Prof. Dr. Bethany J. Walker

PhD students:

• 5 graduated (from the University of Bonn, Islamic Archaeology)
• 6 graduated (from other universities, as 2nd or 3rd advisor)
• 18 current students

MA students

• 3 graduated
• 5 current MA majors

Monographs

•  Life on the Farm in Late Medieval Jerusalem: The Village of Beit Mazmil, its occupants and their industry over five centuries. Monographs in Islamic Archaeology. Sheffield: Equinox. (in press for early 2024 publication -contributing editor).
• Jordan in the Late Middle Ages: Transformation of the Mamluk Frontier. Chicago: Middle East Documentation Center, University of Chicago, Chicago Studies on the Middle East Monograph Series, 2011.

Edited Works

• Journal of Islamic Archaeology (Equinox): https://www.equinoxpub.com/journals/index.php/JIA. (2014 – on.) - senior/founding editor
• History and Society during the Mamluk Period (1250-1517). Studies of the Annemarie Schimmel Institute for Advanced Study III, ed. Bethany J. Walker and Abdelkader al-Ghouz (Bonn: V&R Press, 2021).
• Oxford Handbook of Islamic Archaeology, ed. Bethany J. Walker, Timothy Insoll, and Corisande Fenwick (Oxford University Press, 2020)
• Living with Nature and Things: Contributions to a New Social History of the Middle Islamic Periods, ed. Bethany J. Walker and Abdelkader al-Ghouz (Bonn: V&R Press, 2020).
• Mamluk Studies Review 20 (2017) – guest editor, the Annemarie Schimmel Kolleg issue.
• Reflections of Empire: Archaeological and Ethnographic Studies on the Pottery of the Ottoman Levant,, ed. Bethany J. Walker. Boston: ASOR, Annual of the American School of Oriental Research, #64, 2009.
• Le pouvoir à l’âge des sultanats dans le Bilâd al-Shâm, Proceedings from the IFPO-ACOR Conference of same title, 13-15 May 2005, Amman; Published under Bulletin des Études Orientales 57, supplement (2008); Damascus.  (Co-edited with Jean-François Salles.)
• Mamluk Studies Review 11.1 (2007), guest editor, special volume on the Mamluk provinces.

