Archaeological Institute of America

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

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

“The Past of the Future / The Future of the Past: Stories from the Archaeology of a Space Station”
2025-02-27 19:00 - 20:15 (America/New_York) | University of Maryland, Francis Scott Key Hall, Rm. 0106, College Park, MD, 20742, United States
Professor Justin P. Walsh, Chapman University and USC presents a lecture:
Since 2015, Professor Walsh has co-directed the first full-scale archaeological investigation of a site in space, the International Space Station. In this talk, he will discuss different aspects of the project, including the first archaeological experiment ever to happen off of the Earth. He will also talk about how social science disciplines like archaeology will be fundamental for improving life on Earth and in space.

Life and Death along the Nile: Tales from the Tombs of Tombos
2025-02-27 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | University of Louisville Center for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (CACHe), 1606 Rowan Street, Louisville, KY, 40203, United States
Beginning around 1500BC, the New Kingdom Egyptian Empire expanded its reach into the territory of its southern neighbor, Nubia, in search of resources such as gold and cattle. Over the next few hundred years, interactions between the ancient Egyptians and Nubians would include violent encounters, trade and exchange, political relationships, and the establishment of interethnic communities. One Egyptian colonial community established in Nubia, Tombos, spans the period from Egyptian expansion through the empire’s decline, allowing for rare perspective on this time of sociopolitical transition. In her talk, Professor Michele Buzon will explore the processes of change and consequences of contact for the people who once lived at Tombos. Evidence for disease stress, nutritional deficiencies, immigration from Egypt to Nubia, and biological relatedness between inhabitants will be presented. Osteobiographies of specific individuals from Tombos will be described to highlight how the rich archaeological record can be used to understand past societies.

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.

Archaeology-Hour Livestream: Zainab Bahrani. “Toward an Archaeology of Preservation”
2025-02-26 17:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Whitman College Maxey Hall 207, 173 Stanton St., Walla Walla, WA, 99362, United States
The history of archaeology as a scientific discipline has received a great deal of attention in recent years. As a result of extensive archival research and the reading of archives against the grain, alternative or indigenous archaeologies and earlier forms of relationships to the past—such as antiquarianism—have also begun to receive more serious scholarly attention. Since the 1990s, Zainab Bahrani’s scholarship has contributed to these historical directions in archaeology. She now augments archival and theoretical work with fieldwork, presenting some of the archaeological evidence of millennia of preservation and conservation practices in the landscape of Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. Please join us in-person to watch this live-streamed Zoom lecture.
Location: Whitman College campus, Maxey Hall, room 207.

Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East Tours Led by Harvard Students
2025-02-23 13:00 - 14:00, 2025-02-16 13:00 - 14:00, 2025-02-09 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, 6 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Available during the Harvard academic year Sundays at 1:00 pm, October 6, 2024–April 27, 2025. See blackout dates.*
*Blackout dates: December 1, 2024–January 26, 2025; and March 16–23, 2025.
This free tour, led by Harvard students, explores the Mediterranean Marketplaces: Connecting the Ancient World exhibition and how the movement of goods, peoples, and ideas around the ancient Mediterranean transformed the lives and livelihoods of people at all levels of society. Touch replicas and smell “ancient” scents as the students bring the past alive.
Visitors may drop in at the scheduled times. No reservation is required. Tours meet in the lobby and last approximately 45 minutes.
Tours for groups of ten or more may be scheduled at other times. Tours may be available by advance request in these languages: Hindi, Bengali, and Mandarin.

Living in a culture of the past; the life and work of a scribe in Hellenistic Uruk
2025-02-23 11:30 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Virginia
The figure of the scribe looms large in our understanding of the culture and history of ancient Mesopotamia. Scribes composed, copied, edited, and collated the thousands of cuneiform tablets that are such a rich source of information on the ancient past. But what can be learned from examining the career of an individual scribe? “Living in a Culture of the Past: The Life and Work of a Scribe in Hellenistic Uruk” is a microhistorical study of the life and work of a particular scribe who lived in the southern Mesopotamian city of Uruk in the time of Alexander the Great. His name was Iqīšā, the son of Ištar-šum-ereš, of the Ekur-zakir clan. This talk reconstructs Iqīšā’s career as a scribe, ritual expert, and teacher, examines the ways that Iqīšā identified himself in the traditional cuneiform texts that he copied, and demonstrates how the study of a single ancient individual’s life and work can lead to productive new insights about continuity, change, and power in Babylonia in the fourth century BCE.
By Dr. Abigail Hoskins Research Scholar

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

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

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

Culture of the Tunica Biloxi
2025-02-20 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Union Museum of History and Art, 211 N. Main Street, Farmerville, LA, 71241, United States
Cultural Representative of the Tunica/Biloxi Tribe in Marksville, Louisiana, Ryan Lopez, will speak on the Cultural of the Tunica/Biloxi Tribe.

