Archaeological Institute of America

Ancient Sims: Using AI-driven play to identify ancient board games
2025-01-26 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Toronto)
Professor Crist will demonstrate how AI-driven play, when combined with traditional archaeological methods, can provide new insights about ancient games.
Contact AIA Ottawa for Zoom code at aiaottawachapter@gmail.com.

Aethiopia Abroad: The Role of Kush in a Network of Cultural Exchange in the Greater Mediterranean
2025-01-26 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | https://www.archaeological.org/event/aethiopia-abroad-the-role-of-kush-in-a-network-of-cultural-exchange-in-the-greater-mediterranean/
Image caption:
Décoration du mobilier, 539-330 BCE (Achéménide)
Place of discovery : Suse ville royale donjon
SB 3723
Département des Antiquités orientales, Musée du Louvre
(© 2008 Musée du Louvre, Dist. GrandPalaisRmn / Thierry Ollivier)
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The American Research Center in Egypt, Northern California chapter, and the UC Berkeley Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures invite you to attend a lecture by Peter Moore Johnson, The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU:
“Aethiopia Abroad: The Role of Kush in a Network of Cultural Exchange in the Greater Mediterranean”
Sunday January 26, 2025, 3 PM Pacific Standard Time
This is a virtual lecture. To register, please click on or go to this Zoom link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMvdeGtqjorE9zCOtCkXeTPs4513tOivdCm
The lecture will not be recorded.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the lecture.
There are a few things you should know before you join the lecture:
* Advance registration is required. When you click on the link to “Register in advance for this lecture” you will receive instructions by email on how and when to join, along with a link on which you will click to join the meeting. Save the email, as you will need the link it contains to join the meeting. Please do not share the join link with anyone, it is unique to your email address. Try to join at least 10 minutes before the meeting. When you do join the meeting, be prepared to be put in the waiting room until the lecture starts at 3 pm. This is a security measure.
* If you haven’t already installed Zoom, I recommend that you download and install the Zoom program (app) well before you try to join the meeting. There IS an option to use your web browser to join the meeting instead of the Zoom program, but the browser interface is limited and depends greatly on what browser and what operating system you’re using.
* For tutorials on how to use Zoom, go to https://learn-zoom.us/show-me. In particular, “Joining a Zoom Meeting” should show you what you need to do to join our lecture.
* All meeting attendees can communicate with everyone, or with individual participants, using the chat window, which can be opened by clicking on the chat button and which you can probably find at the bottom middle of your Zoom viewing screen. Participants will be encouraged to hold their questions for the speaker until after the lecture, and will also be encouraged to address their questions for the speaker to “everyone” in the chat window, not just to the speaker, so that all can see them. “Everyone” is the default chat option.
If you have any questions, please email me at arcencZoom@gmail.com.
Glenn Meyer
Northern California ARCE ePublicity Director
About the Lecture:
The history of Nubia during the seventh to fifth centuries BCE has been written with an over-reliance on the veracity of non-native, primarily Greek, sources. In Herodotus’ Histories the scholar describes the region as an idealized utopia notable for its raw materials and a formidable fighting force. However, Kush’s role extended beyond being just a geographical region to be pillaged for mercenaries and material wealth. It was a crucial trade partner in a period of internationalism and cultural exchange in Northeast Africa and the greater Mediterranean. A perceived dearth of representational evidence from Nubia abroad during this period reinforces the notion that Kush’s only influence was as a place to be exploited. When artistic evidence is marshaled to consider Kush’s influence, analysis has tended to rely solely on stereotypical depictions of Nubians identifiable through stylistic ethnic markers such as physiognomic features and bodily adornment. While this approach has been used to identify Nubian presence abroad, it hasn’t accounted for the significance these depictions hold in their local contexts and for their widespread prevalence. This lecture argues that Kushite representational conventions established in the seventh century circulate beyond the borders of Nubia and become integrated into a larger international koine. This process will be presented through a corpus of objects which span both time and place, charting the development of Kushite influence through the Nile River Valley north to Egypt, where it then spreads to the Near East and the Aegean. Iron Age networks of cultural exchange have traditionally only considered the bordering civilizations of the Mediterranean; this talk aims to show the influence of this peripheral sub-Saharan African kingdom. By integrating Africa into these networks of exchange, this analysis will urge for new ways of looking at objects and materials which have traditionally been overlooked by conventional approaches to Western art history.
About the Speaker:
Peter Moore Johnson is a PhD Candidate at The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. He is currently the Marcia and Jan Vilcek Curatorial Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His research focuses on Kushite-era material culture and self-presentation in ancient Egypt and Nubia. His dissertation, Aethiopia Abroad, is a collections-based project that charts the influence and spread of Kushite material culture across the greater Mediterranean in the second half of the 1st millennium BCE. His previous field experience includes the Innsbruck-Leiden Excavations at Satu Qala, Iraq, the NYUIFA Excavations at Sanam Temple, Sudan, and the NYUIFA Excavations at Abydos, Egypt. He has several years’ experience in museum and curatorial work, including internships at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Oriental Institute Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, RISD Museum, and the Delaware Museum of Natural History, in addition to curating shows in New York, Chicago, and Providence. He holds an MA from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU and a BA (Hons.) in Egyptology from Brown University.
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Parking is available in UC lots all day on weekends, for a fee. Ticket dispensing machines accept debit or credit cards. Parking is available in lots around the Social Sciences Building, and in lots along Bancroft. A map of the campus is available online at http://www.berkeley.edu/map/ .
About Northern California ARCE:
For more information, please visit https://www.youtube.com/@NorthernCaliforniaARCE, https://facebook.com/NorthernCaliforniaARCE/, https://twitter.com/ARCENCPostings, and https://khentiamentiu.org. To join the chapter or renew your membership, please go to https://arce.org/membership/ and select “Berkeley, CA” as your chapter when you sign up.

