Archaeological Institute of America

Sailing in the Wake of Hatshepsut: How to build a Punt Ship
2025-03-18 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | WA
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
Kershaw Lectures in Near East Archaeology

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) | WA

“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, 1 College Street, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States

Out from Shadows: Painting the Human Face in Classical Greece
2025-03-25 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, 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) | WA
The Frederick R. and Margaret B. Matson Lectureship for Near Eastern Archaeology and Archaeological Technology

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
Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureships

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 )

Using AI and Remote Sensing to Fight Looting and the Archaeo-Mafie
2025-03-27 18:00 - 19:30 (Europe/Rome) | John Cabot University – Aula Magna Regina, Via della Lungara 233, Roma, Roma, 00165, Italy
Looting of historical sites and monuments still happens in Italy, every day. There is only one reason for this criminal activity: money. And with illegal revenues comes organized crime. Indeed Italian Mafias are involved in trafficking illicit antiquities and supporting professional looters who can now use tools like drones for rapid site identification and theft.
To counter these threats, the Centre for Cultural Heritage Technology (CCHT) of the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (ITT) has pioneered the use of Artificial Intelligence. Their tools can now sift through vast amounts of satellite imagery to pinpoint illegal excavations and analyze online communications to reconstruct major trafficking groups and their criminal networks.
In this talk, CCHT Director Dr. Arianna Traviglia will detail how these tools can be used to detect and prevent looting and to provide intelligence against illicit trafficking of cultural goods.

The deep prehistory of the human presence in the world’s high mountains and plateaus
2025-03-27 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Memorial Art Gallery, 500 University Ave, Rochester, NY, 14607

Amelia Edwards’ United States Lecture Tour and the Beginnings of American Egyptology
2025-03-29 15:30 - 16:30 (America/New_York) | Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
ANNUAL KORSYN LECTURE
In-Person Lecture
Saturday, March 29 at 3:30 pm EST
Penn Museum, Classroom L2
Speaker: Dr. Kathleen Sheppard
Lecture Topic: Amelia Edwards’ United States Lecture Tour and the Beginnings of American Egyptology
Abstract:
On a cold November evening in 1889, Amelia Edwards took the stage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn, New York. The lecture she gave to 2,400 people that night, entitled “The buried cities of Ancient Egypt,” was a success. Over the next four months, Edwards gave over 100 lectures all over the northeastern US, and as far West as Chicago and Minneapolis, exciting interest in Egypt everywhere she went. Alongside her every step of the way was her secretary, assistant, hair and makeup artist, and friend, Kate Bradbury.
Often we talk about Egyptology in the US beginning in Chicago with the Cairo exhibit on the Midway at the World Columbian Exhibition in 1892. Or we say interest in Egypt began when the University of Chicago was founded, with a department and a museum dedicated to the subject, in 1895. Others place importance in the earlier collections, like the Abbott Collection in New York as early as the 1860s. However, using Bradbury’s letters home during the tour, newspaper reports, Edwards’ lectures, and other contemporaneous materials, I argue that it wasn’t wealthy men who started building Egyptological institutions in the US. Instead, the catalyst for widespread public interest in Egyptology in the United States was the initial encounters with ancient Egypt made possible by a women-led lecture tour in the winter of 1889-90.
Obviously these women did not travel a thousand miles on the Hudson River, but they easily traversed that distance in the time they were in the US, speaking to and meeting with influential people across the country. This presentation will outline the journey of Amelia Edwards and Kate Bradbury and the impact they had on the Egyptology in the US.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Kathleen Sheppard is a Professor in the History and Political Science department at Missouri S&T in Rolla, Missouri. She earned her MA in Egyptian Archaeology at University College London in 2002, and her PhD in History of Science from the University of Oklahoma in 2010. Her first book was a scientific biography of Margaret Alice Murray (2013) that focused on Murray’s life and career, both in and out of Egyptology. She has spent her whole career telling the stories of women in Egyptology. Her most recent book, Women in the Valley of the Kings: The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age (St. Martins Press, 2024) is a grand retelling of the history of Egyptology through the work that women did.
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Lectures are FREE to ARCE Members, $7 for University of Pennsylvania Museum Members and UPenn Staff and Faculty, $5 for Students with ID, and $10 for the general public.
Light refreshments served starting at 3pm.
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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.

Things you probably didn't know about New Hampshire Archaeology
2025-04-01 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | Deerfield Community Church, 15 Church St, Deerfield, NH, 03037, United States
Tuesday April 1, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – in person
Things you probably didn’t know about New Hampshire Archaeology- Dr. Richard Boisvert, retired NH State Archaeologist
New Hampshire may not have archaeological monuments like cliff dwellings or burial mounds but it does have a remarkable number of important and unusual archaeological sites and artifacts.
Dr. Boisvert will take us on a virtual tour of the state’s unusual and notable archaeological past.
Co-hosted by Philbrick James Library, Deerfield Heritage Commission, and Deerfield Historical Society.
Location: Deerfield Community Church, 15 Church St, Deerfield, NH

New Light on King Herod's Harbor
2025-04-02 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Nashville Parthenon, 2500 West End Ave, Nashville, TN, 37203, United States

