Strata: Changing of the Guard

After 34 years, Seymour (Sy) Gitin has retired as director of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR). During the decades of his leadership, the Albright has flourished, with the number of fellowships increasing and the library expanding.

Gitin has authored or edited 196 publications and received 34 grants, fellowships and awards. His excavation of the Philistine site of Tel Miqne-Ekron (with Trude Dothan) has revealed a new chapter of Philistine history.

Located in east Jerusalem just around the corner from the Garden Tomb (and a short walk from Damascus Gate, the École Biblique, the Rockefeller Museum and the Israel Antiquities Authority), the Albright has served as a haven for archaeologists for over a century. Established as the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem in 1900, the institution was later renamed after one of its most famous directors, William F. Albright, who directed the institution for over a decade.

With the mission “to develop and disseminate scholarly knowledge of the literature, history and culture of the Near East, as well as the study of the development of civilization from prehistory to the early Islamic period,” the Albright serves and assists American projects in Near Eastern studies. It serves as a bridge between foreign excavations and scholars and the archaeological community in the Middle East.