Archaeological Institute of America

The Missing Link: A Wari-Related Burial in Huanchaco, North Coast of Peru
2025-10-08 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | University of Florida, Fine Arts Building “B”, 400 SW 13th Street, Gainesville, FL, 32601, United States
Despite more than 100 years of archaeological research on the North Coast of Peru, very little is known about the transition from the so-called Moche society into the Chimu empire.
This timeframe, CIRCA A.D. 850-1000/1050, is poorly understood not only in the North Coast of Peru, but more broadly all over the Central Andean Region. Current models explain this period of time as a moment of political, economic, and militaristic control of the Wari Society.
This southern highland group has expanded as a well-organized state-like formation. Indeed, some scholars suggest that it may be the first Andean empire, and current models also suggest alternative scenarios. The recent burial in Huanchaco provides insight into the behavior of lower elites following the collapse of the Moche society and its transition into the Chimu Empire, highlighting the persistence of religious and artistic traditions from earlier times, as well as the innovations introduced from the highlands to the coast.

Out of Anatolia: Hittites, Homer and the Trojan War
2025-10-08 17:30 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | Yale University, Phelps Hall, Room 401, New Haven, CT
Homer A. and Dorothy B. Thompson Lectureship

Buried in Enemy territory: A Spartan tomb in Athens
2025-10-09 16:00 - 17:00 (America/Edmonton) | Business Building 2-09, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Oscar Broneer Memorial Lecture

The Kingdom of Philoktetes: Northern Greece in the Age of Homer
2025-10-09 16:30 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | DC

Mothers, Wives, Warriors, Slaves: Violence and Women in the Ancient World
2025-10-09 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Phoenix) | DC
Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship

Alexandria: New Archaeological Perspectives on the City and its Legendary Lighthouse
2025-10-14 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | DC
International Archaeology Day 2025 and UW Classics Ridgway Lecture. Presenter: Dr. Thomas Faucher (Centre d’Études Alexandrines)
For three decades, the Centre d’Études Alexandrines has reshaped our understanding of Alexandria, moving its history from ancient texts to a tangible reality. Terrestrial digs reveal the city’s daily life, while underwater excavations at the site of the legendary Lighthouse have yielded spectacular monumental discoveries. These integrated findings present a multi-layered city, allowing us to write a new history of Alexandria grounded in its material culture of adaptation and reuse.
Tuesday, October 14, 2025 5:30 – 7pm
University of Washington, Dempsey 112 and on Zoom (link here)

Mavericks: Three Visionary Pharaohs of Egypt
2025-10-15 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Wednesday, October 15, 6:00–7:00 pm ET, Advance registration recommended for online and in-person attendance
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA
Speaker: Lawrence M. Berman is John F. Cogan, Jr. and Mary L. Cornille Chair, Art of Ancient Egypt, Nubia, and the Near East, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Hatshepsut, Amenhotep III, and Akhenaten each ruled Egypt for long periods, leaving a lasting impact on its art, politics, and religion. Though all were powerful leaders, each tells a distinct story. In this lecture, Lawrence M. Berman explores the reigns and legacies of these three remarkable Eighteenth Dynasty pharaohs, considering questions such as: What made them successful—or controversial? How were they viewed in their own time, and how have archaeologists and the public interpreted them since? The talk also examines broader themes—from the power of images and identity to iconoclasm and the writing of history—inviting reflection on who gets to shape history, and why it still matters today.
Free admission. Free event parking at the 52 Oxford Street Garage starting at 4:00 pm. Presented by the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East and the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture.
Head of Amenhotep III. New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, reign of Amenhotep III, 1390–1352 BCE. Quartzite. Museum purchase with funds donated by Miss Anna D. Slocum, 09.288. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Detail of relief of Akhenaten as a sphinx. New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, reign of Akhenaten, 1349–1336 BCE. Limestone. Egyptian Curator’s Fund, 64.1944. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Detail of fragment from Hatshepsut’s fallen obelisk at Karnak. New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, reign of Hatshepsut, 1473–1458 BCE. Granite. Gift of heirs of Francis Cabot Lowell, 75.12. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

"Abraham, David and the Ark of the Covenant"
2025-10-16 15:30 - 17:00 (America/Chicago) | Upper House, 365 East Campus Mall, Madison, WI, 53715, United States
New evidence on how Jerusalem became a holy city will be explored in this presentation by MBAS Secretary Gordon Govier. An enigmatic news release early in 2025 sparked an investigation that opens the door to the amazing discoveries that have been made in Jerusalem’s ancient City of David during the first quarter of the 21st century.

