In 1894, Anna Ely Rhoads became the first woman to join the Society of Biblical Literature. Soon, other women joined and started not only to attend, but to present their own scholarship. Particularly meaningful for me was the presentation given by Professor Eleanor D. Wood in 1913. Wood, like myself, was a scholar engaged in both Bible and archaeology. I owe much to Wood as she paved the way for archaeologists in the Society.

Due to my position as a scholar of both Bible and archaeology, I was asked to present at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature on the topic: “The History of Women Archaeologists in the Society.” Alongside the task of sharing some of my own story, I was also asked to answer the following questions: What challenges have women archaeologists faced? What opportunities have they had? What perspectives have they brought to the wider field? Looking back over the history of women archaeologists in the Society of Biblical Literature shows that while some things have changed, other things (unfortunately) remain the same.

In debating where to begin and how to shape the paper, I decided to weave my own story with that of the women archaeologists in the Society that have influenced me. This approach has the benefit of making the stories relatable, as well as covering women both past and present. To do so requires starting at the beginning. The beginning for me was college, where freshman year I dove head-first into a biblical archaeology major. While I had grown up reading and studying the Bible, my only real background with archaeology at that point was through the adventures of two fictional characters: Indiana Jones and Agatha Christie’s Hercules Poirot. I soon learned that Agatha Christie was married to an archaeologist and the following quote went up on my dorm room door:

“An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.”[1]

I should note that I did not marry an archaeologist; I married a scholar, and they are okay too.

Pioneering Women

My love for reading and archaeology soon led me to the delightful series by Elizabeth Peters starring a sharp witted, wickedly smart, and independent, British woman archaeologist named Amelia Peabody. As I came to learn, many of Amelia’s exploits were fashioned after real life people. Amelia’s spirit of adventure and Wanderlust is akin to that of Gertrude Bell.[2] Like the fictional character, Bell also kept a little pistol on her persons for “times of uncertainty.” Bell is known by her sobriquet as the “Queen of the Dessert”. She was born in an age where women were to marry and become proper housewives (b. 1868 – d. 1926). Defying standards of her time, she never married, fluently spoke six languages, and took up a career. She was many things, not the least of which was an archaeologist. While not a lead excavator, she did consult on digs in Turkey and Northern Syria and travel widely through the Arab world. We can thank Bell for forging a path for female archaeologists in the Near East.

While Amelia Peabody is a lot like Bell, she is quite similar to another pioneering archaeologist who is described as follows:

“Although she had been born into the heart of the English scholarly community, and had all the help that influence and connections could provide, she had become one of the foremost excavators in Great Britain through hard work, commitment, and a flair for dirt archaeology ... In many ways an uncomplicated and conventional person, she led an unconventional life, devoting herself to her career and rising to the top of her field when it was unusual for a woman to have a career at all….”[3]

This excerpt comes from the biography of Dame Kathleen Kenyon. Known for her excavations at Jericho and Jerusalem, she is best remembered for giving us the Kenyon-Wheeler method of excavating. Kenyon has arguably gone down in the history books as “the greatest field archaeologist of her generation and the greatest woman archaeologist of her century.”[4] Kenyon’s work in the field opened the door for women, should they desire, to move beyond assistants or artists. Her excavations and reports on them ranged from technical to popular.[5] While not a member of SBL, subsequent generations of SBL members, women and men alike, were certainly influenced by her work.[6]

One woman who had the privilege of knowing Kenyon was Nancy Lapp. And it is perhaps with Nancy that Amelia Peabody holds the most in common. Like Amelia, Nancy is extremely sharp, struggled with the expectations that society had for women, and had an archaeologist as a husband.

Nancy studied under Frank Moore Cross and Ernest Wright. She impressed them so much they encouraged her to go on and study with Albright. Nancy became Albright’s first female student, and for her student job she became Albright’s first female secretary. She met her beloved Paul in their first year of studies and the two of them went on to have many adventures before Paul’s untimely death in 1970. Nancy gave a talk this past spring at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s Kelso Museum of Near Eastern Archaeology about her life titled “Adventures and Discoveries from Half a Century of Life as an Archaeologist”. It is up on YouTube and I encourage you all to spend an hour alongside Nancy as she and Paul cross the world by boat, car, and train.[7]

I will relate a few anecdotes from her life and words of wisdom that I drew out of the talk. After their second year at Johns Hopkins, they both applied for a scholarship to study with the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, what we now call the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research. Paul received a scholarship and Nancy was told that she deserved one too … but it should really go to the male head of the household. Nancy comments this was not the last time she heard things like this. But still, she persisted. On excavations, Nancy undertook the task of site recorder, and later in her career went on to teach at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, lead tours to the Holy Lands, and curate the Bible Lands Museum (now the Kelso Museum of Near Eastern Archaeology) in Pittsburgh. Her enduring contribution to academia, however, comes by way of the numerous publication reports left behind by Paul that she completed, as well as the guidance she offered in passing the torch to the next generation of students that had studied under Paul.[8]

Influential Women Biblical Archaeologists

As my training progressed, I again I found myself confronted with Indiana Jones, but this time it was in a popular magazine. People Magazine ran a story in 1981 titled: “Eric and Carol Meyers Didn’t Dig the Ark in Raiders, They Found the Real Thing.” This article pictured Eric and Carol dressed as Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood from the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. [9] It was the first time I encountered scholars who had crossed into popular media and I found their story fascinating.

Like Nancy Lapp, Carol Meyers married an archaeologist. According to People Magazine, this occurred after only knowing each other for nine weeks. Now, let’s be honest, it is not very often one can say, “according to People Magazine” about a biblical scholar and archaeologist. This just goes to show the broad audience whom Carol has been able to reach in her career. In the chapter she contributed to Women and the Society of Biblical Literature, Carol reflects on how her career started. She says, “Let me be clear. I did not set out to enter the guild of biblical scholarship. It was an accident, or perhaps a serendipitous byproduct, of my college experience.”[10] She goes on to explain how from her very first bible class her freshman year at Wellesley she was hooked. A passion for archaeology soon followed. Carol described her first excavation at a pre-historic site in Wyoming as: “hard, tedious work, much less adventurous than I had imagined.”[11] This is a sentiment to which many who have excavated can relate. She further stated that it was “nonetheless exciting – intellectually exciting to learn about people who lived thousands of years ago by painstakingly uncovering and analyzing the material remains of their daily lives.”[12]

In thinking about Carol, I thought about the following question. “What perspectives has she brought to the field?” It is hard to say if Carol’s exegetical work stems from her archaeological acumen or vise-versa. Regardless, her well-known books, Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context and Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context demonstrate how one can interpret the biblical text alongside archaeological realia.[13]

In pursuing a career that she called “a field that was a male bastion in the late 1960s” Carol credits the strong female role models she had at Wellesley in setting her up for success. These early female mentors made a big difference in Carol’s life. Carol states:

“I had confidence that I was as competent as any man for whatever the position was and thus would willingly accept any opportunity to serve an organization or institution in which I believed. Moreover, I felt it important to honor the policy of an organization or institution, be it SBL or my university, to work towards inclusion of women in all facets of its activities.”[14]

True to her word, she has made every effort to “pay it forward.” Carol served as the vice-president and president of the Society of Biblical Literature in 2012 and 2013 respectively. She has also received the Outstanding Service in Mentoring award (2008) given by the Society of Biblical Literature’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession. Her role as a mentor has been in an official capacity during her time at Duke; but, she has also, as I have experienced first-hand, mentored in a non-official capacity, graciously reading essays and offering suggestions and guidance to younger colleagues in the field. This kind of collegiality is much needed in the field, especially when it comes to showing solidarity between women of all academic ranks.

