Director: Prof. Dr Benedikt Hensel - Professorship for Old Testament and Biblical Archaeology

Digital Ancient Studies in Oldenburg (DAO) was founded in 2025 and, under the direction of Prof Dr Benedikt H ensel at School IV of the University of Oldenburg, combines research, method transfer and third-party funded projects at the intersection of (biblical) archaeology and ancient studies with Digital Humanities (as part of the faculty focus: Digital Global History and Cultural Data Engineering). Located in the Villa Geistreich of School IV in Oldenburg with several research offices, the research centre develops and tests 3D digitisation/photogrammetry, GIS in 2D/3D, VR/AR applications, AI-supported analysis methods, geophysical prospection and sustainable research data management (FAIR), among other things, and opens up this infrastructure to cooperative formats in School(s), university(ies), universities of applied sciences and the urban public.

In addition to the head, Prof. Dr Benedikt Hensel, Prof. Dr Michael Sommer and Prof. Dr Torsten Jantsch are also jointly responsible for the research centre; the specific structure of the joint management and the integration of further projects will be gradually developed during the current set-up phase.

1. Research project "AnHuNav - Animal and Human Navigation in the Ancient Southern Levant: An Interdisciplinary Project on Spatial Perception, Route Formation, and Orientation between Environmental Knowledge and Textual Tradition (Iron Age to Roman Imperial Period)" (since 2026) (lead in DAO: Benedikt Hensel and Torsten Jantsch)
2. Research project "Hazor digital (Digital Archaeology)" (since 2024) (Head in DAO: Benedikt Hensel)
3. Research project "Resettlement of Ruins and Memories in the Making. A Case Study on Hazor and the Shaping of Early Israelite Identities during the Iron Age" (Gerda Henkel-funded project in the "Lost Cities" focus; project leader Benedikt Hensel; project partner: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) (since 2024) (Head in DAO: Benedikt Hensel)
4. Research project "Hazor Excavations - Israel's largest archaeological excavation" (Co-Director; interdisciplinary and international large-scale project with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel) (since 2023) (Head in DAO: Benedikt Hensel)

Book projects

Current book projects in the field of Biblical Archaeology and Ancient Judaism by Benedikt Hensel (monographs):

1. Archaeological Guide to Ancient Israel, Kröner Verlag: Stuttgart
2. Archaeology of the Southern Levant. Academic records on biblical archaeology from the Iron Age to the
   Hellenistic era (Neue Theologische Grundrisse), Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen
3. Textbook on Ancient Judaism, de Gruyter Studium (together with Stefan Beyerle)

The transfer of biblical archaeology and the ancient studies of the Eastern Mediterranean into digital research and evaluation environments is a central focus of the Digital Archaeology Research Centre. The projects based in Oldenburg combine archaeological field and object research with advanced technologies of cultural heritage research and aim at methodically controllable workflows for the recording, modelling, analysis, storage and sustainable provision of archaeological and text-related materiality.

A core component is the project "Hazor Digital"project, in which state-of-the-art surveying and documentation methods, 3D digitisation and 3D visualisation, geovisualisation, spatial AI and AI-supported analytics are brought together and tested in an excavation context. The focus is on the development of resilient digital transformation processes that make both the materiality of excavations and objects as well as the materiality of written material accessible in integrated data and analysis environments.

As a digital research project of the research centre, the five-year project will start in 2026 "AnHuNav - Animal and Human Navigation in the Ancient Southern Levant". The project will investigate how humans and animals perceived and traversed ancient landscapes and helped to shape routes through recurring movement patterns. Methodologically, AnHuNav combines historical and philological approaches with digital archaeology, spatial modelling and the modelling of movement spaces and routes. A central goal is the development of a computer-based model to visualise ancient trade and communication routes and the environmental and cultural factors that influenced them.

Doctoral projects in the field of "Biblical Archaeology / Digital Archaeology"

• Veit Dinkelaker, University of Oldenburg, PhD project(first supervisor): "From excavation to exhibition: biblical archaeological research, field research in the South Levant and its museum-didactic representation" (since 1/2026)

• Benjamin Schnabel, University of Oldenburg, PhD project(first supervisor): "Advanced Technologies in Epigraphy: Hebrew and Aramaic Inscriptions from the Iron Age IIC and the Persian Period" (since 7/2023)

• Mareike Duin, University of Oldenburg, PhD project(first supervisor): "Biblical Israel and Land: A theological-historical study on the theological significance of the land in identity formation processes of the emerging Judaism of the Persian and early Hellenistic period - with an outlook on contemporary reconciliation theological and intercultural designs" (since 1/2026).

• Fabian Shehu, University of Oldenburg, doctoral project(first supervisor): ""Idumaea - a semi-arid economic area in the network of transregional trade during the Hellenistic period (3rd to 1st century BC): a GIS-based modelling study on routes, nodes and connectivity in the archaeology of the Southern Levant" (since 7/2025)

Publications from the field of biblical archaeology Oldenburg (in selection)