A Day in the Life of an Etruscan Sanctuary: Gender, Community and Ritual at the Etruscan Site of Poggio Colla
2025-01-29 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Jones Hall 108, Uptown Campus of Tulane University, 6801 Freet St, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
George M.A. Hanfmann Memorial Lecture

Colonial Transitions in Ancient Perú: How Osteoimmunology is Reconstructing Hidden Life Histories
2025-01-30 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | University of Louisville Center for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (CACHe), 1606 Rowan Street, Louisville, KY, 40203, United States
How can bioarchaeology be used to illuminate colonial encounters? Dr. Fabian Crespo (UofL Anthropology) addresses this question in his talk, “Colonial Transitions in Ancient Perú: How Osteoimmunology is Reconstructing Hidden Life Histories.” This presentation will discuss the complex biosocial transition in northwest Peru during the colonial process and how new theoretical and methodological approaches can help reconstruct the immune system in past populations. We explore how different immunological profiles recovered from bones and molecules can help show how complex and heterogeneous the biosocial landscapes were before and after colonial transitions, challenging and disputing simplistic and unilinear trajectories of life history changes during colonial encounters.
Dr. Fabian Crespo is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Louisville.
“Colonial Transitions in Ancient Perú” is presented by the Kentucky Society of the Archaeological Institute of America and the UofL Department of Anthropology.

Normalizing Loot: A Case Study of a Plundered Imperial Shrine
2025-02-02 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | IU Indianapolis, Campus Center INCE 002, 420 University Blvd., Indianapolis, IN, 46202, United States
Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureships

Jon Frey's The Origins of Roman Bathing at the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia
2025-02-04 16:30 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College, 1 Quinlan St, Lynchburg, VA, 24503, United States
Oscar Broneer Memorial Lecture
In addition to being one of the most recognizable monuments at the site, the Roman Bath at Isthmia in Greece continues to yield surprising discoveries. Excavations in the
1960s through the 1980s revealed not only the 2nd c. CE structure but also parts of an earlier Greek-period pool of impressive dimensions—a fitting monument at a
Sanctuary of Poseidon. Most recently, a re-investigation of the excavated material and associated documentation has revealed the presence of a third structure that fits in time between the other two. This presentation discusses these buildings by focusing on the discovery in this location of tegula mammata—a peculiar type of tile used in heating systems in Roman-style baths prior to the adoption of the more common tubulus. These artifacts provide evidence for changes both to Roman building practices of the 1st century CE and to the athletic sanctuary as Romans from the re-founded colony of Corinth returned to Isthmia with their own unique needs and expectations.

