“May His Memory Be Blessed”

Remembering Kenneth G. Holum (1939–2017)

Reminiscences by: Gideon Avni, Antiquities Authority and Hebrew University of Elizabeth Conner, University of Maryland Alan Walmsley, Macquarie University

he ruins of Ruheibeh—Rehovot cisterns, I frequently visited this romantic in the , located in a remote desert site. Ruheibeh could be reached corner of the Negev desert—are only by a four-wheel-drive vehicle on a Tan impressive example of the Byzantine- rough dirt road. That was the setting of period “Dead Cities.” Back in the 1980s, my first encounter with Ken, who joined when Yoram Tsafrir, my teacher and Yoram in the 1986 excavation season. It mentor at the Hebrew University, began was an interesting combination of Israeli excavating in Ruheibeh, revealing its and American scholars and students, all churches, buildings, alleys, and water staying together in an outdoor camp near

(Photo of Kenneth G. Holum by Juliette Fradin Photography)

Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 27 (2019): 345-353 Remembering Kenneth G. Holum the site. Ken, then a young professor Another thing that impressed me deeply of classical history at the University of during the excavations at Ruheibeh was Maryland, headed the American team. the deep friendship that had developed As a young Israeli archaeologist at the between Ken and Yoram Tsafrir, as if time, I had a very clear stereotype about springing from the bottom of their hearts. how a distinguished American professor This long-lasting friendship was further of history should look and behave in the strengthened when Ken spent a sabbatical unwelcoming conditions of the Negev at the Institute of Advanced Studies in desert, with its intensive summer heat Jerusalem and when Yoram was a fellow at and occasional bursts of dusty winds. To in Washington, DC. my great surprise, however, I found Ken to Looking back, I believe that this was be the absolute opposite of my predicted one of Ken’s great qualities—the ability to images. It was clear from first sight that make true and long-term friendships with he was not an ordinary academic with colleagues. In his many years of excavations an urban educational background but in Israel he forged such relationships many rather well acquainted with open-air times: first with Yoram and then with surroundings, outstandingly familiar with Avner Raban from Haifa University, Ken’s harsh desert conditions, and even enjoying partner in the excavations at Caesarea living in a tent in the middle of nowhere. I Maritima. Ken’s experience in Caesarea was specifically impressed by Ken’s great began in 1978, when he was a member of abilities in outdoors camping, equipped the Joint Expedition to Caesarea Maritima with his sophisticated Swiss Army (JECM), headed by R. B. Bull on behalf of pocketknife always in his immediate reach. the American School of Oriental Research, Ken was helpful in solving all kinds with the participation of twenty-two of practical difficulties in the camp, very colleges, seminars, and universities in the much attached to his students and taking United States and Canada. Ken was part of care of every detail of their unique desert the Caesarea excavations from 1978 until experience. The tall figure of Ken with his last years, and the study of the capital his perennial smile and good humor, of Prima in Roman and Byzantine surrounded by his young American times became one of his primary interests. students and knowing precisely his way He excavated with JECM between 1978 and in the desert and within the ruins of 1984, and later, between 1989 and 2004, Ruheibeh, is still vivid in my mind after all he co-headed, together with Avner Raban these years. Only years later did I discover and Joseph Patrich, the Combined Caesarea where all this knowledge originated, Excavations (CCE), as a joint project of as I listened to Ken’s stories about his the University of Maryland and Haifa childhood on a farm in the prairies of University. South Dakota, a descendant of Norwegian Ken also directed the excavations at immigrants who settled in the American the Temple Platform and the warehouse West, living in conditions that were not so quarter north of the Inner Harbor, while much different from those in the Negev Avner Raban headed the Inner Harbor camp. excavations and those in other areas to the

Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 27 (2019): 346 Remembering Kenneth G. Holum south. The Temple Platform excavations society in Late Antiquity, constitute one of proved to be a meticulous enterprise, as the the finest examples of a detailed evaluation different phases of the Roman temple, the of a major city on the Mediterranean coast. octagonal Byzantine church, the invisible Ken’s love for Caesarea continued early Islamic mosque, and the Crusader during his last decade. After ending his church revealed a stratigraphic nightmare excavations at the Temple Platform, for archaeologists. But Ken, although he he continued to visit the site annually, was first and foremost a historian of the working on the publication of the final Byzantine period, proved to be an excellent reports and advising the young generation archaeologist as well. For years he invested of Israeli archaeologists. His open mind all his efforts in deciphering the phases of and good spirits led him to foster another building and development of this unique collaboration, this time with the Israel complex. In his preliminary publications Antiquities Authority (IAA) expedition of the excavations he succeeded in the at Caesarea, headed first by Joseph Porat interpretation of the transformation from and in recent years by Peter Gendelman, temple to church, one of the very few such who continued to excavate the vaults cases in Roman and Byzantine Palestine. beneath the Temple Platform. Ken’s last This multiyear project, which revealed visit to Caesarea took place in 2016, when some of the most important complexes he spent several days with Peter and his of Caesarea that demonstrated the long staff, discussing stratigraphic questions sequence in the city’s history from the following their latest excavation at the site. early Roman period to early Islamic and It was a joy to follow these consultations, Crusader times, was the height of Ken’s in which, once again, Ken’s great mind and archaeological work in Israel. It would open heart were so vividly expressed. be no exaggeration to say that Ken was Ken was primarily a historian, falling in love with Caesarea. In 1988 much interested in archaeology and he participated in mounting a major material culture but not trained as an exhibition on the city and its history, archaeologist. Nevertheless, he was named, after its founder, “King Herod’s devoted to archaeological fieldwork and Dream.” It seems that this was one of the interpretation, spent time and effort to outcomes of the “love affair” between a study these new fields, and became a very scholar of history and archaeology and the fine and qualified archaeologist. capital of Roman and Byzantine Palestine. Some years after our first encounter in The long friendship between Ken and Ruheibeh, I met Ken and Marsha during Avner Raban also proved very fruitful in their sabbatical year in Jerusalem, when terms of publications, featuring articles Ken joined the research group at the and archaeological reports, among Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) at the them Ken’s initiative of the series of Hebrew University. This group, organized “Caesarea Papers” in the Journal of by Yoram Tsafrir, focused on the cities of Roman Archaeology supplements. These Palestine in Late Antiquity, following the detailed archaeological reports and large-scale excavations in Scythopolis- scientific publications, including Ken’s Baysan and Caesarea. The meetings interpretations of Caesarea’s economy and included a weekly seminar in Jerusalem

Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 27 (2019): 347 Remembering Kenneth G. Holum and occasional tours to archaeological their warm and welcoming hospitality. sites throughout the country, providing This was the time, many years after our an excellent opportunity to get acquainted first encounter in Ruheibeh, that I learned with Ken’s vast knowledge of the relevant about Ken’s years as a child and young historical background. This combination of adult on the family farm in South Dakota. deep knowledge of historical sources and In these encounters I also heard about practical archaeological experience was Ken’s early years as a student in the big unique among the scholars. The addition city, the change he experienced when he of Ken’s good humor and friendliness, became attached to a young Jewish lady together with his common sense and (Marsha), and his gradual absorption into practical abilities, established him as one the world of Judaism. The good humor that of the main “pillars” of the IAS group. emanated from his stories and experiences My friendship and interactions triggered bursts of laughter: just imagine with Ken and Marsha became more a nice protestant farm boy of Norwegian significant in the last years, when they origin becoming a prominent member spent their summer terms in Jerusalem. of the Jewish community in Maryland! Ken was working on the publications of In the vocabulary of his acquired Jewish the Caesarea excavations, and Marsha tradition, Ken was first and foremost a spent her time at the National Library “mensch”—a true human being with a at the campus of the Hebrew big heart open to the world and to all his University, working on her research on friends and fellows. As is customary to say modern Jewish history. We would meet in the Jewish tradition: may his memory be . יהי זכרו ברוך ,in the morning or late afternoon at their blessed modest B&B behind the central Jerusalem — Gideon Avni bus station. Ken and Marsha became good friends with the Jerusalemite owner of the B&B, and apparently both sides were very t is my great honor to write about my pleased with and looking forward to these dear doctoral adviser, my Doktorvater— summer encounters. In our meetings, we as the Germans still say today—and my spent lovely times talking about what Ifriend and mentor, Ken Holum. It seems was new in archaeology here and there, fitting to begin with the proemium with and then touring the excavations in and which Choricius of Gaza, a teacher of around Jerusalem together. As usual, Ken rhetoric who flourished in the mid-sixth- was very enthusiastic and full of new century city of Gaza in Roman Palestine, ideas and knowledge on whatever he was dedicated his funeral oration to his beloved looking at. Exploring new excavations in mentor, Procopius: Jerusalem, he would make the connections The oration laments the fact that we and present the “big picture” of whatever have the necessity for a speech of this was exposed in the corners of the Old City. kind; for it [the oration] honors the Over the years I also had the privilege funeral rites of my deceased teacher, of meeting Ken and Marsha at their house offering him this repayment insofar in Silver Spring during my occasional visits as it is possible. to Washington, DC, and I especially recall

