Dr. Douglas "Doug" R. Edwards was professor of New Testament and archaeology at the University of Puget Sound, in Tacoma, Washington. Edwards also led Puget Sound students on archaeological expeditions in Israel, Ukraine, and Greece. Born in Hardy, Nebraska, he earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Nebraska and a Ph.D. in New Testament and Christian Origins from Boston University, where he met his wife, Mary Lynn. Edwards took a position at Puget Sound in 1987, where he taught classes in New Testament, Hebrew Bible, ancient Near Eastern religions, and archaeology.
Edwards first excavated at Sepphoris, Israel in 1986 where he was an area supervisor. He continued at Sepphoris for another six years before helping to excavate roof tiles with the stamp of the 6th legion Ferrata at Kefar Hananya. He led his first excavation as a co-director at Yodefat (Jotapata) in 1992. Between 1994 and 1998, he co-directed excavations at ancient Chersonesos (modern Sebastopol) in Ukraine. The Black Sea Project concentrated on a fifth or sixth century basilica that had been excavated previously from the 1930s to the 1960s. The excavations sought to understand the transformation of the area in the Late Hellenistic or Early Roman period. In 1998, Edwards initiated excavations at Khirbet Qana (also known as Kana, or Cana of the Galilee) in the Beit Netofa Valley in Israel. Edwards' aim was to compare the archaeological findings from urban sites in the Roman and Byzantine periods with findings from rural village sites such as Khirbet Qana. Based on previous surveys, there was a great deal of evidence that the village had been occupied from the Neolithic through the Ottoman periods. The most significant occupations appear to have occurred in the Early Roman and Late Byzantine periods. Khirbet Qana is possibly the Galilean village memorialized by the writer of the Gospel of John as the site at which Jesus turns water to wine at a wedding feast (John 2:1-11). The discovery of a Crusader-era "veneration cave" shows that medieval Christians considered Khirbet Qana to be a sacred place. Due to safety concerns about taking students to Israel (during the Second Intifada), Edwards began taking students to archaeological expeditions in Greece where he acted as GPS/GIS consultant. These included the Iklaina project in Pylos, Stymphalos in Peloponnesos, Kenchreai, SHARP (Korphos) in Corinth, and Sikyon Projects. Edwards was an early adopter of GPS (Global Positioning Systems) / GIS (Geographic Information System) in archeological excavations and employed these techniques in Israel, Greece, and Ukraine. GPS/GIS is used in archeology to collect data points, such as artifact and square locations, for later transfer to a database for analysis and processing. A donation of GPS equipment from the Trimble Foundation allowed Edwards to use GPS/GIS in his archeological projects. In 2008, unable to make the trip to Israel, he directed the excavations at Khirbet Qana via teleconference. Edwards died on November 22, 2008, after an eight-year battle with multiple myeloma. He was 58 years old.
This collection contains material from three different archeological digs: Jotapata / Yodefat and Khirbet Qana in Israel and Chersonesos in the Ukraine. The bulk of the material is related to the excavations themselves. This includes field reports, square field notes, technical reports, artifact lists, bucket lists, coin lists, pottery readings, baulk and top plan drawings, archaeological artifacts including pottery shards, and dig samples.
Administrative material includes research material, grant and email correspondence, index cards, database printouts, transparencies, aerial and site photos, slides, and slide indexes.
The collection also includes material relating to Edwards' work as a professor including class syllabi, his curriculum vitae, and publications and lectures.
This collection is available for research.
[Name of document, date.] Douglas "Doug" R. Edwards papers, Mss.033. University of Puget Sound Archives & Special Collections. Tacoma, Washington.
The site of Jotapata / Yodefat served as Edwards' first site. He was co-director with two Israeli colleagues. Jotapata was a major fortified town in 67 CE where Josephus, the Jewish commander of the forces opposing Roman rule in Palestine faced off against the Roman army. The excavation at Jotapata was interested in locating material remains associated with the destruction of the town in 67 CE by the Romans, testing surface surveys that inundated late Hellenistic and Early Roman (2nd century BCE to 1st century CE) remains, and determining whether the fortress site was abandoned in favor of settling in Khirbet Jifat following the revolt and destruction of the town. The excavation was to continue from 1992-2002, but Edwards left the dig after the first season and began excavating in Ukraine in the following years.
This series contains material relating to the Black Sea Project, the 1994 - 1998 excavations conducted by Edwards in Chersonesos in modern-day Ukraine. Material is divided into eleven different subseries: field notes, registrar, reports, background research, papers and publications, administration, correspondence, drawings and topographical plans, photographs and slides, and artifacts.
This subseries contains material relating to the Black Sea Project physical excavations in Chersonesos. This includes field notebooks with field and square notes, top plans, locus descriptions, critical loci, square reports, and bucket lists. Reports, including pottery readings, artifact and coin lists, glass and ceramic analyses, are included with their original square if originally filed in that order, otherwise they can be found in Subseries II: Registrar or Subseries III: Reports.
This subseries contains material relating to the registrar's position on the excavation. Material includes artifact description catalogs, registration lists, registries and pottery analysis reference information, pottery bucket lists, pottery counts and printouts from the pottery count database, pottery registry, and pottery types and classifications. This subseries also includes the ceramics catalog, carbon-radio dating of plasters, and examples of stamped amphora handles.
This subseries includes excavation reports, a final report on the excavation in 1994, several field reports and preliminary reports, and an annual report. While most of the reports are in English, one of the 1994 reports is in Russian.
