Biography

Glenn M. Schwartz is Whiting Professor of Archaeology in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University.  He is a Near Eastern archaeologist who has directed excavations in Syria and Iraq and conducts research on the emergence and early trajectory of complex societies.  Schwartz received his PhD from Yale University in 1982. 

His field project at Tell Umm el-Marra, western Syria, included a focus on an elite necropolis from the Early Bronze Age with well-preserved tombs and evidence of ritual and sacrificial installations. His previous excavation project was based at Tell al-Raqa'i in northeastern Syria, investigating the character of a small village in the period of urban formation. Schwartz’s most recent fieldwork project has been based at the second-millennium BC urban Bronze Age site of Kurd Qaburstan south of Erbil in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

Among his publications are The Archaeology of Syria: From Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Urban Societies, ca. 16,000-300 BC (Cambridge University Press, 2003), coauthored with Peter Akkermans, After Collapse: The Regeneration of Complex Societies (University of Arizona Press, 2006), coedited with John Nichols, and Animals, Ancestors and Ritual in Early Bronze Age Syria: An Elite Mortuary Complex at Umm el-Marra (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, 2024).

Project Abstract

Schwartz is engaged in the study of relative and absolute chronology of the early to middle second millennium BC (Middle Bronze Age) in Syria and northern Mesopotamia, utilizing data from his excavations at (1) Tell Umm el-Marra in northwest Syria, an apparent ritual and possibly political center of the Jabbul plain, and (2) Kurd Qaburstan on the Erbil plain in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, a major urban site, possible capital of the ancient kingdom of Qabra.  

At Umm el-Marra, the chronology of the Middle Bronze Age is based on ceramic and carbon-14 data from the excavations.  Using these data, it will be investigated whether MB sub-phases can be recognized and linked to stratified contexts at other sites in Syria and beyond.  Also examined is whether, as earlier research suggested, an early MB phase is missing at the site, possibly attributable to site abandonment during a much-debated period of urban "collapse" ca. 2200-1900 BC. Finally, the dating of the end of the MB occupation will be studied, examining whether it can be linked to the military assault of the Hittite Old Kingdom rulers ca. 1600 BC.

At Kurd Qaburstan, the Middle Bronze chronology is also based on ceramic and radiocarbon data from the excavations.  The data will be used to determine how to place the Kurd Qaburstan occupation within the MB period, whether it occupies the entire period or only a sub-phase.  Given the site's potential identification with ancient Qabra, it will be investigated whether the presumed time period of Qabra coincides with that of the Kurd Qaburstan MB occupation. Connections with MB sites elsewhere in northern Mesopotamia and in Syria will be studied to determine how to refine regional relative and absolute chronology.

Curriculum vitae

Since 2001

Whiting Professor of Archaeology, Department of Near Eastern Studies,Johns Hopkins University 

Education

Ph.D., Yale University, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, 1982 

 

Grants

National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Geographic Society, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Awards

American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) P. E. MacAllister Field Archaeology Award, for outstanding contributions to ancient Near Eastern and Eastern Mediterranean archaeology, 2022

Archaeological Fieldwork

Director, Kurd Qaburstan, Kurdistan, Iraq, 2013-2022

Director (with Hans Curvers), Tell Umm el-Marra, Syria, 1994-2010

Director (with Hans Curvers), Tell Raqa’i, Syria, 1987-1992

Associate Director, Tell Leilan, Syria, 1985

Selected Publications

2024, with other contributors. Animals, Ancestors and Ritual in Early Bronze Age Syria: An Elite Mortuary Complex from Umm el-Marra. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA. http://www.ioa.ucla.edu/animalsancestorsritual.

2023, with L. Webster, A. Smith, M. Dee, and I. Hajdas. "Towards a Radiocarbon-Based Chronology of Urban Northern Mesopotamia in the Early to Mid-Second Millennium BC: Initial Results from Kurd Qaburstan Radiocarbon". Radiocarbon 65 (3): 755–70. https://doi.org/10.1017/RDC.2023.36. 

2022, with A. Creekmore III, A. Smith, J. Weber, and L. Webster. "Kurd Qaburstan on the Erbil Plain: Field Research 2016-2017". Iraq: Journal of the British Institute for the Study of Iraq 84: 189-230. https://doi.org/10.1017/irq.2022.2.

 2015, with other contributors. Rural Archaeology in Early Urban Northern Mesopotamia: Excavations at 

 Tell al-Raqa’i. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA. https://ioa.ucla.edu/press/raqai.

2003, with Peter M. M. G. Akkermans. The Archaeology of Syria: From Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies (ca. 16,000 - 300 B.C.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.