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Like Choricius, I have no doubt of the site with colleagues, contributing to about the impossibility of repaying my articles on Caesarea in popular publications Doktorvater for all that he has given me such as National Geographic, organizing over the years. As ancient rhetoricians exhibits at the Smithsonian, and appearing of the Greek tradition were fond of on programs on the site that aired on the observing, experience, like the world of Discovery Channel. His genuinely kind and sense of perception, will always exhaust gentle ways made his engagement with the the capacity of speech. interested public all the more successful. My relationship with Ken Holum Ken’s amazing mastery of the ancient spanned almost half of my life and was languages—as well as his remarkable one of the most important relationships facility with German—was thoroughly of my life. As a means of expressing impressive to me as a graduate student some small measure of my gratitude to who met with him weekly to translate this very dear friend, I wish to speak hitherto untranslated late antique Greek about his work as a highly influential letters from Gaza. More on this shortly. and wide-ranging scholar, a cherished My Doktorvater had first learned Greek teacher of undergraduate and graduate and Latin from German philologists in students alike, and an outstanding and German—no small undertaking—while irreplaceable mentor to graduate students. working for several years in Munich in the My Doktorvater was a rare combination mid and late 1960s. of prolific scholar and truly kind human Ken’s breadth as a historian of the being. sub-epochs of the Ancient Mediterranean Ken was an unusual scholar. He was was also remarkable. He was as comfort- unusual because he was both an excellent able teaching and speaking about classical philologist, particularly in the study of late Greece or imperial Rome as he was antique Greek, and a highly accomplished teaching and discussing his specialty, Late archaeologist. Ken’s first book, Theodosian Antiquity. Strong as his technical skills in Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion the ancillary disciplines of ancient history in Late Antiquity, a pioneering study were, Ken was keen to deconstruct for his of women and dynastic politics in the students many of the received scholarly fifth century CE, remains a foundational categories set by some of the leading analysis of the construction of imperial figures who, alongside Ken himself, had authority through the person of the been pivotal in developing the academic empress. For more than thirty years, Ken field of Late Antiquity. In my experience, was one of the leading archaeologists of this interpretive caution, particularly in the Joint Expedition to Caesarea Maritima the study of the triumph of Christianity in northern Israel. He published multiple in the Roman Empire, distinguished my excavation reports of his findings and was adviser from many of the early architects still writing a final volume of these reports of our field. with steady care when he became sick in Following his relatively recent illness February 2017. Ken also endeavored to and up until his illness and afterward, make the site accessible to a more popular Ken continued to be as active a scholar as audience, coauthoring a popular history ever, writing the archaeological reports

Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 27 (2019): 349 Remembering Kenneth G. Holum for Caesarea, articles, and book reviews in everyday life. Militating against and advising his eager gaggle of advanced “alternative facts,” Ken taught that not graduate students. all arguments are equal. In my mentor’s Ken was devoted to his scholarly classroom, the classical world was shown community of specialists working on Late to be vibrantly alive in our living culture Antiquity and the Ancient Mediterranean, and institutions. In courses such as his and to scholars at all career stages as well as “Athens as the Mirror of Democracy,” independent scholars and researchers. As a students used the organization of radical senior scholar, Ken was a most supportive democracy in classical Athens to examine adviser to younger colleagues. When I their expectations and assumptions about was a teaching fellow at the University their own representative democracy. of Tübingen in Germany (2017–18) in the I began to learn to teach by watching Seminar für alte Geschichte, I learned in Ken teach and by working as his the course of several conversations with apprentice. For years, he mentored me in Aaron Johnson, a rising star in our field who how to teach, guiding me through various spent the summer of 2017 in the Theology situations—the dreaded plagiarism of Seminar at Tübingen, that my mentor Wikipedia entries on the assigned book!— had played a key role in helping Aaron and teaching me how to lecture and how develop his first book and his approach to to teach students to read and understand his sources. Aaron’s description of his long ancient texts in translation. I was always discussions with Ken at Dumbarton Oaks asking for all sorts of advice, on my work was vividly reminiscent of my experience and my teaching, and I feel and will always with my Doktorvater, and his recounting continue to feel the loss of this mentorship. of this story about Ken—who was already I know it was a mentorship that was his quite ill by this point in mid-July—made great joy to give, a mentorship that he it feel as though he were present with us would never abandon, a mentorship whose on those hot, air-conditionless days in the values and lessons I will always carry with Swabian summer sun. me. I will be looking for this mentorship Ken loved teaching, and he especially and friendship the rest of my life, and it loved working with his graduate students. will never be replaced. I remember most fondly my years as his Ken was an irreplaceable adviser and teaching assistant, impressed by Ken’s teacher of graduate students. All members clarity as a lecturer, the conceptual of my cohort will fondly recall our graduate apparatus undergirding each of his seminars, which took place weekly in Ken courses, his beautiful slideshows filled and Marsha’s dining room, the participants with his own pictures of various sites and seated around the table, often nibbling on antiquities, and his warmth and genuine delicious cookies Marsha had baked. These respect for his students. Ken’s courses lively sessions were always so exciting to demonstrated to students that the study me. I remember vividly how energized and of classical history contributed to the exhilarated I left these discussions, unable development of cognitive toolkits that had to quiet my mind, flipping back through use in the interrogation of information various issues the rest of the night,

Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 27 (2019): 350 Remembering Kenneth G. Holum perceiving how my thinking was changing, I learned the love of sources—which is and drawing immense pleasure from the the heart of philology—from Ken. Ken experience. loved reading Greek aloud and puzzling But the highlight of my week for years through the constructions. For him, and the cornerstone of my graduate work such activity was sheer joy. But what we with my Doktorvater was our weekly both loved most was putting the letter translation meeting. We met for a couple back together again after applying the hours a week to read very challenging translator’s razor. What were we really Greek texts, and, to my knowledge, we looking at? How was a given text a source? were the first to translate these texts For what was it a source? These were into English. The texts we read—a wonderful conversations; they constituted couple hundred virtually ignored Greek the art of doing history. letters written by late antique teachers In my estimation, such experiences are of rhetoric in Roman Palestine—were highly unusual among advisees. It seems a study of intellectual friendships and rare to find such a devoted mentor who mentoring relationships between teachers would give such individualized attention and students in the late ancient Greek to a student, every week offering her East. These letters are compact gifts of a workshop on philology and source antiquarian erudition, which showcase, criticism. Upon graduating, I mourned the in particular, the art of constructing loss of these regular sessions, although expressions of intimacy and friendship in Ken and I continued to read amazingly rich the language of classical texts. We spent texts from late antique Gaza up until the long hours meditating about the nature month before I left for Germany. of the relationship between teacher and I am deeply grateful for the time and student, trying to unpack the classical training my Doktorvater has given me models of this most important relationship these many years. But above all I am as expressed in late antique letters. grateful for Ken’s loving support and The letters were an ancient mirror of kindness, which provided such a positive the remarkable relationship between context for learning and growth. From my mentor and advisee. They offered a earliest acquaintance with my mentor, familiar yet different series of registers to his learning combined with his faith in represent this intellectual friendship and my ability inspired me to do my very best virtual parental relationship. Not unlike work for him. I never wanted to let down the adoptive intellectual families created this most kind and learned friend. and the kinship language used to depict I grieve for this loss. Thank you, my intellectual friendships in early modern dear Doktorvater, for all you have given European literati circles, in the rhetorical me. Thank you for our walks through culture of late antiquity, teachers ancient Attic meadows. You are missed, considered themselves fathers to their and we will always miss you. adopted children, their students. The term Doktorvater, in my eyes, is thus an ancient — Elizabeth Conner usage.

