Matthew J. Suriano

Professor Suriano standing next to a monolithic-tomb in Jerusalem. The tomb's cornice is visible above him and in the background is the Kidron Valley.

Associate Professor, Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Program and Center for Jewish Studies
Classics

msuriano@umd.edu

1126A Taliaferro Hall
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Ph.D., Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of California, Los Angeles

Matthew Suriano specializes in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, ancient Near Eastern religions, Northwest Semitic epigraphy, and the archaeology of the Levant. His first book The Politics of Dead Kings: Dynastic Ancestors in the Book of Kings and Ancient Israel (Mohr Siebeck, 2010) examined the motifs used to describe a king's death. His recent book, A History of Death in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford University Press, 2018), which won ASOR's Frank Moore Cross Award, looks more broadly at death and burial in biblical literature. His current projects includes a study of Iron Age monolithic-tombs in Jerusalem, MMO:VAS, a new edition of Hebrew funerary inscriptions from Iron Age Judah for the Society of Biblical Literature's series Writings from the Ancient World (with Jacqueline Vayntrub), and a project on the Book of Kings.