Archaeological Institute of America

U-2 Over Egypt: A Remote Survey of the Nile Delta using Cold War Aerial Photography
2026-02-19 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
The KY Society of the AIA and the University of Louisville Department of Anthropology present a free public lecture by Dr. Oren Siegel (University of Toronto). During the height of the Cold War, the United States flew a series of reconnaissance missions using U-2 spy planes over Egypt. Film negatives from two flights that cover much of the Nile Valley and Nile Delta from 1959 have recently been declassified, and the resulting imagery is both earlier and higher resolution than publicly available CORONA satellite imagery. This talk will discuss the ongoing work by the Brown-Toronto U2 Aerial Photography of Egypt Project to digitize this imagery from the National Archives and Records Administration and make these photographs publicly available to all interested researchers. Beyond this, I will showcase the results of our ongoing remote survey of Beheira Governorate using U-2 imagery, highlighting how this imagery gives us a unique window onto a landscape that has changed significantly over the last 5 decades. The talk will close by looking at how this compares to other satellite imagery and aerial photography and highlight the potential of this dataset for archaeological research.

Egyptian Blue, humanity’s first inorganic pigment
2026-02-19 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W 1st Ave, Spokane, WA, 99201, United States
Join us for a lecture by Professor John McCloy, Washington State University, who will present results of an investigation into the materials science and processing parameters to fabricate Egyptian blue faience.
Recently, our group at Washington State University, with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute, recreated Egyptian blue to uncover the science behind its color, ranging from gray or green to deep blue. We produced 12 versions of Egyptian blue and compared them with artifacts, using advanced X-ray techniques, spectroscopy, and quantitative color measurements. We found Egyptian blue is a complex mixture of phases, with hue controlled by particle size, glass content, and cuprorivaite–silica ratios. Even small changes in materials or heating could dramatically shift its color.
These findings reveal ancient craftspeople as skilled materials scientists. Beyond cultural insights and conservation, Egyptian blue’s infrared glow continues to inspire modern technologies, linking past creativity with future innovation.

Digging in Circles: Miami's Prehistoric Legacy
2026-02-21 15:00 - 16:30 (America/New_York) | Palm Beach Museum of Natural History, the Mall at Wellington Green, 10300 Forest Hill Blvd., Wellington, FL, 33414, United States
Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureship

Piramesse – from the City of Wonders to Terra Incognita
2026-02-21 15:30 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Online via Zoom, PA, United States
Saturday, February 21
3:30 pm EST
Virtual on ZOOM
FREE lecture; RSVP required for Zoom link
Speaker: Dr. Henning Franzmeier, Senior Research Associate, The Cyprus Institute, Nicosia
Title: Piramesse – from the City of Wonders to Terra Incognita
Abstract:
Where today just a typical Egyptian village is located, surrounded by fertile, green fields, 3300 years ago, Ramesses II founded his capital Piramesse. In contrast to Akhenaton’s Akhetaton, Piramesse was not founded at a virgin site but instead Ramesses II chose a site with a lot of tradition to which he could connect. During his long reign, the city became the one of the largest settlements not only of Egypt but the whole koiné spanning the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia. Texts portray Piramesse as a place where food is abundant, where temples and colossal statues were erected, and where the king would receive the envoys bringing the silver tablet with the famous peace treaty with the Hittite Empire. A few years later, the king received his Hittite wife after the god Seth had made winter become summer so that the long journey could be finished safely. Moreover, it was a military headquarters and center of trade between Egypt and the outside world. When entering Egypt, Piramesse was the first city the traveler would have seen, serving as a showcase and a stage of pharaoh’s power.
But what does remain of the city and what can we say after nearly a century of excavations? And what happened so that the memory of Piramesse only survived via its mention in the bible as Ramses, while the location remained disputed and was only identified by Mahmoud Hamza in 1930?
This lecture will tell the biography of Piramesse from its beginnings before Ramesses II through its heydays in the 19th Dynasty until its decline when it finally vanished almost completely from the surface after the end of the New Kingdom. Using the results of the excavations since 1928, the major features of the city will be shown and finds will be used to illustrate the long and rich history of the city.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Henning Franzmeier has been working at Qantir-Piramesse for the past 20 years and directed the excavations since 2015. Over the past ten years, he has taught at UCL Qatar in Doha, the University of Innsbruck, and the University of Bologna, and also worked for the Humboldt-University in Berlin and The Cyprus Institute in Nicosia. In 2014, he received his PhD from the Free University of Berlin with a thesis on the New Kingdom cemeteries at the Middle Egyptian site of Sedment – a reassessment of the 1920/21 excavations of William Matthew Flinders Petrie. His MA thesis at the University of Göttingen dealt with a well of Ramesses II at Samana near Qantir-Piramesse. His interests range from settlement archaeology to the history of Egyptology and the analysis of funerary assemblages.
******************
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.

