Egypt and Sudan: From Prehistory to the Present. An international conference supporting The World Between: Egypt and Nubia in Africa exhibition on view at The Fralin Museum of Art
2026-02-27 09:30 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | AK
The event brings together a distinguished group of Egyptologists and Nubiologists to explore the historical, archaeological, and cultural trajectories of the Nile Valley through an interdisciplinary lens. The conference is part of the programming for the ongoing exhibition The World Between: Egypt and Nubia in Africa at The Fralin Museum of Art, University of Virginia (through May 31, 2026). It provides vital context to the themes of the exhibition and up-to-date insight on the sociopolitical developments and artistic transitions that shaped Egypt and Nubia over millennia.
This is a webinar attached to an in-person event. Registration is required.
https://virginia.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0e3Iq_rkQpm7BtbgG0LaAQ#/registration

Baptism in Early Christianity and Baptismal Inscriptions in Asia Minor
2026-03-06 - 2026-03-07 | Orthodox Academy of Crete, Kolymvari, 73006, Greece
Water has been the central element of Christian baptism since the very beginnings of Christianity. Baptism has been part of Christianity from the start, as shown by the many mentions in the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline epistles. Baptism with water, whether by immersion or sprinkling, has always been the primary initiation ritual for Christians. But where did this ritual come from? And what did it mean? Although the term “baptism” is not today used to describe Jewish rituals(in contrast to New Testament times, when the Greek word βαπτισμός did indicate Jewish ablutions or rites of purification), the purification rites (or ֶוה ְק ִמ / מקווה; mikvah—ritual immersion) in Jewish law and tradition are similar to baptism, and the two have been linked. This e-meeting will focus on the following questions related to baptism in Early Christianity: how did people practice and understand baptism in Early Christian Minor, what kind of connotations did the baptismal use of water evoke in the Asian context, and what significance did baptism gain during the first centuries A.D.? Baptism seems to have been developed in the early years in close contact with the local religious context and the construction of baptisteries in the sixth century A.D. adapted local pagan elements of architecture. The Early Christian baptisteries featured water as the central element of baptism in an architecturally, ritually, and theologically reflected way.
In the study of baptism in Early Christian Asia Minor, we will especially focus on epigraphic evidence, which has been overlooked, whereas there is still a huge amount of material from excavations and museums in Turkey. Our aim is also to analyze the subject with literary sources and archaeological evidence to reconstruct the liturgy and the actions of early Christians, especially in ancient Anatolia. In this e-meeting, we only focus on baptismal inscriptions in Asia Minor between the fourth and sixth centuries A.D. and attempt to set out a comprehensive model for the study of Early Christian baptism in Asia Minor. It is also our intention to create a complete bibliography of previous publications on Early Christian baptism and baptismal inscriptions in Asia Minor.
We warmly invite contributions by scholars and graduate students from a variety of disciplines related to this subject. Intended to bring together scholars of Early Christian theology, Roman history, and Greek epigraphy to discuss a range of issues concerning this ritual’s characteristics, this video conference should be an excellent opportunity to increase our knowledge about this subject. The following theme groups are the main questions of the symposium, which are prescriptive:
-The origins and development of baptism in Asia Minor,
-Relevance and performance of baptism in Early Christian contexts in Asia Minor,
-Early Christian baptismal inscriptions in Asia Minor from archaeological field projects and museums,
-Etymology of Early Christian baptism,
-Ancient Greek and Latin textual sources on Early Christian baptism in Asia Minor,
-Hellenistic and Roman gravestones and other iconographic media depicting Early Christian baptism and baptismal inscriptions in Asia Minor,
-Miscellanea.
On these themes and questions, all approaches and methods susceptible to bringing some progress to our current knowledge are, of course, welcome: theology, ancient history, epigraphy, archaeology, history of art, cultural anthropology, etc. All the readings and discussions in our conference will be in English, and recorded for later viewing as a podcast on YouTube. The proceedings of the symposium will be published in 2028-29.