Women’s Rights in Marriage and Divorce in Ancient Egypt
2025-02-09 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | ARCE Egyptology Lectures Room 56 Social Sciences Building, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States
The American Research Center in Egypt, Northern California chapter, and the UC Berkeley Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures invite you to attend a lecture by Alison Wilkinson, Johns Hopkins University:
“Women’s Rights in Marriage and Divorce in Ancient Egypt”
Sunday February 9, 2025, 3 PM Pacific Standard Time
Room 56 Social Sciences Building, UC Berkeley
This is an in-person lecture and is not virtual. No registration is required.
The lecture will be recorded.
About the Lecture:
This talk presents a deep dive into the textual evidence for marriage and marital separation with a focus on the question: What rights did women have in these processes? New Kingdom and Demotic legal records together with New Kingdom letter correspondences are examined for the answers. The talk incorporates a recently reanalyzed Ostracon Deir el-Medina 439 for insights on a woman’s rights in divorce during the New Kingdom. The focus on textual sources aims to extrapolate the contemporary perspectives of marriage and divorce. The lexical and grammatical analysis presents insights into the process, social implications, and consequences of these social acts. Subtle differences arise in the role of men versus women, most especially within the context of divorce. This “marriage” of gender studies and linguistic analyses uncovers subtle nuances concerning marital unions and separations within the culture of ancient Egypt.
About the Speaker:
Alison Wilkinson is a PhD Candidate at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. She graduated with a Bachelors of Art with First Class Honors in Egyptology at the University of Liverpool, Liverpool, England in July 2018. She obtained her Masters of Art with Distinction in Egyptology at the University of Liverpool in November 2019. Her Master’s Thesis, “The Language of ‘Divorce’ in New Kingdom Egypt,” presents textual analyses into the cultural perceptions of marital separation. This research inspired Alison’s current Doctoral work on Hieratic and Demotic correspondences written by and to women. The aim of this research is to analyze gender dynamics through linguistic methodologies.
In April 2024, Alison presented her paper “A Case of Adultery, or a Woman’s Choice to Leave? A New Interpretation for O. DeM 439” at ARCE National, Pittsburg. This paper re-examined the transcription, translation, and interpretation of Ostracon DeM 439 in order to argue the case of a woman leaving a marital union. For this paper, she was awarded First Place in the Best Student Paper Competition.
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Parking is available in UC lots all day on weekends, for a fee. Ticket dispensing machines accept debit or credit cards. Parking is available in lots around the Social Sciences Building, and in lots along Bancroft. A map of the campus is available online at http://www.berkeley.edu/map/ .
About Northern California ARCE:
For more information, please visit https://www.youtube.com/@NorthernCaliforniaARCE, https://facebook.com/NorthernCaliforniaARCE/, and https://khentiamentiu.org. To join the chapter or renew your membership, please go to https://arce.org/membership/ and select “Berkeley, CA” as your chapter when you sign up.

Samarra - the Abbasid Capital, recording one of the world's largest archaeological sites
2025-02-15 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Chicago)
Lecture by Dr. Alastair Northedge, Professor Emeritus at Universite de Paris I. He will discuss the archaeological of the famous Medieval city in modern Iraq.

Recent Research at the Abó and Quaraí Units of Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument
2025-02-18 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Denver) | Pecos Trail Café, 2239 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe, NM, 87505, United States
Lecture. Emily Brown (Aspen CRM Solutions). Aspen CRM Solutions recently completed archaeological surveys of the monument units surrounding the Tompiro pueblo of Abó and the Tiwa pueblo of Quaraí at Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument near Mountainair, New Mexico, both of which contain the remains of a large pueblo and a Spanish Colonial mission. The occupation sequences for both are now much better understood, and detailed ceramic analyses have allowed us to identify the general construction sequences for the various roomblocks at both pueblos. We also have a much better understanding of the use of the surrounding landscape by different groups over time. The presentation summarizes the findings of the surveys and discusses the results of the associated research.