Articles/Book Chapters

• “Imperial interventions in daily life: the eastern Mediterranean under early Ottoman rule”, in “Mediterranean historical archaeology in the twenty-first century: a critical assessment” (special issue of Historical Archaeology, November 2023, edited by Russell Palmer and Michael Given). Open Access: https://rdcu.be/drdmX
• “The Changing Face of Agricultural ‘Estates’ in 15th and 16th-c Palestine: the Commercialization of Khirbet Beit Mazmīl”, pp. 325-357 in The Mamluk-Ottoman Transition: Continuity and Change in Egypt and Bilad al-Sham in the Sixteenth Century, Vol. II ed. Stephan Conermann and Gül Şen (University of Bonn Press, 2022).
• “Peasant Dependencies in Medieval Islam: Whose Agency in Food Production and Migration?”, BCDSS Working Paper (https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/images/pdf-files/working-papers/wp-walker.pdf), January 2022
• “Echoes of Late Antique Esbus in Mamluk Ḥisbān (Jordan)”, pp. 103-122 in Cities as palimpsests? Erasure, exposure and other responses to the past in eastern Mediterranean urbanism, ed. Beth Clark, Elizabeth Key Fowden, Suna Çağaptay, Edward Zychowicz-Coghill, Louise Blanke. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).
• “Reconstructing Homeland at a Time of Globalizing Change: Peasant Migration in Late Medieval Syria”. Pp. 544-582 in Levantine Entanglements Cultural Productions, Long-Term Changes and Globalizations in the Eastern Mediterranean, ed. Terje Stordalen and Øystein S LaBianca (Equinox, 2021)
• “Searching for a Home in Long-Abandoned Places: the Resettlement of Late Medieval Syria”, pp. 451-472 in Humanistische Anthropologie. Ethnologische Begegnungen in einer globalisierten Welt. Festschrift fur Christoph Antweiler zu seinem fünfundsechzigsten Geburtstag von seinem Freund*innen und Kolleg*innen, ed. Trang-Dai Vu, Oliver Pye, Hans Dieter Olschleger und Günther Distelrath. Bonner Asienstudien (Bonn: V&R Press, 2021).
• “Peasants, rural economy and cash crops in medieval Islam”, pp. 91-113 in Markets, “money” and exchanges: Their economic logics in pre-modern societies, ed. Juan Carlos Moreno García (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2021).
• “Ḫirbet Bēt Mazmīl, Investigations of Medieval Jerusalem’s Hinterland: Interim Report on the 2015 and 2017 Field Seasons”, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Palaestina-Verein 136.2 (2020): 191-234. (co-authored with Benjamin Dolinka, with Walker as lead author)
• “Editorial Introduction”, “Section Introduction: Central Islamic Lands”, and “Southern Syria”, pp. 1-16, 17-19, and 49-79 in Oxford Handbook of Islamic Archaeology, ed. Bethany J. Walker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).
• “Jordan’s Northern Highlands in the Later Islamic Periods: Rural Prosperity Beyond the Decapolis”, pp. 143-163 in Drawing the Threads Together: Studies on Archaeology in Honour of Karin Bartl, ed. Alexander Ahrens, Dörte Rokitta-Krumnow, Franziska Bloch, and Claudia Bührig. Zaphon marru 10 (Münster: Zaphon Verlag, 2020).
• “Khirba”, Encyclopaedia of Islam III, Part 2021.1: 73-75 – (available online at: https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/khirba-COM_35538?s.num=32&s.start=20).
• “Agricultural Terracing and Rural Revival in Late Medieval Palestine” (jointly written with Yuval Gadot, Yelena Elgart-Sharon, and Omer Ze’evi; Walker as lead author), pp.651-661 in Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, vol. II, Islamic Archaeology section ed. Lorenz Korn and Anja Heidenreich (Wiesbaden: Harrossowitz Verlag, 2020)
• “The Physical World as a Social World”, pp. 11-28 in Living with Nature and Things: Contributions to a New Social History of the Middle Islamic Periods, ed. Bethany J. Walker and Abdelkader al-Ghouz (Bonn: V&R Press, 2020).