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iddle Eastern archaeology can readily applied to the supposed fate of boast of only the occasional Caesarea, with “permanent desolation” the protagonist of the highest outcome. This view was widespread among Mstanding, unlike the many professed archaeologists in the 1970s, yet it stood in archaeologists of mediocrity or, every so stark contrast to that held by historians often, infamy drawn to the region in the of Islam, which caused great reputational past. Not only does Ken Holum indisput- damage to archaeology among historical ably belong at the top of the protagonist studies. At first, by his own admission, ‎category; he was also a great bloke. He Ken was party to this disingenuous stood in stark contrast to his peers and, interpretation of Caesarea’s history, but empowered with a questioning mind and by the 1980s significant doubt as to the unshackled thinking, confronted head-on validity of this view began to appear in a the rigid opinions assumed to be true by number of Ken’s publications, culminating his colleagues. My introduction to Ken in his ground-breaking BASOR publication was through his scholarship, most notably of 1992 entitled “Archaeological Evidence through his pioneering work at Caesarea for the Fall of Byzantine Caesarea.” It was Maritima (Qaysāriyyat al-Shām), the a remarkable, courageous, and timely onetime capital of Byzantine Palaestina turnaround by a senior member of the Joint Prima and a district center of early Islamic Expedition that not only put Caesarea in a Filasṭīn. Caesarea was no inconsequen- new light but also had wider consequences tial town. Located on the Mediterranean for understanding the archaeological coast, its administrative and commercial reading of sites in the mid-first millennium strengths gathered people and attracted CE. investment through much of the first Just about everyone trying to unravel millennium CE, and it was thus an ideal the complexities of late antique and case study on the evolving social and early Islamic history and archaeology economic conditions of Palaestina/Filasṭīn in the region suddenly took note of the during one of the most important periods Caesarea discoveries. In my case, having in the history of the east Mediterranean. already uncovered contrary evidence to Early excavations by the Joint unchallenged paradigms while excavating Expedition to Caesarea Maritima during an extensive late antique/early Islamic the 1970s and 1980s took as read existing residential quarter at Pella (Ṭabaqat assumptions on occupational profiles at Faḥl) in Jordan (1979–82), Ken’s paper the site in the lead-up to and following the was a revelation; here was a significant, arrival of Islam, then viewed negatively as yet politically charged, questioning a catastrophic and fatal rupture point in and rebuttal of a prevailing narrative history. Publications of the Joint Expedition widely accepted in the archaeological in the 1970s state that the excavations establishment on the nature of the uncovered destruction levels interpreted as Muslim takeover of Caesarea and the caused by early seventh-century CE attacks consequences of that occupation on the by the Sasanids and, after them, a Muslim town and its people. More personally, Ken siege and conquest. Absolutist terms, such freely acknowledged the insufficiency of as “complete” and “irretrievable,” were earlier uncritical views adopted by the

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Joint Expedition to which he had initially a two-day conference hosted in April 2005 contributed, drawing on historical sources by Ken and Hayim Lapin at the University to question them while introducing into of Maryland that I witnessed first-hand his rebuttal fresh archaeological evidence Ken’s deep understanding of the period from Caesarea, including important and the breadth of his scholarship (the material compiled by Cherie Lenzen for her University of Maryland’s library record of 1983 doctoral thesis at Drew University. the conference publication lists more than Archaeological interpretations are twenty subject keywords in English alone, usually easy to dispute because of the from ethnicity to antiquities). In the “who’s inherent intricacies and, on the face who” of scholars Ken gathered for the of it, often conflicting outcomes of occasion, such as Oleg Grabar, Irfan Shahîd, archaeological research. However, while Sidney H. Griffith, Donald Whitcomb, demolition is easy, building an alternative and Gideon Avni, Ken’s eclecticism was explanation is notoriously difficult and on full display, with papers addressing, time-consuming. Ken’s research and as one catalog keyword defines it, the publications into the 2010s sought new “intercultural communication” of the time, ways of understanding under the banner as different religious, ethnic, and cultural of “transitions,” a concept prominent in elements forged new understandings of late antique and early Islamic studies of their socially diverse world. Yes, his reach the east Mediterranean since the 1990s. was wide, and his scholarship progressive: On occasions our paths crossed, and his Ken Holum was, indisputably, a scholar of openness and friendly disposition were great distinction. immediately apparent, but it was not until — Alan Walmsley

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