Emily Egan, “20,000 Leagues Under the Wine-Dark Sea”
2025-02-18 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Davidson College, 315 North Main Street, Semans Auditorium, Belk Visual Arts Center, Davidson, NC, 28036, United States
“20,000 Leagues Under the Wine-Dark Sea”
Dr. Emily C. Egan, Assistant Professor of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Art and Archaeology, Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland
February 18, 2025
7:30 p.m. ET
Davidson College
Belk Visual Arts Center 117
Davidson, NC
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
About the lecture:
This lecture takes a deep “dive” into depictions of marine life in the art of Late Bronze Age Greece (ca. 1600–1100 BCE). Amid a survey of sea creatures including octopods, dolphins, and fish, special attention is given to the enigmatic argonaut motif and its appearance in the wall paintings of the Mycenaean ‘Palace of Nestor’ at Pylos. At the time of their discovery, painted argonauts – pelagic cephalopods that grow their own shells – were classed among the site’s purely decorative designs on account of their fanciful coloration and stiff presentation in single-file lines like elements in a modern wallpaper border. New research at the Palace of Nestor, however, suggests that argonauts were not simple ornaments but powerful royal symbols, on par with more fearsome Aegean “totems” like lions and griffins. This lecture presents this new theory and the evidence that underpins it, and also demonstrates how the painted forms of the creatures, when viewed closely, offer rare insight into the thought processes and working methods of Greek Bronze Age artists.
About the speaker:
Dr. Emily C. Egan (Assistant Professor of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Art and Archaeology, Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland) is an Aegean prehistorian and field archaeologist. She holds a dual B.A. in Classics and Old World Archaeology and Art from Brown University, an M.Phil. in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Cincinnati. Her research focuses on artistic practice in the Bronze Age Aegean, and particularly on the production, consumption, and iconography of Mycenaean painted surface decoration. She has undertaken archaeological fieldwork in Italy, Turkey, Jordan, Armenia, Cyprus, and most recently in Greece, where she is currently studying wall and floor painting assemblages from the Palace of Nestor at Pylos, and the Petsas House, Mycenae.

God's Breath and Nefertiti's Secret: Ancient Perfumes and their Shipwrecked Ingredients
2025-02-19 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
Anna Marguerite McCann and Robert D. Taggart Lectureship in Underwater Archaeology

The Past in the Past: Traditionalism in Archaic Crete
2025-02-20 17:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | Haury Anthropology Building, University of Arizona, Room 215, 1009 E South Campus Dr, Tucson, AZ, 85719, United States
The Barbara Tsakirgis Memorial Lecture

“Roman Libarna, an early colonial city of Rome”, with Dr Katherine Huntley, Boise State University
2025-02-20 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W 1st Ave, Spokane, WA, 99201, United States
TBD

