Dr. Leanne Bablitz: "Where have all the courtrooms gone?: Are they hiding in plain sight?"
2022-11-17 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Vancouver) | Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture (MAC), 2316 West 1st Avenue, Spokane, Washington, 99201, United States
In many western cultures legal activities are accommodated within purpose-built structures, most commonly, the courthouse. While within Roman culture some building types were linked with specific activities, the assignation of a specific structure type for legal activities only, such as preliminary hearings, arbitrations, and trials, did not occur. Using ancient evidence (literary texts, artistic representations, material remains) and virtual reality 3D modeling, we will explore the locations at which the inhabitants of Roman communities sought resolution to their disputes. Through such examination, a new appreciation of what is, and is not yet, known about the Roman legal system emerges.
Dr. Leanne Bablitz, University of British Columbia.

All the Games in the World
2022-11-20 15:00 - 16:30 (America/Chicago) | NM
Irving Finkel is back, talking about ancient games!
In the 16th century CE, the most remarkable document was composed in the form of a hymn to the goddess Ishtar. This composition lists all the games of every type played by boys and girls. In the following centuries, other lists of games were made and by comparing, startling discoveries ensue.
Don’t miss the chance to hear the person who discovered the rules for the Game of Ur in a live YouTube event!
Drawing at the end of the event for a signed copy of the Royal Game of Ur!

The late Roman estate of Philippianus: recent excavations at Gerace near Enna (Sicily)
2022-11-22 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | NM
Gerace is a Roman estate centre in the heart of Sicily which the speaker has been excavating since 2013. A substantial estate granary, built c. 300 CE but violently destroyed, probably by earthquake, was succeeded by a compact Roman villa in the late fourth century, which had been equipped with some mosaic pavements but appears unfinished. Ubiquitous tile-stamps recording the name of Philippianus indicate the identity of the estate owner at that time. Further up the hill a substantial freestanding bath-house, built perhaps c. 380 CE, was decorated with polychrome marble on the walls and geometric mosaics on the floors; but this structure was systematically stripped of its building materials (and the floors smashed) when the baths were decommissioned in the fifth century – an interesting example of Roman recycling. The one room with an intact floor was the cold room, which had a unique mosaic design, and an inscription around all four sides, uniquely so in the Roman Empire. Among other things it gives us the property’s name – the praedia Philippianorum, ‘the estate of the Philippiani’. The bath-house was badly damaged in a further earthquake in the second half of the fifth century, and after a brief attempt to repair it the building was abandoned and filled in; the backfill contained many interesting finds, including a series of chamber pots. The number of horse bones found at the site is greater than at any Roman site in the Mediterranean: so could there have been a stud farm at Gerace, raising ponies for the circuses of the Roman world?

New Technologies and Architectural Insights at the First Doric Temple in Sicily
2022-11-30 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Denver) | CU Museum of Natural History, Broadway, Boulder, CO, 80309, United States
In this talk, Dr. Phil Sapirstein presents his findings from a recent digital and architectural restudy of the temple of Apollo at Syracuse. Built in ca. 590 BCE, it was the first major Greek temple to be built entirely from stone, and thus it is fundamental to our understanding of the origins of Doric architecture. In addition to its architectural significance, the building has a monumental inscription (IG XIV 1) carved into its eastern steps, which should be intimately connected to the dedication of the temple, and yet whose reading has been controversial since its discovery in 1864 up to the present day. During fieldwork at the site in 2018, Dr. Sapirstein created a 3D model enhanced using new computational methods which makes clear that the accepted readings of the inscription are inaccurate in several key areas. The changes support a new interpretation of this enigmatic inscription as a celebration of an ancient technological breakthrough, one that made it possible to erect the gigantic columns in the temple’s peristyle.