• “The ‘Liquid Landscapes’ of the Late Mamluk Mediterranean: Rural Perspectives on the Ever-Changing Sultanate”, Pp. 261-280 in The Mamluk Sultanate from the Perspective of Regional and World History: Economic, Social and Cultural Development in an Era of Increasing International Interaction and Competition, ed. Reuven Amitai and Stephan Conermann (Bonn: University of Bonn Press, 2019)
• “Tall Ḥisbān 2016 Excavation Season: Household Archaeology in the Medieval Village”, Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 59 (2018): 557-595. (co-authored with Tarina Greer, Reem al-Shqour, Aren LaBianca, Robert D. Bates, Jeffrey P. Hudon, Warren Schultz, Julian Henderson, Chiara Corbino, Sofia Laparidou, Annette Hansen, and Øystein S. LaBianca; Walker as lead author)
• “Settlement Abandonment and Site Formation Processes: Case Studies from Late Islamic Syria”, Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 2016, ed. M. Ritter and M. Guidetti (2018), pp. 681-694.
• “Did the Mamluks Have an Environmental Sense?: Natural Resource Management in Syrian Villages”, Mamluk Studies Review 20 (2017): 167-245 – co-written with Sofia Laparidou, Annette Hansen, and Chiara Corbino (Walker as lead author)
• “Residue Analysis as Evidence of Activity Areas and Phased Abandonment in a Medieval Jordanian Village.”, Journal of Islamic Archaeology 4.3 (2017): 217-248. (co-authored with R. Bates, S. Polla, A. Springer, and S. Weihe; Walker as lead author)
• “The Struggle over Water: Evaluating the ‘Water Culture’ of Syrian Peasants under Mamluk Rule”. Pp. 287-310 (Ch. 14).in Developing Perspectives in Mamluk History , ed. Yuval Ben-Bassat. (Brill, 2017).
• “Tall Hisban 2013 and 2014 Excavation Seasons: Exploration of the Medieval Village and Long-Term Water Systems”. Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 58 (2017): 483-523.   (co-written with Robert Bates, Jeff Hudon, and Øystein LaBianca, with Walker as lead author).
• “Archäologie”, pp. 837-846 in Bonner Enzyklopädie der Globalität, ed. Ludger Kühnhardt and Tilman Mayer. (Heidelberg: Springer Verlag. 2017).
• “Early Ottoman/Late Islamic I/post-Mamluk: What are the archaeological traces of the 16th century in Syria?” pp. 321-344 in The Mamluk-Ottoman Transition: Continuity and Change in Egypt and Bilad al-Sham in the Sixteenth Century, ed. Stephan Conermann and Gül Şen (University of Bonn Press, 2017).
• “Plant pathways: a new methodological approach to using seed impressions in ṭābūn fragments to understand the food economy in Mamluk Tall Ḥisbān”, co-authored with Annette Hansen (lead author) and Frits Heinrich, in Tijdschrift voor Mediteranee Archeologie  (Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology) 56 (2017): 58-69, special issue entitled Mediterranean Food Economies, ed. Annette M. Hansen and Frits Heinrich .
• “Mediaeval Period to Colonial”, pp. 159-198  in Vasilikos Valley Project 10: The Field Survey of the Vasilikos Valley.Volume II. Artefacts Recovered by the Field Survey, ed. Ian A Todd. (Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology series LXXI:10). Uppsala, Åströms Förlag, 2016.
• “The Northern Jordan Project and the ‘Liquid Landscapes” of Late Islamic Bilad al-Sham”,  in Landscapes of the Islamic World: Archaeology, History, and Ethnography, ed. Stephen McPhillips and Paul Wordworth (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016). Pp. 184-199.
• “On Archives and Archaeology: Reassessing Mamluk Rule from Documentary Sources and Jordanian Fieldwork”, in Material Evidence and Narrative Sources: Interdisciplinary Studies of the History of  the Middle East, eds. Daniella Talmon-Heller and Katia Cytryn-Silverman (Leiden: Brill, 2015). Pp. 113-143.
• “Production and Distribution of Hand-Made Geometric-Painted (HMGP) and Plain Handmade Wares of the Mamluk Period: A Case Study from Northern Israel, Jerusalem, and Hisban”, (jointly authored with R. Smadar Gabrieli – as lead author – and David Ben-Shlomo), Journal of Islamic Archaeology 1.2 (2014): 192-230.
• “Islamic ‘Art’ History: Some Post-Colonial Perspectives” (with Stephan Conermann, Conermann as lead author). Annemarie Schimmel Kolleg Working Papers, December 2014 (http://www.mamluk.uni-bonn.de/publications/working-paper/ask-wp-20-islamic-art-history.pdf).