Society Sunday 2026 Public Lecture
2026-02-22 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/4517701567776/WN_MQkKm7LIQWO2cF5hY_QMLA
Marketing the Etruscans—From Mystery to Modern Media
Join us as the AIA Societies Committee presents a virtual presentation and Q&A with Jessica Tilley. This presentation will also be available in American Sign Language.
Often deemed the ‘mysterious’ Etruscans, this pre-Roman civilization of early Italy has fought a hard-won battle in finding its place in the field of Classical Archaeology. Various titans of American Etruscology, including this year’s AIA Gold Medalist Nancy de Grummond, have dedicated decades of research to highlighting the value of Etruscan material in answering larger questions related to ritual practice, cross-cultural interaction, and Mediterranean trade networks. In recent years, Etruscan material has been at the foreground of widely publicized repatriation cases and cultural heritage protection conversations. This buzz culminated in the globally acclaimed 2023 film La chimera about a band of Etruscan tomb robbers. Looking ahead, Etruscology is primed for engaging in the development of current archaeological theory, with ongoing research relevant to our multi-cultural, interconnected world. In this lecture, Dr. Jessica Tilley outlines the dynamic history of the Etruscan civilization’s modern reception and highlights the ways in which it is uniquely positioned to contribute to ongoing dialogue around decolonialism, queer theory, globalization, and network theory in Mediterranean archaeology.
Dr. Jessica Tilley is currently the Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics at Centre College. Her research explores questions of postcolonialism and globalization theory in the ancient Mediterranean world through examination of cross-cultural funerary practices. She has excavated at sites across Italy, Greece, and the southeastern U.S. and is actively involved in cultural heritage public outreach.
The lecture will also be available in American Sign Language and we will also enable auto captioning on Zoom. Due to Zoom limitations on mobile devices and tablets, participants interested in accessing ASL interpretation should log in using the desktop version of Zoom.

The Origins of the Alphabet and How It Spread Across the World
2026-02-22 14:00 - 15:30 (America/New_York) | Knight Auditorium, The Spurlock Museum(UIUC), 600 S.Gregory Street, Urbana, IL 61801, Illinois, 61801, United States
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.

Bone by Bone: The Commingled Remains from the Tomb at Tell Abraq, UAE (2200-2000 BC)
2026-02-22 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Santa Rosa Junior College Campus, Petaluma, CA
Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship Time TBA

Micromorphology at Olynthos
2026-02-24 00:00 (America/New_York) | QC
Dr. Britt Hartenberger will discuss geoarchaeological approaches to life at the northern Greek city of Olynthos. Her research has included archaeological excavation and lithics and ceramics analysis at urban sites in Cyprus, Greece, Syria and Turkey. Her specialty is craft production and household organization in the Bronze and Iron Ages, as attested by numerous published papers.
Her current work at Olynthos (Greece) focuses on household analysis, based on the study of microdebris (microscopic remains of human activity) and how these materials illuminate our understanding of domestic life in this vibrant ancient city.
This talk will take place on the GVSU Allendate campus. (room TBA)

