Dr. Justin Singleton

War veteran, archaeologist, teacher, father of five: all of this speaks of adventure.

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Who Am I?

I'm tired. Not too long ago an Italian academic looked into my eyes and said through an interpretor, "You have very old eyes." I was stunned. I asked what that meant, and the interpretor told me that she meant that I seem as if I have seen a lot. That idea has stuck with me, and while I have seen a lot, I have been very careful *not* to share that with the world. I want to, afterall, win friends and influence people. Well, as a PTSD stricken war vet, I am tired of that. I am tired of trying to fit into the mold that someone else has created, and therefore I have determined that it's time to just say what I mean. This website contains the ramblings of the most liberal ultra-conservative academic you will ever meet. What does that mean? Read my blog to find out. 

 

Current Research

I am currently writing lectures for a series of college courses that I am or will teach, including History of the Ancient Near East, Literature of the Ancient Near East, and Religions of the Ancient Near East. Additionally, I am working on multiple publications, including a number of journal articles, magazine articles, and newsletter articles for differing ministries. Something that has been on my mind lately has been the dissemination of religious and cultural norms to the next generations, very specifically, how to follow the Deuteronomy 6 pattern of teaching one's children to teach their children the Word of God. 

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History

I earned a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Archaeology in 2024, researching ceramics from a single hut at Mokarta, Sicily, a Late Bronze Age site destroyed by fire in ca. 950 B.C. That research took several years, and much of it included the creation of both 3D printed replicas and hand-made replicas from wild clay fired in a replica of an ancient kiln. These replicas were utilized in differing manners in order to better understand how the ancients used the originals. Additionally, use-wear analysis upon the original vessels helped to guide what actions to test upon the replicas. 

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Working backwards now, I worked as a volunteer excavating a downed World War II bomber with the American Veterans Archaeological Recovery program in Caltagirone, Sicily in 2022. Before that, I excavated at an osteological field school at Scremby, UK with that same organization. I also worked as a field director at the San Miceli excavations in 2015 when the Field B/C field director became ill, taking me away from my museum research. Despite this set back in personal research, I was able to photograph, type, and catalogue most of the objects from Hut 12, Mokarta for my dissertation project. In the 2014, I spent two months in Sicily working at two sites: Mt. Raitano and San Miceli. I served as a field director for the Mt. Raitano excavation, and helped survey three large rock-cut chambers by rapelling into them. I also began the pottery analysis of Mokarta. In the summer of 2013, I participated in excavations at Kourion, Cyprus. In May of 2012, I received an MAR in Biblical Cultural Settings; while in seminary, I became the president of Eta Beta Rho (a Hebrew honors society on campus). As a part of my degree, I spent six weeks at Tall Jalul, Jordan as a square supervisor. This supervisory experience added hands-on training to the book, academic knowledge from seminary. This wasn't the first time I had been to the desert as I served in the United States Army in an Infantry Reconnaissance Platoon in the Anbar province of Iraq in 2006, earning the prestigious Combat Infantryman Badge. My time before that was spent at God's Bible School and College, working toward my BA in Ministerial Education and filling pulpits as they became available. 

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