Books by

• Davis, J./Hensel, B. (eds.), A Prophet to the Nations: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on Jeremiah 46-51 (Vetus Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus/VTOA), Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht 2025 (in preparation).
• 2025: Germany, S./Hensel, B. (eds.), Israel, Judah, and Neighboring Groups in the Book of Samuel: Historical and Textual Approaches (Series: Orientalische Religionen in der Antike / Research on Israel and Aram in Biblical Times), Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2025 (peer-reviewed volume).(open access).
• 2024: Hensel, Benedikt (ed.), Transjordan and the Southern Levant. New Approaches Regarding the Iron Age and the Persian Period from Hebrew Bible Studies and Archaeology - in collaboration with Jordan Davis (ArchB 8), Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen 2024 (355 pages).
• 2024: Germany, S./Hensel, B. (eds.), Israel, Judah, and Neighboring Groups in the Book of Samuel: Historical and Textual Approaches (Series: Orientalische Religionen in der Antike / Research on Israel and Aram in Biblical Times), edited by Stephen Germany and Benedikt Hensel, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck (at the publisher; 2023)(peer-reviewed volume).(open access).
• 2023: Hagemeyer, Felix, Ashdod and Jerusalem. Eine archäologische und exegetische Untersuchung zu den Beziehungen von südpalästinischer Küstenebene und judäischem Bergland (Orientalische Religionen in der Antike 53), Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen, 2023 (Awarded in 2023 with the Nachwuchsförderpreis des Fördervereins der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften and the Wolfgang-Scheuffler-Forschungspreis).
• 2023: Hensel, B. / Nocquet, D / Adamczewski, B. (eds.) , Social Groups behind Biblical Traditions: Identity Perspectives from Egypt, Transjordan, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Israel in the Second Temple Period (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 167), Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2023 (267 pp.).
• 2022: Hensel, Benedikt / Ben Zvi, Ehud / Edelman, Diana V. (eds.), Edom and Idumea in the Persian Period: Recent Research and Approaches from Archaeology, Hebrew Bible Studies and Ancient Near Eastern Studies (Worlds of the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean/WANEM). edited by Hensel, Benedikt / Ben Zvi, Ehud / Edelman, Diana V.; Equinox: Sheffield 2022 (479 pages).
• 2022: Hagemeyer, Felix (ed.), Jerusalem and the Coastal Plain in the Iron Age and Persian Periods. New Studies on Jerusalem's Relations with the Southern Coastal Plain of Israel/Palestine (c. 1200-300 BCE). Research on Israel and Aram in Biblical Times IV (Orientalische Religionen in der Antike 46), Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen, 2022.
• 2020: Hensel, B. / Nocquet, D / Adamczewski, B. (eds.), Yahwistic Diversity and the Hebrew Bible: Tracing Perspectives of Group Identity from Judah, Samaria, and Diaspora in Biblical Traditions (Forschungen zum Alten Testament, II/120), published by Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen 2020 (347 pages).

Article

1. Hensel, Benedikt/Kreimerman, Igor, "Neue Ausgrabungen in der Megapolis Hazor: In die Siedlungsschichten des alten Israel hinabsteigen," in: Welt und Umwelt der Bibel 1 (2024), 62-65.
2. Hensel, Benedikt, "Origin and spread of early YHWH worship: a re-evaluation of the sources with a special focus on the copper industry in the Arabah Trench." In: transformatio; Issue 1 - 2024: Mobility. Religion and Faith on the Move(peer-reviewed).
3. "Transjordan and Judah from the Babylonian to Hellenistic Periods: Their Cultural, Religious, Economic, and Political Entanglements and Their Impact on the Formation of the Hebrew Bible." In: Hensel B. (ed.), Transjordan and the Southern Levant. New Approaches Regarding the Iron Age and the Persian Period from Hebrew Bible Studies and Archaeology - in collaboration with Jordan Davis (ArchB 8), Tübingen 2024, 195-234.
4. Hensel, Benedikt/Germany, Stephen, "Untangling History and Story: Shifting Trends in the Study of Ethnic Groups in the Book of Samuel." In: Israel, Judah, and Neighboring Groups in the Book of Samuel: Historical and Textual Approaches (Series: Orientalische Religionen in der Antike / Research on Israel and Aram in Biblical Times), edited by Stephen Germany and Benedikt Hensel, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2024, 7-19.
5. Hagemeyer, Felix, "They came, they saw, they conquered ...?" The Migration of the Philistines and the Formation of their Culture in the Early Iron Age, in: N. Nebes/I. Gerlach (eds.), Migration and Cultural Transfer. Zur kulturellen Interaktion im Vorderen Orient und Nordostafrika im 2. und 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. (Sabaica et Æthiopica 1), Otto Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden, 2023, 45-75.
6. Hensel, Benedikt, "Who Wrote the Bible? Understanding Redactors and Social Groups behind Biblical Traditions in the Context of Plurality within Emerging Judaism," in: Hensel, B. et al. (eds.), Social Groups behind Biblical Traditions: Identity Perspectives from Egypt, Transjordan, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Israel in the Second Temple Period (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 167), Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2023, 11-23.
7. Hensel, Benedikt, "The Complexity of a Site: 'Edom' in the Persian Period from the Perspectives of Historical Research, Hebrew Bible Studies, and Ancient Near Eastern Studies." In: Benedikt Hensel et al. (ed.), About Edom and Idumea in the Persian Period. Recent Research and Approaches from Archaeology, Hebrew Bible Studies and Ancient Near Eastern Studies (Series: Worlds of the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean), Equinox, Sheffield 2022, 13-47.
8. Hagemeyer, Felix, Melting Pot, Salad Bowl, Contact Zone? The Southern Coastal Plain of Israel/Palestine in the ^5th-4th Century BCE, in: L.C. Jonker/A. Berlejung/I. Cornelius (eds.), Multilingualism in Ancient Contexts. Perspectives from Ancient Near Eastern and Early Christian Contexts, African Sun Media: Stellenbosch, 2021, 94-109 (peer-reviewed).