Hybrid lecture: Teotihuacan: Origins, Urbanism, and Daily Life
2025-04-02 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
2025 Gordon R. Willey Lecture
David M. Carballo, Professor of Anthropology, Archaeology, and Latin American Studies, Boston University
Teotihuacan, one of the largest cities in the world over 1,500 years ago, stands today as a premier archaeological site and a powerful symbol of Mexico’s precolonial heritage. Despite its enduring fame and millions of annual visitors, much remains misunderstood about the Teotihuacanos who built and inhabited this extraordinary city. This lecture delves into the intricate history of Teotihuacan, exploring its rise as a multiethnic metropolis and a center of innovation. David Carballo will examine the city’s immediate antecedents and urbanization, its unique architectural hallmark of apartment-style living, and the dynamic networks of migration and cultural exchange that shaped its identity. By connecting the iconic pyramids to the daily lives of the city’s inhabitants, this talk offers a deeper understanding of one of the ancient world’s most fascinating urban centers.
Free event parking at the 52 Oxford Street Garage. Advance registration recommended for in-person and online attendance
Presented by the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology and Harvard Museums of Science & Culture in collaboration with the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University.
Photo: Jennifer Carballo

Making a Spectacle of Oneself: Reflections on Mirrors and Dress in Classical Antiquity
2025-04-03 15:00 - 16:30 (America/New_York) | Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum at Miami University, 801 S. Patterson Ave, Oxford, Ohio, 45056
A joint program sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America Dayton Society, the Miami University Department of History, and the Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum at Miami University.
Although we often take them for granted, mirrors in antiquity were powerful tools for the construction of feminine identity. Building on the idea of the mirror as speculum, we will explore how the mirror reflected concepts of beauty, care of the body, economic status, marital status, and social role, throughout the female life-cycle. The ritual functions of mirrors connected women to the divine, and even determined their fate. We will also consider the post-classical “lives” of ancient mirrors, several of which can be found in museums throughout Ohio. This public lecture is in association with HST 210S “Roman Civilization and Roman Spectacle”
Mireille Lee is the Founder and Executive Director of the Foundation for Ethical Stewardship of Cultural Heritage (FESCH), and Project Director for the Mediterranean Antiquities Provenance Research Alliance (MAPRA). A classical archaeologist by
training, she earned her AB from Occidental College, and her MA and PhD from Bryn Mawr. She has published widely on ancient Greek art, gender studies, and object biography. Her first monograph, Body, Dress, and Identity in Ancient Greece, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2015. Her current book project, on ancient Greek mirrors, is under contract with Oxford University Press.

The Past in the Past: Traditionalism in Archaic Crete
2025-04-06 08:00 - 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Santa Rosa Junior College Campus, Petaluma, CA
The Barbara Tsakirgis Memorial Lecture
Time and venue TBA

The Archaeology of Democracy: Recent Excavations in the Agora of Athens
2025-04-06 15:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | Brown-Alley Room, Weinstein Hall, 231 Richmond Way, Richmond, VA, 23173, United States
Lecture by Dr. John McKesson Camp, II (Stavros Niarchos Foundation Professor Emeritus of Classics, Randolph-Macon College; Director of Agora Excavations, Athens, 1994–2022; Winner of the AIA’s 2024 Gold Medal for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement). Co-sponsored by the University of Richmond Department of Classical Studies, this lecture is the 14th Stuart L. Wheeler Gallery of the Ancient World Lecture and will be followed by open house reception at the Ancient World Gallery, Humanities Building 419, University of Richmond.

Archive Archaeology: The Invisible Hands of Colonial-Era Excavations in the Middle East
2025-04-07 16:30 - 17:30 (America/New_York) | Princeton University, East Pyne Building 010, East Pyne Hall, Princeton, NJ, 08544
The Elizabeth S. Ettinghausen Lecture

In search of Artemis-Tyche: the cult and sanctuary of Artemis in the Decapolis city of Gerasa
2025-04-08 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Doe Library, Room 308A, Campanile Way, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States
The AIA San Francisco Society is thrilled to welcome Dr. Rubina Raja (Aarhus University) back to Berkeley. Please join us to hear Dr. Raja speak about the archaeology and history of ancient Gerasa. This will be the final lecture of the AIA San Francisco Society’s 2024-2025 lecture series.
Abstract: The Antonine period Artemis sanctuary in the Decapolis city Gerasa is one of the largest sanctuaries in the Roman world. With its impressive architecture and central location in the city, which also was named Antioch on the Gold River, the sanctuary has received a lot of attention in scholarship for more than a century. What is less known, however, is the fact that the sanctuary had a forerunner, which has until now not been located. This presentation takes its point of departure in new research undertaken on the archaeology and history of Gerasa, which has been aimed at, among other things, reinvestigating the pre-Antonine Artemis cult in Gerasa.
Speaker: Dr. Rubina Raja, Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art, Director of The Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre of Excellence for Urban Network Evolutions, Aarhus University, Denmark

Augustus’ war against Antony and Cleopatra as Seen through the Coins
2025-04-08 17:30 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | University of Akron, Folk Hall 165, 150 E. Exchange St, Akron, OH, 44304
William E. Metcalf Lectures in Numismatics
