Archaeological Institute of America

Archive Archaeology at Karanis: Recontextualizing the Michigan Documentation in Three Dimensions
2025-11-06 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Ellis Library Auditorium, 520 S 9th St, Columbia, MO, 65201, United States
The Archaelogical Institute of America (AIA) Central Missouri Society is co-sponsoring with the Classics, Archaeology, and Religion (CAR) Department a guest lecture by Dr. Tyler Johnson on November 6th at 5:30 pm with a reception beforehand at 5pm in the Ellis Library auditorium. Dr. Johnson will be presenting “Archive Archaeology at Karanis: Recontextualizing the Mighigan Documentation in Three Dimensions”, and he will be exploring the challenges and possibilities of conducting “archive archaeology” at Karansis, creating new tools for exploring, cross-referencing, and reinterpreting this essential legacy dataset.
Although far from modern standards, the University of Michigan excavations at Karanis (1924–1935) employed advanced recording techniques for their time. Documenting the site’s evolution through a system of “levels,” the excavators left behind a dense archival record of photographs, tables, notes, drawings, plans, artifact inventories, and survey results. Housed at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, this documentation has been consulted for a century but never systematically analyzed or disseminated. The most authoritative source remains an unfinished manuscript by Enoch Peterson (professor at Michigan from 1924–1962), never published or made publicly available.
Today, a revival of interest in Karanis has created a demand for better curation and accessibility of these records. In response, researchers at the Kelsey Museum are leading a digital initiative with two objectives. First, drawing upon legacy survey data and new radiocarbon results, we are using the game engine Unity to reconstruct and reinterpret the site’s chronological evolution in three dimensions. Second, we are transforming Peterson’s manuscript and related materials into an interactive, open-access resource. These collaborative efforts between Kelsey researchers, staff, graduate, and undergraduate students go beyond digitization, requiring the restructuring and reassessment of excavation data within an updated framework.
As we integrate new insights and methodologies, our work sometimes calls the Michigan excavators’ original interpretations into question. This raises the need to balance faithful preservation of archival materials with that of reassessing the excavation results through contemporary archaeological lenses. This paper explores the challenges and possibilities of conducting “archive archaeology” at Karanis, creating new tools for exploring, cross-referencing, and reinterpreting this essential legacy dataset.

Nomads of the Desert and the Sea: Evidence from Prehistoric Burial Mounds in Qatar
2025-11-06 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Tory Breezeway-1, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Harald Ingholt Lecture in Middle Eastern Archaeology
Lecturer: Dr. Richard Fletcher
Abstract: Prehistoric burial cairns have been a subject of archaeological investigation in Qatar since national development began in the 1950s. The study of various aspects of the burial mounds has yielded substantial evidence, with over 2,000 burials identified. Recent survey projects estimate a density of up to 10 mounds per km2 for the peninsula as a whole. A Qatar Museums project, in collaboration with Sidra Medicine, is testing this estimate through remote sensing to map the burial cairns, using aerial photography, satellite imagery, and LiDAR, and ground truthing results through field survey. Results for an area of 30,000 km2 in northern Qatar indicate 10,782 burials, with a clear pattern of preference in the north-west opposite the island of Bahrain.T he results of the project support the hypothesis that nomads in the desert of northern Qatar were moving between Bahrain and Qatar, probably on a seasonal basis.

Diving the Pyramids: Underwater Tombs and Excavation at the Royal Cemetery of Nuri, Sudan
2025-11-05 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | TBA (Knoxville), Knoxville, TN, United States
The Frederick R. and Margaret B. Matson Lectureship for Near Eastern Archaeology and Archaeological Technology

A Dealer, an Insurance Salesman, Seven University Museums, Eighty-Eight Investors, and Three Hundred Classical Antiquities: a Cautionary Tale – a Nancy Wilkie Lectureship in Archaeological Heritage
2025-11-05 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | https://www.archaeological.org/event/a-dealer-an-insurance-salesman-seven-university-museums-eighty-eight-investors-and-three-hundred-classical-antiquities-a-cautionary-tale-a-nancy-wilkie-lectureship-in-archaeological-her/
This virtual talk will recount a recently-uncovered story of an unusual, complex, decades-long antiquities investment scheme orchestrated by Royal-Athena Galleries, a prominent Manhattan-based antiquities dealer, that did not end well for most stakeholders. It will also examine the larger ethical implications of the story, raising questions about the relationship of museums to the art market. It also asks, is financial investing in art ever a good idea? This talk is sponsored by the Nancy Wilkie Lectureship in Archaeological Heritage.