North Carolina is also home to another scholar interested in ancient synagogues and Jewish life: Jodi Magness. Since 2011 she and her team have been excavating a synagogue at the site of Huqoq in upper Galilee. Her interests include everything from the archaeology of Jerusalem, Qumran, and Masada, to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Roman army in the East.[15] And she too has had her moments in the media limelight. Jodi was interviewed about her work at Qumran as part of The Story of God with Morgan Freeman, a series put on by the National Geographic Society.[16]

In an email interview with Jodi I asked if she would share some of her experiences regarding her challenges, opportunities, and perspectives. Jodi started out by saying she feels extremely fortunate to have had the opportunities she has been given. Realizing not everyone is presented with the same opportunities she has had, such as a Mellon Post-Doc Fellowship and her positions at Tufts and UNC, she said that she has worked very hard and tried to make the most of them.

“I want to do what I can to support the future of archaeology, which is why I ran for the office of President of the AIA. I consider service to the profession to be an important part of becoming an established academic.”[17]

Giving back to the field is one of the ways that she has tried to repay the opportunities given her.

Jodi describes herself as motivated by a curiosity about the past and wanting to know what the science tells us about the finds. Noting that everyone brings a different and unique perspective, she pauses when considering just how to describe her own perspective. She describes her work as scientific and not driven by a faith-based agenda. Which, she hastens to say is not because she seeks to undermine anyone else’s faith or religious beliefs, but that she herself does not have a religious agenda. Her success as an academic comes from a strong and supportive network of family, especially her parents and husband, as well as friends, and colleagues.

In commenting on obstacles in the field, she says:

“I do feel as though I have dealt with my share of obstacles in terms of being a woman – and especially a petite American woman – working in Israel (especially when I was younger). However, I have always tried to compete on the same playing field as everyone else, and have always hoped that ultimately, I would be judged by the quality of my work and not my gender.”[18]

To that I say, AMEN! Yet, the very fact that she referenced discrimination based on gender means women archaeologists today are facing some of the same obstacles that Nancy Lapp confronted in the 1950s.

Another scholar that has been influential in my studies is Susan Ackerman. While I first encountered Susan’s work through her writings on popular forms of Israelite religion in Under Every Green Tree,[19] her scholarly interests as she describes them are quite broad: they have “generally been the people or the religious behaviors that the biblical writers were either not interested in or actually didn’t like.”[20] Since there are quite a few of these people and practices, Susan’s work has spanned everything from women’s life-cycle rituals, household religion, reproductive magic, child sacrifice, to various female biblical characters. When asked in an interview with Dartmouth News how she came to this field she said:

“As an undergraduate, my adviser said, ‘Liberal arts is for exploring; take courses in things you know nothing about.’ One of the things I decided I knew nothing about was religion. I grew up in Arkansas in a very nonreligious family, and all I knew about religion was what my family said, which was dismissive, or what my peers said, which was a very literalistic reading of the Bible. So I took “Religion 1” and loved it. It was a way of thinking about the Bible as a body of literature created by an ancient people who were trying to express something about their religiosity.”[21]

Susan has brought this perspective with her in her work. While the religions and cultures she studies might be millennia old, her approach to the texts make them relevant and interesting to all different kinds of audiences. She weaves her interpretation of the biblical text alongside the archaeological realia. For example, mirrors are not simply a means of checking one’s hair, but for warding off demons. Brief references to clothing in the bible become transformed into a discussion regarding women and the textile industry. And the women in the book of Judges are not minor characters but powerful warriors, dancers, seductresses and queens.[22] Like many of her colleagues, Susan has given back to academia. She has served various positions on the boards of numerous professional societies, and just finished serving as the first woman president of the American Schools of Oriental Research.

