Ever since AUB introduced fieldwork as a requirement for its archaeology program in 1956, AUB has been the first and only university in Lebanon to provide regular archaeological training for its students. The Department of History and Archaeology has been one of the most active contributors to Lebanese archaeology, consistently leading a variety of internationally collaborated archaeological projects across the country covering excavations, surveys, artifact analysis, and GIS mapping.
AUB partook in the famously expansive salvage excavations launched in Beirut's historic center following the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) prior to the rebuilding of the Beirut Central District, revealing parts of Beirut's Iron Age, Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine layers. At the end of the Beirut projects when the need to secure new sites for fieldwork had arisen, AUB launched in 2001 the archaeological project at Tell el-Burak on the southern Lebanese coast, setting in motion a series of projects covering the last 2.5 decades that are listed on this page.
The department's fieldwork projects encompass the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Classical periods. Its projects have filled various gaps in our understanding of the archaeology of the northern Lebanese coast, early urban settlements in the Levant, the Phoenicians' homeland, and rural life in the area during the Graeco-Roman period, as well as it has surveyed previously unexplored areas. Moreover, AUB's archaeologists specialize in fields as diverse as epigraphy, numismatics, pottery, archaeobotany, and landscape archaeology, offering numerous opportunities for a specialized investigation of material culture.
References:
Sader, H. 2016. Archaeology at AUB: Past, Present, and Future, in: El Cheikh, N. M., Orfali, B., and Choueir, L. (eds.), One Hundred and Fifty (Beirut: AUB Press), 226–233.