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 2023 or as soon as possible thereafter.
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 two disciplines that are part of this project: Archaeology – our team performs remote sensing work, field surveys and excavations, artifact analysis, spatial analysis (GIS and drone research), and ecology-based modeling. History – our team of historical analysis 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. We are mapping and analyzing this data using qualitative and quantitative tools.
Knowledge of relevant languages – Chinese (modern and medieval) and Mongolian as well as Japanese and Russian – 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 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
Please send the requested materials electronically in one PDF file by March 15, 2023 to TheWall@mail.huji.ac.il