We would be delighted if you could consider contributing to our symposium and contact us with the required information below before October 1, 2025. Our e-mail addresses are: ztsiami@oac.gr and/or terracottas@deu.edu.tr
For all your queries concerning the symposium, our phone number is: +90.544.938 54 64. The organizers seek to widen participation at this symposium and would like to encourage colleagues from all parts of the world to attend. We kindly request that you alert any interested researchers, colleagues, and students within your research community who would be interested in participating in this conference, either by forwarding our first circular and poster through Academia, Researchgate, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other similar social media, or by printing them and displaying in your institution. Please share them also on your ListServs. We hope that you will be able to join us at the Orthodox Academy, and we look forward to seeing you!

Symposium Vesuvianum: Slavery and Humanity Revisited: The Impact of Slave Systems on Personal Experience
2026-10-07 12:00 - 2026-10-11 13:00 (Europe/Rome) | Villa Vergiliana, Via Cuma 320, Bacoli, NA, 80070, Italy
Organizers: John Bodel, Brown University; William Owens, Ohio University; Roberta Stewart, Dartmouth College
In his 1965 book Sklaverei und Humanität, Joseph Vogt offered a description of Roman slavery in which the enslaved accommodated themselves to the moral universe created by their enslavers. A dozen years later Moses Finley delivered a riposte to Vogt in a lecture at the Collège de France on “Slavery and Humanity,” in which he insisted on “a sharp distinction between more or less humane treatment of individual slaves by individual masters and the inhumanity of slavery as an institution”. Finley considered “the ambiguity inherent in slavery” to be “an excellent starting-point from which to examine the theme” but in the end concluded that the topic, “slavery and humanity, is plunged into the centre of modern moral and ideological controversy, as much a field for the philosopher and the theologian as for the historian” (Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, p. 122).
Now, nearly fifty years after Finley’s pronouncement, we propose to return to the issue of slavery and humanity and to convene a group of scholars with diverse interests and methodologies to consider the impact of ancient Mediterranean slave systems on persons, both the enslaved and the enslavers. What effect did systemic slavery have on the personal experiences and worldview of enslavers and the enslaved in ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern societies? What new insights into this question can be gained through methodologies developed over the past fifty years? Of particular relevance to the focus on persons are the distortions in the archive created by systems of domination. Such distortion is especially true for ancient Mediterranean slavery. Consideration of an enslaved person’s point of view often entails reading the ancient archive against the grain and increases our reliance on the comparative method and other heuristic devices as well as our obligation to employ them self-consciously and critically.
We solicit papers that consider any aspect of human experience in ancient Mediterranean or Near Eastern slavery. Possible topics include: the contexts of economic activity and social relations; affectual relations among the enslaved and between enslavers and enslaved; modes of resistance or accommodation; solidarity among the enslaved and among enslavers; religion and other aspects of cultural memory among the enslaved; trauma, or the psychic assault of enslavement and its consequences.
The symposium will include three and a half days of papers and discussion. Papers will be 25-30 minutes long with time for discussion. The schedule will also include visits to selected sites nearby. Meals and housing will be provided by the Villa Vergiliana (a bed in a double room with breakfast and dinner is approximately €70 a day; single rooms are available at private hotel/B&B accommodations within walking distance of the Villa). Those staying at the Villa should also figure in the cost of Vergilian Society membership ($35 for the year). In addition, there may be a modest registration fee, dependent on outside funding, to help defray the cost of lunches and other conference activities.
Confirmed participants include: Seth Bernard (University of Toronto), Ronald Charles (University of Toronto), Chris DeWet (University of Pretoria), Deborah Kamen (University of Washington), Sarah Levin-Richardson (University of Washington), David Lewis (University of Edinburgh) and Lauren Petersen (University of Delaware).
Please submit abstracts (300-400 words) to William Owens (owensb@ohio.edu) by February 15, 2026.
The organizers will get back to you during the first week of March.