“Using Archaeology to Reveal the Intellectual Contributions of the Enslaved: Archaeology at Montpelier”
2025-10-16 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Jepson Hall, Room 118, Richmond Way 221, Richmond, VA, 23226, United States
Lecture by Matthew Reeves, Director of Archaeology at James Madison’s Montpelier. Celebration of Virginia Archaeology Month and International Archaeology Day.

Public Lecture by Dr. Eric Cline
2025-10-16 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Room 100, McCool Hall (Rogers Auditorium), Mississippi State, MS, 39762, United States
The Cobb Institute is turning 50! Please join us for a free lecture to kick off our anniversary celebration by Dr. Eric Cline, titled “1177 BC Revisited: Updating the Late Bronze Age Collapse”, on Thursday, October 16th at 6pm in Rogers Auditorium (McCool Hall, room 100).
Dr. Eric H. Cline is Professor of Classics and Anthropology, the former Chair of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and the current Director of the Capitol Archaeological Institute at George Washington University, in Washington DC. A two-time Fulbright Scholar, National Geographic Explorer, NEH Public Scholar, Getty Scholar, and member of the Explorers Club, with degrees from Dartmouth, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania, he is an active field archaeologist with more than 30 seasons of excavation and survey experience in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus, Greece, Crete, and the United States, including ten seasons at Megiddo (1994-2014), where he served as co-director before retiring from the project in 2014, and another ten seasons at Tel Kabri, where he currently serves as Co-Director. He is the author or editor of more than twenty books and nearly one hundred articles; translations of his books have appeared in nineteen different languages. He is perhaps best known for 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed, which has sold more than a quarter of a million copies world-wide and was considered for a Pulitzer Prize in 2015. Two of his lectures on the topic, posted on YouTube by the sponsoring societies, have been viewed a total of more than ten million times.
Abstract:
For more than three hundred years during the Late Bronze Age, from about 1500 BC to 1200 BC, the Mediterranean region played host to a complex international world in which Egyptians, Mycenaeans, Minoans, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Cypriots, and Canaanites all interacted, creating a cosmopolitan and globalized world-system such as has only rarely been seen before the current day. It may have been this very internationalism that contributed to the apocalyptic disaster that ended the Bronze Age. When the end came, as it did after centuries of cultural and technological evolution, the civilized and international world of the Mediterranean regions came to a dramatic halt in a vast area stretching from Greece and Italy in the west to Egypt, Canaan, and Mesopotamia in the east. Large empires and small kingdoms collapsed rapidly. It was not until centuries later that a new cultural renaissance emerged in Greece and the other affected areas, setting the stage for the evolution of Western society as we know it today. In recent years, more data relevant to the potential causes of the Late Bronze Age Collapse in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean have become available. The new information includes additional texts from Ugarit in north Syria documenting both famine and invaders; DNA analyses of burials found in the Philistine city of Ashkelon; and new studies of lake sediments, stalagmites in caves, and coring from lakes and lagoons in regions stretching from Italy and Greece to Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Iran, all of which suggest that there was an ongoing megadrought. Studying such an ancient catastrophe remains relevant to us today, for we are not as far removed from those days as one might think.