Kushite Royal Priestesses in the House of the God
2025-02-22 15:30 - 16:30 (America/New_York) | https://arce.org/event/arce-pa-kushite-royal-priestesses-in-the-house-of-the-god-by-debora-heard/
ZOOM lecture
Saturday, February 22, 3:30 pm EST
Registration Required: https://arce.org/event/arce-pa-kushite-royal-priestesses-in-the-house-of-the-god-by-debora-heard/
Speaker: Debora Heard
Title: Kushite Royal Priestesses in the House of the God
Abstract:
Following Egypt’s conquest of all of Nubia in the 18th Dynasty, one of the ways these New Kingdom rulers expressed their dominance over the region was through the construction of religious temples at various sites in Upper and Lower Nubia. It is not known whether the Nubians continued to operate these temples after regaining their independence around 1,050 BCE. However, there is evidence that by the time the Kushite king Piankhy left his capital in Upper Nubia to take control of Egypt as the founder of the 25th Dynasty, at least some of the Amun temples in Nubia were operational. The worship of the god Amun and the incorporation of Egyptian culture and ideology of kingship were the bases for the legitimate establishment of Kushite rule over Egypt. Yet, even in apparently “Egyptian-looking” contexts, these Kushite rulers displayed their own cultural particularities. One of these was the prominent role of women in religious contexts.
In the religious temples of the reigning kings and queens of Kush, we see that it was not only the ruler who was responsible for performing rituals for the gods but also other members of the royal family. In particular, royal women as priestesses were depicted performing various roles in temple scenes or recorded in royal texts. This lecture will analyze the iconographic, textual, and archaeological data to explore what their roles and responsibilities were in ensuring the successful fulfillment of the royal responsibilities to the gods.
Speaker Bio:
Debora Heard is a Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology at the University of Chicago specializing in Nubian archaeology and Egyptian history and language. Her dissertation research engages in a comparative analysis of the inscriptions and iconography of Upper Nubian Kushite temples dedicated to the gods Amun and Apedemak.
For more than a decade, she has given lectured and taught courses on Nubia and Egypt at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC), the Kemetic Institute of Chicago, Chicago State University, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and Smithsonian Journeys tours in Egypt. Debora has served as an intern in the Department of Egyptian and Nubian Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and as a curatorial assistant in the initial installation of the Picken Family Nubian Gallery at the ISAC Museum. She has excavated at sites in the Nile 4th-Cataract region in Sudan.
Debora is a member and serves on the DEI Committee for the American Society of Overseas Research. She is also a member of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations, the Sudan Archaeological Research Society, the Society of Black Archaeologists, and the American Sudanese Archaeological Research Center. Finally, she serves as the organizer and a founding member of the William Leo Hansberry Society, an organization dedicated to increasing the number of African-descended people in the disciplines of Egyptology, ancient Nile Valley and Northeast African Studies by promoting access to training, field work, funding, and, mentoring opportunities at all stages of professional development.
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This is a FREE lecture, but registration is required. Register here: https://arce.org/event/arce-pa-kushite-royal-priestesses-in-the-house-of-the-god-by-debora-heard/
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The American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1948 by a consortium of educational and cultural institutions to support research on all aspects of Egyptian history and culture, foster broader knowledge among the general public, and strengthen American-Egyptian cultural ties. The ARCE Pennsylvania Chapter (ARCE-PA) is the local branch of the national institution. We host monthly events including scholarly lectures, Egyptian-themed workshops, social events, and guided tours of the Penn Museum’s Egyptian galleries. For more information or to learn about the perks of membership, please send an e-mail to info@arce-pa.org, or visit our website at www.arce-pa.org.

Why underwater? The importance of submerged landscape research for understanding Pleistocene peoples in the New World
2025-02-22 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Palm Beach Museum of Natural History, the Mall at Wellington Green, 10300 Forest Hill Blvd., Wellington, FL, 33414, United States
Doris Z. Stone New World Archaeology Lectures

AIA Archaeology Hour with Zainab Bahrani: Toward an Archaeology of Preservation
2025-02-26 20:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/7417225310723/WN_RfYR4UTdTDO5SvAH-Uw1kg#/registration
Join the AIA for a fascinating evening with Zainab Bahrani presenting “Towards an Archaeology of Preservation.” This presentation will be given at 8pm Eastern/7pm Central/6pm Mountain/5pm Pacific.

From Ancient Quarries to New Inquiries: Exhibiting the ISAC Museum’s Roman Sculpture Collection in an Age of Greater Transparency
2025-02-27 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Willamette University Law School, Paulus Lecture Hall, 245 Winter St SE, Salem, OR, 97301, United States
Kershaw Lectures in Near East Archaeology

Shaping Roman Landscape: Ecocritical Approaches to Architecture and Wall Painting in Early Imperial Italy
2025-02-28 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | UC Santa Barbara, Arts 1341, Art Museum, Isla Vista, Santa Barbara, CA, United States

