Thursday, January 20, 2011

Dr. Eric Cline & Anthony Sutter (B.A.2009) publish military history article

Prof. Eric Cline of the Classics, Anthropology, and History Departments, and recent alumnus Anthony Sutter published an article in the current issue of the Journal of Military History:

"Battlefield Archaeology at Armageddon: Cartridge Cases and the 1948 Battle for Megiddo, Israel"

During 2008 and 2010 at Megiddo (biblical Armageddon) in Israel, archaeologists excavating a stratigraphical layer that should have been filled solely with artifacts almost 3,000 years old unexpectedly recovered more than 213 spent cartridge cases, most likely dating from the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. Finding themselves unintentionally involved in the relatively new field of "battlefield archaeology" more usually conducted in the United States and Europe, the archaeologists analyzed the cartridge cases, attempted to reconstruct what had happened, and contributed additional information to historical accounts of the modern battle and of the Czechoslovakian arms deals with the Israelis in early 1948.

Sutter wrote his 2009 undergraduate thesis, "The Shots Heard 'Round the Tel," on the same excavation. He graduated with special honors in Archaeology and a B.S. in Chemistry. For more, see http://www.gwu.edu/~anth/ugrad/honorstheses.cfm

Eric Cline is Chair of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Director of the GWU Capitol Archaeological Institute. For more, see http://www.gwu.edu/~anth/who/cline.cfm

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