Archaeology Lecture Series
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Upcoming Fall 2026 CNEA Lectures
Alexander Ekserdjian (Yale University)
"Defining the Divine: Sculpture and the Gods in Roman Italy"
This talk analyses the material culture of cult places in late-Republican Italy to propose a visual language of the sacred specific to Roman Italy. Cult statues and sanctuary dedications demonstrate the ways that sculptural choices expressed relationships between worshippers and their gods. The vast gulf between the divine and the human was made manifest through material choices, sculptural scale, and modes of display. First sketching out the mechanics for this system of visual communication, I then turn to exemplary works of Republican sculpture to illustrate its workings. Finally, surviving statues from the city of Ostia are used to test the application of these ideas to a chronologically and spatially bounded context. Drawing on the methods of archaeology, art history, and anthropology, I aim to show how much may be gained by more fully incorporating close analysis of sculpture into histories of Roman religion.
Philipp Stockhammer (University Munich, Germany)
"Archaeogenetic Perspectives on Athenian Society during the First Millennium BCE"
Our understanding of the development of Athenian society during the early first millennium BCE has long relied primarily on archaeological evidence, especially funerary remains, and on textual sources of mostly later date. Bioarchaeological data, by contrast, have remained scarce. Archaeological research has traditionally focused on the spatial organization of cemeteries, grave typologies, mortuary practices and rituals, as well as the style and iconography of grave markers. Yet fundamental questions about the social fabric of early Athenian kinship practices and human mobility remain unresolved. What social units did burial plots represent? To what extent did biological kinship shape the organization of cemeteries? How were individuals of different sex, age, origin etc. buried – within the same plot, across different plots, or in neighboring cemeteries?
Within the ongoing collaboration of the Ephorates of Athens and Attica and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, we have generated archaeogenetic data from more than 200 individuals recovered from cemeteries across Attica dating to the first millennium BCE, with a particular focus on the renowned cemetery of Phaleron. In my lecture, I present the current state of the project and explore how ancient DNA is transforming our understanding of social organization, kinship structures, mobility, and marital practices in Early Iron Age Attica.
Anne Hunnell Chen (Bard College)
"'Big Digs' and the Enduring Legacies of Disciplinary Frameworks and Taxonomies"
The so-called blockbuster “Big Digs” of the interwar era in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region bear a complex legacy. On the one hand, those excavations filled museum displays and storerooms and sourced objects of inquiry that have stoked more than a century’s worth of research in Humanist disciplines like art history and ancient languages and literatures. On the other hand, imbalances of power and privilege at the time of excavation have had long-lasting repercussions not only with regard to who has access to the physical and intellectual products of such expeditions, but also whose perspectives are reflected in the grand narratives of scientific exploration and the interpretation of the ancient past. Using the case study of a painted dining room in a domestic context from the archaeologically rich site of Dura-Europos (Syria), this paper will explore how taxonomies imposed by early excavators and partage (division of finds) decisions aimed at building national and institutional collections seeded disciplinary, institutional, and linguistic (both ancient and modern) silos that continue to define access to the physical and intellectual products descending from important foreign-run excavations. Moving beyond identification of injustice to action, the talk will highlight how emerging digital methods, and especially flexible Linked Open Data (LOD) approaches, might be harnessed toward a collaboratively defined reparative practice.
Jennie Bradbury (Bryn Mawr College)
"Inhabiting the Mountains: Linking Coast and Upland in Lebanon"
At times inaccessible or challenging and, at other moments, vibrant and resilient, upland landscapes in Western Asia have often been cast in the role of static backwaters, zones of catastrophic extraction, or loci of myths and legend. These narratives certainly hold true for some regions and periods; however, research over the past decade has begun to complicate this picture, revealing a wealth of evidence from mid to high altitude regions.
This talk presents ongoing work from central and northern Lebanon, which aims at documenting and understanding settlement and activity in the Lebanese foothills and mountains, from the Bronze Age through the early modern period. By zooming in on several case studies,I will explore some of the key factors which may have influenced settlement and activity, or lack thereof, in these upland environments. This story, however, is not only about the mountains; shared material culture hints towards important interconnections between lowland (coastal) and upland landscapes. As such, through this talk I will also touch upon some of the material (and immaterial) flows that may have shaped and characterized interactions between these regions. Ultimately, by placing the Lebanese mountains within their broader socio-cultural and economic setting, the talk will begin to shed light on the long term adaptivity, resiliency, and creativity of mountain communities, from prehistory to the present.
Join us for a shared lunch event.
Matthew P. Canepa (University of California, Irvine)
C. Densmore Curtis Lecture
TBA
Stephanie Langin-Hooper (Southern Methodist University)
"Inventing Epiphany: Divine Manifestation and Zodiac Astrology in the Seals, Coins, and Figurines of Hellenistic Babylonia”
This talk will explore how miniature artworks – seals and seal impressions, coins, and figurines – were used by the people of Hellenistic Babylonia to directly access and communicate with their gods. The possibility of such personal communication was both new and urgent in Hellenistic Babylonia, building upon the recent development of Babylonian zodiac astrology and the Hellenistic reconceptualization of divine revelation as encapsulated in the word “epiphany”. The intimate and multi-sensory nature of small-scale artworks enabled their use in creating personal, accessible, and convincing relationships with the gods. Miniature objects thus facilitated the combination of Babylonian and Greek religious traditions, leading to the invention of a new experience of divine epiphany.
August McMahon (University of Chicago)
TBA
Anne Duray (Stanford University)
TBA
Lisa Anderson-Zhu (Walters Art Museum)
"From Curiosities to Discoveries: A Look at How to Stage a Museum Exhibition Without Having All the Answers"
While museums typically exhibit artworks only after research and scientific analysis have uncovered the important details about what each object is and where it came from, the Walters Art Museum’s 2023-2025 exhibition “Objects of Curiosity: What Will We Discover?” placed artworks on view that museum staff had unresolved questions about. Objects were divided into rooms based on the questions: What is it?, Is it real?, Where does it belong?, and Why does it look like this? Research was completed during the exhibition, with the results summarized and included in the displays. In this lecture, Dr. Lisa Anderson-Zhu, the curator of the exhibition at the Walters, will provide insights into how the exhibition was planned and implemented, as well as a look into the results of the research conducted on the Ancient Mediterranean Art objects that were included in the installation. The exhibition project highlighted that the knowledge museums have about the objects they steward is sometimes incomplete and also how information about some artifacts can be reconstructed through research, scientific analysis, and even experimentation.
