Gil Stein

University of Chicago, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, Faculty Member

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Gil J. Stein is Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC) and in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago. He also serves as Director of the Chicago Center for Cultural Heritage Preservation. He received his BA from Yale University in 1978 and his PhD in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1988. He has excavated and surveyed in Arizona, New Mexico, Turkey, Syria, and the Kurdistan region in Northeast Iraq. His main research interests focus on the development of early urbanism and complex societies in the Near East, cultural heritage, zooarchaeology, inter-regional interaction, economic systems, and the archaeology of ancient colonies. He has written over 50 journal articles, book chapters, and reviews, and the book Rethinking World Systems: Diasporas, Colonies, and Interaction in Uruk Mesopotamia, and the edited volume The Archaeology of Colonial Encounters – Comparative Perspectives. From 1992-1997 he directed excavations at the 4th millennium BC site of Hacinebi in the Euphrates valley of southeast Turkey, where an Uruk trading enclave was established inside a local Late Chalcolithic Anatolian settlement. From 2008-2010 he directed the Oriental Institute’s excavations at the prehistoric 6th-5th millennium BC site of Tell Zeidan in the Euphrates Valley, Syria in a project focused on the Ubaid period and the emergence of social complexity in North Syria/Upper Mesopotamia. Starting in 2013, he is currently directing excavations of the Chalcolithic mound of Surezha in the Erbil Governate, Kurdistan region, Northern Iraq. From 2012-2021, he directed the Oriental Institute’s Partnership with the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul. This 5 year cultural heritage preservation project funded by the US State Department has been helping to rebuild the information infrastructure of the National Museum of Afghanistan by training museum staff, developing a bilingual Dari-English computer database for the museum, and conducting the first ever complete inventory of the objects in its collections. Since 2018 he has also been doing cultural heritage preservation work in Cetral Asia. From 2002-2017 he served as Director of the Oriental Institute.
Address: Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC)
University of Chicago
1155 East 58th St.
Chicago, IL 60202
USA

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Papers by Gil Stein

The Archaeology of Colonial Encounters: Comparative Perspectives

South African Archaeological Bulletin, Dec 1, 2006

The Ancient Near East c. 3000-330 B.C. Amelie Kuhrt. 1996 Routledge History of the Ancient World, Routledge, New York. Volume 1: xxviii + 381 pp.. Volume 2: xix + 398 pp.; 45 figures, 17 maps, 35 tables, bibliography, index. $150.00 (cloth)

American Antiquity, 1999

2025 G.Stein, A.Gallego Lopez. F.Colombo, E. Pannunzio, and A. Casalini The NMA-ISAC Haḍḍa Sculptural Project – Conserving and Restoring Early Buddhist Sculptures in the National Museum of Afghanistan.

by Gil Stein, Alejandro Gallego, Elisa Pannunzio, and Alice Casalini

Gandharan Artists and Artisans. Representations of an Era of Religious Images.. Archaeologia Afghana. Serie Scientifique VI. Edited by A. Vanleene, A. Marguier and V. Brice. Strasbourg, Université de Strasbourg: 191-213. , 2025

The early Buddhist collection of sculptures from Haḍḍa in the National Museum of Afghanistan is o... more The early Buddhist collection of sculptures from Haḍḍa in the National Museum of Afghanistan is one of the most important and unique manifestations of the emerging Buddhist art in Central Asia. Unfortunately, the collection was dramatically damaged in the iconoclastic destruction inflicted by the Taliban on the Kabul Museum in early 2001, just before their destruction of the monumental Bāmiyān Buddhas. To rescue these unique objects, the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures of the University of Chicago in partnership with the National Museum of Afghanistan, carried out the Hadda Sculptural Project (HSP) from 2017 to 2021 in Kabul (and continued working remotely on documentation and analysis from 2021‑2023) with the main goal of conserving, restoring, documenting, and reassembling as many of the damaged sculptures as possible. This paper presents a summary overview of the Hadda Sculptural Project’s goals, outcomes, and potential contributions to our understanding of Early Buddhist/Gandhāran culture. The HSP team treated 484 sculptures from the site and partially re‑assembled 336 of them. At the same time, our conservation studies recorded valuable information regarding the chaîne opératoire by which the stucco sculptures were produced by Gandhāran craft specialists. Finally, our team conducted a spatial analysis of the distribution of sculptures within the rooms and stūpas of Tepe Shotor and Tepe Kalān. Our analyses suggest that sculptural production at Haḍḍa formed part of a broadly shared community of practice in stucco art production among Gandhāran craft specialists

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2024 (Gil J. Stein and Michael Fisher) “Surezha Excavations 2023 Field Season” ISAC Annual Report 2023-2024 pp 71-84. University of Chicago Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures Publications.

