Shir Hoory is A doctoral student in the Art History department, with a BA in Archaeology and Art History and an MA in Art History, as part of the MA honors program of the Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities.

Her doctoral research, which is being written under the supervision of Prof. Rina Talgam, focuses on complex representations of the cosmos in ancient Mediterranean art, spanning the Hellenistic, Roman, and early Christian periods. These artistic depictions translate abstract cosmological concepts into tangible visual forms, offering insights into how ancient societies conceptualized the divine order. She focuses on the more intricate examples, which aim to encapsulate various cosmic elements within a unified artistic framework.

Her MA dissertation, “The Description of Jerusalem in the Itinerarium Burdigalense (333 CE): Between Reality and Fantasy”, analyzed the first literary account of a Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land within the context of late antique texts and archaeological evidence. Her work was recognized with the Teddy Kollek Prize for an outstanding thesis dedicated to Jerusalem. She is also a former recipient of the Brenninkmeijer-Werhahn Grant for a fellowship at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, awarded by the Center for the Study of Christianity at HUJI.