Petra's Forgotten Past
2026-02-24 19:30 - 21:00 (America/Vancouver) | Buchanan A202, Unversity of British Columbia, 1866 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1, Canada

The Elk Ridge Community in the Mimbres Pueblo World
2026-02-25 17:00 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | University of Florida, Smathers Library Room 100, 1508 Union Rd, Gainesville, FL, 32611, United States

AIA Archaeology Hour February 2026: Metropolitan Walls of the Ọyọ Empire
2026-02-25 17:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | QC
Join the AIA for a virtual trip to West Africa as Akin Ogundiran delivers the February AIA Archaeology Hour talk “Metropolitan Walls of the Ọyọ Empire.”
This presentation will be given at 8pm Eastern/7pm Central/6pm Mountain/5pm Pacific.

Register here!

Monumental Ritual Texts in Ancient Egyptian Pyramids
2026-02-25 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 Lecture
Monumental Ritual Texts in Ancient Egyptian Pyramids
Wednesday, February 25, 6:00–7:00 pm ET, Advance registration recommended for online and in-person attendance
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA
Speaker: Christelle Alvarez, Assistant Professor of Egyptology, Brown University
The earliest large-scale records of ancient Egyptian religious literature come from Saqqara, an important royal cemetery from Egypt’s Old Kingdom period. For nearly two centuries, the subterranean chambers beneath some of Saqqara’s pyramids were inscribed with hundreds of ritual texts carved in hieroglyphs. In this lecture, Christelle Alvarez will discuss the final Old Kingdom pyramid to bear such inscriptions: the tomb of King Qakare Ibi. Smaller than its predecessors, badly damaged, and marked by architectural and textual idiosyncrasies, this monument has often been dismissed as marginal to the main Pyramid Text tradition. Alvarez argues that Qakare Ibi’s pyramid actually provides a rare glimpse into the process of monumentalizing ritual texts, revealing how this tradition was composed, transmitted, and continually reshaped over time.
Free admission. Free event parking at the 52 Oxford Street Garage starting at 5:00 pm. Presented by the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East and the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture.
Fragment photo by Christelle Alvarez

The Making of Myth & Marble: Bringing the Torlonia Sculptures to the U.S.
2026-02-26 17:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | Whitman College Maxey Hall 207, 173 Stanton St., Walla Walla, WA, 99362, United States

Life, Death, and Disease: Insights form Petra’s Tombs and Cemeteries
2026-02-26 17:00 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | UMass Amherst, Herter Hall 301, 161 Presidents Drive, Amherst, MA, 01003, United States
Kershaw Lectures in Near East Archaeology
Dr. Megan Perry, “Life, Death, and Disease: Insights from Petra’s Tombs and Cemeteries”
Thursday, February 26 at 5:00pm Eastern
UMass Amherst, Herter Hall 301
For Zoom attendance, register here: https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/meeting/register/GD44nDLmTwKs_QZUh44AFw
ABSTRACT
Ensconced within the sandstone hills of southern Jordan, evidence from mortuary structures in the ancient Nabataean city of Petra tells powerful stories about life, illness, death, and commemoration of its residents. This talk will focus on their experiences across the life course through bioarchaeological evidence of disease, diet, and immigration from the skeletal remains recovered from tombs within the city. In addition, evidence of mortuary behaviors within these tombs will reveal the rich and varied forms of remembrance after their deaths. This integrated approach, shifting away from Petra’s temples and monuments, offers new perspectives on resilience, identity, and memory in a dynamic ancient city.
SPEAKER BIO
Dr. Perry is a Professor of Biological Anthropology at East Carolina University. She teaches courses on human osteology, death and disease in Classical antiquity, and human diseases and ancient environments. Most of her research focuses on 1st century B.C. – 7th century A.D. Jordan, but she supervises graduate students interested in numerous aspects of bioarchaeology. She has been working on archaeological projects in Jordan for 30 years and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Center of Research (ACOR) in Amman, Jordan. She is currently Director of the Petra North Ridge Project, which focuses on the excavation of 1st century A.D. tombs and 1st – 4th century domestic structures.
This year’s AIA National Lecture (Kershaw Lectures in Near East Archaeology) is co-sponsored by the AIA–Western Massachusetts Society and the UMass Amherst Department of Classics.