One Woman's Fight to Protect Ancient Maya Legacy
2025-10-16 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Hybrid Event: Tatiana Proskouriakoff Award Lecture Series
One Woman’s Fight to Protect Ancient Maya Legacy
Thursday, October 16, 6:00–7:00 pm ET, Advance registration recommended for online and in-person attendance
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA
Speaker: Dr. Clemency Chase Coggins, Professor Emerita of Archaeology and Art History, Boston University; Research Associate, Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University
When the looting and illicit trade of cultural artifacts surged In the 1960s, one voice rose in defense of archaeological sites in the Americas—Clemency Coggins. A pioneering art historian and legendary figure in Maya archaeology, Dr. Coggins stood with Ian Graham in calling for ethical stewardship of cultural heritage.
Join us for an illuminating evening as Dr. Coggins recounts her groundbreaking advocacy that helped shape U.S. policy and UNESCO conventions on cultural property. With vivid stories and a special video presentation, she reflects on her collaborations with notable figures such as Tatiana Proskouriakoff and the role of the Peabody Museum in the protection of Maya heritage. This conversation, moderated by Maya Corpus Director Barbara Fash and research associate Steven Quinchia, will bring to life the intersection of scholarship, activism, and international policy—and the extraordinary woman who helped change the course of cultural preservation.
A reception will follow in the galleries of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 11 Divinity Avenue.
Free admission. Free event parking at the 52 Oxford Street Garage starting at 4:00 pm. Presented by the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology and the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture.
Photo: Tikal central plaza, Guatemala

Finding Bimini: The Unknown History of Ponce De Leon's Discovery
2025-10-16 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Brinkman Center, Clark State College, 100 S Limestone St, Springfield, Ohio
Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureships

Sacred Dancers of the Goddess Hathor
2025-10-17 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | School of Architecture, CAM 160, Charlottesville, VA, 22903
In the cult of the ancient goddess Hathor, many important rites of based in the performance of dance and music. These dances were performed by (primarily) women in professional dance troupes called khener. In such rituals the power of music and movement were harnessed to transport the worshipper into an ecstatic encounter with the Divine. Worshippers engaged in nocturnal rituals for the goddess Hathor sought this type of ecstatic encounter. Ancient Egyptian texts preserve the name of this sacred dance (ksks) and document the ritual processions of Nubians into Egypt as they accompanied the return of the goddess Hathor who was believed to reside in Nubia and return annually to Egypt. This paper will trace this sacred dance through its performance in Egypt, Nubia, Meroe, and perhaps its survival among groups living in Ethiopia today.
This event is part of the programming for the exhibition The World Between: Egypt and Nubia in Africa (The Fralin Museum of Art, University of Virginia, August 30 2025-June 14 2026), and also a celebration of International Archaeology Day.
Link to webinar: https://virginia.zoom.us/j/99806745693?pwd=[REDACTED]

Native American Archaeology in South Carolina with Chris Judge
2025-10-18 11:00 - 12:00 (America/New_York) | Native American Studies Center, 119 S. Main St., Lancaster, SC, 29720, United States
Presented by Center Archaeologist and USC Lancaster Senior Instructor of Anthropology and Archaeology Chris Judge, this lecture presents archaeological data on Native American cultures since the last Ice Age. From the coast to the mountains, archaeological evidence abounds in our state. This lecture looks at the sites and artifacts that tell the history of the state’s Indigenous peoples prior to the arrival of Europeans. This lecture is sponsored by the Lancaster County Council of the Arts and S.C. Humanities