This subseries contains books, articles, and previous excavation reports and summaries. Many of the books and articles are in Russian, some with English translations. Several of the books have inscriptions from Ukrainian scholars that Edwards worked with.
This subseries contains Edwards' publications relating to the Black Sea Project.
This subseries contains material relating to the administrative work surrounding the Black Sea Project. It includes background information, an introduction to the project, Chersonesos chronology, Edwards' excavation journals including the journal detailing his first trip to the Ukraine scouting an excavation site with two of his colleagues, a proposal for a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, a manual for area supervisors, and Edwards' Ukrainian visa.
This subseries contains a variety of correspondence to and from Edwards relating to the Black Sea Project including letters about the use of GIS in archaeology. Material also includes translated and annotated emails from Ukrainian colleagues, notes and correspondence around the Chersonesos manuscript, as well as correspondence about loci contents and descriptions, and certain inscriptions.
This subseries contains a variety of drawings related to the Black Sea Project excavations including baulk drawings, top (topographical) plans, locus descriptions, and site plans from the Russian-led excavations. It also contains maps related to the Black Sea Project, including top plans, baulk drawings, site plans, as well as large scale drawings of artifacts (bone fragments, jewelry and beads, figurines, glass fragments and pottery shards). This subseries includes two boxes of oversized material.
This subseries contains photologs, photographs, and slides in color and in black and white relating to the Black Sea Project. Photologs correspond with photos taken of areas of the site, as well as artifacts.
This subseries contains artifacts from the Black Sea Project. Material includes Roman glass, tessera pieces, a variety of different pottery types including glazed pottery pieces, and a replica cylinder seal.
This series contains the material relating to Edwards' excavations in Israel, particularly at the site called Khirbet Qana (or Cana) from 1998 - 2008. Material is divided into ten different subseries including: field notes, registrar, reports, Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), papers and publications, administration, drawings and topographical plans, photographs and slides, artifacts, and media.
Field notes include the square notebooks kept each dig season for every square excavated. Square 13 was where the cylinder seal (1999) and pilgrim flask (2000) were found.
Fields (sometimes described as areas) are I, II, III, IV, and V. Fields I and II are on the top of the hill and contain the main living complex. Field I is to the east and field II is to the west. Field II contains the highest number of squares. Field III is to the north and contains a possible miqveh. Field IV is on the western slope of the hill. Field V is on the lower southern slope of the hill and contains the cave complex with Crusader-era veneration cave.
A note about the order of the square notebooks: the archivist has attempted to maintain an order similar to the order of fields and squares of the actual site so researchers can compare findings from adjacent sites. This subseries follows the order of field number, square number, and date.
It's important to note that some of the square notebooks list the incorrect field. The archivist worked off of a map created by Edwards and his team that specifically labeled the location of each field or area. Not all of the squares are listed on these maps (the latest of the maps is dated to 2003 and the dig continued until 2008). The archivist has done their best to put the correct squares in the correct fields. If a square does not have a field location listed, it has been kept separate and marked as such.
This subseries contains various lists for artifacts, pottery, and buckets, as well as roof tile studies, pottery logs, artifact catalogues, artifact and pottery analyses, coin catalogs, metals database, information about carbon dating and lists of samples (basalt and Inductively-coupled plasma or ICP spectroscopy). There is also some correspondence that relates specifically to the registrar activities including flints found at the site and the cylinder seal.
This subseries includes a variety of reports from about Qana, including ones concerning glass, lithic, critical loci, architecture, final square reports, and various excavation reports.
This subseries includes many of the reports, correspondence, applications, and licenses for excavation issued by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) from 1918-2007. Most of the documents are written in Hebrew.
This subseries includes several articles about Qana authored by Edwards and others, as well as a 1989 Arches article (the alumni magazine at the University of Puget Sound) about Edwards' work in Sepphoris and a paper about the Roman Imperial site at Omrit. The subseries also includes a lecture outline.
This subseries contains correspondence concerning Qana (particularly the pilgrim cave/veneration cave found in Field V), Dr. Edwards' field journals (several of these also include sections on Chersonesos, Pylos, and Stymphalos), a National Endowment for the Humanities proposal, conference invitations, research packets, and a visa submission for Greece.
This subseries includes architectural drawings of the site, as well as field maps, topographical plans for various squares (most top plans are with the square notebooks in the Field Notes subseries), and pottery and artifact drawings.
This subseries includes several oversized items such as maps and artifact drawings.
This subseries contains photographs, photologs, and slides of the excavations at Qana, including the squares, artifacts, tombs, and several of other areas in Israel or slides relating more generally to archaeology.
This subseries includes a small box of artifacts from the Khirbet Qana archaeological site brought back by Edwards for the specific purposes of having the items be tested for age and composition of materials. Permission was granted from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).
Two videotapes related to Khirbet Qana excavations.
This series has been divided into two subseries: Edwards' publications and papers and his portfolio. The former contains various papers given by Edwards at conferences as well as his publications. The latter contains Edwards' 2008 portfolio of academic work at the University of Puget Sound.
This subseries contains papers and publications by Edwards from the 1980s through the mid-2000s, including from his sabbatical in Oxford, England as a visiting scholar at Somerville College.
This subseries contains material related to Edwards' academic portfolio including courses he taught, his curriculum vitae, grants and honors, lectures, advising, scholarly activity, and service to the university.