Archaeological Institute of America

Punitive Labor and Enslavement in the Roman Bakery
2026-02-17 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Semans Auditorium (Room 117), Belk Visual Arts Center, 315 N. Main St., Davidson, NC, 28036, United States
About the lecture:
In 2023, excavators in Pompeii found a bakery in the Casa di Rustio Vero that was separated from the house—and the rest of the world—by metal bars. The excavators interpreted the bars as an indication of incarceration and the use of convicts as labor. This lecture explores the evidence for convict labor in bakeries and argues that the material consequences of enslavement and incarceration are probably indistinguishable in the setting of commerical activity. Deploying both textual and material evidence, Benton will show the various ways that punitive labor grafted onto different systems and scales of production.
About the speaker:
Dr. Jared Benton, associate professor of art at Old Dominion University, is co-director of the Saïss Plain and Zerhoun Massif archaeology project, a survey of the plain SE of Volubilis in Morocco. He has previously excavated workshops in Volubilis and was a field supervisor for the American Excavations at Morgantina from 2013-2020. His book, The Bread Makers, explores Roman commercial baking, with a focus on how production would differ not only between communities but also between operators with different investment tolerances. With a number of co-authors, he recently published an article on the structure and archaeobotany of a bakery at Volubilis in Mouseion.

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

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) | TBA (North Coast)
Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship Time TBA

Petra's Forgotten Past
2026-02-24 19:30 - 21:00 (America/Vancouver) | TBA (Vancouver), Vancouver, British Columbia

The Elk Ridge Community in the Mimbres Pueblo World
2026-02-25 17:00 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | TBA (Gainesville 1), Gainesville, FL, United States
Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureship Time TBA

AIA Archaeology Hour February 2026: Metropolitan Walls of the Ọyọ Empire
2026-02-25 17:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | CA
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!

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 3
2026-02-26 17:00 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | TBA (Western Massachusetts), Northampton, MA, United States
Kershaw Lectures in Near East Archaeology Time TBA

New Approaches to Roman Urbanism: The Excavations of the Falerii Novi Project (Lazio, Italy) 2
2026-02-26 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | TBA (Central Missouri), MO, United States

Soldier Burials, Landscapes, and Memory in Early Iron Age Greece
2026-02-26 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Denver) | TBA (Central Arizona), Phoenix, AZ, United States
Time TBA

Spectacles of Cultural Heritage Destruction in Global Media
2026-02-28 11:00 - 12:30 (America/Chicago) | TBA (Minneapolis), Minneapolis, MN, United States
Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship

New Discoveries at Pompeii and Rome
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 “New Discoveries at Pompeii and Rome”. A Roman themed reception will be held afterwards, but 21st century clothing is totally cool.

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

"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

Petra's Forgotten Past: Uncovering the Iron Age Foundations of Nabataean Society 2
2026-03-05 17:00 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | TBA (Baltimore), Baltimore, MD, United States

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

TBA (New Orleans)
2026-03-05 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | TBA (New Orleans 1), New Orleans, LA, 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!

Next to Turquoise Domes: Archaeological Investigations in the City of Bukhara
2026-03-17 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Semans Auditorium (Room 117), Belk Visual Arts Center, 315 N. Main St., Davidson, NC, 28036, United States
About the lecture:
Five extensive seasons of archaeological fieldwork have yielded a veritable treasure trove of new information about the long, complex history of the city of Bukhara, which was once a key node along the fabled “Silk Roads.” This presentation will introduce new data derived from finds and observations made at a series of fortifications, various kinds of dwellings, workshops, and burial contexts. They speak to a wide range of historical phenomena and problems, such as the potential existence of a Seleucid military colony in the area of the later city during the 3rd century BCE, the roots and stages of Bukhara’s urban growth as an important node within the Sogdiana trading networks during Late Antiquity (3rd to 8th centuries CE), transcontinental connections during the city’s heyday under the Samanid dynasty during the 10th century, and the health status of the urban populace on the eve of the Mongol invasion (late 12th/early 13th century).
About the speaker:
Dr. Sören Stark, Professor of Central Asian Archaeology at New York University, has close to two decades of experience in conducting and directing archaeological fieldwork in Central Asia. His current research interests are, among others, on Hellenistic and Late Antique/Early Medieval Sogdiana and the archaeology and history of nomadic groups close to oasis territories in Western Central Asia. His publications include a monograph on the archaeology of the 6th-8th century Türks in Inner and Central Asia, an exhibition catalogue on Early Iron Age kurgans from Kazakhstan, and numerous articles and book chapters on the history and archaeology of Sogdiana between the Hellenistic and the Islamic periods.

