Lecturer
Education
B.A. in Archaeology and Classical Humanities, The George Washington University, 2010
M.Phil in Archaeology, University of Cambridge, 2012
Ph.D., in Ancient History & Mediterranean Archaeology, University of California-Berkeley, 2017
I am an archaeologist and museum curator specializing in mortuary archaeology, with a focus on the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East. I have excavated in Israel and Cyprus and have directed archaeological field schools and study tours abroad. My research, which focuses on the ritual and material roles of the body in secondary and re-used burial contexts, has been supported with fellowships at research institutes such as the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem (2016-2017), Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania (2019-2020), and the Getty Research Institute (2021-2022).
2022 Melissa S. Cradic. Area H: Levels H-13 to H-15, in I. Finkelstein and M. Martin (eds.) Megiddo VI: the 2010-2014 Seasons. Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University Monograph Series 41. Pp. 63-86. Emery & Claire Yass Publications in Archaeology, Tel Aviv University.
2022 Mario Martin, Melissa S. Cradic, and Rachel Kalisher. Intramural Burials in Area K, in I. Finkelstein and M.Martin (eds.) Megiddo VI: the 2010-2014 Seasons. Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University Monograph Series 41.Pp. 224-305. Emery & Claire Yass Publications in Archaeology, Tel Aviv University.
2022 Mario Martin and Melissa S. Cradic. Tomb 100, in in I. Finkelstein and M. Martin (eds.) Megiddo VI:the 2010-2014 Seasons. Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University Monograph Series 41.Pp. 308-401. Emery & Claire Yass Publications in Archaeology, Tel Aviv University
2022 Melissa S. Cradic. Sensing the Dead in Household Burials of the Second Millennium BCE, in K. Neumann and A. Thomason (eds.) Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East. Pp. 405-428. Routledge/Taylor & Francis.
2021 Melissa S. Cradic. Materializing the Ancestors: Sacred Body Parts and Fragments in the Ancient Near East, in N. Laneri (ed.) The Sacred Body: Materializing the Divine through Human Remains inAntiquity. Material Religion in Antiquity 1. Pp. 84-113. Oxbow/Casemate.
2021 Robert S. Homsher and Melissa S. Cradic. Palestine during the Bronze Age, in K. Dell (ed.) The Biblical World, 2nd ed. Pp. 429-451. Routledge/Taylor and Francis.
2018 Melissa S. Cradic. Residential Burial and Social Memory in the Middle Bronze Age Levant. Near Eastern Archaeology 81: 191-201.
2017 Melissa S. Cradic. Embodiments of Death: The Funerary Sequence and Commemoration in the Bronze Age Levant. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 377: 219-248.