Chasing Venus in Pompeii
2022-12-01 17:00 - 19:00 (America/Chicago) | 101 Swallow Hall, 507 S. Ninth St., Columbia, MO, 65201, United States
Join us in person for our last lecture of 2022, co-sponsored by the University of Missouri-Columbia Museum of Art and Archaeology! The lecture will be presented by Dr. Marcello Mogetta (Associate Professor of Roman Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri-Columbia). A reception (open to the public) will be held in Swallow Hall at 5 pm, with the lecture beginning at 5:30 pm.
The abstract is below:
he dating of the temple complex dedicated to Venus Pompeiana, the tutelary deity of the Roman colony of Pompeii, has been the subject of considerable debate in recent years, with important implications for the overall interpretation of the monument and of its historical and cultural significance. Previous studies have variously assigned the full-fledged monumentalization of the sacred site to the late Samnite era, the early colonial phase, or the Caesarian period. While past excavations have revealed that the area was first settled much earlier, the controversy about the nature of the original site and the creation of the first temple presents radically different views of the coming of the Romans to Pompeii. Was the sanctuary an ancient place of pride for a local goddess that is honored even when the Romans take over—a not uncommon occurrence – or is it a case of a Roman goddess being imposed on the local population to make a statement about conquest? Five consecutive seasons of fieldwork and study by the Venus Pompeiana Project, a collaborative initiative launched in 2017 by the University of Missouri and Mount Allison University under the auspices of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, have now produced a critical mass of data that prompts a recasting of the building history of the monument and its broader topography. Diagnostic finds from the construction levels of the temple podium, open court, and east portico place the erection of the monumental sanctuary only in the Augustan period, which is considerably later than normally assumed. The discovery revolutionizes our understanding of the socio-political context behind the dedication. Taking advantage of the role that the goddess already played, at least nominally, for the Colonia Veneria, the Pompeians could actively participate in the imperial propaganda and create a special connection with the center of power.

Harald Ingholt Lecture: Doorways to the Past at Balu’a -- An Iron Age Moabite City in Jordan
2022-12-01 19:30 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Whitman College, Olin Hall 129, 920 E Isaacs, Walla Walla, WA, 99362, United States
Lecturer: Monique Roddy (Walla Walla University)
Professor Roddy specializes in the archaeology of households and everyday life in the southern Levant, particularly during the Iron Age (12th-6th centuries BCE). She currently co-directs the Balu’a Regional Archaeological Project excavations at Khirbat al-Balu’a in Jordan. Recent projects include co-editing the final publication series of the Madaba Plains Project.

Great Lecture: Becoming an UNESCO World Heritage Site
2022-12-07 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
During the last 35 years Dr. C Brian Rose has had the good fortune to direct or co-direct excavations at two legendary sites in Turkey–-Troy and Gordion. Troy was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site List in 1998; Gordion is being considered by UNESCO for World Heritage Status this year. Dr. Rose was involved in steering both sites through the UNESCO process. In this lecture, Dr. Rose will present the problems and unexpected detours we encountered, including a discussion of the extent to which regional, national, and global developments shaped the process.
Speakers: C. Brian Rose, James B. Pritchard Professor of Archaeology, Curator-in-Charge, Mediterranean Section, University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; Immediate Past President, Archaeological Institute of America; Trustee, American Academy in Rome

Time Team Adventures and Community Archaeology
2022-12-10 13:00 (America/Chicago) | NM
ZOOM lecture: “Time Team Adventures and Community Archaeology” by Dr. Alexandra Jones ( Assistant Professor of Practice in History and Anthropology at Goucher College). Room opens at 12:45 and lecture promptly starts at 1 PM. Sign in at 12:45, please…
More Zoom events are listed here on the St. Louis Society webpage.

