Mordechay Benzaquen

Mordechay Benzaquen is a PhD candidate in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations and the Collaborative Program at the Anne Tannenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies. His dissertation project seeks to understand the vegetation history of select South Levantine sites and their environs by conducting palaeoethnobotanical analyses of the macrobotanical remains found within each site's archaeological record, and cross-referencing these data with the results of various other regional palaeoclimate proxies. Mordechay has also been involved with several fieldwork projects including the Megiddo Expedition, The Negev Byzantine Bio-archaeology Research Program, and the Tel Abel Beth Maacah Excavation.

Education

• M.A. Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, Tel Aviv University
• B.A. Hons. Anthropology, York University

Current Supervisor(s)

• Timothy P. Harrison

Publications

Peer Reviewed Journals

• Langgut, D., Tepper, Y., Benzaquen, M., Erickson-Gini, T. and Bar-Oz, G. Environment and Horticulture in the Byzantine Negev Desert, Israel: Sustainability, Prosperity and Enigmatic Decline. Quaternary International 593-594: 160-177. (2021)
• Benzaquen, M., Finkelstein, I. and Langgut, D. Vegetation History and Human Impact on the Environs of Tel Megiddo in the Bronze and Iron Ages (ca. 3500-500 BCE): A Dendroarchaeological Analysis. Tel Aviv 46(1): 42-64. (2019)
• Bar-Oz, G., Weissbord, L., Erickson-Gini, T., Tepper, Y., Malkinson, D., Benzaquen, M., Langgut, D., Dunseth, Z., Butler, D., Shahack-Gross, R., Roskin, J., Fuks, D., Weiss, E., Marom, N., Ktalav, I., Blevis, R., Zohar, I., Farhi, Y., Filatova, A., Gorin-Rosen, Y., Yan, X. and Boaretto, E. Ancient Trash Mounds Unravel Urban Collapse a Century Before the End of Byzantine Hegemony in the Southern Levant. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America March 2019, 201900233; DOI:10.1073/pnas.1900233116. (2019)
• Faust, A., Katz, H., Sapir, Y., Avraham, A., Marder, O., Bar-Oz, G., Weiss, E., Auman-Chazan, C., Hartmann-Shenkman, A., Sadiel, T., Vilnay, O., Tsesarsky, M., Sarah, P., Ackerman, O., Timmer, N., Katz, O., Langgut, D. and Benzaquen, M. The Birth, Life and Death of an Iron Age House at Tel 'Eton, Israel. Levant 49(2): 136-173. (2017)

Chapters in Edited Volumes

• Benzaquen, M. and Langgut, D. “Chapter 48: Charcoal Remains”. In: Finkelstein, I. and Martin, M.A.S. (eds). Megiddo VI: The 2010-2014 Seasons. Monograph Series of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv. University Park: Eisenbrauns. Pp. 1553-1564. (2022)
• Benzaquen, M., Cavanagh, M., Langgut, D. “Dendroarchaeological Report on the Coffin from Nabatean Built Tomb. )”. In: Singer-Avitz, L. (ed.). Yotvata Hill: An Early Iron Age I ‘Fortress’ in the Southern Arabah (With Account of Earlier and Later Remains). University Park: Eisenbrauns. Pp. 131-132. (2022)
• Cavanagh, M., Benzaquen, M., Langgut, D. “Analysis of Charcoal Samples from the Early Settlement (Chalcolithic/Early Bronze I Period)”. In: Singer-Avitz, L. (ed.). Yotvata Hill: An Early Iron Age I ‘Fortress’ in the Southern Arabah (With Account of Earlier and Later Remains). University Park: Eisenbrauns. Pp. 125-130. (2022)
• Benzaquen, M. and Langgut, D. “Chapter 46C: Assyrian Dagger: A Dendroarchaeological Assessment”. In: Mazar, A. and Paniz-Cohen N. (eds). The Excavations at Tel Rehov, 1997-2012 (The Beth Shean Valley Archaeological Project, Publications Nos. 5-8). Qedem, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Pp. 434-435. (2020)