New Approaches to Roman Urbanism: The Excavations of the Falerii Novi Project (Lazio, Italy)
2026-02-26 17:30 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | University of Missouri, Mumford Hall 133, Mumford Hall, Columbia, 65201, United States

Soldier Burials, Landscapes, and Memory in Early Iron Age Greece
2026-02-26 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver)

Egypt and Sudan: From Prehistory to the Present. An international conference supporting The World Between: Egypt and Nubia in Africa exhibition on view at The Fralin Museum of Art
2026-02-27 09:30 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | QC
The event brings together a distinguished group of Egyptologists and Nubiologists to explore the historical, archaeological, and cultural trajectories of the Nile Valley through an interdisciplinary lens. The conference is part of the programming for the ongoing exhibition The World Between: Egypt and Nubia in Africa at The Fralin Museum of Art, University of Virginia (through May 31, 2026). It provides vital context to the themes of the exhibition and up-to-date insight on the sociopolitical developments and artistic transitions that shaped Egypt and Nubia over millennia.
This is a webinar attached to an in-person event. Registration is required.
https://virginia.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0e3Iq_rkQpm7BtbgG0LaAQ#/registration

Recreating Urban Biographies in Roman Italy: Recent Research at Gabii
2026-02-28 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Chicago) | historic Longview Farm House located at 13525 Clayton Road in Town and Counry, MO., 13525 Clayton Road, St. Louis, MO, 63141, United States
Dr. Marcello Mogetta (Chair of the Dept. of Classics, Archaeology & Religion at the University of Missouri – Columbia) will lecture on “Recreating Urban Biographies in Roman Italy: Recent Research at Gabii”. A Roman themed reception will be held afterwards, but 21st century clothing is totally cool.

Spectacles of Cultural Heritage Destruction in Global Media
2026-02-28 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Chicago) | https://www.archaeological.org/event/spectacles-of-cultural-heritage-destruction-in-global-media/
Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship

Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East Tours Led by Harvard Students
2026-03-01 13:00 - 13:45 (America/New_York) | Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, 6 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, 6 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, 02138
Available during the Harvard academic year Sundays at 1:00 pm, October 5, 2025–April 26, 2026. See blackout dates.*
*Blackout dates: November 30, 2025–January 25, 2026, March 15, 2026 and March 22, 2026
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.
Groups of 10 or more may contact reservations to request other times. Please complete the reservation request form.

Mayan writing Workshop: Learning the Mayan Calendar
2026-03-01 14:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | QC
Speaker: Paul Caetano
Further details to come

Highland, Lowland: Chlorite Landscapes of the Iranian Plateau in the Third Millennium BCE (Lecture by Breton Langendorfer)
2026-03-02 16:30 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | Princeton University Art Museum – Tuttle Lecture Hall (Room 134), 45 Elm Drive, Princeton, NJ, 08544, United States
In 2001, flooding near the city of Jiroft in southeastern Iran exposed a vast Bronze Age cemetery. Large quantities of vessels made from a dark soft stone known as chlorite or steatite began to appear on antiquities markets, the majority of which were successfully repatriated by Iranian authorities. These events spurred new archaeological exploration in the Jiroft area, leading to the discovery of a previously unknown urban polity located just south of the modern city in the valley of the Halil Rud river. The discovery also prompted scholars to recontextualize these distinct objects, found across the Middle East in the later 3rd millennium BCE and formerly referred to by the appellation “Intercultural Style,” as grave goods of the so-called Jiroft Civilization. This project explores the aesthetic values expressed within this class of artifacts, using an example now held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a window into evocations of sensory experience, funerary otherworlds, and an extremely early tradition of landscape depiction I argue they present.
This Robert J. Braidwood Lecture is presented by Breton Langendorfer.