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

Stress, Sex, and Death: Health and Survival in the Context of Medieval Famine and Plague presented by Dr. Sharon DeWitte
2025-02-19 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Denver) | Eaton Humanities Room 250, Pleasant Street 1610, Boulder, CO, 80302, United States
In the 14th-century, Afro-Eurasia was struck by a devastating pandemic of bubonic plague, now often called the Black Death, that killed an estimated 30-60% of some affected populations. Dr. DeWitte will discuss her bioarchaeological research, focusing on the skeletal remains of people who died before, during, and after the Black Death in London, England. This work aims to clarify the biosocial factors that shaped vulnerability to historical plague mortality and deepen the temporal scope of understanding of the syndemic interactions that shape epidemic disease experiences and outcomes. Analysis of demographic trends before and after the Black Death in London has revealed evidence of declines in life expectancies and, by inference, health for people before the Black Death, but improvements in health afterwards. Examination of patterns of skeletal indicators of stress reveal differences between males and females, which might reflect variation in sensitivity to stressors or differences in dietary resources in the aftermath of the Black Death. Dr. DeWitte will highlight future directions in medieval plague bioarchaeology, including analyses of the potential effects of migration on population-level patterns of health in the context of famine and plague.

Worshiping the Ancestors in Egypt’s Tell Edfu
2025-02-19 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Nadine Moeller, Professor of Egyptology, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Yale University
Tell Edfu, in southern Egypt, is an ancient Egyptian city that was occupied for nearly 3,000 years. This lecture explores recent discoveries at Tell Edfu, focusing on an elite residential complex from around 1550 BCE. Among the highlights is a large villa containing a rare and well-preserved example of a domestic shrine dedicated to family ancestors. Nadine Moeller will discuss the objects found in the shrine and their significance in private religious practices of the time. She will also provide an overview of other buildings from the same period—including a food production facility, further enriching our understanding of daily life in early New Kingdom Tell Edfu.
Free admission. Free event parking at the 52 Oxford Street Garage. Presented by the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East and the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture.
Photo © Alberto Urcia, Tell Edfu Project

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

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

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

Absolute Egypt February 18 – March 7, 2025
2025-02-18 - 2025-03-07 | Virginia
This itinerary is carefully crafted to provide discerning travelers with the finest Egypt tour available. Our 18-day program is the most in-depth exploration of ancient Egypt’s greatest sites, combining all the best attributes of a small-group, all-inclusive, well-paced, luxury trip.
Highlights:
1. Learn with a distinguished and engaging American scholar plus a wonderful local Egyptologist and an excellent tour manager. This trio has been receiving accolades for many years.
2. Travel with a maximum of just 16 guests plus your trio of leaders.
3. Enjoy the best accommodations, including 13 nights at luxurious, 5-star hotels in Giza, Cairo, Luxor, and Aswan; and a three-night Nile cruise aboard a comfortable, eight-cabin dahabiya (traditional Nile sail boat).
4. Meet with excavators and conservators, including behind-the-scenes visits, when possible.
5. Discover the preeminent sites of the pharaohs from Cairo to Luxor, Aswan, and Abu Simbel:
-If it is open, spend two full days exploring the Grand Egyptian Museum that is scheduled to open in 2024.
-See the amazing Giza pyramids and Sphinx as well as Saqqara’s Step Pyramid of Djoser and recently discovered, closed-to-the-public, Tomb of Wah Ti.
-Explore the astounding temple complex of Karnak as well as Luxor Temple, plus spectacular royal mortuary temples and tombs in the Valleys of the Kings and Queens, such as those of Seti I and Nefertari.
-Visit the remarkable Temple of Hathor at Dendara as well as Abydos, one of the oldest and most important cities in ancient Egypt, where Steve Harvey, your AIA lecturer, has been working since 1993.
-Cruise the Nile from Esna to Aswan aboard an eight-cabin sail boat, away from the convoys of large riverboats, so that we visit remarkable temples without the typical crowds. From the spacious top deck, observe timeless pastoral scenes of feluccas, farmers, herders, and village life.
-Fly to Abu Simbel to visit the stunning and enormous rock-cut temples of Ramesses II and Nefertari.
In short, this is the most exclusive, enjoyable, and fascinating introduction to Egypt available.

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

Jungle Kingdoms Of The Ancient Maya
2025-02-14 - 2025-02-27 | Virginia
This tropical adventure provides the best-paced itinerary available to thoroughly explore ancient Maya sites in the lush jungles of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. Maya art and architecture will “come alive” as you encounter enormous stelae (carved monoliths), painted frescoes, stucco friezes, carved lintels, and huge temple-pyramids that soar above the rainforest. Explore, in-depth, the sites of Palenque, Bonampak, Yaxchilán, Tikal, Yaxhá, Copán, and Quiriguá (four are UNESCO World Heritage Sites); with free time to go bird watching or simply relax, reflect, and enjoy our comfortable hotels and remote jungle lodges. Maximum of just 12 guests.