CFP: JIAAW Spring Symposium 2026
2025-03-03 | Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology, Rhode Island Hall, Brown University, 60 George Street, Providence, RI, 02912, United States
The Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World (JIAAW) is accepting collaborative proposals for a symposium to be held in the spring semester of 2026. Joukowsky symposia are one- or two-day affairs organized around a topic relevant to the central mission of the Institute. This includes a core strength in archaeological and allied approaches to the study of the ancient Mediterranean and the Near East, complemented by scholarship focused on the ancient Americas and East Asian antiquity. Proposals should focus on either: 1) a geographical area of particular relevance to the JIAAW; or 2) a methodology or theme relevant to JIAAW research, while bringing together scholars working in a variety of regions, including (but not limited to) those relevant to the JIAAW.
Proposals should be submitted by a pair of scholars who practice in relevant disciplines, at least one of whom must hold a Ph.D. At least one organizer should be based outside Brown University; the other should be a JIAAW Academic Faculty member, Faculty Fellow, Postdoctoral Fellow, or Ph.D. candidate or Graduate Student Fellow (ABD status only, in both cases). Proposal authors will serve as the organizers of the symposium, which will be held at Rhode Island Hall, the home of the JIAAW at Brown University. The JIAAW will cover all programming costs related to the event, including costs of travel and lodging for symposium organizers and all speakers at the event. JIAAW symposia typically have budgets of $15,000 to $30,000 and involve a mix of local, national, and international scholars.
Symposium organizers are encouraged to identify why the symposium is a good fit for the JIAAW and Brown University more broadly and to develop a plan for publication of the symposium, either in a special issue of a journal or an edited volume.
The proposal should include the following:
● A one- to two-page narrative outlining the scope and aims of the symposium and its potential impact on scholarship on archaeology and the ancient world
● A bibliography of relevant sources cited in the proposal (no more than 2 pages)
● A list of the names of 8-12 proposed speakers, including their current academic or professional affiliations
● Curriculum vitae of both organizers
Proposals will be evaluated by a committee of JIAAW Academic Faculty based on the following criteria:
● Innovativeness
● Potential impact on scholarship related to archaeology and the ancient world, including publication plans
● The synergy of the proposed lineup of speakers relative to the proposed topics
● The symposium’s relevance to the central mission of the JIAAW and potential links to other ongoing academic initiatives at Brown University
● The relevant experience of the organizers, their history of publication, and prior experience planning and overseeing conferences.
A successful proposal will demonstrate capacity to meaningfully impact scholarship on a particular topic, help create or support meaningful partnerships with colleagues at other institutions, while also enriching the greater intellectual community of archaeology and the ancient world at Brown University.
The 2026 symposium is being considered a pilot event and if successful will lead to further calls for supported symposia in the future. Questions and completed proposals should be directed to jiaaw@brown.edu. For full consideration, please submit proposals by March 3, 2025.

Stones of the Butterfly: Archaeological Investigation of Yapese Stone Money Quarries in Palau, Micronesia
2025-03-06 17:30 - 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Doe Library 308 A, UC Berkeley Campus, Berkeley, California, United States

Monumental Queens in the Hellenistic World
2025-03-07 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Brock University, Rankin Family Pavillon (RFP) 214/215, 1812 Sir Isaac Brock Way, St Catharines, Ontario, L2S 3A1, Canada
Oscar Broneer Memorial Lecture