ISAC Annual Report 2023-2024, 2024

Excavations by the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC) of the University of Chicag... more Excavations by the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC) of the University of Chicago at Tell Surezha on the Erbil Plain in the Kurdistan region of northeastern Iraq investigate the prehistoric roots of the earliest towns and later cities in northern Mesopotamia during the Chalcolithic period from roughly 5500 to 3500 bce. Surezha is an ideal site for exploring the chronology, economy, and developmental sequence of the Erbil Plain in this period because the high mound at Surezha is largely prehistoric, with only limited later occupation from the Middle Assyrian period and the Iron Age. Located at the southwestern edge of the modern village of Gund-i Surezha, the ancient site of Surezha has three parts: (1) the prehistoric high mound, (2) the terrace, and (3) the Hellenistic through Islamic-period lower town. The cone-shaped high mound and terrace measure approximately 188 m from northwest to southeast and 150 m from southwest to northeast, with an area of approximately 2.8 ha (fig. 1). The high mound rises to a height of 16 m above the terrace. The terrace surrounding the base of the high mound is about 2 m high and slopes gradually down over a distance of approximately 70 m to the lower town, which extends out from the terrace in all directions. Taken together, the archaeological deposits in these three areas total approximately 20 ha.

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2024 (Gil J. Stein) “Cultural Heritage Preservation in Central Asia” ISAC Annual Report 2023-2024 pp 15-21. University of Chicago Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures Publications.

ISAC Annual Report 2023-2024, 2024

The fifteenth-to sixteenth-century Sufi mosque of Langar Ota is located in a mountainous region o... more The fifteenth-to sixteenth-century Sufi mosque of Langar Ota is located in a mountainous region of Uzbekistan, 104 km southwest of Samarkand, historically one of the most important cities of the Silk Road. Although Sufi shrines, mosques, mausolea, and lodges are known and preserved in urban centers of Central Asia and the Silk Road such as Bukhara, Samarkand, and Shahrisabz, the Langar Ota mosque is one of the few rural Sufi mosques in Uzbekistan that has survived mostly intact since the fifteenth century, when it was built during the reign of the Timurid dynasty as a khanaqah (lodge) by the Ishqiyyah Sufi order. The mosque housed three important Islamic relics: a collection of very early Qurʾans, the shajjara (geneology) of the sheikhs (spiritual leaders) of the Ishqiyyah order, and the khirqah (cloak) of the Prophet Muhammad. Even though these relics are no longer kept in Langar Ota, the mosque and the mausoleum of Sheikh Muhammad Sadiq are still important centers for pilgrimage. More than 1,000 pilgrims per month visit the mausoleum and mosque of Langar Ota. The Langar Ota mosque itself is also remarkable for its beautiful cut-tile mosaic decoration, which has survived for 600 years.

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2016 (Alexia Smith, Philip Graham, and Gil Stein) “Ubaid Plant Use at Tell Zeidan, Syria” Paléorient 41 (2): 51-69

A Tale of Two Oikumenai

Ubaid plant use at Tell Zeidan, Syria

Paléorient, 2015

Cet article présente les données de 47 échantillons archéobotaniques collectés dans des zones dom... more Cet article présente les données de 47 échantillons archéobotaniques collectés dans des zones domestiques et non domestiques à Tell Zeidan, large site de l’Obeïd en Syrie, à la confluence de l’Euphrate et du Balikh. De nombreuses structures pyrotechniques indiquent une production artisanale intensive et répétée. Alors que les restes de bois carbonisés sont très bien représentés dans toutes les structures de combustion les traces de fumier sont rares, ce qui suggère l’utilisation prédominante du bois comme combustible. Les plantes cultivées attestées sur le site comprennent Hordeum vulgare subsp. distichum, Triticum dicoccum, free-threshing T. durum/ aestivum, Lens culinaris, Vicia ervilia, cf. Pisum sp. et Linum usitatissimum. Des différences entre les échantillons provenant des zones domestiques et industrielles sont statistiquement significatives. En général, la préservation des plantes et la diversité de leur utilisation sont plus élevées dans les zones domestiques que dans la zone de production, même si des plantes cultivées sont attestées dans les deux espaces. Les données relatives à la balle des céréales et aux espèces adventices indiquent que les premières étapes du traitement des récoltes se déroulaient hors du site et que le blé vêtu était stocké sous la forme d’épillets nettoyés pour des besoins ultérieurs. Il est possible que ce traitement des récoltes ait été effectué en commun juste après la moisson. Les habitants de Tell Zeidan ont pu pratiquer une agriculture utilisant les eaux de décrue et la nature imprévisible de ce système peut avoir suscité une réponse sociale qui a conduit au développement d’une complexité sociale accrue.