A Gateway into the Desert: History, Exploration, and Cyclical Rediscovery of Wadi Tumilat
2022-12-11 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | ARCE-NC Lectures, Rm 126 Social Sciences Bldg., UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States
The American Research Center in Egypt, Northern California Chapter, and the Near Eastern Studies Department, University of California, Berkeley, invite you to attend a lecture by Dr. Aleksandra Ksiezak, University of Toronto, CSU San Bernardino:
“A Gateway into the Desert: History, Exploration, and Cyclical Rediscovery of Wadi Tumilat”
Sunday, December 11, 2022, 3 PM Pacific Standard Time
Room 126 Social Sciences Building (formerly Barrows Hall)
UC Berkeley
No Zoom meeting is scheduled for this lecture.
About the Lecture:
Once a distributary of the Nile, Wadi Tumilat is a dry river valley in the Eastern Nile Delta. In antiquity, the wadi was a major communication artery for trade between Egypt and her neighbours to the east, and its importance was recognized by many great strategic minds of their day. Across Wadi Tumilat are numerous archaeological sites, dating from the 3rd millennium BCE to the Late Roman Period. Accompanying them was a navigable canal—an impressive waterway that not only provided the arid valley with water but allowed transportation of goods and people in and out of Egypt. While the ancient canal and its surrounding ruins were a source of fascination for ancient geographers, and historians, and were recorded in their writings, it took centuries for these antiquities to re-emerge in the letters, reports, and memoirs of early European travellers to Egypt.
This lecture aims to summarize the history of the discovery of Wadi Tumilat and our understanding of its place in Egyptian archaeology.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Aleksandra Ksiezak is a field archaeologist, Egyptologist, and ceramicist specializing in macro-and microscopic analyses of Egyptian and Nubian pottery. She obtained her Ph.D. in Egyptology at the University of Toronto (Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations) where she focused on the analysis of the ceramic material from the Second Intermediate Period Hyksos settlement at Tell el-Maskhuta excavated by the Wadi Tumilat Project (WTP) during the late 1970s/early 80s. She is currently involved in research on the identification and study of the Middle Bronze Age trade routes involving Wadi Tumilat through the identification of imported objects and their local imitations identified at Tell el-Maskhuta and the neighbouring sites. Both her past and present research deal with the broader question of migration and mobility in Egypt, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Levant during the Bronze Age. She currently holds the position of W. Benson Harer Egyptology Scholar in Residence at California State University, San Bernardino.
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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 ARCE-NC:
For more information, please visit https://facebook.com/NorthernCaliforniaARCE/, https://arce-nc.org/, https://twitter.com/ARCENCPostings, or https://khentiamentiu.org. To join the chapter or renew your membership, please go to https://www.arce.org/general-membership and select “Berkeley, CA” as your chapter when you sign up.

Great Lecture: World Heritage in South Africa's Cradle of Humankind
2023-01-11 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind has long been a hotbed of discovery for human ancestor fossils. Just 45 minutes north of Johannesburg, this protected region must balance multiple interests in research, development, and human rights. This talk will discuss on-going research and the efforts to continue to educate and engage the public, while emphasizing the need for continued protection.
Speaker: George Leader, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania; Consulting Scholar, Mutter Research Institute, College of Physicians of Philadelphia; Honorary Research Associate, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Chemical Analysis and Dating of Ancient Rock Art
2023-01-14 13:00 (America/Chicago) | TBA (St. Louis), St. Louis, MO
Face-to-Face lecture: “Chemical Analysis and Dating of Ancient Rock Art” by Dr. Karen Steelman, director of Shumla’s new C-14 plasma oxidation laboratory and a key member of the Shumla Research Leadership Team. [Location to be scheduled, soon]
More events are listed here on the St. Louis Society webpage.

The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World
2023-01-17 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles), 2023-01-18 19:00 (America/New_York) | NM
Virtual lecture which is part of the AIA Archaeology Hour series.

Dr. Brian Buchanan: “More than just a mead-hall, a world’s wonder, eighth of seven: Reassessing the archaeology and landscape of Yeavering, Northumberland”
2023-01-19 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Vancouver) | Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture (MAC), 2316 West 1st Avenue, Spokane, Washington, 99201, United States
The iconic early medieval royal palace of Yeavering is located at the base of the Cheviot Hills along the modern-day Anglo-Scottish border in a quiet bucolic valley. In the 6th century AD, it was one of the key royal settlements and assembly sites of the early medieval kingdom of Northumbria, linked to the site noted in Bede’s histories as King Edwin’s royal villa of Ad Gefrin. The initial investigations of the site, led by Dr. Brian Hope-Taylor, revealed a multi-faceted complex containing large timber-framed Halles, cemeteries, and evidences of reuse and reinterpretation of prehistoric features. Archaeologists from Durham University, Eastern Washington University, and the Gefrin Trust have restarted investigations of the site and its environs using remote sensing, landscape archaeology, and excavations. This presentation discusses the historic and archaeological background of the site, its importance for the development of early medieval Britain, and how new findings are re-shaping our understanding of this important site.
Dr. Brian Buchanan, Eastern Washington University.