Alison Damick (University of Tennessee)
"From the Micro to the Mega: Geoarchaeological Research in Northern Lebanon"
Geoarchaeology is a relatively new mode of research in Lebanon; only a few studies currently have been undertaken, usually as relatively limited background characterizations of specific sites under excavation (i.e., Morhange and Marriner 2015; Marriner et al 2012). Lebanon is one of the most geomorphically and biotically diverse countries in Southwest Asia, but due to the scarcity of studies specifically linking archaeological evidence for human settlement and land use with geoarchaeological perspectives and datasets (sedimentological, pedological, and microfossil analyses), we understand relatively little about the history of human-environmental relationships over time – especially at the landscape scale.
Since 2022, I have been a part of two new large-scale paleoenvironmental projects initiated in that year and still ongoing: the first is a deep coring project covering the northern coastline between Chekka and Batroun (“Between Land and Sea: the Chekka Region in Lebanon,” an Austrian-Lebanese cooperative project), and the second was a study of geological section exposures, deep cores, and soil micromorphology in the northern Akkar and Bouqaia Basin along the northeast border of the country (MEG-A: the first megalith builders of the northern Levant,” a Swiss-Polish collaboration). These projects use high-resolution geoarchaeological and microbotanical datasets to reconstruct the Holocene environmental histories of these geographic zones within Lebanon, how those histories relate to human settlement and land use patterns, and how we can understand relationships between different zones (hillslopes and coast, for instance). For this talk, I will present the background, scope, and some preliminary results of these projects, future steps, and briefly discuss how they relate to modern communities and conversations around land use and rights in Lebanon.
Carlotta Trevisanello (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC)
"Shaping Amber: Craftsmanship and Technology in Pre-Roman Italy"
Amber was among the most valued materials in pre-Roman Italy, admired for its beauty, symbolic associations, and long-distance connections to the Baltic region, where much of the amber used in antiquity originated. This lecture presents ongoing research on carved amber objects in the Department of Greek and Roman Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Combining typological, technological, and archaeometric approaches, the project examines how amber ornaments were designed, made, and assembled, with particular attention to the interaction of amber, bone, and metal. Microscopic observation and non-invasive XRF analysis offer new insights into manufacturing techniques, material choices, and workshop practices.
The lecture focuses in particular on selected finds from the Etruscan necropolis of Verucchio in the Met’s collection. Through jewelry, composite fibulae, and textile tools, it explores the technical expertise of Iron Age craftspeople and the social and symbolic role of amber in elite funerary settings.
Anastasia Christofilopoulou (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
"Investigating Islands in the Longue Durée: Recent Advances in the Field and Wider Scholarship"
Across the Mediterranean, islands have long served as laboratories of human experience and cultural evolution—intricate landscapes and geological characteristics, early community formations, literary topoi, and enduring cultural worlds. Yet despite decades of archaeological, anthropological, and historical attention, the concept of insularity remains surprisingly underdefined. What shapes the life and culture of islanders diachronically? How do islandscapes shape identities, economies, technologies, and mythologies? Archaeology, cultural history, and in the past three decades, analytical research in material culture, have all uniquely contributed to the creation of a powerful arena for exploring questions on island identities, their visual and material culture and their communities. Museums, as public-facing spaces of interpretation, now also integrate these questions into their enquiry and the way they lead research projects.
This talk examines how new archaeological discoveries and recent advances in cultural theory, scientific analysis, conservation research, and digital humanities reframe islands, such as Cyprus, Crete, Sicily and Sardinia, and demonstrate how they shaped regional networks of trade, technology, and ritual practice. Through case studies spanning the Early Bronze Age to the Roman period, we will explore how everyday material culture and ritual objects reveal the social choices, technological practices, and mobility networks that shaped island identities. These new developments and new evidence bear witness to unique forms of interaction, hybridity, and creativity fostered by insular geographies; ultimately recentering the role of the large Mediterranean islands, as cultural central landscapes that foreground connectivity, hybridity, and the shaping of Mediterranean history.
Past Lectures
Spring 2026 CNEA Lectures
Kimberly Bowes (University of Pennsylvania)
“The Economic Lives of the Roman 90%"
How did the majority of Romans get by? What were their strategies for survival?
This talk describes how the Roman world created a set of bitter challenges and opportunistic hustles for everyone from farmers and craftspeople to day laborers and slaves. Working people co-produced a consumer revolution, making and buying everything from fine pottery to children’s toys. Many of the poorest working people lived with - but not on - wages. And Romans’ most daunting challenge was the struggle to save. These economies of survival were shared by a wide swath of people, blurring the lines between genders, ages, and legal status.
Using the lives of three Roman families, this talk lays out a new vision of the Roman economy, one constructed from the bottom up.
Irene Bald Romano (University of Arizona)
“A Recent Discovery of Late Hellenistic Marble Sculpture from Parthian/Adiabenian Qalatga Darband in Iraqi Kurdistan”
In this lecture Dr. Romano will examine a group of Greek marble statuettes of the late 2nd or 1st centuries BCE that were discovered at the Parthian/Adiabenian site of Qalatga Darband (eastern Iraqi Kurdistan) in a British Museum excavation between 2016 and 2021. The sculptures were found in an impressive building that was likely the manor house of an official of this fortified town strategically situated guarding a tributary of the Tigris River, as well as a major overland passage through the Zagros Mountains. The statuettes are thoroughly Greek—in material, iconography (Greek divine or mythological figures), technique, and style. It is very unusual to find such a large corpus of Hellenistic sculpture—60 fragments of at least 10 to 11 mid-to large-scale statuettes—in this eastern region. Some of the intriguing research questions are: Who were the sculptors and where were their workshops? What were the circumstances that brought these Greek sculptures to this Parthian/Adiabenian town? Were they purchased or acquired as booty or received in a gift exchange? How were the sculptures used in this location? Who destroyed the building in which they were found?