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
Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship

AIA-Nashville Society Book Club: The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson
2025-11-03 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Chicago) | The Parthenon, 2500 West End Ave, Nashville, TN, 37203, United States
Welcome to the Parthenon/AIA-Nashville Society Book Club! In partnership with the Archaeological Institute of America-Nashville Society, the Parthenon hosts free book club gatherings quarterly. Join us for a friendly discussion on The Feather Thief, by Kirk Wallace Johnson. Read about one of the most bizarre museum heists of the century. The informal discussion will be held inside the Parthenon, in the Treasury on Level 2.
This free book club is open to all— all are welcome!
RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/parthenon-book-club-the-feather-thief-tickets-1261474346729?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

Cantilevered Walkways—A Remarkable feat of Ancient Chinese Engineering
2025-11-02 14:00 - 15:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | OH
Dr. Lothar von Falkenhausen
Distinguished Professor of Chinese Archaeology and Art History
UCLA
To this day, the Qinling mountains in Shaanxi province, which separate the basin of the Yellow River from that of the Yangzi River, constitute a formidable geographical obstacle to communication on account of their almost unimaginably vertical cliffs. To facilitate inter-regional trade across the Qinling, cantilevered walkways (zhandao 棧道) were constructed since shortly after the middle of the first millennium BC. They were maintained more or less continuously throughout historical times, until the 20th century. Similar thoroughfares were also constructed in mountainous regions elsewhere in China. Recently their archaeological remains have become the subject of major survey projects. This paper presents some of what is currently known about these extraordinary feats of ancient Chinese engineering.

Kingdoms of Asia
2025-11-02 10:00 - 15:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Fresno Chaffee Zoo, 894 W Belmont Ave, Fresno, CA, 93728, United States
The activities in this event will consist of the following:
1. The guided tour of the Kingdoms of Asia Exhibit at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo. This Exhibit is new and contains monumental replicas of ancient Khmer temples and sacred sites, including for example, Bayon Temple, Ta Prohm Temple, and Kbal Sapean. The first two temples are very famous in Cambodia, which can be dated to c. the 13th century and became filming locations for several Western movies. The temples have also been studied by archaeologists and art historians. This in-person tour will explain in detail the significance of these sites and their symbolic elements in ancient Southeast Asian cultures.
2. Promotion of archaeology at the Zoo. There will be a lot of people at the Zoo on the Saturday of International Archaeology Day. The Society will have a table where our board members will promote the importance of archaeology and studies of civilizations, disseminate knowledge, hand out information, recruit more members to the Society.

Reading Matthew’s Gospel in the Cemeteries of Roman Syria and Judea
2025-10-30 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Phoenix) | Zoom, 4985 SW 74th Court, Miami, FL, 33155, United States
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

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.

Water Histories: How 8,000 Years of Fluctuating Lake Levels in North-Central Florida Affected Indigenous Land Use and Regional Interactions
2025-10-29 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | University of Florida, Smathers Library Room 100, 1508 Union Rd, Gainesville, FL, 32611, United States
Recent survey of a tract of public land on Lake Pithlachocco in Alachua County, Florida revealed an 8,000-year record of horizontal stratigraphy extending 500m from and 5m above the modern lake shore. The first half of this record reflects the mid-Holocene expansion of surface water regionally, but the second half reflects a regime of low-frequency, high-magnitude flooding to which lakeside dwellers adapted their land use. Besides affecting settlement choices, fluctuating surface water impacted the potential of regional travel by boat, connecting Lake Pithlachocco to places far afield during extreme hydroperiods and stranding it from flow during extreme droughts.

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) | OH
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.

Sweden and the Baltic: A Story Told Through Trade - An International Archaeology Day Lecture
2025-10-28 18:30 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | National Arts Club, Gramercy Park South, New York, NY, 10003, United States
The Archaeology Committee is honored to welcome Ambassador von Uexküll, Sweden’s Deputy Representative to the United Nations, to our International
Archaeology Day Celebration, exploring how trade has shaped integration, prosperity, and identity in Sweden and across the Baltic Sea region.
From Viking voyages to Hanseatic dominance, commerce has long connected cultures around the Baltic and beyond. During Sweden’s Age of Great Power (Stormaktstiden), trade routes became strategic assets though efforts to control them often failed.
Global transactions later fueled the Industrial Revolution and continues to influence politics. From ancient customs to modern cooperation, trade remains a defining force in the region’s history – and its future.

