Here is where you will find the schedule of AIAS lectures for the coming months.
As you will be aware, all charities are going through hard times during the Covid-19 pandemic and the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society is no exception. Although we do not charge for our lectures, any contribution to the general costs of the Society would be more than welcome, particularly from non-members.
Anyone who would like to make a donation, large or small, can send an email to: ad***@******rg.uk for details as to how to pay by credit card.
Our regular lectures are currently being held online, via Zoom, but we are also hosting some in-person events at various locations in London and elsewhere. Check the lecture notices below for details.
2026 Lectures:
We are delighted to announce a series of lectures organised in collaboration with partner organisations.
Scriptural Vitality and the Shaping of Jewish Tradition
This webinar features Hindy Najman, Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture and a fellow at Oriel College, University of Oxford. This lecture is organised joint with the Parkes Institute at the University of Southampton.
Tuesday 3 March 2026, 6pm (GMT) on Zoom.
Please register via the link here.
This talk focuses on rethinking methodological presuppositions that are central to the field of biblical studies. A central theme of the talk is the importance and centrality of the Hellenistic period for understanding the vitality of Judaism. In contrast to standard views, I claim that this period is one of the most important and formative periods for the history of Judaism. The language that I employ is that of vitality. This is intended to signal the transformative and life-giving dynamic of a Judaism that continued to configure itself and its texts over time and in the face of great loss and the threat of destruction. This dynamic and resilient nature is exemplified by a whole host of texts across the Second Temple period. Judaism is framed by a past and a future which are textual. Through the convergence of cultures in the Hellenistic period, Scriptural traditions create patterns for the shaping of law, interpretation, and new conceptual innovation.
Hindy Najman (MA and PhD Harvard, NELC 1998) is the Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture and a fellow at Oriel College. She is the director and founder of the Centre for the Study of the Bible in Oriel College. In the University of Oxford, she is a member of the faculty of Theology and Religion, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and member of the Sub-faculty Classics, and a member of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.
From Genesis to the Four Kingdoms: World History in the Huqoq Mosaic
This webinar features Rina Talgam, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This lecture is organised joint with Oxford University
Thursday 5 February 2026, 10am (GMT)
When Humans Met Neanderthals: The Discovery from Tinshemet Cave, Israel
The webinar features Prof. Yossi Zaidner, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This lecture is organised joint with the British Friends of Hebrew University.
Wednesday 4 Feb 2026 at 5.00pm (GMT) on zoom.
Please register via the link here.
The first-ever published research on Tinshemet Cave reveals that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens in the mid-Middle Paleolithic Levant not only coexisted but actively interacted, sharing technology, lifestyles, and burial customs. These interactions fostered cultural exchange, social complexity, and behavioural innovations, such as formal burial practices and the symbolic use of ochre for decoration. The findings suggest that human connections, rather than isolation, were key drivers of technological and cultural advancements, highlighting the Levant as a crucial crossroads in early human history.
Editing Ancient Manuals of Divination: How, and Why
The webinar features Prof. Gideon Bohak, Tel Aviv University. This lecture is organised joint with Oxford University
Thursday 29 January 2026, 10am (GMT).
Herod’s Many Faces as Reflected in His Art and Architecture
The webinar features Dr. Orit Peleg-Barkat, head of the Classical Archaeology sub-department at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tuesday 13 January 2026 at 5.00pm (GMT) on zoom.
Please register via the link here.
Amongst the client kings of the early Empire, Herod is clearly the best known to scholarship, thanks to the detailed historical testimony of Flavius Josephus and the rich and nicely preserved archaeological remains of his immense construction projects. Scholarly debate has been fervently going in past decades concerning the dominance of Hellenistic and Roman influences on his rule and architecture, in an attempt to decipher the riddle of his enigmatic character.
In recent years, ongoing archaeological excavations at Herodium led by the Hebrew University exposed a mausoleum, identified by the excavators as the King’s final resting place. Also exposed was a small theater with a beautifully decorated royal box, including pictures with vistas and human figures, unprecedented in Herod’s other construction projects, that generally conform to the Jewish norm of abstention from depicting human figures. These two finds, along with other new discoveries at Herodium have led to a drastic change in our understanding of the site, named after Herod, and clearly one of his most important endeavors.
Another important endeavor of the King, if not the most important, was his reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the enlargement of the Temple mount platform that allowed him to construct a large basilica on its southern side, the stoa basileios. Old excavations by the Hebrew University at the foot of the southern wall, where architectural pieces from this structure were collected, are only now being published, shedding light on Herod’s Royal Stoa and the architectural decoration of the Herodian Temple Mount.
The talk will discuss the implications of these new findings on our perception of Herod’s architecture and the multiple identities and influences it reflects.
Bio: Dr. Orit Peleg-Barkat is a Classical archaeologist specializing in Hellenistic and Roman art and architecture of the southern Levant (4th c. BCE – 4th c. CE). She is currently the head of the Classical Archaeology sub-department at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and runs excavations and field work at several sites, including the Jewish Byzantine-period village at En Gedi by the Dead Sea, a Roman temple and a Jewish pyramidal funerary monument and hideout complex at Horvat Midras in the Judean Foothills as well as a monumental early Roman Structure south of the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. Her research and fieldwork projects are funded by grants from the Israel Science Fund, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, etc.