Tia Sager (University of Toronto)
"The Poetics and Politics of Space in Late Bronze Age Crete (LM II- LM IIIC)"
The Minoan palaces and their elite architecture have captivated the scholarly imagination for over a century, to the extent that these unique monumental complexes have become synonymous with Bronze Age Crete. Significant scholarly work has focused on the emergence and standardization of palatial architecture during the Middle to Late Bronze Age, and subsequently on the novel architectural developments of the Early Iron Age (ca. 1100-800 BCE) following the decline of the palaces. However, few studies have systematically explored the architecture of the intervening periods (ca.1450-1100 BCE), during which architecture on Crete experienced a gradual transformation as a result of innovation and experimentation driven by necessity and scarcity (Hayden 1981; Driessen and Macdonald 1997; McEnroe 2010). During these periods, known as the Final Palatial (LM II-IIIA1) and Postpalatial (LM IIIA2-IIIB), destroyed buildings were scavenged for their useable components, old houses were repurposed and subdivided, dwellings became smaller, and occupation was sparser than it had been previously. At the same time, the ceramic evidence for imports indicates that Crete remained an integral part of a highly interconnected Late Bronze Age world even after the collapse of the palaces. This complex and contradictory period witnessed the emergence of a distinctly Cretan vernacular architectural language, influenced by longstanding vernacular traditions, elite architectural tropes, and the evolving needs of a community in flux. This talk presents the findings of my dissertation project (University of Toronto, 2023), which integrated architectural life histories with Space Syntax Analysis and a phenomenological approach to provide a diachronic perspective on the architectural transformations that transpired on Crete from the decline of the palaces to the conclusion of the Late Bronze Age.
Emily Smith-Sangster (Princeton, BMC)
"Decentering Thebes: Material Expressions of Local Identity and Power in Early New Kingdom Abydos"
Examinations of identity in the ancient Egyptian New Kingdom have long centered the Theban experience, often treating it as synonymous with “Egyptian” identity writ large. This lecture challenges that essentialism by privileging a micro-scale, site-specific approach to identity that treats the concept as materially grounded, temporally situated, and geographically anchored. Using the early 18th Dynasty Ahmose Cemetery in South Abydos, first discovered by the Abydos South Project in 2023, as a case study, this talk explores how a non-royal community at Abydos negotiated questions of local identity during a moment of political consolidation and cultural transformation. Through an analysis of funerary practices and associated material culture, this lecture demonstrates that while elements of Theban traditions were adopted by some, identity at South Abydos was not intended as a local imitation of a capital ideal. Instead, this community selectively engaged with broader cultural shifts while developing locally meaningful expressions of belonging, memory, and difference. In doing so, this study reframes identity not as a fixed or nationally uniform construct, but as something actively produced through engagement with specific landscapes, histories, and moments of political transformation.
Amanda Ball (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World)
“Ash and Memory in the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace"
The Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace is well-known as the home of a famous mystery cult of the Hellenistic Greek world, but its Archaic period origins and Classical period transformations have received much less scholarly attention. In this talk, informed by close reading of archival excavation documentation, I reconsider the stratigraphy of the central valley of the Sanctuary of the Great Gods of Samothrace, arguing that the strata reflect meaningful and strategic engagement with the material evidence of past ritual activity. Working from a social stratigraphy perspective, I analyze ash, bone, and votive collections that were purposefully accumulated within the central sanctuary in the 7th - 6th century BCE, then revisited, manipulated, and dispersed to accommodate monumental structures in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. I argue that ash was treated as a form of socially significant material memory, a remnant of Archaic period ritual activity even after several centuries, and was used to create and maintain social memory for the worshiping community of the Sanctuary.
15th Biennial Graduate Group Symposium, "Consumption: From Cannibalism to Capitalism"
Keynote address by Professor Egbert Bakker (Yale University) "“Conspicuous Consumption: Gastronomy in Classical Athens”
Friday, March 27, 4:30-6:00pm in Carpenter Library B21
Bice Peruzzi (Rutgers University)
"Failure and Experimentation at the Potters Quarter: Evidence of 6th century pottery production at Corinth"
Material from the Potters’ Quarter at Corinth reveals that experimentation was a regular part of the Middle Corinthian pottery industry (6th century BCE), despite the fairly uniform appearance of the finished pots famous for their large-scale distribution throughout the Archaic Mediterranean. However, to date, analyses of ceramic finds from the Potters’ Quarter have focused mainly on their formal and stylistic classification, leaving this rich source of information about ancient pottery manufacture relatively untapped. Our ongoing project examines and documents the Potters’ Quarter’s try-pieces ceramic wasters, misfires, and other vestiges of the production. Ceramic debris from the Potters’ Quarter offers glimpses into workshop procedures and the decisions potters made in response to the vicissitudes of their craft and conditions at each step, including preparing raw materials, potting, decoration, kiln construction, and firing.
Jordan Pickett (University of Georgia)
"New Results from the Byzantine Acropolis at Sardis: Geology, Time, and Architecture"
This paper considers the results of new fieldwork undertaken at Sardis since 2019, as part of the Harvard-Cornell Exploration of Sardis, with a focus on the Byzantine Acropolis. A particularly challenging environment, the Acropolis consists of tectonically-uplifted gravelly riverbeds, which have become extremely eroded and sheer over the centuries. There are significant questions about the historical deformation of the Acropolis, which have consequences for our understanding of the massive spolia-built fortifications of the Byzantine period that sit atop. These are hundreds of meters of walls, entirely built of recycled materials, including every known Roman period structure from the city below, in addition to likely dozens of hitherto unidentified monuments. Gates, vaulted interior structures, posterns: the Byzantine fortifications at Sardis sit in rare company alongside Nicaea, Ephesos, Pergamon, and Magnesia on the Maeander, as monuments of the so-called Transitional Byzantine Period (c. AD 650 – 850). New radiocarbon results concerning the date of the Acropolis are discussed here, alongside new geomorphological studies, as well as architectural and historical analysis.
Gojko Barjamovic (Yale University)
"Swords, Germs, and Tin"
Combined advances in archaeological science, landscape analysis, and the study of ancient text allows a retelling of the cross-continental exchange system that connected Mongolia to the Mediterranean four thousand years ago. This talk integrates isotopic analysis, archaeozoology, prosopographical studies, historical geography, material culture, and human pathology to paint a picture of the system seen from the viewpoint of a single individual – a trader named Zizizi (born c. 1895 BCE) who had her life turned upside down by the very connectedness upon which her society was predicated.
Kyle Olson (Washington University at St. Louis)
"Looking back over a century of US-Iran Heritage Diplomacy"
Every major fine arts and archaeological museum in the United States has a collection of Iranian antiquities, with predictable categories of objects on display, representative of the results of decades of scientific excavations as well as art-market collecting vogues. How did this come to pass and why does it matter today? In this talk, I will share some of the highlights from my book project—American Archaeology in Iran, Iranian Antiquities in America—which shows how the accumulation of Iranian patrimony in the United States is the result of decades of heritage diplomacy, in which Iranian and American archaeologists participated—albeit on unequal footing—in research collaborations, material and educational exchanges, and the cooperative governance of vestiges of the past. In light of recent geopolitical events, understanding and making good on the durable and lasting connection between these two nations manifested in Iranian patrimony stored in American institutions has never been more important.
