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Dr Zachary Thomas

Lecturer
National School of Arts and Humanities

Dr. Zachary Thomas is a Levantine archaeologist and historian of ancient Israel, with expertise in the early Iron Age/early monarchy, anthropological and theoretical approaches, and ceramics. He completed his doctorate at Macquarie University in under the supervision of Dr Kyle Keimer in 2019, and was a Visting Research Fellow and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem during his candidature. Before coming to ACU, he was Postdoctoral Fellow at the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University. He has excavated throughout Israel and has been a staff member of multiple leading excavation projects, including at Tel Abel Beth Maacah, Khirbet er-Ra’i, and Tel Lachish. He has taught and given invited talks at multiple institutions, including Macquarie University, Alphacrucis University College, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, and the University of Michigan.

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Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

• -w/Erez Ben-Yosef, ‘Complexity without Monumentality in Biblical Times’, Journal of Archaeological Research 32:1 (2024), pp. 59–101 [https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-023-09184-0]

• -‘The Political History of Megiddo in the early Iron Age and the Ambiguities of Evidence’, Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History 9:1 (2022), pp. 69–94
  -w/Kyle H. Keimer, ‘Etic and Emic Expressions of Power in Ancient Israel: Recalibrating a Discussion’, Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society “Ex Oriente Lux” 48 (2020-2021 [published 2022]) pp. 69-92

• -w/Chris McKinny, ‘Historical Geography Gone Awry at Khirbet er-Raʿi – The Identifications of Ziklag and (non-Biblical) Phathura/Pethor’, Israel Exploration Journal 72:1 (2022), pp. 66-88

• -‘On the Archaeology of Tenth Century BCE Israel and the Idea of the ‘State'’, Palestine Exploration Quarterly 153:3 (2021), pp. 244-257

• -w/Yosef Garfinkel and Kyle H. Keimer, ‘The Early Iron Age IIA Ceramic Assemblage from Khirbet al-Ra‘i’, Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology 1 (2021), pp. 375-449

• -‘Polycentrism and the Terminology of Polity in Early Israel’, Bible Lands E-Review (2019/S2), https://biblelandsreview.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/thomas-blmj-polycentrism.pdf

• -‘A Matter of Interpretation: On Methodology and the Archaeology of the United Monarchy’, Archaeology and Text 2 (2018), pp. 25-51

• -‘Debating the United Monarchy: Let’s See How Far We’ve Come’, Biblical Theology Bulletin 46:2 (2016), pp. 59-69

Chapters in Edited Volumes, Peer Reviewed

• -‘Early Iron Age Polities in the Southern Levant: Methodological Remarks’, in Transjordan and the Southern Levant: Exploring New Research Perspective on Ancient Ammon, Moab and Edom of the Iron Age to the Persian Period from Hebrew Bible Studies and Adjacent Fields, ed. by Benedikt Hensel (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck), pp. 15–35

• -w/Erez Ben-Yosef, ‘Theoretical and Methodological Comments on Social Complexity and State Formation in Biblical Archaeology’, in “And in Length of Days Understanding” (Job 12:12): Essays on Archaeology in the Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond in Honor of Thomas E. Levy, ed. by Erez Ben-Yosef and Ian W. N. Jones (Cham: Springer, 2023), pp. 471–533

• -‘What Is the Name of Our Discipline? Or, the Onomastic Stew That Is Archaeology in the Southern Levant’, in “And in Length of Days Understanding” (Job 12:12): Essays on Archaeology in the Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond in Honor of Thomas E. Levy, ed. by Erez Ben-Yosef and Ian W. N. Jones (Cham: Springer, 2023), pp. 555-571

Chapters in Edited Volumes, Other

• -‘Israel's Political and Administrative Structures: Pre-monarchic and Monarchic Periods’, in The Ancient Israelite World, ed. by Kyle H. Keimer and George A. Pierce (New York/London: Routledge, 2023), pp. 236-250

• -‘Olive, Olive Tree | Archaeology, Ancient Near East, and Hebrew Bible/Old Testament’, in Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, vol. 22 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024), and published online [https://www.degruyter.com/database/EBR/entry/MainLemma_10499/html]

• -‘Oil | Archaeology’, in Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, vol. 22 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024), and published online [https://www.degruyter.com/database/EBR/entry/key_e2dd9156-28a8-41e4-9e63-1cbae63b1163/html]

Projects

• Complexity without Monumentality: Rethinking Nomads of the Biblical World, w/Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef, Tel Aviv University (2020-ongoing)

• Austrian Expedition to Lachish, Israel (Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2022-ongoing)

• Macquarie University-Hebrew University of Jerusalem-Israel Antiquities Authority Excavations at Khirbet er-Ra’i, Israel (2018-ongoing)

Awards

• Incoming Fellowship, Austrian Archaeological Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences (declined), 2024

• International conference grant, Tel Aviv University, 2022

• Research Training Program Scholarship, 2016-2019

• Platt Excavation Fellowship, ASOR, 2017

Appointments and Affiliations

• Member of the American Society for Overseas Research (ASOR); Society of Biblical Literature (SBL); Israel Exploration Society (IES)

Grant agency review panels

• Israel Science Foundation (2024)

Public engagement

• -w/Erez Ben-Yosef, ‘David and Solomon's Invisible Kingdom’, Biblical Archaeology Review 49:2 (2023), pp. 40-45

• -‘David and Solomon’s Kingdom as a State: An Archaeo-Historical Anachronism’, The Ancient Near East Today, ASOR (2021) [https://www.asor.org/anetoday/2021/11/david-and-solomon-as-state]