TBA (Mississippi/Memphis)
2026-03-18 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | TBA (Oxford MS/Memphis TN), United States

Horace and Rodolfo construct the Esquiline: examining garbage and graves at Rome and beyond
2026-03-19 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 Dr. Kevin Dicus, University of Oregon at Eugene, discussing investigations at Rome’s Esquiline Hill.
Abstract:
Archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani captivated the public with his account of excavations on Rome’s
Esquiline Hill. No doubt influenced by Horace’s Satire 1.8 about the same region, his portrayal
of mass graves (puticuli) embedded within a vast field of municipal waste offered a thrilling,
dystopian vision that continues to resonate nearly 150 years later. Ancient Rome’s reputation has
yet to recover, as his report continues to shape perceptions of the metropolis as filthy and
mismanaged.
This talk revises Lanciani’s portrayal of the Esquiline as a wasteland of rotting corpses and
garbage and offers a new interpretation of Horace’s Satire 1.8. I argue that Horace describes not
mass graves on the hill but rather a modest cemetery where multiple graves shared the same plot
of land that also received the city’s refuse. The misreading that these were instead puticuli
originated with his imperial scholiasts and persisted to directly influence Lanciani.
Archaeological comparanda from across the Roman world demonstrate that individual, modest
graves dug into suburban municipal dumps were a common and legitimate form of burial for the
urban poor. This intersection between the city’s dumps and its dead provides new insight into
Roman attitudes toward waste: although the disposal of refuse beyond the city walls transformed
the suburban landscape, it did little to alter the cultural meaning of the extramural zone. People
continued to use these areas much as they had before their appropriation for refuse, including the
symbolically charged act of burying loved ones.

The Shipwreck at Gnalić—Gagliana Grossa (1569-1583)
2026-03-22 14:00 - 15:30 (America/New_York) | TBA (Philadelphia), Philadelphia, PA, United States
The George F. Bass Lectures

Landscapes of Time and Memory: Foragers in the Mojave Desert 3
2026-03-24 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | TBA (Tallahassee 1), Tallahassee, FL, United States

"Beauty, Power, and Presence: The Neo-Assyrian Queens of Nimrud’s Northwest Palace, c. 865–705 BCE"
2026-03-24 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | CA
Lecture by Professor Amy Rebecca Gansell, St. John’s University

Beauty, Power, and Presence: The Neo- Assyrian Queens of Nimrud's Northwest Palace, c. 865-705 BCE
2026-03-24 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | CA
DC Society Annual Louise Davison Lecture, delivered by Professor Amy Rebecca Gansell, St. John’s University.
Reception at 6:15 pm; DC Society Business Meeting at 6:45 pm; Lecture at 7:00 pm. Location and hybrid Zoom registration link TBA.

New Approaches to Roman Urbanism: The Excavations of the Falerii Novi Project (Lazio, Italy) 3
2026-03-25 17:00 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | TBA (Buffalo), Buffalo, NY, United States

AIA Archaeology Hour March 2026: Dating Australia’s Oldest Rock Art
2026-03-25 20:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | CA
Take a virtual trip Down Under with the AIA as we catch up with Helen Green (University of Melbourne) as she presents the March edition of AIA Archaeology Hour: “Dating Australia’s Oldest Rock Art.”
This presentation will be given at 8pm Eastern/7pm Central/6pm Mountain/5pm Pacific.
Register here.