Fall 2025 CNEA Lectures
“Conversation on Archaeology, Law, and Ethics, 2025"
We will explore some of the most interesting American cases from 2025 illustrating how law and ethics interact with and affect archaeology.
"Cultivating the Senses: Gardens and Sensory Indulgence in Ancient Egypt"
The term “garden” in ancient Egypt encompassed a remarkable range of spaces, from modest household plots to temple precincts, tomb courtyards, and expansive royally managed fields. Modern scholarship has often imposed functional or locational taxonomies, such as food gardens, pleasure gardens, or funerary gardens, that may obscure how these spaces actually overlapped in practice and meaning. Drawing on archaeological remains, textual references, artistic depictions, and ethnobotanical studies, I reconsider the garden as a locus of sensory indulgence in New Kingdom Egypt. At Amarna and beyond, gardens were not limited to agricultural production but created environments of shade, fragrance, sound, and visual delight that equated sensory stimulation with life itself. Accessible across social strata, gardens manifested nourishment, pleasure, health, and divine presence, serving both the living and the dead. By reframing gardens as sites where cultivation embodied cultural values of sensing and being, I argue that their purpose extended well beyond subsistence to encompass the very experience of living.
"From the Emergence of Complexity to Large Scale Empires. Four Seasons of Excavation at Gird-I Matrab (Iraqi Kurdistan)"
The Gird-i Matrab Archaeological Project (GMAP) explores the long-term development of rural communities during periods of profound socio-cultural transformation in Mesopotamia. Since 2021, excavations and surveys on the Erbil Plain (Kurdistan Region of Iraq) have revealed a continuous occupation spanning from the Late Chalcolithic (5th–4th millennia BCE) to the Parthian–Roman periods (early 1st millennium CE). By integrating careful stratigraphic excavation, pottery studies, and remote sensing, GMAP examines how local communities negotiated shifting imperial powers, how rural agency shaped the countryside, and to what extent material culture reflects both trans-regional inputs and local resilience. The project underscores rurality as an active and generative sphere, offering new perspectives on the role of Mesopotamian communities within expansive polities and highlighting the interplay of connectivity, adaptation, and localism.
"Korphos-Kalamianos: Twenty-five Years of Research at a Mycenaean Harbor"
On a bright morning in May 2001, a group of archaeologists waded ashore at an unpromising, rocky headland near the fishing village of Korphos on the Saronic Gulf in southern Greece. We never imagined that within minutes, we would discover the exposed foundations of a nearly complete Mycenaean harbor settlement. In this presentation, I describe the many ways we have explored and learned about this place, today called Kalamianos, in the last 25 years, focusing first on the archaeological site itself before moving outward to its hinterland; to a Saronic “maritime small world”; and finally to the bigger world of the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean. This journey has involved classic techniques of architectural documentation of some 50 buildings and on- and off-site pedestrian survey. It has included marine geophysics and dive surveys to explore the harbor and work back to the Bronze Age shoreline, and archaeometric analysis of pottery. The Saronic Harbors Archaeological Research Project, or SHARP, is poised to publish a final report. My aim is to show how diverse skill sets and areas of expertise came together to paint a vivid portrait of a unique site that may have been Mycenae’s main harbor on the Saronic Gulf.
"Twelve Millennia of Farming in Anatolia: A Paleoethnobotanical Perspective"
Plants have much to say about people. Their presence in the archaeological record are testaments to the lives of past human communities who have planted, harvested, used them, and have entwined their imagination with images and stories of them. This talk explores the deep history of Anatolia—modern Turkey—by tracing changes in farming strategies across the region’s shifting socio-cultural and environmental landscapes. While covering a broad chronological scope, the focus will be particularly on the Late Bronze and Iron Ages, a period marked by the rise and fall of Anatolia’s first territorial power, the Hittite Empire, and the new socio-political networks that emerged following its collapse. Drawing on original data and a systematic survey of published scholarship, this talk also offers a critical reflection on the diverse ways paleoethnobotanical data can create historical narratives.
"In the land of Ninkasi: A history of beer in ancient Mesopotamia"
The inhabitants of the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers gave us the world’s first cities, first kings, first writing. They also built the world’s first great beer culture. They loved their beer: its colors, textures, tastes, and intoxicating effects. They sipped it through long reed straws and praised it in song and story. They drank beer at home, on the job, and in neighborhood taverns––also at feasts, festivals and religious ceremonies. In this talk, Tate Paulette introduces his new book, In the Land of Ninkasi: A History of Beer in Ancient Mesopotamia. This authoritative but light-hearted account explains exactly what we know about the beers, brewers, and drinkers of ancient Mesopotamia, how we know it, and what puzzles still remain to be solved.
"Eating and Drinking in a Classical Greek Harbor Town: The Archaeological Science of Cuisine"
The Molyvoti, Thrace, Archaeological Project (MTAP) explores evidence for agriculture, diet, and cuisine along the north Aegean coast. Since 2013, excavations at Molyvoti have largely focused on two Classical residential structures laid out on a Hippodamian grid plan and occupied during the early/mid-fourth century BC, the House of Hermes and the House of the Gorgon. Archaeobotanical remains, integrated with zooarchaeological results, pottery studies, and detailed contextual analysis, have revealed microscopic traces of fermenting, cooking, boiling, and other food processing activities. Together with information from Classical texts, a north Aegean cuisine has come into sharper focus, highlighting the ways in which local crops came to be celebrated and staple Classical dishes persisted as the backbone of daily foodways at Molyvoti.
C. Densmore Curtis Lecture: "From an Elephantine Jar: Wives, lives and little white lies in early Hellenistic Egypt" with John Ma (Columbia University)
4:30pm, Carpenter Library 21
"Making Waves: Maritime Archaeology in Lebanon"
Lebanon’s maritime archaeology sheds light on the nation’s deep and multifaceted ties to the sea—from its ancient navigation networks to the impacts of contemporary coastal expansion. This talk explores how the field has evolved in Lebanon and where it stands today, situating it within both its historical roots and its present-day challenges. Beginning with early observations by post-medieval travellers and the groundbreaking contributions of Honor Frost, the discussion traces the growth of maritime research along the Lebanese coast, including locally led investigations that persisted even through periods of conflict. By drawing on current and recent projects funded by the Honor Frost Foundation, I highlight how interdisciplinary methods—combining marine geophysics, geoarchaeology, remote sensing, and diver-based surveys—are shaping new understandings of the coastal and underwater record. Particular focus is placed on rescue initiatives and heritage responses to coastal development and emergencies, most notably in the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion. The lecture also engages with the broader structural issues affecting heritage protection, such as illicit recovery, lack of regulation, and institutional fragility. Looking ahead, it considers the paths toward resilience through training, public outreach, and sustainable models for preserving Lebanon’s vulnerable maritime past.
