two Mediterranean Sites.  In Integrative Approaches in Ceramic Petrography, eds. M. Ownby, I. Druc, and M. Massuci.  University of Utah Press.

Horowitz, Mara T.  2016.  The Early-Middle Bronze Age Pottery.  In Vasilikos Valley Project 10, ed. I. A. Todd.  SIMA vol. LXXI: 10.

Horowitz, Mara T.  2015.  The Evolution of Plain Ware Ceramics at the Regional Capital of Alalakh in the Second Millennium BC.  In C. Glatz (ed), Plain Pottery Traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East: Production, Use, and Social Significance. Series: University College London Institute of Archaeology Publications. Left Coast Press: Walnut Creek, CA.

Presentations / Conferences

“The 2022-2023 Seasons at Kalavasos-Laroumena and Arkhangelos
(K-LAARP).” Co-authors Christine Johnston and Enrico de Benedictis. Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Overseas Research (ASOR), Chicago, IL 2023.

“Excavations at Kalavasos-Laroumena and Arkhangelos (K-LAARP).” Co-authors Christine Johnson and Enrico de Benedictis. Annual CAARI fieldwork symposium, June 17, 2023. Lefkosia, Cyprus.

“Storage and Stages: Hallmarks of Early Monumental Architecture at Late Bronze I Phlamoudhi-Vounari, Cyprus,” Annual Meeting of ASOR, Chicago, IL 2021.

“Middle Cypriot Bronze Age Social Development at Kalavasos-Laroumena,” Annual Meeting of ASOR, Online, 2020.

“Traces of Contact with Old Kingdom Hittites at Late Bronze I Tell Atchana, Alalakh: The Ceramic Evidence,” Annual Meeting of ASOR, Denver, CO 2018

“Performative Aspects of Early Monumental Architecture at Late Bronze I Phlamoudhi-Vounari, Cyprus,” Annual Meeting of ASOR, Washington, DC 2018

“Painted Pottery Traditions at Late Bronze Alalakh,” 11th ICAANE (International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East), 3-7 April, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany 2018

You Are How You Eat: Changes in Dining Style and Society at Late Bronze Alalakh.  2017 Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archaeology, Vancouver, BC

A Drink Among Friends: The Crater Across 1,000 Years at Tell Atchana - Alalakh.  2015 American Schools of Oriental Research Annual Meeting, Atlanta

New Horizons: The Iron Age Sequence at Tell Atchana - Alalakh.  2015 American Schools of Oriental Research Annual Meeting, Atlanta. Co-authored with M. Pucci and R. Koehl

Stepping Up to the Plate: Changes in Dining Style as a Hallmark of the MB/LB Transition at Atchana - Alalakh.  2013 American Schools of Oriental Research Annual Meeting, Baltimore

History in a Cookpot: New Approaches to Local Pottery at Middle Late Bronze Age Tell Atchana - Alalakh.  2012: 113th Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, Philadelphia

Exhibitions / Performances

Invited Lectures:

Chronology, Sequence, and Society: Approaches to the Temporal Dimensions of Alalakh.  June 10-12, 2015.  Celebrating Alalakh, The 15th Anniversary of Excavations: Alalakh and its Neighbors, Antakya Museum, Hatay.

New Cultural Features in the Late Bronze I Ceramics of Alalakh.  June 10-12, 2015. Celebrating Alalakh, The 15th Anniversary of Excavations: Alalakh and its Neighbors, Antakya Museum, Hatay.

Local Ceramics in the Battleground of Empires.  January 14-16, 2015: Late Bronze Age Ceramic Identities, University of Florence, Italy.

Representing Alalakh: Excavation and Curation Amid Modern Conflict at Bronze Age Tell Atchana, Turkey.  January 14th, 2014: Invitation of the Long Island Society of the Archaeological Institute of America.  Hofstra University, Hempstead NY.

Museum Installations:

Hatay Archaeology Museum, Antakya, Turkey.  Tell Atchana, Ancient Alalakh (permanent exhibition, installed 2015).

Cyprus Museum, Lefkosia, Cyprus. Settlement and Sanctuary: The Phlamoudhi Archaeological Project.  Visiting exhibit at the Cyprus Museum, June 2009; curator J. S. Smith.