The Origins of the Alphabet and How It Spread Across the World
2025-10-28 08:00 - 17:00 (America/Chicago) | OH
Public Lecture by Professor Wayne T. Pitard
Abstract:
Essentially all of the alphabetic scripts in the world descend from a single script invented probably during the 20th century BCE by a Canaanite in the southern Levant. This lecture will provide a tour of the extraordinary development of the alphabet from its beginnings to its eventual spread across the Mediterranean and the world. We will examine the script’s origin and how the signs were conceptualized by their creator(s). We will look at the alphabet’s extension, first across the eastern Mediterranean where it developed into the distinctive Ugaritic, Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic scripts, and then moved southward into the Arabian Peninsula, where it evolved into the Arabic system. Then we will examine how the early alphabet, which only expressed consonants, was revolutionized by the Greeks, who began using some of the letters as vowels. We will follow the development of the Greek alphabet into both the Latin and the Cyrillic alphabets that exist throughout Europe and much of northern Asia. Finally, we will touch upon the spread of the Arabic alphabet across northern Africa and eastward into India, and the Latin alphabet’s movement to the Americas and parts of southern Africa during the European colonial period of the 15th-20th centuries. All of this has made the alphabetic writing system the most widespread method of writing in the world.

Jodi Magness - The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls
2025-10-27 17:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus, Baltimore, Maryland, 21210, United States
Monday Oct. 27, 5:00 – 6:00, Johns Hopkins Homewood campus, Room TBA
Jodi Magness
Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism
Department of Religious Studies, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls
In 1946-1947, the first Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by accident near the site of Qumran. Eventually the remains of approximately 1000 scrolls were found in 11 caves surrounding Qumran. In this slide-illustrated lecture, we explore the archaeological remains of Qumran, which was inhabited by members of a Jewish sect who deposited the scrolls in the nearby caves, and examine the meaning and significance of the scrolls.

Spokane AIA Book Club
2025-10-26 14:00 - 15:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | OH
This is the inaugural meeting of a new archaeology-focused book club sponsored by the Spokane chapter. We will likely meet monthly to discuss archeological news, books and to socialize among local archaeology enthusiasts.

Slip Into the Past
2025-10-25 12:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | Alexandria Archaeology Museum, 105 N Union St, #327, Alexandria, VA, 22314, United States
Experiment with 19th-century pottery slip designs, like marbling and dendritic patterns, and apply your own temporary tattoo in the style of transfer printed ceramic. Take part in this free, walk-in activity between 12 and 4 p.m. at the Alexandria Archaeology Museum. While supplies last. This event coincides with the Torpedo Factory Art Center’s Art Safari, happening throughout the building.

Archaeology Day – University of Alberta
2025-10-25 10:00 - 16:00 (America/Edmonton) | Business/ Tory Atrium, University of Alberta, 11211 Saskatchewan Dr NW, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Archaeology Day
Presented by The Department of History, Classics, and Religion and the Department of Anthropology, in collaboration with the Archaeological Institute of America.
Generous funding for this event is also provided by the Kule Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Alberta
October 25, 2025
10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Location: Tory/Business Atrium, North Campus, University of Alberta
Join us for Archaeology Day! An event to celebrate and learn about research, teaching, and outreach related to archaeology at the University of Alberta. The event will include talks about current research and community engagement being done by staff, activities like stone tool making, pottery drawing, a student poster competition, tours of the Archaeology Labs and WG Hardy Classics Museum, other fun demonstrations, and information tables about archaeology in the province.
The event is hosted by the Department of Anthropology and the Department of History, Classics, and Religion, in collaboration with the Archaeological Institute of America.
This is a free public event and is family friendly!
Schedule of Events:
10:00 a.m. Event Opening
10:30 a.m. Flint Knapping and Stone Tool Demonstration
11:00 a.m. Talk: So you would like to become a Mediterranean Archaeologist? Opportunities at the University of Alberta, Dr. Margriet Haagsma, Professor, Dept. of History, Classics, and Religion, Room TBD
12:00 p.m. Student Poster Competition.
01:00 p.m. Talk: Stories Objects Carry: Working with Legacy Collections and Building Relationships, Christine Conciatori, Director, University of Alberta Museums, Room TBD
02:00 p.m. Public Archaeology activity
02:30 p.m. Flint Knapping and Stone Tool Demonstration
03:00 p.m. Pottery Drawing
04:00 p.m. Event Closing
Throughout the day there will be information tables, tours of the WG Hardy Museum, Archaeology Lab, Fossil Hominid Lab, and other activities.
Note that the Second Cup café will be open from 10-4!
Vendor participants will include:
– Archaeological Institute of America
– UAlberta Archaeology Certificate Program
– Bodo Archaeology
– Archaeological Society of Alberta
– Humayma Excavation Project
– Carthage Lamp Lab
– Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology
– UAlberta Anthropology Undergraduate Association
– Archaeology Survey of Alberta
– Cultural Resource Management Firms