Archaeology Social Hour
Join us for sweet treats in the London Room!
"Babylon and its Many Ends"
Scholars often imagine Babylon to have had three lives: its ancient existence as a center of cuneiform culture, its afterlife in memory and myth, and its modern revival as a symbol of Iraqi identity. The tendency is to see these three lives as distinct and self-contained, yet this talk questions whether such boundaries truly hold. Focusing on Babylon’s first life, it revisits the many scholarly “ends” ascribed to its history. Through seven snapshots of supposed decline, the talk exposes how each ending contains persistence and renewal. By shifting from narratives of rupture to those of transformation, I propose a more organic view of historical change. Ultimately, I ask what is lost, both scholarly and ethically, when we insist that Babylon, and cuneiform culture, truly came to an end.
"Tombs and Tumba: New perspectives on Late Bronze Age Greek ceramics from Enkomi, Cyprus at the Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm"
The Medelhavsmuseet in Stockholm, Sweden boasts one of the finest Cypriot collections in the world, numbering around 12,000 objects from all of the island’s archaeological eras. A significant portion of these objects remains unpublished, including almost 150 boxes-worth of ceramic sherds from the Late Bronze Age tombs of Enkomi in eastern Cyprus. These sherds were excavated by the Swedish Cyprus Expedition in the summer of 1930 and now reside in the Medelhavsmuseet’s storage facility in Tumba, Sweden. To reconstruct technical actions related to ceramic production, an initial sample of 25 ceramic fragments of mainly Mycenaean Greek derivation, from three of 22 tombs excavated by the Swedish team were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and thin-section petrography. These analyses produce a range of mineralogical and microstructural findings that assess in new detail the production and distribution of imported Greek pottery and early, local Cypriot imitations. The longer-term objectives of the larger, ongoing study are to identify varied technical actions and behaviors and link these to craftspeople of different cultural and geographical backgrounds; and in so doing, shed light on the rich complexities of Late Bronze Age Enkomi and Cyprus.
Spring 2025 CNEA Lectures
JJ Shirley (Bryn Mawr College)
“One Tomb, Two Kings: Unlocking the Sequence of Construction and Decoration in Theban Tomb 110"
Theban Tomb 110, well-known for its depiction of both Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, presents a unique opportunity to examine the degree of personal involvement that the tomb’s owner, Djehuty, had in its decoration. In 2022 the epigraphic work of the TT110 Epigraphy and Research Field School completed the first full documentation of the tomb. The results of the work provide new information that allows for a more nuanced understanding of the timeline of the tomb’s design and the owner’s career. In this talk I will present the findings of the field school, suggesting a chronology for TT110’s construction and decoration, and highlighting Djehuty’s participation in the process.
Bernhard Schneider (University of Wroclaw)
“The Age of Empire in Rural Babylonia (c. 720-150 BCE, Southern Iraq)”
The project RuBab: Rural Babylonian Settlements during the Early Age of Empire (c. 720-150 BCE) will be presented in this talk. The still under researched countryside is the main focus of the work and should provide an additional dimension to the urban based research in the area. The project covers the area to the East and Southeast of Nippur/Niffer until the region surrounding Adab/Bismaya, not exclusively but mainly with drone survey and geomorphological examination. This is a region which housed several villages and settlements known from the texts, e. g. the Murašû archive (c. 450-400 BCE) etc which were named after different ethnic groups or professions. So far, none of them could be identified by archaeology. Some first results are presented from the first RuBab campaign in 2024, and also an outlook provided for the upcoming season with excavations at Ishan Hâfudh, a site first visited by Raymond P. Dougherty (Yale) in 1926.
Zach Silvia (Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, Brown University)
"Post-Hellenistic Palimpsests: archaeological remote sensing in Uzbekistan in the wake of the Anthropocene"
Recent debates over the human impact on the global Earth System, collectively known as the Anthropocene, have transitioned from identifying anthropogenic, geological chronostratigraphic markers to more generalized archaeological temporalities and epistemologies. One useful consideration has been Bruno Latour’s identification of the technological and social limits of communities of scale to act in the face of existential environmental crisis. This talk considers archaeological aspects of Anthropocene discourse through the lens of recent fieldwork in western Uzbekistan. From 2023-24, a systematic and integrated field-based remote sensing and geophysical survey was undertaken in the southern Kyzylkum Desert west of modern Bukhara – a rare archaeological case in which single-period sites ranging from the late Bronze Age through post-Hellenistic (“Kangju”) periods conclude with the rapid abandonment of rural life. Here some preliminary results from the survey are put into conversation with the long-term processes of human affect and inaffect in water politics, rural land management, and colonialism that result in the palimpsest relict Kyzlkum landscape that presents itself to us today.
Brandon McDonald (Tufts University)
"Shifting Sands: The Dynamics of Trade and Resource Extraction in Roman Egypt’s Eastern Desert"
Egypt’s Eastern Desert was a cultural and commercial nexus in Graeco-Roman antiquity, connecting societies of the Mediterranean, East Africa, and the western Indian Ocean. Yet activity in the region was anything but consistent; in particular, the Roman period (30 BCE – 641 CE) had extreme highs and near desolate lows. The first two centuries of Roman rule saw intensive exploitation of the desert’s resources – mainly precious stone and minerals – alongside bustling Indo-Mediterranean trade routes that channeled goods between the Mediterranean and Red seas. But, by the third century, the Roman state had withdrawn from significant portions of the Eastern Desert, abandoning major ports and quarries. While activity resurged in late antiquity (fourth – sixth century), the drivers of the revival remain debated – was it Roman re-engagement or indigenous initiative? Multiple factors may have shaped these transitions, including distant wars, shifting patterns of trade, environmental change, and outbreaks of disease. This talk explores the causes of dramatic socio-economic transformations in a dynamic frontier zone of the Roman Empire.