"Across Jordan in the Footsteps of Alois Musil: Archaeology and Discovery" with Sylva Pavlasová
2026-03-03 15:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York)
Join a fascinating online lecture about Alois Musil with Sylva Pavlasová, head of the Mashrek unit of the Middle East Department at the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who recently returned from Jordan, a nation rich with traces from Neolithic, Nabataean, Roman, Early Christian, Byzantine, and Islamic times to the establishment of the modern Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Musil, a theologian, orientalist, and explorer, was nicknamed Sheikh Mousa by local Bedouin tribes. A major Czech scholar of the 19th and 20th Century, fluent in 35 dialects of Arabic, leader of two Bedouin tribes with friends amongst local Arabs — Musil amassed important knowledge related to Jordan´s history. In 1898, he rediscovered the Islamic desert castle of Qusayr ‘Amra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Decorating for Death
2026-03-03 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | TBA (Eugene), Eugene, OR
Time TBA

Archaeology-Hour Screening: Metropolitan Walls of the Ọyọ Empire
2026-03-05 17:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Whitman College Maxey Hall 207, 173 Stanton St., Walla Walla, WA, 99362, United States
Please join us for an in-person screening and informal discussion of the Archaeology Hour talk by Akin Ogundiran (Northwestern University).
Enclosures and perimeter walls, built of lateritic clay and stones, are the most visible monuments and evidence of public works in the archaeological landscape of the Ọyọ Empire (West Africa). What purposes did these walls serve as markers of separation and connection? Join us to find out!
This event is free and open to the public.

TBA (Hawaii (Honolulu))
2026-03-05 17:00 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | TBA (Honolulu), Honolulu, HI

Petra's Forgotten Past: Uncovering the Iron Age Foundations of Nabataean Society 2
2026-03-05 17:30 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | Johns Hopkins University, Homewood Campus, Shaffer Hall Room 3, Baltimore, 21218, United States

Matrilineal Kinship In Aegean Prehistory: Settlements, Figurines, And The Absence Of Men
2026-03-05 17:30 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | Jones Hall 108, Uptown Campus of Tulane University, 6801 Freet St, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States