The Myth of Ariadne from the Labyrinth to the Walls of Pompeii
2025-10-25 10:00 - 11:30 (America/New_York) | Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum at Miami University, 801 S. Patterson Ave, Oxford, Ohio, 45056
The Archaeological Institute of America- Dayton Society, Miami University Department of History, and the Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum (RCCAM) at Miami University present the Archaeological Institute of America’s Peter H. von Blanckenhagen Memorial Lecture by Dr. Lillian Joyce, Associate Professor of Art History at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Most people are familiar with the story of Ariadne helping Theseus escape the Minotaur’s labyrinth, saving him from a situation not unlike the Hunger Games. Ariadne leaves Crete by necessity as well as for her love of Theseus. En route to Athens, they stop at the island of Naxos, where the exhausted Ariadne falls asleep. While she slumbers, Theseus sets sail and abandons her. Alone on the island, she is discovered by the wine god Dionysus and his entourage. Smitten, Dionysus makes Ariadne his consort. This story was explored by Greek writers from Homer onward, but as it comes into the Roman world, poets, patrons, and painters are more interested in the plight of Ariadne rather than the feats of Theseus. Ariadne captivates the Romans and she appears in a great variety of media: glass, gems, sculpture, mosaics, and especially Pompeiian wall painting where the complementary episodes of Ariadne’s abandonment and rescue are the single most common theme in central panel paintings. This talk will explore the strategies that artists employed to make the episodes recognizable and compelling and then expand out to examine the spaces in which Ariadne appears and think about how people experienced these images of the wronged maiden who becomes the consort of a god.

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

Learn at Lunchtime virtual Lectures PHMC The PA State Museum
2025-10-24 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA, United States
Series of 4 Friday virtual lectures on archaeological subjects with four different lecturers.

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

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
Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureship

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

Windows on the Ancient Mediterranean: Glass and Society
2025-10-23 17:30 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | OH
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.

Visualizing the Roman Villa: Virtual Preservation and Digital Archaeology at Oplontis
2025-10-23 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Edith O’Donnell Arts and Technology Building, University of Texas at Dallas, 800 W. Campbell Road, Richardson, TX, 75080, United States
Dr. Michael Thomas, co-director of the Oplontis Project since 2005, has focused his research on two sites at ancient Oplontis: Villa A, a monumental seaside residence, and “Villa” B, a commercial complex dedicated to wine storage and distribution. This lecture explores how digital heritage methods have shaped the study and preservation of both sites. Through 3D laser scanning, photogrammetry, GIS mapping, and a linked database, the project has documented the architectural remains and decorative programs of both sites. A navigable digital model not only preserves both of these fragile sites in virtual form but also enables scholars and the public to explore, analyze, and interpret them in ways that extend far beyond the limitations of physical access. The commitment to born-digital publication ensures that these records and reconstructions remain open, adaptable, and sustainable. In combining preservation, accessibility, and interpretation, the Oplontis Project offers a model for how digital heritage can reframe our understanding of the environments in which ancient Roman lived and worked.

Prehistoric Pioneers: Celebrating Scotland’s earliest megalithic monuments and the legacies of the women who investigated them
2025-10-23 10:00 - 11:00 (America/New_York) | Online by Zoom, United Kingdom
Neolithic chambered tombs are some of the oldest and most iconic monuments found in Scotland. Dating back almost 6,000 years, these stone monuments were build to hold the remains of the dead at a time of huge change for people living in Scotland as they began to farm the land, create new types of artefacts and adopt new lifestyles. New research into these sites can help to refine our understanding of when the Neolithic began in Scotland, as well as allowing us to find out more about the people who built these tombs. Hundreds of these monuments were visited and carefully surveyed by Audrey Henshall, an archaeologist who produced an incredible volume of work on Scottish prehistory, including the seminal volumes The Chambered Tombs of Scotland (1963, 1972) which still prove essential for researchers today. In 2024, Archaeology Scotland received funding from the Henshall Legacy Grant, via the Society for Antiquaries of Scotland, for ‘Scotland’s Earliest Megalithic Monuments’, a project aiming to celebrate the legacy of Henshall and fund three new excavations of chambered tombs. This talk will introduce Archaeology Scotland’s ‘Scotland’s Earliest Megalithic Monuments’ Project, as well as our surrounding work celebrating the legacy of the women who pioneered research into the Neolithic of the west coast of Scotland.

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!