After completing my B.A., I went on to pursue graduate work in Bible and archaeology. In my first year of coursework I took a course in Jerusalem on the ancient city of Jerusalem. The highlight of that class was studying the ancient tombs that surrounded the city. That course changed my life, as it set me on my current scholarly trajectory. I have heard my students describe me as “Professor Garroway, she studies dead babies.”[23] I know that sounds a bit macabre, but I always say that one can learn so much about the past from the dead. This is something that I first learned through the work of Elizabeth Bloch-Smith.[24] Her work on Israelite burial styles, rites, and locations first opened the door for me to think about the presentation of the dead as witness to the lives of the living members of society who buried them.

When I asked Liz if she had an anecdote she would like to share, she chose one that speaks both to the challenges and opportunities she has had as a woman in the field:

“From the first season at Ashkelon, in 1985, Larry Stager permitted me to dig while pregnant and then allowed me to bring the kids from infants through age five and he even covered a significant part of the cost. Had he not allowed me to dig while pregnant and contributed to the costs, I could not have continued in the field and would have lost my ‘place’ to others. When I started bringing two kids with me, I also brought a home baby-sitter who took care of the kids while I was in the field. Returning from the field, I resumed care for the kids – no free-time and no rest for the weary (though most of the baby-sitters helped out and volunteers on the dig often took the kids for short periods). I wanted to take care of the kids, also giving them the benefit of life in another country with a different language and culture, while continuing to progress in archaeology. Larry made it possible but it’s a lot to manage if the dig director doesn’t help out. Work demands might be adjusted or made more flexible to accommodate the demands of parenting while on a dig.”[25]

She mentioned that Larry once commented that having little ones on the dig had a normalizing and calming effect and suggested this was something for dig directors to consider. Encouragement and support early on allowed Liz to continue working in the field. She has dug the length of Israel from Ashkelon, to Tel Dor, all the way up to Tel Abel Beth Maacah.

Not every dig is so supportive of mothers coming with children, and there are often other complicating factors affecting a return to the field after giving birth. Beth Alpert Nakahi addresses some of these tensions in her contribution to Women in the Society of Biblical Literature. She discusses her time as a graduate student digging at Tel el-Wawiyat. Like Carol, Beth was hooked on dirt archaeology from the start. However, after the birth of her first child she found it difficult to return to the field. For one, most digs occur during the summer months. With no school in session summer child-care becomes an issue. For graduate students and non-tenure track academics, paying for child-care might not be possible or desirable. Additionally, for those without a tenure-track job that secures a steady income, many in academia chose to pick up an extra job, such as teaching summer school. Quitting a job during the summer to dig might not be in every women’s best interest. Beth comments:

“The expense of international travel and related costs, coupled with the loss of summer school earnings, were more than I could justify. And, of course, the costs were both personal and professional. As recently as a few years ago, my commitment to archaeology was still being questioned by (male) colleagues who thought that if I had been serious, I would have stuck with field work.”[26]

She goes on to discuss her dissertation topic and course of research, both which were focused on archaeology that could be done from the library and not the field.[27] I too chose a library-based dissertation for the same reasons and have received similar remarks from (male) colleagues. The tension highlighted here between those active in the field and those who are not is real. In fact, some disparagingly refer to non-field archaeological work by the term “arm-chair archaeology,” as if this kind of work was for the lazy, prissy, non-serious archaeologist.

As the fictional character Bob Wiley said: “I’m doing the work, I’m baby-stepping.”[28] The field has made steps forward, not in one giant leap, but in small, steady steps. The Society of Biblical Literature has instituted the Commission on the Status of Women, a standing, not ad-hoc committee.[29] For her part, Alpert Nakhai has carved out space for women to discuss their experiences in archaeology at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), documented the status of women in the field during her time on the (ASOR) Board Nominations Committee, and also served as the inaugural chair for the “Initiative on the Status of Women in ASOR.”[30] This work is important seeing as the American Schools of Oriental Research and the Society of Biblical Literature have held their annual meetings back to back in the same city, and many women archaeologists in the Society of Biblical Literature also attend the American Schools of Oriental Research meetings. Through her work, Beth has brought a voice to women archaeologists who are active in fieldwork, as well as those who engage archaeology through other avenues.

