Scholarship and Biography
Alexandra Ratzlaff is a Classical and Near Eastern archaeologist specializing in the eastern Mediterranean. As a field archaeologist, her projects have been primarily in Israel. She is currently the Director of the Birsama Exploration Project, a survey and excavation of a late Roman fort and Byzantine city in the northern Negev, as well as the Associate Director of the Middle Bronze Age Palace at Tel Kabri. Her research includes analysis of pottery from the Hellenistic – Byzantine coastal and maritime presence at Tel Achziv, Tel Dor, and Caesarea. Her current research projects broadly examine the late Roman economy connected to sea and land trade networks of the Eastern Mediterranean. This includes a previous coastal survey from Achziv to Ashkelon (modern Israeli coast). As an extension of this research she is currently publishing the ceramic remains from the Hellenistic harbor at Akko and Hellenistic/early Roman excavations at Achziv, and Roman Dor. She is also the Project Lead for the Brandeis Techne Group at Autodesk, a long-term research project aimed at developing new equipment and methodologies for digital imaging in archaeology and the humanities. Ratzlaff’s research has been funded by the US Department of State – Bureau Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Fulbright Program, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, the Albright Institute for Archaeological Research, and the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies.