The UK

CBRL is established in the UK as a learned society to advance public education through producing and disseminating research on the humanities, social sciences and related subjects in the Levant.

We are part of a network of British International Research Institutes (BIRI), with an office at the British Academy. The BIRI comprise eight institutes that cover the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and southern Europe, Africa, Turkey, the Middle East, Iran and Central Asia.

Following a Jordanian delegation of Bedouin during a day in London. (Credit: Khadija Alfaqeer).

We conduct, promote and sponsor original, rigorous, interdisciplinary and internationally significant research. We offer grants and fellowships and promote effective research collaborations between UK and Levant-based organisations and researchers. We have a developed role as a partner for UK-Levantine research in multi-disciplinary projects. Examples of these include:

  • a survey project on the landscape history of the upper Orontes Valley near Homs, led by Graham Philip (Durham University) from 1999 to 2010;
  • the Water, Life and Civilisation project, which combined meteorology, palaeoenvironmental studies, archaeological studies, hydrological modelling, and development studies to analyse the water crisis in the Levant, led by Steven Mithen (University of Reading) from 2005 to 2010, and;
  • the Mapping Digital Cultural Heritage in Jordan (MaDiH) project – a collaborative project involving King’s Digital Lab, the Hashemite University, CBRL, the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, the Jordanian Open Source Association, and the Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa project – which aimed to contribute to the sustainable development of Jordan’s digital cultural heritage and ran from February 2019 to April 2021.

We publish two academic journals: Levant (since 1969) and Contemporary Levant (since 2016), as well as monographs in archaeology. The CBRL Bulletin contains detailed reports on all our activities from 2001 to 2020, reporting which is now continued online on this website.

We offer a range of events, featuring the latest, leading research on the Levant. We host conferences, workshops and exhibitions, as well as run webinars and lectures.