Brief “Shout Outs” to Other Influential Women Archaeologists

While not every mother returns to the field, there are some who do. In getting to know Cynthia Shafer Elliot through her work on households, food preparation and gender, I found she has been able to regularly commit to summer digs.[31] She is currently at Tel Abel Beth Maacah. She told me about her mentorship of young, female students whom she takes with her to dig in a program she helped develop called #Jessupdigsisrael. She calls them “junior biblical scholars and archaeologists of the Southern Levant in the making!”[32] She has had several go on to MA and now Ph.D. programs, demonstrating the power of mentorship as the next generation continues to chip away at the proverbial “glass ceiling”.

There are so many other female archaeologists in the society that have influenced me. Since I cannot name them all, a few shout outs will have to suffice. Deborah Cantrell is a woman from whom I learned a great deal about horses and tri-partite buildings. More importantly, I learned that your passions, what you do in everyday life, can provide insights into the past. Her passion for raising horses and knowledge of how horses behave have changed the way that scholars think about the “stable hypothesis” with respect to the tri-partite buildings at Tel Megiddo, Tel Gezer, and Lachish.[33] Erin Darby tackled the establishment and pushed forward the study of Judean Pillar Figurines, demonstrating that there are always new ways to look at an artifact and new insights to be found. She suggested these statues were held and perhaps waved in an apotropaic manner to ward off demons from entering the house.[34] And my own mentor, Nili Fox told me to keep going and not give up on the dissertation. But perhaps, more importantly for this paper, she encouraged me to attend the Society of Biblical Literature yearly, because the things I would learn and the people I would meet would be important for my career. She was right, and nearly twenty years later we continue to meet up for a meal every November.

What I have found most heartening in researching and interviewing these archaeologists is first, their honesty in calling attention to those things in the field that need changing. Transformation cannot happen without frank discussion followed by action. Second, I was overcome by the warmth and acceptance I experienced from each of the women I interviewed. This project allowed me to make personal connections with scholars whom I had previously known only through their research. It goes without saying that connections and support are a critical part of surviving academia. Especially important are the relationships formed between women. Many of the women mentioned here share (for better or worse) similar stories with respect to gender discrimination and striving not to be considered “less than.” Bonding together, then, is vital.

In Closing

Upon the end of my first international trip twenty-five years ago, which also happened to be my first archaeological dig in Israel, I remember feeling saddened that it was all coming to an end. The land, the mysteries that lay underground, the connections with the bible were all so exciting and I could not believe we had to leave them behind. I remember expressing this to my roommate that summer, my good friend and colleague Deirdre Dixon Fulton. She replied with the wisdom of a twenty-year old: “You know, you can always come back.” You can always come back. While she was half joking, those five words had a profound impact on me. I, like all the women I have discussed have gone back. I have dug at Ashkelon, Tel Dor, and Tel Dan and my Marshalltown trowel is still sharp, waiting for my next dig. Until that time, I continue to engage with the bible and archaeology both in the classroom, as I teach classes on archaeology, and in my own research on children in the biblical world. In this way, I “go back” to the field daily. Whether your circumstances only allow you to return in a figurative sense, to engage archaeology from your desk, or whether you have the opportunity for a literal return to excavate, the field is waiting for you. Just as importantly, the Society of Biblical Literature is waiting for you, waiting to support you and waiting for you to bring your insights to academia.

In closing, if you want to wish someone a long life in Hebrew we say ad mea v’esrim, “until 120”. To us I say: ad meah v’esrim … v’chamesh – to 125! May the next 125 years find the Society of Biblical Literature enriched through even more scholarship, comradery, and leadership by women.

 

© Kristine Henriksen Garroway, 2020, lectio@theol.unibe.ch, ISSN 1661-3317