Logo for the Mapping Project

The Mapping Project

Harvard Semitic Museum / Harvard Center for Jewish Studies

Harvard Semitic Museum and The Harvard Center for Jewish Studies attempt to provide scientific legitimacy to the mythological underpinnings of Zionism. The Harvard Semitic Museum, for example, features a "full-scale reproduction of a first millennium B.C. house from ancient Israel" in their first floor gallery. The Harvard Center for Jewish Studies (located within the Semitic Museum) includes fellowship programs with ties to Israeli universities, and also partners with on-campus Zionist organizations including Hillel and Chabad.

Archaeological projects connected to the Harvard Semitic Museum and the Harvard Center for Jewish Studies include excavations at Ashkelon, specifically excavations of "an ancient Philistine cemetery." As can be seen from a July 2019 press release shared by the museum along with other articles about these excavations posted on Harvard's museum website, Harvard researchers like David Reich have also been pushing the use of DNA analysis in archaeology to make arguments about the movement of peoples, origins, and race, a modern extension of the racist theorizing that has characterized western anthropology and archaeology from its beginnings. Every year, the Harvard Semitic Museum coordinates and sponsors the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon, led by Museum Director and Dorot Professor of the Archaeology of Israel Lawrence E. Stager. with Harvard faculty, staff, and students participating in this endeavor. [More on Harvard's connection to the Leon Levy expedition to Ashkelon here.] Adam Aja, assistant curator at the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East (housed within Harvard Semitic Museum), also participates in the excavations at Tel Shimron

6 Divinity Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138

Back to main page.