Baptism in Early Christianity and Baptismal Inscriptions in Asia Minor
2026-03-06 - 2026-03-07 | Orthodox Academy of Crete, Kolymvari, 73006, Greece
Water has been the central element of Christian baptism since the very beginnings of Christianity. Baptism has been part of Christianity from the start, as shown by the many mentions in the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline epistles. Baptism with water, whether by immersion or sprinkling, has always been the primary initiation ritual for Christians. But where did this ritual come from? And what did it mean? Although the term “baptism” is not today used to describe Jewish rituals(in contrast to New Testament times, when the Greek word βαπτισμός did indicate Jewish ablutions or rites of purification), the purification rites (or ֶוה ְק ִמ / מקווה; mikvah—ritual immersion) in Jewish law and tradition are similar to baptism, and the two have been linked. This e-meeting will focus on the following questions related to baptism in Early Christianity: how did people practice and understand baptism in Early Christian Minor, what kind of connotations did the baptismal use of water evoke in the Asian context, and what significance did baptism gain during the first centuries A.D.? Baptism seems to have been developed in the early years in close contact with the local religious context and the construction of baptisteries in the sixth century A.D. adapted local pagan elements of architecture. The Early Christian baptisteries featured water as the central element of baptism in an architecturally, ritually, and theologically reflected way.
In the study of baptism in Early Christian Asia Minor, we will especially focus on epigraphic evidence, which has been overlooked, whereas there is still a huge amount of material from excavations and museums in Turkey. Our aim is also to analyze the subject with literary sources and archaeological evidence to reconstruct the liturgy and the actions of early Christians, especially in ancient Anatolia. In this e-meeting, we only focus on baptismal inscriptions in Asia Minor between the fourth and sixth centuries A.D. and attempt to set out a comprehensive model for the study of Early Christian baptism in Asia Minor. It is also our intention to create a complete bibliography of previous publications on Early Christian baptism and baptismal inscriptions in Asia Minor.
We warmly invite contributions by scholars and graduate students from a variety of disciplines related to this subject. Intended to bring together scholars of Early Christian theology, Roman history, and Greek epigraphy to discuss a range of issues concerning this ritual’s characteristics, this video conference should be an excellent opportunity to increase our knowledge about this subject. The following theme groups are the main questions of the symposium, which are prescriptive:
-The origins and development of baptism in Asia Minor,
-Relevance and performance of baptism in Early Christian contexts in Asia Minor,
-Early Christian baptismal inscriptions in Asia Minor from archaeological field projects and museums,
-Etymology of Early Christian baptism,
-Ancient Greek and Latin textual sources on Early Christian baptism in Asia Minor,
-Hellenistic and Roman gravestones and other iconographic media depicting Early Christian baptism and baptismal inscriptions in Asia Minor,
-Miscellanea.
On these themes and questions, all approaches and methods susceptible to bringing some progress to our current knowledge are, of course, welcome: theology, ancient history, epigraphy, archaeology, history of art, cultural anthropology, etc. All the readings and discussions in our conference will be in English, and recorded for later viewing as a podcast on YouTube. The proceedings of the symposium will be published in 2028-29.
We would be delighted if you could consider contributing to our symposium and contact us with the required information below before October 1, 2025. Our e-mail addresses are: ztsiami@oac.gr and/or terracottas@deu.edu.tr
For all your queries concerning the symposium, our phone number is: +90.544.938 54 64. The organizers seek to widen participation at this symposium and would like to encourage colleagues from all parts of the world to attend. We kindly request that you alert any interested researchers, colleagues, and students within your research community who would be interested in participating in this conference, either by forwarding our first circular and poster through Academia, Researchgate, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other similar social media, or by printing them and displaying in your institution. Please share them also on your ListServs. We hope that you will be able to join us at the Orthodox Academy, and we look forward to seeing you!

Celtic Art Across the Ages - Opening
2026-03-06 10:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Discover the many forms of Celtic creativity and their artistic legacies in this sweeping story that spans ancient to modern times.
When you think of the word “Celtic,” what do you picture? Perhaps intricate knotwork designs, legendary warriors, or mystical spirituality? Maybe even a certain NBA team? Celtic Art Across the Ages will introduce visitors to the worlds of the various peoples who were historically labeled “Celts”—through the objects they created, the interactions they had across the European continent, and the myths that shaped their legacy, then as now. The exhibition stretches from 800 BCE through today, showcasing the craftsmanship, innovation, cultural connections, and multilayered reception that characterized Celtic art in Europe and beyond.
The first major exhibition on this topic to take place in the United States, Celtic Art Across the Ages offers an unprecedented opportunity to explore masterful metalwork, including exquisitely decorated weaponry, jewelry, and horse and chariot trappings of the first millennium BCE Iron Age and early medieval times, all brought to light through archaeological discoveries of the last 200 years. See how imagery transformed under Roman rule, and trace the revival of Celtic art and identities in the modern era. From shape-shifting ancient ornaments to the more well-known Celtic iconography of medieval Ireland and Scotland, the objects in this exhibition reveal rich and complex artistic traditions that defy stereotypes of what constitutes “Celtic art.”
Check out the exhibition catalogue, with essays from international experts considering the themes of the exhibition and providing a solid introduction to this often underappreciated area of art history.
Curated by Susanne Ebbinghaus, George M.A. Hanfmann Curator of Ancient Art and Head of the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art, with Penny Coombe, Kelekian Curatorial Fellow in Ancient Art, Laure Marest, Damarete Associate Curator of Ancient Coins, and Matthew Rogan, Senior Curatorial Assistant for Special Exhibitions and Publications.
