The course will be carried out as an intensive workshop for one week during the summer vocation. It is intended to provide its participants with theoretical and practical tools for the analysis of materials in archaeology and art outside the research laboratory. During the course the students will be acquainted with and trained in the use of invasive and non-destructive methods for the determination of the composition of materials in the field, in museums and collections in the country and abroad, using portable laboratories and advanced apparatus. The students will experience such studies in an archaeological excavation (the departments tutorial excavations for Summer 2018, north of Beer Sheva) and a simulated museum / antiquities department collection. As part of the course requirements the students will perform a limited research, to be presented in a congress-like lecture and summarized in an article-like paper.