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The Ancient World
Lectures and lecture series about the ancient world


ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

David R. Lipovitch, PhD

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I have been studying the ancient world since I was a child fascinated by the archaeology and mythology of Egypt, the Aztecs, and countless other cultures of antiquity. As an undergraduate at the University of Toronto, after a brief diversion in physical chemistry, I found myself enrolled in double majors studying anthropology and the archaeology of the ancient Near East. Thanks to the encouragement of my mentors there I decided after completing my Honours BA in 1989, to continue my studies and earned an AM (1993) and a PhD (1999) in Hebrew Bible and archaeology from Harvard University. While working on my various degrees I excavated and surveyed in southern Ontario working with both prehistoric Native Canadian sites and historic Euro-Canadian sites, and at Ashkelon, Israel. My dissertation, Can These Bones Live Again? An Analysis of the Persian Period Non-Candid Mammalian Faunal Remains from Tel Ashkelon, examined a poorly understood time period at this important site and introduced me to the subfield of zooarchaeology (the study of animal remains in archaeology). Since then I have continued to work on or with excavations in Ontario, Israel, Jordan, and Turkey (where I am currently the Staff Zooarchaeologist at the University of Toronto's excavations at Tell Tayinat).

I have been giving public lectures since the 1990s and have done so in three different countries and three different languages. I am an award-winning educator who has taught everything from kindergarten to graduate school. I continue to be an active researcher in archaeology and am currently a Research Affiliate at the University of Toronto's Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations and an instructor in the Departments of History and Archaeology & Heritage Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. I live with my wife Jamie, my cat Cuyler, and my dog Eligh in Waterloo, Ontario.

If you would like to ask me a question about the ancient world, please feel free to do so by submitting a question at Quora.com and asking me to answer it. (If my name does not show up in the list of suggested "experts," then I can be found if you search on "David Lipovitch")

For more information or to book an engagement, please, contact us at:
Dlipovitch@theancientworld.ca or call us at 416-318-9197.

Last modified: 6 July 2023. (c) 2023, David R. Lipovitch. All Rights Reserved.