Blending Art, Minds, and Artifacts: Understanding How We See What We See by Maurizio Forte
2025-03-07 18:15 - 19:10 (America/New_York)
Maurizio Forte, Ph.D., Duke University
This event is kindly hosted by the Embassy of Italy, Washington, D.C.
In the DC-area and wish to attend in person? Register here: https://embassyofitaly2.swoogo.com/etruscanAI
This lecture looks at how art, archaeology, and artificial intelligence come together, focusing on how our
minds perceive and understand ancient artifacts. It also explores how experiencing historic spaces can en-
courage cultural exchange. Using AI tools like neural networks, we can rethink archaeological sites and monuments as ever-changing
rather than fixed objects, evolving each time they are observed and interpreted. Examples include the fa-
mous Etruscan Sarcophagus of the Spouses (housed at the Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome), which has now
been digitally reconstructed using AI models and brainwave (EEG) analysis to study how people respond to
virtual simulations. By combining AI and biometric tools to measure engagement, this approach shows how
technology can help us see the ancient world in new ways. Dr. Forte challenges us to think differently about
what it means to view something, suggesting that seeing is an active process that creates rich, layered sto-
ries shaped by memory, context, and technology.
A pioneer in digital and cyberarchaeology, Maurizio Forte is the William and Sue Gross Distinguished Pro-
fessor of Classical Studies Art, Art History, and Visual Studies at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
Joining in the discussion following the talk will be P. Gregory Warden, Ph.D., president of the Etruscan
Foundation, who has worked in Mediterranean archaeology for over 50 years.

Power and Palace at Pylos, Southwestern Greece: The Relationship between the Living and the Dead in Late Bronze Age Greece
2025-03-08 11:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Graham Hall, Smith College, 22 Elm St., Northampton, MA, 01060, United States
The 31st annual Phyllis Williams Lehmann Lecture will take place on Saturday, March 8, at 11:00 am at Graham Hall, Smith College. Our speaker will be Joanne Murphy, Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Archaeology at the University of North Carolina Greensboro and Director of the Irish Institute for Hellenic Studies at Athens.
Free and open to the public. Reception to follow in the Brown Fine Arts Center Atrium. For disability access information or accommodations requests, please call 413-585-2407. To request a sign language interpreter, call 413-585-2071 (voice or TTY) or send an email to ods@smith.edu at least 10 days before the event.
The 31st annual Phyllis Williams Lehmann Lecture is sponsored by the Western Massachusetts Society of the Archaeological Institute of America.

Merchants and Mercenaries: Greeks in Egypt in the Late Period
2025-03-08 12:30 - 13:30 (America/Denver) | Mead Community Room at the Virginia Village Branch Library, 1500 S Dahlia St, Denver, CO, 80222, United States
The Frederick R. and Margaret B. Matson Lectureship for Near Eastern Archaeology and Archaeological Technology

Recycling for Death: Coffin Reuse in Ancient Egypt and the Theban Royal Caches
2025-03-09 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | https://www.archaeological.org/event/recycling-for-death-coffin-reuse-in-ancient-egypt-and-the-theban-royal-caches/
The American Research Center in Egypt, Northern California chapter, and the UC Berkeley Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures invite you to attend a Zoom lecture by Dr. Kara Cooney, UCLA:
Recycling for Death: Coffin Reuse in Ancient Egypt and the Theban Royal Caches
Sunday, March 9, 2025, 3 PM PDT
This virtual lecture will be recorded.
Register in advance for this lecture:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/CwscA3JIRcqFh9owR0q6_Q
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
There are a few things you should know before you join the lecture:
* Advance registration is required. When you click on the link to “Register in advance for this lecture” you will receive instructions by email on how and when to join, along with a link on which you will click to join the meeting. Save the email, as you will need the link it contains to join the meeting. Please register now. Please do not share the join link with anyone, it is unique to your email address. Try to join at least 10 minutes before the meeting. When you do join the meeting, be prepared to be put in the waiting room until the lecture starts at 3 pm. This is a security measure.
* If you haven’t already installed Zoom, I recommend that you download and install the Zoom program (app) well before you try to join the meeting. There IS an option to use your web browser to join the meeting instead of the Zoom program, but the browser interface is limited and depends greatly on what browser and what operating system you’re using.
* For tutorials on how to use Zoom, go to https://learn-zoom.us/show-me. In particular, “Joining a Zoom Meeting” should show you what you need to do to join our lecture.
* All meeting attendees can communicate with everyone, or with individual participants, using the chat window, which can be opened by clicking on the chat button and which you can probably find at the bottom middle of your Zoom viewing screen. Participants will be encouraged to hold their questions for the speaker until after the lecture, and will also be encouraged to address their questions for the speaker to everyone, not just to the speaker, so that all can see them. “Everyone” is the default chat option.
If you have any questions, please email me at arcencZoom@gmail.com.
Glenn Meyer
ARCE-NC ePublicity Director
About the Lecture:
In this lecture Kara Cooney will discuss her latest book, Recycling for Death, a meticulous study of the social, economic, and religious significance of coffin reuse during the Ramesside and early Third Intermediate periods. Funerary datasets are the chief source of social history in Egyptology, and the numerous tombs, coffins, Books of the Dead, and mummies of the Twentieth and Twenty-first Dynasties have not been fully utilized as social documents, mostly because the data of this time period are scattered and difficult to synthesize. This book is the culmination of fifteen years of coffin study, analyzing coffins and other funerary equipment of elites from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-second Dynasties to provide essential windows into social strategies and adaptations employed during the Bronze Age collapse and subsequent Iron Age reconsolidation.
About the Speaker:
Kara Cooney is a professor of Egyptology at UCLA and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. Specializing in social history, gender studies, and economies in the ancient world, she received her Ph.D. in Egyptology from Johns Hopkins University. Her popular books include The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt, When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt, and The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World. Her latest books include Ancient Egyptian Society: Challenging Assumptions, Exploring Approaches (Routledge, 2023) and Recycling for Death: Coffin Reuse in Ancient Egypt and the Theban Royal Caches (The American University in Cairo Press, October 2024).
About ARCE-NC:
For more information, please visit https://facebook.com/NorthernCaliforniaARCE, https://www.youtube.com/@NorthernCaliforniaArce, or http://khentiamentiu.org. To join the chapter or renew your membership, please go to https://arce.org/membership/ and select “Berkeley, CA” as your chapter when you sign up.