Virtual Symposium: Disability in the Ancient Greek World
2025-10-19 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Chicago) | Virtual Event, hosted by Nashville Parthenon & AIA-Nashville Society, TN, United States
Join us for a free virtual talk on disability in the ancient Greek world by archaeologist Dr. Debby Sneed! Registration required, sign up here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_O8raQJkFQsWst1fkyuhxVg#/registration
Dr. Sneed will preview a soon-to-be published article with new research on a female statue of a dwarf, found on the Acropolis. She will introduce us to the study of disability in ancient Greece through a detailed case-study, showing how a careful examination of material culture can reveal disability in the ancient world, while challenging common misconceptions about attitudes towards disability in the ancient world.
Dr. Debby Sneed is assistant professor of classics at California State University, Long Beach, and an archaeologist whose research focuses on disability in ancient Greece. She is also field director of the Agora Excavations in Athens, conducted by the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, which is the preeminent research center for US scholars and students studying Greek culture from antiquity to the present. She earned a Ph.D. in archaeology from UCLA, and an MA in classics from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Meanwhile…at Giza: The Central Field Cemetery in the Fifth Dynasty
2025-10-19 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | https://www.archaeological.org/event/meanwhileat-giza-the-central-field-cemetery-in-the-fifth-dynasty/
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 Julia Puglisi, Harvard University:
“Meanwhile…at Giza: The Central Field Cemetery in the Fifth Dynasty”
Sunday, October 19, 2025, 3 PM PDT
This virtual lecture will not be recorded.
Register in advance for this lecture:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/yukMKqdBSCO8QInIP4ViPA
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:
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If you have any questions, please email glenn@glennmeyer.net or arcencZoom@gmail.com.
About the Lecture:
Despite the southern shift of the royal necropolises during the Fifth Dynasty, the Giza Plateau remained an important locus of non‐royal burials until the end of the Old Kingdom. While explanations for choosing Giza as a necropolis after the Fourth Dynasty range from royal cultic activity to the perpetuation of generational funerary traditions, the nearby settlements reveal a more complex picture of human activity on the plateau.
At the heart of this landscape lies the “Central Field,” a cemetery whose characteristic landscape originated from its use as a quarry basin for the construction of Khufu’s pyramid. While often cast in historiography as a Fourth Dynasty site, the Central Field is in fact dominated by tombs of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties. Despite its significance for understanding the broader history of the Giza Necropolis, the cemetery has not been extensively studied since the excavations of Selim Hassan (1886–1961) in the early twentieth century.
Drawing on my ongoing dissertation research, I here present new documentation from the Central Field, including several previously unpublished Fifth Dynasty mastabas and their unique adaptations to the quarried terrain. Case studies include the tombs of Khafreankh (G 8840) and Nisutpunetjer (G 8740), excavated prior to the Egyptian initiatives, alongside published monuments whose owners may be referenced in the Abusir archives: Rawer (G 8988) and Khuwiwer (G 8764 = LG 95). By combining an analysis of construction practices with the social history of those interred here, this lecture explores the Central Field to understand the enduring draw of the Giza after the construction of its pyramids.
About the Speaker:
Julia Viani Puglisi received her B.A. in Classical Languages at the University of California, Berkeley, and an MA in Egyptology at Indiana University, Bloomington. She is currently completing her PhD at Harvard University, where her dissertation, “Transformation at the Giza Pyramids: The Central Field Cemetery,” examines landscape change in the quarry-cemetery of the Central Field.
Since 2022, Puglisi has been working in the Central Field at Giza with the support of an American Research Center in Egypt-Council of American Overseas Research Centers Fellowship (2022–2024) and the Margaret Weyerhaeuser Jewett Memorial Fellowship (2024). Her research investigates how anthropogenic sites are maintained, reused, and transformed over time. Drawing on archaeological documentation and 3D modeling, she traces these changes to reconstruct a social history of the Giza Plateau after the pyramids were built. As a member of the Giza Project at Harvard, Puglisi is producing improved site maps for use by the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, while also working to protect the cemetery from human and environmental threats.
About Northern California ARCE:
For more information, please visit https://www.youtube.com/@NorthernCaliforniaARCE, https://www.facebook.com/NorthernCaliforniaARCE, https://arce-nc.org, https://bsky.app/profile/khentiamentiu.bsky.social, 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.

Diving the Pyramids: Underwater Tombs and Excavation at the Royal Cemetery of Nuri, Sudan
2025-10-19 15:00 - 16:30 (America/Chicago) | Mitchell Hall, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 3202 Downer Avenue, Milwaukee, WI, 53211, United States
The Frederick R. and Margaret B. Matson Lectureship for Near Eastern Archaeology and Archaeological Technology

The Impact of Roman Military Presence on the Arid Landscapes of Southern Jordan and Israel
2025-10-19 15:00 - 17:00 (America/Chicago) | 118 St Johns College, University of Manitoba, 65 Chancellors Cir, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3T 2N2
Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureship

Living in the Glen of Sorrow: an archaeology of life before and after the 1692 Massacre of Glencoe
2025-10-20 10:00 - 11:00 (Europe/London) | Online by Zoom, United Kingdom
This talk will explore the archaeology of Glencoe, among Scotland’s most famous and iconic glens, home to the MacDonald clan and setting for the Glencoe Massacre of 1692. Based on archaeological fieldwork by researchers from the National Trust for Scotland, University of Glasgow and Archaeology Scotland at settlement sites dating to the 17th and 18th centuries we will explore the lives of those who called Glencoe home in this period, the events of the Glencoe massacre and the material remains this tragic event left behind, and how people returned to this landscape to live again along the waters of Coe.
This will be a journey through everyday artefacts and moments which defined the fate of a country.
Dr Edward C Stewart, Archaeology Scotland

The Lumbee River Archaeology Project (LRAP)
2025-10-21 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Semans Auditorium (Room 117), Belk Visual Arts Center, Davidson College, 315 N. Main St., Davidson, NC, 28036, United States
About the lecture:
The Lumbee Tribe, one of the largest tribes in the US, has a rich history in the Carolinas, yet a recent executive memorandum from President Trump has reignited debates around federal recognition policies. This talk will situate the current discourse around the Lumbee Tribe within the historical framework of evolving federal policies on recognition, and introduce the Lumbee River Archaeology Project. Founded in 2024 in collaboration with the Lumbee Tribal Historic Preservation Office (THPO), LRAP aims to provide archaeological training to the THPO staff, document and preserve ancestral sites, pursue research questions developed with tribal leaders, and share our findings with the community in addition to publishing in academic journals.
About the speaker:
An anthropological archaeologist, Dr. Seth Grooms works primarily in the Eastern Woodlands of North America. His research focuses on crafting archaeological narratives of Native histories that are, as much as possible, informed by Native American perspectives. He uses methods from geoarchaeology, landscape archaeology, and chronological modeling, and he interprets the resulting data within a theoretical framework comprising traditional anthropological theory as well as Native American philosophies and epistemologies. Grooms’ work in Mississippi and Louisiana has focused on early monumentality in North America at sites that participated in the Poverty Point phenomenon (ca. 4500-3000 cal yr BP). His interests in community-based archaeology led him to work with the Crow Tribe (Apsáalooke) in Montana in 2016. Dr. Grooms’ most recent project is the Lumbee River Archaeology Project.

AIA Archaeology Hour October 2025: Shipping Stone for Justinian’s Empire?
2025-10-22 20:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | https://www.archaeological.org/event/aia-archaeology-hour-october-2025-shipping-stone-for-justinians-empire/
Join the AIA for a fascinating evening with Justin Leidwanger as he gives the International Archaeology Day month AIA Archaeology Hour talk “Shipping Stone for Justinian’s Empire?”
This presentation will be given at 8pm Eastern/7pm Central/6pm Mountain/5pm Pacific.

Register here!

Windows on the Ancient Mediterranean: Glass and Society
2025-10-23 17:30 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | DC
A lecture co-sponsored by Tulane University’s Department of Classical Studies & the New Orleans Society of the AIA
Dr. Allison Sterrett-Krause, College of Charleston (SC) will lecture on Roman glass
As archaeologists, we are all familiar with artifacts of daily life, like pottery vessels, and artworks, like architecture, statues, mosaics, and wall paintings, from the ancient world. Glass straddled the line between artwork and object of daily life in the Greek and Roman worlds. We often see glass in museum collections and marvel at its beauty and preservation, but we rarely learn about this material in our studies. In this lecture, we’ll use glass as a lens to explore ancient society. We will investigate religious and commemorative practices, evidence for recycling and trade, the use of glass vessels as a social marker, and—of course—windows.
NOTE: a photo ID is needed for entry into the university library.