• “Byzantine to Modern Ceramics”, a chapter in Polis-Pyrgos Archaeological Project: Post-Prehistoric Ceramics and Chalcolithic to Iron Age Ground Stone Artefacts from the Field Survey in Northwestern Cyprus, 1992-1999, ed. Dariusz Maliszewski, (Warsaw: Creator Publishing House, 2014). Pp. 97-137.
• “Exercising Power on the Mamluk Frontier: The Phenomenon of the Small Rural Citadel, Case of Tall Hisban”, in Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, vole. 3, ed. P. Bielínski, R. Kolínski, D. Lawecka, A. Soltysiak, and Z. Wyganáska (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2014). Pp. 395-408.
• “Mobility and Migration in Mamluk Syria: The Dynamism of Villagers ‘on the Move’”, Proceedings of the Conference “Everything is on the Move: The ‘Mamluk Empire’ as a Node in (Trans-) Regional Networks”, ed. Stephan Conermann. (Bonn University Press, Mamluk Studies Series, 2014). Pp. 325-348.
• “Planned Villages and Rural Resilience on the Mamluk Frontier: A Preliminary Report on the 2013 Excavation Season at Tall Hisban”, in History and Society during the Mamluk Period (1250-1517). Studies of the Annemarie Schimmel Research College I, ed. Stephan Conermann. (Bonn: University of Bonn, 2014). Pp. 157-192. (draft available on-line at http://www.mamluk.uni-bonn.de/publications/working-paper/ask-wp-11-walker.pdf)
• “Ottoman Archaeology: Localizing the Imperial”, a chapter for Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, vol. 12 (2014), ed. C. Smith. New York: Springer. Pp.: 5642-5653.
• “Ayyubid and Mamluk Jordan”, in Atlas of Jordan, Territories and Society, ed. Myriam Ababsa. (Amman: Institut Français du Proche Orient, 2013). Pp. 184-187.
• “Islamization of central Jordan in the 7th-9th centuries: lessons learned from Tall Hisban”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 40 (2013):  143-175.
• “Pèlerinages et mausolées à la fin de l’Empire Ottoman en Jourdanie », in Atlas de Jordanie, ed. Myriam Ababsa (Amman : Institut Français du Proche Orient, 2013). Pp. 202-204 (lead author,; co-authored with Norig Neveu).
• “Settlement Decline or Internal Migration?: ‘Reading’ Anew the History of Late Mamluk Jordan”, in Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan 11 (2013): 93-104.
• “What Can Archaeology Contribute to the New Mamlukology?: Where Culture Studies and Social Theory Meet”, in Ubi sumus? Quo vademus” Mamluk Studies – State of the Art, ed. Stephan Conermann. (Bonn University Press, Mamluk Studies Series, 2013). Pp. 311-335.
• “The Agricultural Dimension in Imperial-Peasant Relations in Mamluk Jordan”, Annales Islamologiques 46 (2012): 95-113.
• “Political Ecology and the Landscape of Northern Jordan in the Late Islamic Periods”, in Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, vol. I, ed. Alison Gascoigne (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2012). Pp. 711-723.
• “The Islamic Age”, Pp. 507-594 in J.A. Sauer and L.G. Herr (eds.), Ceramic Finds: Typological and Technological Studies of the Pottery Remains from Tell Hesban and Vicinity. Hesban 11. Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2012.
• “Questioning Transjordan’s Historic Desertification: a Critical Review of the Paradigm of ‘Empty Lands’”, Levant. 44.1 (2012): 100-126. (co-written with Bernhard Lucke, Mohammed Shunnaq, Atef Shiyab, Zeidoun al-Muheisen, Hussein al-Sababha, Rupert Bäumler, and Michael Schmidt).
• “Northern Jordan Project 2010: the al-Turra Survey”, Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 55 (2011): 509-536. (co-written with Mohammed Shunnaq, David Byers, Muwafaq al-Bataineh, Sofia Laparidou, Bernhard Lucke, and Atef Shiyab – Walker as lead author)
• “The Phenomenon of the ‘Disappearing’ Villages of Late Medieval Jordan, as Reflected in Archaeological and Economic Sources”,  Bulletin d’Études Orientales 60 (2011): 223-237. 
