Crossroads of Cultures: The Jezreel Valley in the Bronze and Iron Ages - Karen Covello-Paran

The Jezreel Valley is Israel’s largest and most fertile valley. Strategically located in Northern Israel, this region played a pivotal role in the social, cultural, and economic developments of major political entities during the second and first millennia BCE. In this lecture, we will explore Canaanite urban culture, Egyptian imperial rule, and the Kingdom of Israel through an archaeological lens. We will also uncover the strategies of rural communities as they navigated shifting political landscapes. Discover how archaeological findings shed light on the interactions that shaped the valley’s rich history.

Karen Covello-Paran is a distinguished field and research archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Archaeological Research Department. She earned her doctorate from Tel Aviv University, where she teaches in the International Program for the Study of the History and Archaeology of the Land of the Bible at the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology.
Karen has extensive field experience, primarily in northern Israel, and has directed and published numerous salvage excavations. Her expertise focuses on the Bronze and Iron Ages in the southern Levant, with a research emphasis on the material expressions of society, economy, and culture. She takes a holistic approach, integrating evidence from both funerary and settlement sites.
She is a co-founder of the Intermediate Bronze Age Research Forum, which fosters collaboration, data sharing, and scholarly discussions. Karen was a principal investigator for the research project The Archaeological Expression of Palace-Clan Relations in the Early Iron Age Levant, funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, and is currently a principal investigator for the multi-year research project Rural Resilience under Changing Political Tides: A View from the Jezreel Valley, funded by the Israel Science Foundation. She also co-directs The Tel Shaddud Regional Project, a joint excavation initiative between the Israel Antiquities Authority, Tel Aviv University, UCLA, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, and Ruhr-Universität Bochum.
In addition to her research, Karen serves as the scientific advisor for the Ein Dor Museum of Archaeology and has led a public archaeological lecture series for over a decade.

Tuesday, May 27, 2025 • 314 Royce Hall • 2 PM
Crossroads of Cultures: The Jezreel Valley in the Bronze and Iron Ages

Karen Covello-Paran (Israel Antiquities Authority)
Moderator: William Schniedewind (UCLA)