AHC Director Wins ASOR Community Outreach Award
Published December 11, 2025
Paul Flesher, Director of the American Heritage Center.
The American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) has recognized AHC Director Paul Flesher with the 2025 ASOR Community Outreach and Public Engagement Award.
Together with Chad Spigel of Trinity University, Flesher spearheaded the creation of the website for the Duke University Galilee Database, which makes publicly available all of the original field records for the excavations of four synagogues in Upper Galilee as part of the Meiron Excavation Project (1970–1981).
The database, hosted by the University of Wyoming Libraries, provides a searchable presentation of all field notes from the excavations, encompassing everything from pottery readings and photographs to locus sheets and end-of-season reports.
Physical records from the excavations are housed at Duke University. The database can be accessed at lib.uwyo.edu/digital/DUG/Home.
About the excavations: The Meiron Excavation Project was an archaeological survey of the Galilee and Golan regions in Israel that included the excavation of four synagogues: Meiron, Gush Halav, Khirbet Shema, and Nabratein. The survey was carried out by teams of archaeologists and students led by Professor Eric Meyers of Duke University.
