Fredrik T. Hiebert
Where do you work?
I am a curator at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. I am responsible for Near Eastern collections and expeditions, and I teach courses in archaeology and economic anthropology in the Department of Anthropology.
What do you do?
I study the artifacts and settlements of protohistoric and historic cultures. In particular, I study ancient trade—both maritime and overland—in Asia. My fieldwork involves excavations at sites and archaeological survey, making maps of the distribution of sites along trade routes.
What inspired you to do what you do?
I started in archaeology as a draftsman, drawing artifacts and maps for archaeologists. Eventually I joined a couple of field projects overseas and, step by step, learned the ropes of archaeology. When I went to college at the University of Michigan, I took a lot of courses at the school’s museum of anthropology.
Besides your work, what interests do you have?
I am a soccer dad (with two soccer players, eight and two years old), I am a music ethusiast, and I enjoy early 20th-century art.
What keeps you interested in your work?
I have two fields of research: underwater (the Black Sea project) and in the desert (in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan). The diversity of approaches and possibilities of results in these fields keep me passionate about my work.
What was your most exciting moment in the field?
One of the moments I treasure the most was while digging at an ancient port site—a 12th-century A.D. merchant’s house—on the Red Sea coast of Egypt. The preservation was particularly good, due to the dry nature of the coast.
I was digging in front of the entrance to the house and found a reed mat in front of the door. We left the mat in place during the excavation, and at the end of the dig, just as we were finishing the photography, we decided to remove the mat.
There, under the mat, was a wooden key, and the key had the name of the owner of the house on it. It was a transforming moment, when suddenly I personally felt the risks of a merchant who plied the spice route, who had left his house and never returned.
What goals have you set for yourself?
My goal is to offer my students, both graduate and undergraduate, the opportunity to explore our world as extensively as possible. I am inspired to bring our explorations to as wide an audience as possible, and I am interested in writing for children as well as for my colleagues.
How would you suggest getting started in your field?
Having a solid education in both anthropology and the hard sciences in college is the best background for an archaeologist. We are interdisciplinary by nature, make heavy use of computer technology, and need to be able to read and speak the languages of the areas where we work. Also, students should become involved in local and national organizations that can offer them many formal and informal connections to training and research opportunities.
What resources can you suggest to the layperson interested in your field?
Archaeology
• Bibby, Geoffrey. Looking for Dilmun. Knopf, 1969.
• Flannery, Kent V. The Early Mesoamerican Village. Academic Press, 1976.
• Society for American Archaeology, www.saa.org
• Archaeology’s Dig, www.dig.archaeology.org (for kids)
Silk Road
• Barber, E.J.W. The Mummies of Urümchi. W.W. Norton, 1999.
• Kalter, Johannes. Uzbekistan: Heirs to the Silk Road. Thames and Hudson, 1997.
Black Sea
• University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, www.upenn.edu/museum
• The Search for Noah’s Flood, www.nationalgeographic.com/blacksea
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