Horvat Tsalit flourished during the turbulent years from King Herod to the violent Bar Kochba War (circa 30 BCE to 135 CE). According to ancient historian Flavius Josephus, it provided sanctuary to Judean militias fleeing inland after attacking聽coastal Ascalon (now Ashkelon)聽and being repulsed by the Roman garrison there in the winter of 66 to 67 CE. That is the only reference in Josephus鈥檚 writing to the village.

When you鈥檙e digging up shards聽strewn around stone foundations scoured by desert sands for almost two millennia, this kind of information can bring a site to life. That鈥檚 why two archeologists at Ben-Gurion University in Beer Sheva invited 91亚色聽Professor Steve Mason to be the excavation historian.

Right: Steve Mason at Masada

Mason holds the in Greco-Roman Cultural Interaction at 91亚色. He is an expert on Flavius Josephus, chronicler of turbulent first-century Jewish history, including the Judean-Roman War that featured the guerrilla attack on Ascalon and led to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

鈥淚 will try to construct the big picture鈥� for Israeli and 91亚色 students participating in the dig, says Mason, one of whose聽current聽projects neatly dovetails with the dig. He is nearing completion of a book about the聽Judean-Roman War of 66 to 74聽CE聽for Cambridge University Press.

Archeologists and , experts in the Roman-Byzantine era, will lead daily excavations and offer lectures and workshops on field methods. Mason will lecture on the ancient context of the site.

Horvat Tsalit was an unwalled settlement of perhaps 1,000 to 2,000 inhabitants situated in the hills of ancient Judea. In the 1980s, archeologists excavated the watchtower that stood sentinel over the village through three Judean-Roman wars. 鈥淭he site has the potential of turning up valuable evidence of these wars,鈥� says Mason, who will do a little digging himself. 鈥淵ou never know what will turn up. It鈥檚 fascinating.鈥�

Above: The site of Horvat Tsalit, the ancient village where聽excavations begin this summer

The excavation at Horvat Tsalit will run for three seasons, beginning this summer from July 10 to Aug. 6. As many as 20 Israeli and up to 20 Canadian students could be wielding trowels on daily digs. Daytime temperatures typically spike at 33 degrees C at this time of year but canopies will shade the diggers from the intense sun.

91亚色 is co-sponsoring the dig with Ben-Gurion University. Funding for Mason鈥檚 Canada Research Chair聽and from 91亚色鈥檚 Israel & Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies are supporting聽the project.

91亚色 undergraduates seeking credit and graduate students seeking adventure are welcome to apply. will offer transferable half-course credits for a fee to 91亚色 students who complete the four-week season. Non-credit volunteers who cannot stay for the entire four weeks must commit to the first or last half of the dig.

For US$1,600, Canadian students receive accommodation in Beer Sheva, two meals (breakfast and lunch) and transportation to and from the Horvat Tsalit site daily for the entire four weeks. The fee does not include airfare.

Application forms are available by e-mailing tsalitexped@gmail.com. General queries can be e-mailed to Steve Mason at smason@yorku.ca.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin

The post Professor Steve Mason invites students to archeological dig in Israel (Summer 2011) appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Denning will be one of four co-presenters appearing in six one-hour-long episodes of the show "Beast Legends" which will involve her 鈥渞omping around the world to study tales of legendary creatures.鈥� The information聽gathered is then brought to the show's Beast Lab, where the creature is created in 3-D computer imagery before being unleashed in the modern world. 鈥淏east Legends鈥� is produced by Yap Films and will premiere on beginning聽tomorrow at 10pm and running for six weeks. In the fall, the series will air on Syfy.

Left: Kathryn Denning with the skull of an Australopithecus

As one of the show's 鈥渂east seekers鈥�, Denning found herself scuba diving in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Fiji with dozens of bull sharks 鈥� one of the top three shark species prone to attacking humans 鈥� in search of clues to the Fijian shark god Dakuwaqa. Despite the risk of being attacked, she dove with locals without the use of a shark cage. She also tracked stories of the Navajo bird monster in New Mexico, and in France she recorded a recent eyewitness account by a sailor whose boat had been attacked by a giant squid, evoking the medieval tale of the kraken, a fierce multi-tentacled sea monster thought to crush ships and scoop men from ship decks.

