The European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant project: The Wall: People and Ecology in Medieval Mongolia and China at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the direction of Prof. Gideon Shelach-Lavi is offering fellowships beginning October 2021.
The successful candidates will be part of a unique interdisciplinary team. The project combines archaeological, historic and paleo-climatic research. It focuses on what is, perhaps, the most enigmatic episode of ‘Great Wall’ construction in China and Mongolia: A wall system located in North China and Mongolia that covers a distance of over 3,500 km. The construction of this complex system, which includes long earthen walls and accompanying ditches, auxiliary structures and roads, is dated roughly to the 10th to 13th centuries CE, but it is unclear who built it, for what purposes, and how it functioned. Through the understanding of this monumental wall-system our project aims to understand the context, ambitions and administration of long-wall construction in Chinese and world history. To learn more about The Wall: People and Ecology in Medieval Mongolia and China project, visit our web site: https://thewall.huji.ac.il/
The scholarships are offered in the three disciplines that make up this project: Archaeology – our team will perform surveys, excavations, artifact analysis, spatial analysis (GIS and drone research), and ecology-based modeling.
History – our team of historical analysis will systematically ‘mine’ the historical records (in Chinese and other languages) for concrete data that are relevant to the understanding of the wall-system, such as frontier diplomacy, defense, taxation and trade policies, and of extreme climatic anomalies and their effects (food shortages and large-scale migrations, etc.). We will map and analyze this data using qualitative and quantitative tools.
Paleo-climate – our team will participate in the archaeological expedition to Mongolia and China and will conduct paleo-limnological, geomorphological and pedological work, including chronology construction, stable isotopes (organic and inorganic) analysis and hydrological and isotopic modeling. This team is headed by Dr. Yonatan Goldsmith from the Institute of Earth Sciences of the Hebrew University.
Knowledge of relevant languages – Chinese (modern and medieval) and Mongolian – is an advantage and so is the knowledge of relevant methods of data recovery and analysis.
Post-doctoral fellowships are for one academic year in Jerusalem (with a possibility of extension to two or more years). Fellows will receive a monthly stipend of 9,000 NIS and travel expenses to Israel. They will be given offices and research facilities at the Hebrew University. Travel money to participate in conferences is available on a competitive basis. The post-doctoral fellows will participate in the project's seminar and its other activities, including our field expeditions. They are expected to produce a project-related article(s) or a monograph.
Interested individuals are requested to submit the following documents (in one PDF file):
(i) Cover letter describing your academic experience and motivation for participating in the project (2-3 pages).
(ii) Curriculum vitae.
(iii) Abstract of the PhD dissertation.
(iv) A writing sample: dissertation chapter or a paper that has been published or accepted for publication (no more than 30 pages).
(v) Two letters of recommendation to be sent directly to TheWall@mail.huji.ac.il
Deadline for submission of application materials: June 31st, 2021. Please send the requested materials electronically, as one PDF file, to TheWall@mail.huji.ac.il