Henry Colburn (Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan)
"Diplomatic Drinking and Other Lessons about Achaemenid Egypt from the Tell el-Maskhuta Hoard"
In the winter of 1947–48, a hoard of at least fourteen silver drinking vessels, thirty-one gold-mounted agate eyestones and six to ten thousand Athenian tetradrachms and local imitations thereof was discovered at Tell el-Maskhuta in the eastern Nile Delta in Egypt. The initial reports on the hoard were by numismatists, who published a small fraction of the coins, and in the 1950s Biblical scholars became interested in the Aramaic inscriptions on the silver vessels, especially the one mentioning Gashmu the Arab, a shadowy figure who appears in the Book of Nehemiah. Yet the hoard, which dates to the late fifth century BCE, has never been studied in its entirety, despite its extraordinary potential to shed light on the history of Egypt under Achaemenid Persian rule, for four main reasons. First, the vessels appear to be Egyptian versions of Persian drinking vessels. This implies the adoption of Persian drinking practices by certain segments of the Egyptian population, despite the famously conservative nature of Egyptian culture. Second, the inscriptions, and perhaps also the eyestones, imply the presence of a Qedarite Arab community in the eastern Nile Delta, which had probably been installed following Cambyses’ invasion in 526. Third, Tell el-Maskhuta was situated on the Red Sea canal constructed by Darius, and was also the site where the famous statue of Darius from Susa was originally erected. In other words, it was a key node in the empire’s infrastructure network. Fourth and finally, the Athenian tetradrachms in the hoard presumably came to Egypt as a result of the Persians requiring tribute to be paid in silver. As Egypt was rich in grain but poor in silver, this was acquired by the export of grain to the Greek world, especially Athens, in exchange for coins. By the end of the fifth century these coins were sufficiently widespread in Egypt that they had been integrated into Egyptian weight standards and were even minted locally to supplement the otherwise unreliable money supply. This lecture is a preliminary report on an ongoing study of the hoard that focuses on these four aspects, with a view towards elucidating both the nature of Achaemenid rule of Egypt and the intercultural character of the Egyptian Late Period.
Jim Wright (Professor Emeritus, Bryn Mawr College)
"Kommos as an Iron Age harbor in the territory of Gortyn (Crete)"
This lecture will not be available to the public on Zoom. If you are a student or BMC affiliate, please email Jennie Bradbury for Zoom Registration.
About 1020 BC the ruined walls of a massive building stood out from the sand dunes that covered the abandoned harbor at Kommos. Locals remembered when Phaistos ruled the region and erected a small shrine over the remains. Boats began again to shelter here. Seeking their way to the west in the 10th c. Phoenicians used the harbor and by the 9th c. established in the shrine a typical tri-pillar altar. Cretans and Greeks met up at the harbor and enlarged the small sanctuary. In the 7th c. a long building housed goods, likely for provisioning the Greek colonies at Cyrene and Tocra, a night’s sail across the Libyan Sea. Sailors traded stories as they drank wine together. Phoenician amphoras and jugs were left behind from the 9th through 7th c. some with inscriptions. Many drinking cups carry Greek abecedaria. Kommos was one of many places where the alphabet was developed. Cosmopolitan conviviality surely loosened sailors’ tongues as they shared stories and sang songs of adventure and catastrophe. As Gortyn grew into the main city of the region, Homer related how Odysseus fared returning from Troy. Poseidon sent a storm to scatter Menelaus and his ships until they rounded the headland off the nearby coast and found shelter “at the farthest edge of Gortyn”. This was Kommos. After 600 BCE the harbor fell into disuse. The center of gravity shifted to the Mainland as Corinth directed traffic to the west, invented the trireme and then gave way to Athens. Kommos ceased to be a port but its shrine continued to be a place of worship down into the Roman empire. Around 175 CE it was once again abandoned and covered by the sands of time, only to be recognized in 1926 when Sir Arthur Evans identified it as the harbor of the Bronze Age palace at Phaistos.
Muge Durusu, Temple University
“Deconstructing a Corpus: Rethinking Late Bronze Age Rock Monuments in Anatolia”
Rock monuments of Late Bronze Age Anatolia (c. 1600-1180 BCE) are often associated with the Hittite Empire, the dominant political power in Anatolia during this period. This association—coupled with the uniformity of their medium (stone), similarities in their iconography, the location of several monuments along the borders of the empire, and their incorporation of Anatolian hieroglyphs—has often led to their perception and scholarly treatment as a uniform corpus, possibly marking the borders of the empire. This talk is an exercise in deconstructing this corpus of monuments by highlighting the differences between the patronage, content, context, dating, and relationship with the wider landscape. By demonstrating overlaps and thematic connections between rock monuments and the larger realm of artistic production in Late Bronze Age Anatolia, I will argue that rock monuments include many sub-groups that speak to various themes including political power, territoriality, ritual, and place-making, and that these differences formed the basis of how these monuments were designed, executed, and experienced in the landscape.
Gunvor Lindstroem (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World)
"The Denavar Satyrs as Travelers Through Time and Space: From Ancient Persia to Greece and Rome, and Their 20th-Century Fates"
The influence of Greco-Roman artistic traditions on the Parthian Empire (c. 250 BCE–225 CE) remains a subject of debate, with little direct evidence attesting to their presence. One long-overlooked artifact that challenges this assumption is the recently reconstructed Denavar Vase, a monumental stone bowl adorned with a satyr frieze in the Greek style. The reconstruction of this bowl—its fragments now dispersed across museums and collections on three continents—suggests that it once formed part of a local ruler’s palace décor, reflecting a deep engagement with the visual language of the Roman elite.
The second part of this lecture traces the biographies of these fragments since their discovery around 1914. It will follow the track of famous scholars and connoisseurs who incorporated the pieces into their collections, and go on a varied journey through the art history and historiography of Hellenistic and Parthian art. This journey also explores 19th-century decorative arts and museum presentations, ultimately navigating the political history from the First to the end of the Second World War.
Sarah Madole Lewis (BMCC/CUNY)
"The Cloisters Sarcophagus in its Eastern Mediterranean Context"
A priceless relic of the past sits in the cloisters at Bryn Mawr College, where it witnesses annual rites and celebrations, although not the ones its original owner intended. Inscribed in Latin and decorated with a type of garland design motif common to the eastern Roman Empire, the sarcophagus has drawn the attention of many, but few understand its context within the funerary landscape of the eastern Mediterranean. One of a pair of marble coffins said to have been discovered in Beirut, Lebanon, the two objects supposedly took hundreds of men to transport to the harbor from what is today the tony neighborhood of Ashrafieh. I consider the inscription, design motif, and presumed find spot, in conjunction with the overarching regional data, which allows us to contextualize the Bryn Mawr sarcophagus in its historical context in the Roman Empire and specifically, in the eastern Mediterranean in the first half of the third century CE.
Dr. Sarah Madole Lewis is Associate Professor of Art History at the Borough of Manhattan Community College – City University of New York. She is currently finishing a book on Roman sarcophagi in their eastern Mediterranean contexts, which is how she came across the cloisters sarcophagus.
