Archaeological Institute of America

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
Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureships

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)
Anna Marguerite McCann and Robert D. Taggart Lectureship in Underwater Archaeology

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.

Dying as a Macedonian in Egypt: Styling Social Identity through Hellenistic Burial Practices
2025-03-20 17:30 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | Nebraska Wesleyan University, Smith Curtis, Room 103, 5111 Madison Ave, Lincoln, NE, 68504
Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship

Collecting the Ancient World: Early Explorations, Encyclopedic Museums, and World's Exhibitions
2025-03-20 17:30 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | University of Missouri, Swallow Hall Auditorium, 507 S. 9th St., Columbia, MO, 65201

Remembered Places, Significant Spaces: Room Closure Practices in the Pueblo Southwest
2025-03-20 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W 1st Ave, Spokane, WA, 99201, United States
Dr. Samantha Fladd, Washington State University., is an anthropological archaeologist who focuses on the Southwest United States, specifically the Ancestral Pueblos of the Four Corners region.
Architectural spaces create and are created by the social practices of and relationships among the people who occupy and interact within them. Just as spaces become places, people become communities through the accumulation of these actions. Because of this intimate relationship, modifications to spaces make physically manifest negotiations of identities and memories that occur within their walls. In this talk, I examine two ways modifications to space can be seen in the archaeological record of the Pueblo Southwest: architectural alterations and material deposition. Drawing largely on examples from Chaco Canyon and the Homol’ovi Settlement Cluster, I utilize detailed excavation records from the Chaco Research Archive and Homol’ovi Research Program to identify patterns of room modifications. By combining traditional architectural analyses with depositional, the full trajectory of a space, from foundation and occupation through closure, can be analyzed as it relates to constructions of identity and memory. I argue that the accumulation of practices of spatial preparation, modification, and closure speak to the identities of groups in the past and continue to manifest tangible connections with descendent communities today.

Excavating Notre-Dame in Paris, France
2025-03-22 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Chicago) | Auditorium at the St. Louis Public Library, Olive Street, St. Louis, MO, 63103, United States
A fascinating lecture by Dr. Christophe Besnier (Director of Archaeology Excavations) and Dr. Dorothee Chaoui-Derieux Chief Heritage Curator, the Ministry of Culture). Learn about the first, and only, archaeological excavations that will ever take place inside Notre Dame in Paris, France. See truly remarkable photographs and hear first hand from the archaeologists directly involved with this project. A lecture given only to members of the St. Louis and Houston societies of the AIA.

Looking for Lucy: Revisiting the Foundation of Race & Gender in Historical Archaeology
2025-03-23 11:30 - 12:30 (America/New_York)

“Barbarians” and Bronzes: The Origins of Civilization in Ancient Vietnam
2025-03-23 14:00 - 15:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | AIA-LA, 1201 9th St., Manhattan Beach, United States
Two thousand years ago, China’s Han Empire stretched its imperial grasp beyond the mountains far to the south of the Central Plains, reaching into the domains of “barbarians”. Along its southernmost periphery lay the Red River Valley (RRV) of present-day Vietnam. In their chronicles, the Han claimed that they “civilized” the RRV’s “barbarians”. In contrast, many Vietnamese believe this time and location represents the birthplace of an indigenous, Vietnamese civilization that predates Han arrival. This view has been traditionally based on colorful tales and legends. One of the most enduring accounts tells of the Au Lac Kingdom and its capital city, known as Co Loa. Thus, at the heart of ongoing, intense, and sometimes nationalistic debates are two contrasting views. One sees “civilization” as a byproduct of Han arrival, while the other sees it as the outcome of local, indigenous cultural traditions. This lecture presents new and ongoing archaeological research that addresses these themes and questions. Specifically, it highlights recent investigations at the Co Loa site, considered to be the first capital and earliest city of ancient Vietnam.
Dr. Nam C. Kim
Professor, Dept. of Anthropology
University of Wisconsin-Madison
This talk will be hybrid: in-person with a Zoom streaming component.