A Foot in Both Camps: The Extraordinary Assemblage of Archaeological Shoes from Vindolanda Roman Fort
2023-01-20 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | NM

Ancient engineering of fish captured and storage in southwest Florida in the 16th century by Calusa Native Americans
2023-01-22 11:30 (America/New_York) | NM
A lecture hosted by the Long Island Society of the AIA.
Dr. Victor Thompson, of the University of Georgia, will present on “Ancient engineering of fish captured and storage in southwest Florida in the 16th century by Calusa Native Americans.”

Reconceiving the nomad: tropes, archaeological reality, and why it matters
2023-01-23 18:00 (America/New_York) | WEBINAR (New York City), New York, NY

In the Footsteps of Roman Soldiers: Excavations at Vindolanda and the Archaeological Landscape of Hadrian’s Wall
2023-01-23 19:30 (America/New_York) | UBC Vancouver Campus, 2329 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada

The Phoenician City of La Fonteta, Guardamar, Spain
2023-01-25 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | NM
The Phoenician city of La Fonteta, Guardamar, Spain
Dr. Alberto J. Lorrio, Dr. Mariano Torres, and Ester López Rosendo
La Fonteta is a site of urban character dated in the Early Iron Age (8th-6th centuries BC). It is placed on a coastal promontory next to the mouth of the river Segura. Archaeological excavations carried out from 1996-2002 and then from 2018-2019 have provided a settlement sequence from the late 8th to the third quarter of the 6th century BC. The earliest phases of the site show heavy craft and metallurgy activity, besides houses of several rooms built with clay and mudbrick walls organized in an urban layout. A strong defensive system was built c. 600 BC and a new urban layout. The houses of this new phase show one or two rooms, although some of them are more complex. There were open areas between these buildings with worship areas, communal bread ovens, and garbage dumps. La Fonteta also was an important port which funneled a heavy trading activity, as evidenced by the rich material culture attested, with a varied assemblage of pottery with several types and origins, a heavy manufacturing of metallic items, as well as prestige goods, some of the very exotic such as ostrich eggs, ivory items, necklace beads, or scarabs.

Lecture hosted by Friends of AIA-New York.
For more information and free publications about the site of La Fonteta, visit: https://ovc.gva.es/es/estudis-i-publicacions/estudis-i-publicacions.

Imagining a Greek Home for an Egyptian Goddess: Time, Landscape, and Architecture in Greek Sanctuaries to Isis presented by Dr. Lindsey Mazurek
2023-01-25 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Denver) | Hale Science Building, Rm. 270, 1350 Pleasant Street, Boulder, CO, 80302, United States
When Isis first arrived on Greek shores in the 3rd century BCE, her new followers had to build sanctuaries appropriate to an Egyptian goddess. In the process of imagining a place for their Greek Isis to dwell, devotees came up with a wide range of eclectic solutions that intertwined local needs, imperialist fantasy, and fantastical chronology. These sanctuaries do not draw from contemporaneous Egyptian art and architecture, but rather from Greek stereotypes about Egypt and the Nile River. Isis’ Greek temples, I argue, allowed Greek devotees to imagine Egypt in a way that responded to their own experiences as provincial subjects of the Roman Empire.
I begin with a brief overview of Isis’ and Sarapis cults’ arrival in Greece in the early Hellenistic period. Then, I turn to literary evidence, in which Greco-Roman authors from Herodotus to Pliny the Younger characterize Egypt as a timeless and strange place and highlight its unique flora and fauna. I next trace the popularity of these ideas in wall paintings and mosaics, where depictions of the Nile convey ideas of otherness and imperial control. I conclude by discussing the sanctuaries of the Egyptian gods at Marathon and Gortyna. The sanctuary at Marathon combines imaginative architecture that resembles Pharaonic Egyptian temples, archaizing sculpture that evoked a timeless Greco-Egyptian past, and a riverine setting that recalled the Nile Delta. At Gortyna, the sanctuary includes both an underground water crypt that echoed the Nilometers used to measure the river’s annual flood and cattle statuettes that personified the river’s waters. Taken together, this evidence suggests that Greek devotees used sanctuary spaces to explore Greek conceptions of Egypt as an imagined, far-off, and ancient place that they could control in much the same way that Rome controlled and imagined Greece.

Ramses the Great: Power and Patriarchy
2023-01-26 14:00 (America/New_York) | NM
Virtual lecture which is part of the AIA Archaeology Abridged Series.

