Archaeological Institute of America

The Mystery of the Midas Monument
2026-09-14 16:30 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | OH
The Elizabeth S. Ettinghausen Lecture

Religion at the Boundaries and the Archaeology of Interreligious Engagement
2026-09-21 14:00 - 20:30, 2026-09-23 17:00 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | OH
Kershaw Lectures in Near East Archaeology
Time and Location TBA

Consider the Lobster: The Acholla Archaeological Project (Tunisia)
2026-09-24 16:00 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | OH
Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship
Time and Location TBA

Beyond Shipwrecks: Currents and Connections
2026-09-24 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | OH
Anna Marguerite McCann and Robert D. Taggart Lectureship in Underwater Archaeology
Location TBA

Teaching Ancient across Disciplines: Field Notes from the Harvard Art Museums
2026-09-28 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | OH
Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureships
Location TBA
Reception before event, lecture starts at 5:30 PM

Teaching Ancient across Disciplines: Field Notes from the Harvard Art Museums
2026-09-29 17:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | OH
Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureships
Time and Location TBA

Remembering Boudica: Monuments of a Barbarian Queen
2026-10-05 08:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | OH

Beyond Shipwrecks: Engaging the Past Across the Generations
2026-10-15 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | Foster Auditorium, Paterno Library, the Pennsylvania State University, 201 Old Main, University Park, PA, 16802, United States

Marking the Flesh: Revealing the Tattoo Practices of the Nile Valley
2026-10-18 12:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | OH

Sex in the Roman Arena
2026-10-18 15:00 - 16:30 (America/Chicago) | OH
Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship
Location TBA

Petra (Jordan): A Wonder of the World Between a Rock and a Hard Place
2026-10-24 11:00 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | OH

Isis, Mistress of the Southern Lands: From Heliodorus’ Aethiopica to Meroe, an ancient kingdom on the Nile
2026-10-27 17:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | OH

Bundles of Meaning: Interpreting Rock Art Through Indigenous Knowledge
2026-10-29 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Denver) | https://www.archaeological.org/event/bundles-of-meaning-interpreting-rock-art-through-indigenous-knowledge/

Tess Davis, “Blood Antiquities: Tomb Raiders, Art Smugglers, and the Black Market in Cultural Treasures”
2027-01-26 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Semans Auditorium (Room 117), Belk Visual Arts Center, 315 N. Main St., Davidson, NC, 28035, United States
We all know the thrill of tomb raiding adventure novels and Hollywood films—Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, Thomas Crown—hunting for hidden treasures. But the real stories of looted and trafficked cultural property are far darker. In reality, it’s no longer daring explorers who dig up the past, but opportunistic criminals, war profiteers, mafia networks, armed insurgents, and even terrorist organizations.
The Antiquities Coalition, founded in 2014 by Deborah Lehr, was created to combat this cultural racketeering. As a “think and do tank,” the Coalition unites business leaders, government officials, lawyers, security experts, and other professionals in working towards a future when the past is preserved for the next generation, not looted, smuggled, and sold to the highest bidder.
In this exclusive talk, Executive Director and attorney Tess Davis takes you behind the scenes to reveal the high-stakes, illicit world where stolen art and cultural treasures fuel crime, conflict, and corruption—and the ways we can fight back.

"The Strait of Hormuz through time: tracing the archaeology of a key global trading connection from the Bronze Age to the Portuguese"
2027-03-07 15:00 - 16:30 (America/New_York) | Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, 1812 Sir Isaac Brock Way, St. Catharines, Ontario, L2S3A1, Canada
Derek Kennet (University of Chicago)

The Queens of Nimrud’s Northwest Palace: Beauty, Power, and Presence in the Neo-Assyrian World, c. 8
2027-04-04 14:00 - 15:30 (America/New_York) | Penn Museum, 3230 South Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Too often overshadowed by the legacy of Assyria’s ancient kings, this presentation illuminates
the queens who reigned with them in ancient Iraq during the ninth and centuries BCE. We focus
on the queens of Nimrud’s Northwest Palace because it is here that Iraqi archaeologists
discovered their royal tombs. The tombs contained heaps of precious jewelry and regalia, along
with cuneiform inscriptions, and even some skeletal remains. Putting together these artifacts of
death, and connecting them to the art, architecture, and written record of the era, we can
reconstruct the beauty, power, and presence of Nimrud’s Northwest Palace queens in life and for
eternity.