Drunken Women with Spears? Funerary Practices and Female Identity in Pre-Roman Apulia
2025-03-24 18:30 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | College of the Holy Cross, Rehm Library, Worcester, MA

Out from Shadows: Painting the Human Face in Classical Greece
2025-03-25 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Penn Museum, 3260 South St, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship
Penn Museum

Rituals of Death : The Tombs of Tibet’s First Kings
2025-03-25 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Anthropology Building AP130, University of Toronto St. George Campus, 19 Russell Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 2S2, Canada

Murder, Poetry, and Scribes in Ancient Egypt
2025-03-26 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Free Public Lecture – Online & In Person
Margaret Geoga, Assistant Professor of Egyptology, The University of Chicago
“The Teaching of Amenemhat” is the only ancient Egyptian literary work to describe the assassination of a king. Told from the perspective of the murdered Pharaoh Amenemhat I, the poem is remarkable for its grim subject matter and popularity in ancient Egypt and Nubia. While previous scholarship on “Amenemhat” has focused on the poem’s composition, Geoga’s lecture will focus on its enduring legacy after 1,000 years in circulation. Margaret Geoga will explore who read “The Teaching of Amenemhat,” how they understood it, and how ancient interpretations differ from those of modern Egyptologists.
Advance registration recommended for in-person and online attendance. Free event parking at 52 Oxford Street Garage.
Margaret Geoga is assistant professor of Egyptology at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at The University of Chicago. Her research focuses on ancient Egyptian literature, scribal culture, textual transmission, and reception in both ancient Egypt and later periods. Her other research interests include ancient Egyptian intellectual history, translation, literary theory, and the history of Egyptology. Her work has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, and the American Philosophical Society. She is also a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography (2023–25). Geoga holds a PhD in Egyptology from Brown University, where she also completed a concurrent MA in Comparative Literature. Prior to The University of Chicago, she was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at the Wolf Humanities Center of the University of Pennsylvania. She also taught at Brown University and Providence College. Her current book project focuses on “The Teaching of Amenemhat,” an enigmatic Middle Egyptian poem depicting the murder of a pharaoh. Combining textual criticism, material philology, and reception theory, the monograph investigates how this unusual and highly popular text was passed down, edited, and reinterpreted over the course of approximately 1,000 years by its many ancient readers in both Egypt and Nubia.

Eldorado on the Nile: The Art of Luxury in Ptolemaic Alexandria
2025-03-26 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Charles Elliot Norton Memorial Lectureship
In collaboration with the University of Maryland, College Park Departments of Classics and Art History Archaeology

The Impact of Roman Military Presence on the Arid Landscapes of Southern Jordan and Israel
2025-03-27 16:30 - 17:30 (America/New_York)

Archaeology of the Ọyọ Empire (West Africa): Chivalry, Colonies, and Household Politics in the Early Modern Period
2025-03-27 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Florida State University, Carraway 315, Carraway Bldg, Tallahassee, FL, 32304

Dying as a Macedonian in Egypt: Styling Social Identity through Hellenistic Burial Practices
2025-03-27 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | University of Virginia, Campbell Hall 158 (Architecture School), Bayly Dr, Charlottesville, VA, 22903, United States

Argilos After Philip II: Fortifying Lands, Cultivating Wealth
2025-03-27 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Concordia University, SGW, LB-322, Montreal, Canada
Following its conquest by Philip II of Macedon in 357 BCE, the city of Argilos was abandoned, and its land redistributed to a Macedonian general. Responsible for overseeing his territory within the expanding Macedonian realm, he also capitalized on the region’s olive oil production, as evidenced by the remains found on the Acropolis of Argilos. This talk will explore the dual role of Argilos in the post-conquest period, highlighting its strategic significance and economic exploitation under Macedonian rule. By Laure-Sarah Ethier (Université de Montréal )