• “Transjordan as the Mamluk Frontier: Imperial Conceptions of Authority and Space”, in La Transgiordania Neu Secoli XII - XIII e le ‘Frontiere' Del Mediterraneo Medievale: Trans-Jordan in the 12th and 13th Ccnturies and the ‘Frontiers' of the Medieval Mediterranean, ed. Guido Vannini. Oxford: BAR, 2011 publication. Pp. 197-204.
• “From Ceramics to Social Theory: Reflections on Mamluk Archaeology Today”, Mamluk Studies Review 14 (2010): 109-157.
• “Transjordan as the Mamluk Frontier: Imperial Conceptions of Authority and Space” in Archeologia del Mediterraneo medievale, ed. Guido Vannini. Oxford: BAR, 2009. (co-written with Michele Nuciotti and Francesca Dotti; Walker as lead author).
• “Identifying the Late Islamic period ceramically: Preliminary observations on Ottoman wares from central and northern Jordan”, in  Reflections of Empire: Archaeological and Ethnographic Studies on the Pottery of the Ottoman Levant, ed. Bethany J. Walker, Boston: ASOR, 2009.  Pp. 37-66.
• “Imperial Transitions and Peasant Society in Middle and Late Islamic Jordan”. Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan 10 (2009): 75-86.
• “Popular Responses to Mamluk Fiscal Reforms in Syria”. Bulletin d’Études Orientales 58 (2009): 51-67.
• “Shawbak and the Mamluk Transjordan” (also in Italian as “Shawbak e la Transgiordania mamelucca”, in Da Petra a Shawbak: Archeologia di una Frontiera, ed. Guido Vannini and Michele Nucciotti, Guinto: Florence, 2009. Pp. 126-131. (co-authored with Francesca and Michele Nucciotti, with Walker as lead author).
• “Slaves on Horses: The Legacy of the Mamluks in Jordan”, in Global Moments in the Levant: A Unifob Global Research Project, ed. Leif Manger and Øystein S. LaBianca, Bergen: Unifob Global, University of Bergen, 2009. (Contributions, as well, to chapters entitled “Imperial Projects in the Levant” (pp. 212-227) and “Commercial Elites” (pp. 228-233).
• “The Tribal Dimension in Mamluk-Jordanian Relations”. Mamluk Studies Review 13.1 (2009): 82-105.
• “Soils and Land Use in the Decapolis Region (Northern Jordan): Implications for landscape development and the Impact of Climate Change”, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Palaestina-Vereins 124.2 (2008): 171-188. (co-written with B. Lucke, Z. al-Saad, M. Schmidt, R. Bäumler, S.O. Lorenz, P. Udluft, and K.-U, Heussner).
• “Twixt Cross and Crescent: American Contributions to the History of Crusader and Islamic Cyprus”, in “American Archaeologists on Cyprus: Celebrating 25 Years of the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute”, ed. Danielle Parks and Ann-Marie Knoblauch. Special volume of Near Eastern Archaeology 71.1-2 (2008): 104-110.
• “The Role of Agriculture in Mamluk-Jordanian Power Relations”, in  Le pouvoir à l’âge des sultanats dans le Bilâd al-Shâm ed. Bethany J. Walker and Jean-François Salles, IFPO-ACOR, Amman, Feb. 13-15, 2005. (Published as supplement 57 of Bulletin d’Études Orientales, 2008). Pp. 77-96.
• “The Northern Jordan Project 2006: Village Life in Mamluk and Ottoman Hubras and Sahm: A Preliminary Report”. Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 51 (2007): 429-470. (lengthy technical report co-authored with Ellen Kenney, Lynda Carroll, Laura Holzweg, Stéphanie Boulogne, and Bernhard Lucke – myself as lead author).
• “Peasants, Pilgrims, and the Body Politic: The Northern Jordan Project and the Landscapes of the Islamic Periods”. In Crossing Jordan – North American Contributions to the Archaeology of Jordan, ed. Thomas E. Levy, P.M. Michèle Daviau, Randall W. Younker, and May Shaer. Bedforshire, UK: Equinox Publishing, Ltd. 2007. Pp. 473-480.
• “The Politics of Land Management in Medieval Islam: The Village of Malka in Northern Jordan”, in Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan 9 (2007): 253-261.
• “Regional Markets and their Impact on Agriculture in Mamluk and Ottoman Transjordan”, in On the Fringe of Society: Archaeological and Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives on Pastoral and Agricultural Societies, ed. Benjamin Saidel and Evelyn van der Steen. Oxford: BAR International Series 1657, 2007. Pp. 117-125.