Normalizing Loot: A Case Study of a Plundered Imperial Shrine
2025-03-12 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Denver) | Eaton Humanities Room 250, Pleasant Street 1610, Boulder, CO, 80302, United States

Dying as a Macedonian in Egypt: Styling Social Identity through Hellenistic Burial Practices
2025-03-17 18:30 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | Institute of Fine Arts–NYU, Lecture Hall, 1 East 78th Street, New York, NY, 10075, United States
Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship
Co-Sponsored by the New York University, Institute of Fine Arts

Sailing in the Wake of Hatshepsut: How to build a Punt Ship
2025-03-18 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York)

Archaeology and the Tibetan/Himalayan Afterlife
2025-03-18 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Denver) | Pecos Trail Café, 2239 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe, NM, 87505, United States

“Freedom and Family at Boyd Cabin (Buncombe County, North Carolina)” -- Dr. Scotti Norman
2025-03-18 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Davidson College, 315 North Main Street, Semans Auditorium, Belk Visual Arts Center, Davidson, NC, 28036, United States
“Freedom and Family at Boyd Cabin (Buncombe County, North Carolina)”
Lecture by
Dr. Scotti M. Norman, Assistant Professor of Material Culture and Archaeology at Warren Wilson College
March 18, 2025
7:30 p.m. ET
Davidson College
Belk Visual Arts Center 117
Davidson, NC
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
About the lecture:
This talk will discuss the collaborative efforts of work at Boyd Cabin, one of the first nineteenth and twentieth-century freedman homesteads in North Carolina. Through the integration of documentary research, archaeological excavation, and oral histories from the Boyd family, this project attempts to forge new ties between archaeologists and descendant communities in the region. Preliminary excavation results indicate that the 14-person Boyd family maintained a thriving agricultural farm and built a communal space for family during a radically challenging post-emancipation, post-bellum period in Appalachia.
About the speaker:
Dr. Scotti M. Norman, Assistant Professor of Material Culture and Archaeology at Warren Wilson College, has investigated colonialism and the repercussions of intersectional and structural inequality in Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and the United States. Her current research focuses on the forging of familial and communal ties in historically Black sites in North Carolina. More broadly, she focuses on ethical archaeological practice through collaboration with local communities.
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Please support out AIA Central Carolinas Society 333 with your membership in AIA.