A High Altitude "Big Bang": Late Formative Period Archaeology of the Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia
2025-10-23 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | Concordia University, H533, 1455 Blvd. De Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1M8, Canada
Doris Z. Stone New World Archaeology Lectures

Archaeology and the Art Museum: How To Be an Archaeologically Informed Curator.
2025-10-23 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Chicago) | Chazen Museum of Art, University Avenue, Madison, WI, 53706, United States

Justinian’s Tree: Underwater Environmental Histories in Byzantine Harbors
2025-10-23 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Denver) | Hale Building, Room 260, University of Colorado, Boulder campus, 1350 Pleasant St, Boulder, CO, 80309, United States
Anna Marguerite McCann and Robert D. Taggart Lectureship in Underwater Archaeology

TBA (Denver)
2025-10-24 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Denver) | TBA (Denver 1), Denver, CO, United States
Anna Marguerite McCann and Robert D. Taggart Lectureship in Underwater Archaeology Time TBA

From Berlin to Berkeley: The History of the Edward Gans Collection of Seals and Its Hidden Gems – a Ellen and Charles S. La Follette Lecture
2025-10-29 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | DC
The Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures currently houses the Edward Gans Collection of Seals, comprising almost seven hundred seals and seal-related objects from a variety of periods, extending from the Neolithic Middle East to Post-classical Mesoamerica. Since 2023, a new team of Berkeley scholars has been working on the collection to prepare it for digital publication, and this talk arises from the provenance research undertaken as part of that project. This talk will highlight the fascinating story of how the Gans Collection came to be and the legacy of Nazi persecution that shaped the collection’s history, while also featuring several Sasanian seals in the collection of particular significance. This is one of the annual Ellen and Charles S. La Follette Lectures.

Preserving Cultural Heritage & Uncovering Hidden Histories: USACE Walla Walla Archaeology
2025-10-30 17:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Whitman College Maxey Hall 207, 173 Stanton St., Walla Walla, WA, 99362, United States
Please join us to hear a talk by Leah Bonstead and Scott Hall, archaeologists with the Walla Walla district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Preservation and exploration of local and regional histories is a critical and often overlooked responsibility of federal organizations. At USACE, archaeologists are dedicated to the ethical stewardship of cultural heritage, working closely with tribes, environmental planners, engineers, and state historical-resource organizations. Come learn more about the work of our Walla Walla district archaeologists in this endeavor.

Reading Matthew’s Gospel in the Cemeteries of Roman Syria and Judea
2025-10-30 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Phoenix) | Zoom
Why does the Gospel of Matthew prefer a different word for burials, taphoi, than the other New Testament gospels? And why does Matthew consistently revise his sources to describe Jesus’s burial as costly? Matthew emphasizes that Jesus was anointed with expensive spices and buried in a rich patron’s new tomb, which makes it appear as though he wanted to portray Jesus as receiving an elite burial. If, however, we read Matthew’s descriptions of burials in light of archaeological evidence of changing mortuary practices in provincial Syria and Judea, where the gospel was composed sometime in the late first century, his motives appear more complicated. Quick though he is to indicate that Jesus received a rich man’s burial, Matthew is clear that this did not include any of the lavish displays of status that were increasingly common on elite tombs in Matthew’s context. Through a critical analysis of both text and funerary archaeology, this presentation explores how the author of Matthew and his earliest audiences responded to and participated in cultural and socioeconomic changes induced by geopolitical shifts in the Roman East.
Biography
Dr. Tony Keddie is Associate Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Religions and Fellow of the Ronald Nelson Smith Chair in Classics and Christian Origins at the University of Texas at Austin. An award-winning social historian, Keddie’s interdisciplinary research focuses on the intersections of religion and economics in the Roman East, particularly among Jews and Christians in Judea and Asia Minor. He is the author of four books, including Class and Power in Roman Palestine; co-editor of five books, including Revelation and Material Religion in the Roman East; and author of more than two dozen articles.
Registration required. Follow this link to register: https://asu.zoom.us/meeting/register/wggxz9iBS2WOCEFg3nGIUA

Founding the City: Carved Orthostats and Architectural Experimentation in Anatolia
2025-11-03 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Chicago) | Blegen 308, University of Cincinnati, 2602 McMicken Circle, Cincinnati, OH, 45221, United States
