Please join us for an in-person screening and informal discussion of the Archaeology Hour talk by Justin Leidwanger (Stanford University).

The Marzamemi “church wreck” (as it has been labeled) — a 6th-century CE shipwreck found off the southeastern tip of Sicily, has long been interpreted as a symbol of the emperor Justinian’s ‘revival’ of a pan-Mediterranean, ‘re-consolidated’ Roman empire. With a whopping one-hundred-ton cargo of prefabricated marble columns and religious furnishings, the ship’s contents present somewhat of an enigma, in that they represent neither a complete church nor a random assortment of available pieces. In this talk, we will explore how the initial connections between the Marzamemi wreck and assumptions regarding ‘Justinian’s empire’ should be called into question. The Marzamemi wreck points us to a new look at economic, political, religious, and artistic networks, as well as the merchant sailors who tied together the Mediterranean world, amidst the disintegration of a top-down imperial regime.