Jimmy Hardin enrolled at Mississippi State to study archeology in 1986, but his interest in the field probably started years earlier, not in school, but in church.
Hardin, now an associate professor at Mississippi State’s Cobb Institute of Archaeology, discussed his long archaeological career during Monday’s Starkville Rotary Club meeting via Zoom, talking not only about his work in the Middle East, but how his work need not be confined to professional archaeologists.
“I’ve always loved history,” Hardin said. “I can remember sitting in church reading (the biblical books of) Kings and Samuel when I probably should have been listening to the sermon.”
So when, as an MSU freshman, his archeology professor told the class he was going to Israel in the summer and asked the students if they wanted to join him, Hardin was eager to go.
“At that time, I hadn’t even been on an airplane before,” he said. “I thought it was a one-time thing. That was in 1986. I’ve been going back just about every summer since.”
Hardin specializes in the Bronze and Iron ages of the Middle East, at a time that coincides with the reign of the Israelite kings, Solomon and David.
“What going on that first trip did for me was to help contextualize what I had learned in church,” he said.
Since 1975, MSU archaeologists have worked in multiple sites in the Middle East, including two in Israel, one in Cyprus and one in southern Greece. Hardin said his department hopes to join the research in Morocco at a site that dates back 40,000 to 50,000 years.
The good news, Hardin said, is that you don’t have to be a professional archaeologist to join MSU in its work.
Each summer, both students and lay people are able to join the MSU staff in their field work.
“Once we get past COVID, there will be a lot of opportunities, both in the new world (MSU also focuses on the Native Americans of the southeastern United States) and old,” Hardin said. “Whether we are talking about our world in the Middle East or here, it’s being done by people who won’t go on to be professional archaeologists. They are retirees, students who are just starting out and want to broaden their perspective on things while they are in college. Then there are people who took a class in college, really liked it and kind of got the bug and want to participate in some way.”
Hardin said he’s taken kids as young as 16 and adults in their 80s on the summer research trips.
The program is set up through the Cobb Institute’s summer abroad program.
“I’m a big fan of the program,” Hardin said. “So I say, come do it with us sometime. We’d love to have you.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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