Speaker Highlights
November 9, 2012

This year’s Presidential Plenary Session will feature a panel of archaeologists tackling the complex issues in defining, understanding, and interpreting evidence while studying ancient urban centers. The talk will draw on research that spans across the globe, from Southeast Asia to North America, and will explore a multitude of cultural, economic, and social aspects of urban development.

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AIA President Elizabeth Bartman gives us an exclusive preview of the upcoming Presidential Plenary Session at this year’s Annual Meeting.

               “I am very excited to preside over this panel on the ancient city.

This is the second of the three presidential panels that I will be organizing during my 3-year term, all devoted to major themes of archaeological research.  What's especially provocative is that the panel will feature a mix of Old and New World archaeologists, including several who work in Southeast Asia and North America, areas rarely covered in our Annual Meeting.  Miriam Stark of the University of Hawai’i-Mānoa leads off the session by posing fundamental questions about how we define cities and the nature of the evidence we use to understand them--early cities in Cambodia serve as the laboratory for her investigations.  Nicola Terrenato  of Michigan seeks to explain the rise of Rome by discerning patterns in the social, economic, and architectural activity in central Latium over centuries.  James Kus of Fresno looks at the relationship between city and hinterland in pre-Inca Peru.  Timothy Pauketat of Illinois links Cahokia's development to religious change; religion and ceremony also motivate urban development in Minoan Crete, the subject of Jan Driessen of Louvain's paper.

Touching upon architecture; communication and transport networks; the relationship between city and hinterland; the role of aristocratic elite and other social groups; ritual and ceremony, these papers cover a range of complex issues that lie at the core of our concepts of urbanism.”

Session 6B, entitled AIA President Elizabeth Bartman’s Plenary Session: The Ancient City, will be held on Saturday, January 5th, at 2:45 pm.

Join President Elizabeth Bartman and culinary expert Maureen Fant on the upcoming AIA Tour, "Taste of Ancient Rome". This custom-designed tour will explore the fabulous sites and flavors of Rome in style. 

November 2, 2012

Archaeologist William A. Parkinson to present new finds from extensive ritual site in Southern Greece at the upcoming Annual Meeting.

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Ongoing excavations at Alepotrypa Cave by William A. Parkinson and Michael L. Galaty, co-directors of the Diros Project, alongside their Greek colleauges, have revealed an extensive Neolithic ritual site and surrounding settlement. Over 160 burials have been uncovered inside the cave, surrounded by remnants of painted funeral vases and covered in thick layers of ash, the result of blazing fires lit within the cave’s massive chamber. The cave’s entrance collapsed nearly 5,000 years ago, effectively sealing the burials – and the cave’s living occupants – inside. Dr. Parkinson and his colleagues will be presenting their most current research from the Diros Project at the AIA’s Annual Meeting on Saturday, January 5th, in section 6D, Mani: The Diros Project and Alepotrypa Cave.

To read more on Alepotrypa Cave, check out WBEZ’s article here.

November 2, 2012

Dr. Jodi Magness will be presenting "The Ancient Village and Synagogue at Huqoq in Galilee" on opening night, January 3rd, 2013.

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Huqoq, Israel: the site of an ancient Jewish village, never before excavated until archaeologist Jodi Magness and her team arrived in the summer of 2011. The results of the first season were promising: monumental stone foundations of what was once a synagogue building, surprising for a village of such small size. Even after a full season, archaeologists had not reached the original floor level, leaving the team unsure of the structure’s exact date.

When the team returned in 2012, they continued to expose more of the synagogue’s foundations. What they found was completely unexpected. The exposed floors were composed of stunning mosaics of exceptional quality, still brightly-colored and intact. One mosaic featured biblical figure Samson in a scene from the book of Judges, chapter 15, another featured two female figures surrounding a Hebrew or Aramaic inscription. Dr. Magness called the finds “significant” given the high quality of the mosaic and how rare it would have been at the time of its creation. The discovery of such mosaics presents archaeologists with more evidence on how Jewish and Roman art and culture interacted in this region.

Attend the AIA Public Lecture on January 3rd, 2013, at 6:00 pm to hear more about Prof. Magness’s riveting accounts. The Attendees can also pick up a copy of her latest book, The Archaeology of the Holy Land: From the Destruction of Solomon's Temple to the Muslim Conquest on Amazon. 

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