Funerary Dining or Offerings for the Dead? Archaeobotanical Evidence from the Shaft Tombs at Petra, Jordan
2025-02-13 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | University of Texas San Antonio, Downtown Campus, Buenavista Building, Aula Canaria Lecture Hall, San Antonio, TX, United States
The Frederick R. and Margaret B. Matson Lectureship for Near Eastern Archaeology and Archaeological Technology

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

“Aššur, accept! Aššur, listen!”: Connecting Arabia and Assyria through Incense and Olfaction
2025-02-06 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | SMU, Owens Art Building, Greer Garson 3515, 6101 Bishop Blvd, Dallas, TX, 75205, United States

Oman & the UAE: Crossroads of the Indian Ocean & Arabian Gulf
2025-02-06 - 2025-02-24 | Virginia
Delve into the cultural and geographical diversity of Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the company of seasoned study leader Trevor Marchand. Our custom-designed itinerary highlights ancient sites and historical monuments, and helps illustrate how influential geography has been on the region’s history and how the region’s maritime history has linked it to elsewhere in Arabia and as far as Africa and southern Asia. Begin with three full days in the UAE. Still a little fishing village as of the 18th century, Dubai was a center of pearl exports until the 1930s. Similarly, Abu Dhabi was founded as a simple pearl and fishing village. After the discovery of oil in the Arabian Gulf, Dubai became one of the wealthiest cities in the world, and Abu
Dhabi was transformed into a luxurious modern metropolis and the capital of the UAE. But this region was settled many centuries earlier, and we will observe how the old and the new co-exist in intriguing ways. Spend the balance of our time exploring Oman, which dominated for centuries the maritime trade routes from Moorish Spain to Canton (modern-day Guangzhou, China). Here seafaring merchants traded in such commodities of civilization as frankincense, myrrh, silk, gold, spices, and coffee. Today, Oman takes pride in sharing its rich history with visitors, as demonstrated in its world-class museums. Altogether we will learn about these countries’ histories, cultures, art, and architecture while witnessing their great geographical diversity, from spectacular deserts and wadis to pristine coastlines, including a reserve for the endangered green sea turtle.
Highlights:
• Six UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Oman’s aflaj irrigation systems, the protohistoric archaeological complex of Bat and Al-Ayn, the immense fort at the oasis of Bahla, the medieval trade city of Qalhat (pending re-opening), and the Land of Frankincense;
plus the UAE’s Hili Archaeological Park, part of the “Cultural Sites of Al Ain” listing
• Two full days exploring archaeological sites around Dubai, including the 4,000-year-old site of Al Sufouh; and Abu Dhabi, including the incredible new Louvre Abu Dhabi and the 18th-century Qasr Al Hosn, the city’s oldest fort
• Hasat bin Sult (a.k.a. Coleman’s Rock), site of Oman’s most significant rock art
• Nizwa’s lively Friday Market, whose animal souk is an opportunity to witness the country’s traditional manner of selling livestock
• A visit with a Bedouin family and a night at a lovely desert camp in Wahiba Sands, a 6,000-square-mile desert
• Sur, where many of the trading fleets of Omani ships were built
• Muscat, with its recently-opened National Museum of Oman

Egyptian Conceptions and Manifestations of Borders and Cultural Hegemony in the Late Bronze Age Southern Levant
2025-02-05 17:30 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | University of North Carolina Greensboro, MHRA building, Room 1215, 1111 Spring Garden St, Greensboro, NC, 27412, United States

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

Vietnam & Cambodia: Cruising the Mekong River
2025-02-03 - 2025-02-16 | Virginia
I invite you to join Archaeological Institute of America lecturer and host Joyce C. White on a captivating journey through the rich history and vibrant culture of tropical Indochina with our luxurious tour of Vietnam and Cambodia along the majestic Mekong River. Spend two nights in the bustling metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City (still known as Saigon), a dynamic hub that exudes energy, before embarking the exquisite Mekong Princess, an exclusive riverboat with only 14 suites, elegant French colonial appointments, and all modern comforts. Her ultra-shallow draft allows access to the remote corners of the river, offering a unique perspective. Cruise for seven nights from Ho Chi Minh City to Siem Reap, immersing yourself in the beauty of Buddhist and Hindu temples, vibrant floating markets, and everyday life along the Mekong River. AIA lecturer Joyce White, who has decades of experience in Southeast Asian archaeology, will be joined onboard by Grace Gary, an architectural historian aboard with National Trust, and together they will provide a series of enriching presentations and discussions. Concluding the cruise, spend three nights in Siem Reap, where you can immerse yourself in the world-famous Khmer temples of Angkor, designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Marvel at the remains of different capitals of the Khmer Empire, including the iconic Angkor Wat and the Bayon Temple at Angkor Thom. For those seeking an extended experience, an optional pre-tour extension to Hanoi and exquisite Ha Long Bay is available. This exclusive adventure is shared with another organization, and with a limited guest capacity of only 24 I encourage you to secure your preferred suite today by contacting AIA Tours at (800) 748-6262 or aia@studytours.org. Don’t miss this opportunity to cruise aboard a modern, elegant riverboat and experience the wonders of two remarkable Southeast Asian countries connected by the mighty Mekong River.