Lorenzo d’Alfonso, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University / Dept of Humanities, University of Pavia
‘Write me in!’. The modality of adoption and spread of the alphabet in central Anatolia after the new discoveries from Niğde Kınık Höyük"
The adoption and spread of the alphabet from the Levant throughout the Mediterranean is considered one of the greatest outcomes of the transformation following the ‘collapse’ of the Bronze Age Palatial societies. Moving beyond the traditional view of the spread of alphabet as a byproduct of Phoenician maritime trade at Mediterranean emporia, recent investigations have shifted focus on the modalities and contexts of its spread and adoption. A better chronological and geographic setting of these phenomena is also part of the ongoing discussion. Anatolia has recently come to the fore as a key region, with evidence of the adoption of an alphabetic writing by the Muski power (Phrygia for the Greco-Roman world) which is either coeval or even precedes the adoption for writing the Greek language. Thus, a spread via terra, as opposed to via mare, has been suggested, possibly unrelated to trade. This would imply a transmission from the Levant, towards Cilicia and Cappadocia, into the core of the Anatolian Plateau. The 2023-24 discovery of alphabetic-inscribed sherds at Niğde- Kınık Höyük (south Cappadocia), in a Middle Iron Age context, offers relevant clues to answer some of the questions on modalities of definition and spread of the alphabet in Central Anatolia. At the same time, it raises new ones, linking the spread of the alphabet to the definition of novel group identities - political and social - in a new era.
Trevor Van Damme (University of Warwick, UK)
"The Mycenaean Settlement North of the Acropolis: New Data from the Athenian Agora Excavations"
The Athenian Agora Excavations have revealed dozens of Mycenaean or Late Bronze Age (ca. 1700–1050 BCE) chamber tombs since their inception in 1931. This paper presents a further unpublished tomb and a Mycenaean house built on the south bank of the Eridanos River. The house is the earliest building excavated to date within the area of the Classical Agora. After discussing their excavation in the 1970s and presenting a selection of associated finds to establish their date and significance, I conclude with a broader discussion of the growth of the Mycenaean settlement north of the Acropolis in the 13th century BCE and its sudden decline in the 12th century BCE.
Rachel M. Winter (Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library)
“Biomolecules and Multidisciplinarity Applied to Marine Historical Ecology: Case Studies in the Eastern Mediterranean and Early Modern Period”
Zoom Registration
After millennia of marine resource exploitation, our seas today look drastically different than they once did with losses in abundance and biodiversity of marine fauna. Multidisciplinary approaches to historic animal remains, encompassing biomolecular methods, provides us with a path to understanding what those past ecosystems looked like and helps us to establish historical ecological baselines. First focusing on marine ecosystems in the eastern Mediterranean, stable isotope analysis will shed light on ancient trophodynamics and the insight they add to modern bioinvasions and palaeoproteomics will be applied to questions of species abundance, catch sizes, and biogeography. Our second case study will move into the early modern period and discuss marine shagreen, a luxurious, storied leather made from the skins of elasmobranchs (sharks, rays, and skates). Demand for marine shagreen peaked between the 17th-19th centuries in northwestern Europe and studying these objects with a multidisciplinary approach can provide us with insight into historical elasmobranch exploitation.
Fall 2024 CNEA Lectures
Amy Gansell (St. John's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences)
“What Archaeology Can Tell Us About Ancient Assyrian Queens of Nimrud’s Northwest Palace (c. 865-705 BCE, Iraq)"
Archaeology has most prominently revealed the “treasures” with which ancient Assyrian queens were buried beneath the Northwest Palace at Nimrud. Rather than emphasizing individual objects, however, I present these treasures, and other major palace assemblages, in archaeological context. In particular, I investigate the regalia and ritual equipment preserved in the queens’ tombs, the architecture and luxury installations of the queens’ throne room suite, and a corpus of ivory carvings that may once have clad the queens’ furnishings and personal belongings. Through the study of these archaeological assemblages and contexts, we can learn about both the material culture of queenship and the queens themselves. Indeed, archaeology reveals the beauty, power, and presence of ancient Assyrian queens as a palpable force, eternally enmeshed in palace and empire.
Holly Pittman (University of Pennsylvania)
“Cultures in Contact: Seeing Interaction through Imagery on the Iranian Plateau during the Bronze Age of Exchange”
Among the minor arts in the ancient Near East, engraved seal stones are closely associated with personal or corporate identity expressed through iconography and style. In settings where administrators from different communities interact, such small portable objects can be particularly sensitive markers of cultural identity when other evidence, textual or ceramic, is absent. This feature of personal seals makes them an especially useful window into cultural interaction during the third millennium Early Bronze Age when the ancient world from the Euphrates to the Indus was linked together through a vast network of exchange and interaction along which merchants, craftsmen, emissaries and later soldiers and diplomats passed. While the Mesopotamian cuneiform texts provide us with hints of this interaction, we can evaluate it directly through the material traces left of the minor arts, especially the administrative residue of glyptic art. This talk will illustrate through the rich and varied finds from the recent excavations at Konar Sandal South in the Halil River valley of Kerman province in southeastern Iran the evidence for this cultural contact. Among them are impressions of imported seals, local seals, hybrid seals that merge traits of various cultural styles reflecting the cultural identities of the merchants and officials who interacted at the heart of mercantile interaction sphere. Through this residue we can imagine who the players were and how they were affected by their interlocutors.
Asil Yaman (Villanova University)
“Agricultural Organization in the Chora of Hellenistic Phoenix (Rhodian Peraia)”
The ancient Phoenix, strategically located in Rhodian Peraea, was founded in the archaic period and flourished during the Hellenistic era. It left behind a unique legacy of agricultural practices and organizational methods. Since 2021, new-gen archaeological pedestrian surveys and excavations by the Phoenix Archaeological Project have shed light on this sophisticated agricultural organization, relating it to settlement patterns and land use. By integrating geophysical data, digital archaeological tools, and botanical studies, I reveal how the agricultural landscape was meticulously organized to optimize both crop production and urban development. This presentation will illuminate the rural agrarian economy of Phoenix and its implications for understanding regional trade with Rhodes and rural economic strategies in Hellenistic societies.