• “Rural Sufism as Channels of Charity in Nineteenth-Century Jordan”, in Interpreting Welfare and Relief in the Middle East, ed. Nefissa Naguib and Inger Marie Okkenhaug. Social, Economic and Political Studies of the Middle East and Asia, vol. 103. Leiden: Brill, 2007.  Pp. 217-234.
• “Sowing the Seeds of Rural Decline?  Agriculture as an Economic Barometer for Late Mamluk Jordan”, Mamluk Studies Review 11.1 (2007): 173-199.
• “Tall Hisban: Palimpsest of Great and Little Traditions of Transjordan and the Ancient Near East”, (co-written with Øystein S. LaBianca). In Crossing Jordan, as above. Pp. 111-120.
• “The Northern Jordan Survey 2003 – Agriculture in Late Islamic Malka and Hubras Villages: A Preliminary Report on the First Season”, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 339 (2005): 67-111.
• “The Globalizing Effects of Hajj in the Medieval and Modern Eras”, in Connectivity in Antiquity: Globalization as Long Term Historical Process., ed. Æystein S. LaBianca and Sandra Arnold Scham. London: Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2005. Pp. 64-76.
• “Ceramic Evidence for Political Transformations in Early Mamluk Egypt”, Mamluk Studies Review 8.1 (2004): 1-114. (This is the published version of my revised dissertation.)
• “Mamluk Investment in the Transjordan: A ‘Boom and Bust’ Economy”, Mamluk Studies Review 8.2 (2004): 119-147.
• “The Umayyad Mosque at Damascus: Commemoration, Power, and Memory”, Near Eastern Archaeology 67.2 (2004): 26-39.
• “The Byzantine and Medieval Pottery”, in “Polis-Pyrgos Archaeological Project: Fifth Preliminary Report on the 1999 Survey Season in Northwestern Cyprus”, by Dariusz Maliszewski et al., Thetis 10 (2003): 7-38.
• “The Islamic Qusur of Tall Hisban: Preliminary Report on the 1998 and 2001 Seasons”, Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 47 (2003): 443-471. (cowritten with Øystein S. LaBianca).
• “Mamluk Investment in Southern Bilad al-Sham in the Fourteenth Century: The Case of Hisban”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 62.3 (2003): 241-261.
• “Southern Syria in the Islamic Period: Political Periphery or Nexus?”, in One Hundred Years of American Archaeology in the Levant: Proceedings of the American Schools of Oriental Research Centennial Celebration, Washington, DC, April 2000, ed. Doug Clark and Victor Matthews, Boston, ASOR Monograph Series, 2003. Pp. 385-409.
• “The Late Ottoman Cemetery in Field L, Tall Hisban”, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 322 (2001): 47-65.
• “Madaba Plains Project, Tall Hisban, 1998”, Andrews University Seminary Studies 38.1 (2000): 9-21. (Written with Æystein S. LaBianca and Paul J. Ray, Jr.).
• “The Social Implications of Textile Development in Fourteenth-Century Egypt”. Mamluk Studies Review 4 (2000): 167-217.
• “Militarization to Nomadization: The Middle and Late Islamic Periods”. Near Eastern Archaeology 62.4 (1999): 202-232. 
• “New Approaches to Working with Old Maps - Computer Cartography for the Archaeologist”. Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 31 (1994): 189-200.
• “On Timurids and Their Astrologers: Examining a Royal Horoscope in the Wellcome Institute”. Journal of the Association of Graduates in Near Eastern Studies 5.1 (1994): 5-10.

Misc. Publications

• 19 book reviews

• 18 short technical reports (newsletter form)

• Chair, American Society of Overseas Research Consultation for Dig Directors in Jordan (liaison between Jordanian Department of Antiquities and ACOR North American dig directors) – Nov. 2001 – today.
• Member, American Center of Research in Amman Board of Trustees, 2010-today. Member, Library (from 2010), Fellowships (from 2011), and Strategic Planning and Development (from 2011, chairing from 2013) subcommittees.
• Member of American Schools of Oriental Research Board of Trustees, 2004-2007.