The show poses questions like: If these beasts were here today, what would they be doing or eating and where would they be living? says Denning. 鈥淭hen we bring the data together and create the beast as it would look and act if it was here today.鈥� Bringing the ancient into the present and understanding the linkages between the two is a particular interest of Denning鈥檚, which, to her delight, she got to exercise while on assignment. "I'm interested in how people think of the ancient world and how that gets used in the modern world." She also had the opportunity to explore what she calls a highly innovative yet traditional culture by staying with Fijians in their homes while shooting. She got to experience their culture first-hand and better understand their rapidly changing religious beliefs and how those connect with modern phenomena like ecotourism.ec

The local people believe the Fijian shark god, a former chief who became a god after his death, protects and watches over them. Dakuwaqa not only sees all, but can change shape at will, although his most prominent shape is that of a bull shark. In recent years, a local Fijian operation began regularly diving down to feed the bull sharks by hand without cages to allow spectators to see the animals barrier-free. 鈥淚 got an astoundingly close look at these beautiful, majestic killing machines,鈥� says Denning. The local shark-feeding specialists have no fear of being attacked. In fact, Denning says, 鈥渢hey have named many individual sharks, and in turn, the sharks seem to recognize these individual humans by smell.鈥� So far there have been no incidents in 15 years of feedings.

Right: Kathryn Denning when she's not chasing legendary beasts

鈥淪ome of the beast legends we explored are very old, some more recent. There are many different versions of these myths and they evoke very different images for different people and in different regions,鈥� says Denning. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the really interesting part, the variations from region to region. What the beast does in the stories聽speaks more to the culture that believes in it than to the beast itself.鈥� These ancient societies had an encyclopedic knowledge of their natural environment but didn鈥檛 necessarily know what was over the distant ridge, and that could lead to unexplained tales of beasts.

At the same time, there is still much 鈥渨e don鈥檛 know about the sea鈥� and 鈥渢here鈥檚 a tremendous delight in thinking we haven鈥檛 civilized the whole world yet.鈥� That there might actually be beasts out there that humans haven't gotten a hold of yet. 鈥淭he idea that there are still things that elude us is delicious,鈥� she says.

Denning is joined on the show by Scott Edwards, a professor of organismic and evolutionary biology and curator of ornithology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University; Stephen Leonard, an adventurer and veterinary surgeon based in Bristol, England; and Francis Manapul, a Philippines-born, Toronto-based comic book artist. Together they explored the remote jungles of Vietnam looking for the Wildman, a giant, hairy, bloodthirsty beast similar to Bigfoot, and the Navajo lands of New Mexico for a giant bird predator said to be the size of a small plane. They travelled to Mongolia鈥檚 Altai Mountains searching for the griffin, a massive, legendary creature with the head of an eagle, razor-sharp talons and the body of a lion. They also ventured deep into the primeval forests of Poland to find the truth behind ancient legends of a terrifying, fire-breathing dragon known as Smok.

鈥淲hen we look at these things that seem exotic, they help us to understand ourselves and other cultures better at the end of the day,鈥� says Denning. She admits it's a little different from some of her other academic work at 91亚色, although she was also a part of a documentary that aired in 2007 that looked at the natural history and folklore of vampires. "Tales of the undead are ubiquitous, ancient and always changing," she says, similar to tales about fantastical beasts. Denning hopes viewers of "Beast Legends" will gain a better understanding of animals in their natural environment, as well as other cultures.

Is there any truth to the legends behind these beasts? You鈥檒l have to watch the show to find out.

For more information, visit the "" Web site. The first episode will be the search for the Wildman, followed by the kraken, Dakuwaqa, the griffin, the Navajo bird monster and, in the final episode, Smok the dragon.

The series was covered by the and July 7 via the Canwest News Service:

This is the time of year when young 鈥檜ns and oldsters alike gather around the campfire and swap ghost stories 鈥� 鈥淏loody bones behind the barn!鈥� 鈥� and other tall tales, wrote Canwest News Service July 7. The mythological creatures of the subconscious have a literature all their own. And yet, as the engaging and timely docuseries 鈥淏east Legends鈥� reminds us, in some cultures around the world, mythical beings are not just imaginary, but are believed to exist.

鈥淏east Legends鈥�, a kind of 鈥淕host Hunters鈥� for the Beowulf set, follows an eclectic group of experts in their field to far-flung corners of the earth, from the rain-soaked jungles of Vietnam to the mountains of Mongolia.

The experts include 91亚色 anthropologist Kathryn Denning, a professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.

For more information about when the show will be aired, visit the Web site.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

The post Professor Kathryn Denning part of interdisciplinary TV crew scouring globe for mythic beasts appeared first on Research & Innovation.