Jeffrey A. Becker (Binghamton University – SUNY)
“Situating the Roman city: form and function”
The landscapes of Republican Italy are often characterized in relation to the phenomena of urbanism, particularly those related to the expansion of the Roman state. The establishment of colonies under various legal frameworks transforms “pre-Roman” landscapes into “Roman” ones, following the conventional narrative. The “Roman city” thus becomes not simply a place but also a node in a socio-economic network that reshapes the Italian peninsula and the wider Mediterranean. Finding Romanness in all of this expansion is also often a desideratum, often in the hopes of being able to expertly unravel the phenomena of urban expansion into independent cultural threads. The Romans themselves were also looking for identity in these threads, coming to define their world and themselves in terms of urban vs. non-urban dichotomies. An examination of middle to late Republican instances of urbanism in light of later Republican identity building can help in situating the topos of the Roman city and in understanding its forms and functions.
Jason Herrmann, University of Pennsylvania
“Space and Identity in Ancient Motya (Sicily)”
Originally conceived as a project to document domestic spaces away from the monumental buildings of Motya, the urban plan documented as part of the Space and Identity at Ancient Motya project comprises a new line of evidence for understanding identity and socio-political organization within Phoenecian-Punic polities in the central Mediterranean. This project, a partnership between the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Palermo, has taken a landscape approach to this important node in western Sicily, integrating extensive archaeogeophysical surveys, surface collection, and test excavations to track how space was shaped and re-shaped over time. In this presentation we will discuss the configuration and timing of Motya’s urban elements that were revealed through this research with an emphasis on the city as it appeared at its height in the 5th century BCE. We will then consider varied cultural and political influences that informed urban organization and how they reflect the perspectives of the city’s architects and the people who lived there.
Tyler Franconi (Brown University)
“Health and wealth at Roman and early medieval Vacone, Italy"
This paper explores the relationship between health and wealth at the Roman villa of Vacone, located 70 km north of Rome in the Sabine region of central Italy. Excavations by the Upper Sabina Tiberina Project since 2012 have revealed the extensive remains of an early imperial villa with heavily decorated domestic quarters as well as one of the largest known olive pressing installations in central Italy. The region was known in antiquity for its olive oil, and the owners of the Vacone villa undoubtedly earned at least part of their wealth from its sale. As wealthy as the villa was, however, analyses of latrines and waste water channels reveal that its inhabitants carried multiple gastrointestinal parasites, offering a strong contrast to the perceived elite lifestyle otherwise associated with rural estates. The villa was destroyed, probably by an earthquake, around AD 200 and its ruins were thereafter used as a cemetery in the late Roman and early medieval periods. These populations also show signs of parasitic infection as well as other ailments, and thus provide the opportunity to explore the changing relationships between health and wealth in Sabine Italy during the first millenium AD.
C. Densmore Curtis Lecture with Daniele Morandi Bonacossi (University of Udine)
“Settlement, Irrigation and Landscape Commemoration in the Core of the Assyrian Empire. Sennacherib’s Irrigation System in the Nineveh Hinterland and the Salvage of the Assyrian Faida Canal and its Rock-reliefs (Iraq)”
Tea: Quita Woodward Room, 4:00pm
Lecture: Old Library 110, 4:30pm
Reception: Wyndham Terrace, following lecture
The Governorates of Duhok and Ninawa in northern Iraq host the most unique and monumental irrigation system ever built by the Assyrians in the core of their empire. Between 703 and c. 688 BCE King Sennacherib created in four stages the "Northern Assyrian Irrigation System", a ramified network of canals to water Nineveh’s extensive hinterland and bring water to his ‘Palace without a Rival’ and royal parks on the citadel of Nineveh. The creation of this new waterscape greatly transformed the rural landscape of the Assyrian core region, determining a shift from extensive dry farming to an intensive, predictable and high-yield cultivation system based on irrigation.
The talk presents the results of the work conducted since 2012 by the Land of Nineveh Archaeological Project of the Udine University on the "Northern Assyrian Irrigation System", with a particular focus on the newly discovered Assyrian Faida canal and rock art complex. Investigation of this extraordinary and extremely endangered archaeological site was launched in 2019 and has led to the exploration of an at least 10 km-long irrigation canal cut into the limestone bedrock of the Chiya Daka hill range. Thirteen monumental, sculpted rock panels carved along the canal’s eastern bank were brought to light, representing an Assyrian ruler depicted at both ends of each panel, framing the cult statues of seven deities standing on pedestals shaped like striding animals.
Peter van Alfen (American Numismatic Society)
"Power, Money, and Art: Who and What do (Archaic) Coins Represent?"
On the coins we use today, we recognize the link between the images and the political powers that issue them. These images, often produced by leading artists, generally tend as well to represent notions of community and shared values. Already in the Classical period, imagery on coins had settled into these recognizable functions. But in the first generations of coin production, ca. 650–520 BCE, this wasn’t necessarily the case. This talk explores the nexus of power, money, and art, and the processes by which coins came to be used as tools of political and communal representation.
Shannon M. Dunn (Bryn Mawr College)
"Sacred Spaces in Peloponnesian Borderlands"
The boundary zones between Greek city-states were landscapes where many “marginal” or fraught activities could potentially occur — from adolescent initiation rites to military conflict — but also where daily life mostly happened as usual for shepherds, beekeepers, and many settlements situated close to the borders. Sanctuaries located in border zones have long been considered in scholarship as assertions of central polis ownership over distant territory and were sometimes used as boundary landmarks. This talk considers the immediate landscapes of these border sanctuaries, and the communities which they served — whether as cult locales for local populations, meeting places for communities across borders, or as pilgrimage sites for visitors from poleis near and far, even if in mountainous or seemingly remote locations. Different expressions of border zone religious life will be presented from across the Archaic to Roman Peloponnese, considering the physical environment and topography, associated myths, political histories, and material evidence for cult practices.
Lara Fabian (UCLA)
"Pithos burials and the Puzzle of the Parthian Empire"
The Parthian Empire (ca. 250 BCE–225 CE) has proven to be an elusive archaeological subject, despite its long duration and frequent appearance in textual records generated in the Mediterranean world. In this paper, I discuss one burial practice frequently associated with the Parthian world—pithoi cemeteries, where both adults and children were interred in large jars. After reviewing traditional descriptions and interpretations of this practice, I will present material from the South Caucasus, demonstrating that the phenomenon was much more widespread in this zone than has previously been acknowledged. This evidence suggests the need to reconsider our understanding of pithoi cemeteries and their potential connection to the broader Parthian cultural sphere. In the course of the discussion, I will also address the historical and conceptual challenges that contribute to the Parthians’ persistent elusiveness in the archaeological record, even as we search for the traces of their vast empire.
Contact Us
Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology
Old Library
Bryn Mawr College
101 N. Merion Avenue
Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania 19010
Phone: 610-526-5053 or 610-526-5334
Fax: 610-526-7955