Community Engagement in the Archaeology and Heritage of Pakistan: New Work at MohenjoDaro
2023-01-26 18:00 (America/New_York) | John R. Braunstein Hall 300, University of Cincinnati, 2825 Campus Way, Cincinnati, OH, 45221, United States
Joukowsky Lecture

Miners, Martyrs, Shepherds, and Sowers: Shifting Landscapes of Faynan, Southern Jordan over the Last 2,000 Years
2023-01-26 18:00 (America/Phoenix) | Benedictine University at Mesa, 225 E Main Street, Mesa, AZ, 85201, United States
Kershaw Lecture

Community Engagement in the Archaeology and Heritage of Pakistan: New Work at MohenjoDaro
2023-01-27 18:30 (America/New_York) | Toledo Museum of Art, 2445 Monroe St, Toledo, OH, 43620, United States

RESCHEDULED: "Otzi The Iceman": Forensic Science and Ancient Medicine in a Cold Case Murder
2023-01-30 17:30 (America/Chicago) | NM
Norton Lecture

Where Was the American Southwest (and Why Isn’t It There Anymore)?
2023-01-31 18:00 (America/New_York) | Emil W. Haury Anthropology Building, Room 216, University of Arizona, 1009 E South Campus Drive, Tucson, AZ, 85721, United States

Great Lecture: Histories of Historic Preservation in the United States
2023-02-01 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Historic preservation has rarely been a subject taken up by historians. In an effort to address this ironic situation, this talk recounts some of the main themes and critiques shaping the development of built heritage and its preservation in the U.S.—and how this process was itself shaped by periodic reimagining of the American past, as well as by international movements such as UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention.
Speaker: Randall Mason, Professor of City & Regional Planning/Historic Preservation, Weitzman School of Design

Art expressions of the intimate life in Pompeii, the Lupanare Grande
2023-02-04 13:00 (America/Chicago) | NM
ZOOM lecture: “Art expressions of the intimate life in Pompeii, the Lupanare Grande” by Cyril Dumas (Curator at the Musee Yves Brayer Baux de Provence). Room opens at 12:45 and lecture promptly starts at 1 PM. Sign in at 12:45, please…
More Zoom events are listed here on the St. Louis Society webpage.

Society Sunday 2023 Public Lecture
2023-02-05 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | NM
Register/Join Here
Going to Work in the Roman Empire: The archaeology of Potters and Potting
Join us as the AIA Societies Committee presents a virtual presentation and Q&A with Elizabeth Murphy. This presentation will also be available in American Sign Language.
Professional working lives define our place in society and structure the rhythms of our daily experience—how, then, were such lives lived in the past? In this talk, Elizabeth Murphy, an Assistant Professor of Roman Archaeology in the Department of Classics at Florida State University, will investigate the everyday working lives of ancient craftspeople by venturing into the workshops of a single, common profession—potters.
With many hundreds of kilns documented from the Mediterranean, with elaborate trade networks reconstructed from distributed pottery, and with workshops appearing in a range of settings (from cities to rural estates), potters and their ceramic products are arguably the most archaeologically visible craft profession of the ancient world, yet we have no biographical accounts or personal narratives from the period on the lives of these workers. Using the rich archaeological record, she will investigate their workplaces and working lives—from the technologies of production to the rituals and magic of workshops.
Elizabeth A. Murphy is an archaeologist specializing in the study of the Mediterranean during the Roman Imperial and Late Antique periods. Her research and teaching concern the social and economic organization of the Roman world; more specifically, her work focuses on the history and archaeology of labor, production, and technology. She is a specialist in material culture studies, with particular emphasis on the artifactual record of crafts production, and her fieldwork projects have spanned the ancient Mediterranean world from Asia Minor to Italy. She currently co-directs the Landscape Archaeology of Southwest Sardinia project (LASS), a diachronic landscape project in the modern region of Sulcis (Sardinia, Italy). With LASS, she is investigating the settlement organization, landscape exploitation, and daily life practices of this rural region during the period of the Roman Empire.
The lecture will also be available in American Sign Language and we will also enable auto captioning on Zoom. Due to Zoom limitations on mobile devices and tablets, participants interested in accessing ASL interpretation should log in using the desktop version of Zoom.