Regional Economic Integration in Early State Societies: Third Millennium B.C. Pastoral Production at Gritille, Southeast Turkey

Paléorient, 1987

This paper uses faunal remains from the third millennium B.C. village site of Gritille in southea... more This paper uses faunal remains from the third millennium B.C. village site of Gritille in southeast Turkey to study productive specialization in early state societies. The degree of specialization in rural pastoral production reflects the extent of village integration within larger regional economic systems. Ethnographic and archaeological studies suggest several models of expected herd composition under different forms of generalized and specialized pastoral production. The Gritille caprine remains match the patterns expected under generalized herding strategies and rural economic autonomy. Poorly integrated regional economies of this type may be characteristic of small-scale or primitive state societies in the early stages of development.

Material Culture and Social Identity : the Evidence for a 4th Millennium BC Mesopotamian Uruk Colony at Hacinebi, Turkey

Paléorient, 1999

Archaeological analyses of interaction between colonies and host communities require an understan... more Archaeological analyses of interaction between colonies and host communities require an understanding of the relationship between material culture and alternative forms of social identity. Foreign material culture assemblages in indigenous settlements may reflect exchange, emulation, or actual ethnic differences between colonizing groups and local host communities. Establishing the presence of colonies and reconstructing the organization of cross-cultural interaction is especially important for the Uruk expansion - which has been termed the world's earliest known colonial network. This paper presents a cross-culturally applicable definition of colonies, and suggests ways to distinguish between the archaeological signatures of trade, emulation, and colonization. Based on these criteria, the available evidence indicates that the Uruk Mesopotamian art if actual materials at the site of Hacinebi in the Euphrates River valley of southeast Turkey result from the presence of an ethnically distinct colony inside the 4th millennium local Anatolian settlement.

Heterogeneity, power, and political economy: Some current research issues in the archaeology of Old World complex societies

Journal of Archaeological Research, Mar 1, 1998

Recent research on Old World chiefdoms and states has largely retreated from the general comparat... more Recent research on Old World chiefdoms and states has largely retreated from the general comparative explanatory paradigm of the 1970s and has focused instead on more historically oriented analyses of culture-specific developmental trajectories. Both theoretical and empirical work tend to emphasize a heterogeneous, conflict-based model of complex society and political economy. This analytical framework has been quite successful in documenting variation and historically determined patterning in the organization of urbanism, craft production, specialization, and exchange. I present an overview of this research and argue that we now need to reintegrate culturally specific analyses within a modified comparative~generalizing perspective on complexity.

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The War-Ravaged Cultural Heritage of Afghanistan: An Overview of Projects of Assessment, Mitigation, and Preservation

Near Eastern Archaeology, Sep 1, 2015

A fghanistan is the quintessential "crossroads of cultures" where the civilizations of the Near E... more A fghanistan is the quintessential "crossroads of cultures" where the civilizations of the Near East, Central Asia, South Asia, and China interacted over the millennia in a constantly shifting mixture of trade, emulation, migration, imperial formations, and periodic conflict (fig. 1). This complex history of contacts gave rise to some of the most important archaeological, artistic, architectural, and textual treasures in world cultural heritage-encompassing cultures as diverse as the Bronze Age cities of Bactria, the Persian Empire, the easternmost colonies founded by Alexander the Great and his Hellenistic successors, the Kushan Empire astride the Silk Road, the monumental Bamiyan Buddhas, and Islamic dynasties such as the Ghaznavids, Timurids, and Moghuls. Excavations at sites such as Ak Qupruq,

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A Theoretical Model for Political Economy and Social Identity in the Old Assyrian Colonies of Anatolia

TÜBA - AR, Jun 15, 2008

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Fanning the Flames of Complexity: Archaeobotanical Approaches to the Study of Fuel Economies at Late Chalcolithic Sites in Northern Mesopotamia

The 84th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, 2019

Rethinking World-Systems

Aks of War

Proceedings of the 9th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 2016

Tony Wilkinson (1948–2014)

Iraq, 2015

Professor Tony Wilkinson, of the Archaeology Department at the University of Durham (UK), passed ... more Professor Tony Wilkinson, of the Archaeology Department at the University of Durham (UK), passed away on December 25, 2014, after living many years with cancer. He was 66 years old. Tony is generally acknowledged to have been one of the world's foremost experts in landscape archaeology, and as the theoretician, methodological innovator, and field archaeologist who revolutionized our understanding of the ancient landscapes of Mesopotamia and the broader Middle East. Tony James Wilkinson was born August 14, 1948, and grew up in Essex. He trained as a geographer at the University of London-Birkbeck College, and received his Masters Degree at McMaster University (Ontario, Canada), studying the hydrology of overland water flow in the Canadian Arctic. Tony then shifted his intellectual focus to archaeology, and conducted innovative fieldwork projects of wet and dry landscape archaeology in the UK and across the Middle East in the varied and disparate terrains of Oman,

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