Archaeological Institute of America

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
Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureship

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) | MA
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) | The Historic Longview Farm House, 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, 2026-03-08 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) | MA
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.

Science Spotlights: The Case of the Immortal Chemicals & Learning about the Deep Past from Ancient DNA
2026-03-07 14:00 - 15:30 (America/New_York) | Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street, Classroom B, Third Floor, Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street, Classroom B, Third Floor, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
In-Person Presentation
Science Spotlights: The Case of the Immortal Chemicals & Learning about the Deep Past from Ancient DNA
Saturday, March 7, 2:00–3:30 pm
Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street, Classroom B, Third Floor
Meet up-and-coming scientists and learn about questions at the forefront of research today in this series of short talks.
2:00–2:30 pm – The Case of the Immortal Chemicals
Speaker: Ethan Sontarp, Graduate Student with the Sunderland Group
There’s a mystery that needs to be solved: where does invisible pollution go when it is released into the environment? Scientists use chemical fingerprinting to do detective work, uncovering why certain man-made pollutants are so resistant to breaking down and where they like to go. By following this trail of clues, researchers can learn how to stop pollution from entering our food and drinking water. Join Harvard scientist Ethan Sontarp to discover how environmental detective work can help protect the world around us.
3:00-3:30 pm – Learning about the Deep Past from Ancient DNA
Speaker: Daniel Tabin, PhD Student in the David Reich Lab
Writing has only been around for about 6,000 years. This means that the stories of people who lived before that time were never recorded for future generations. Thankfully, these stories are not lost forever. How can we learn about the adventures, relationships, and challenges of people who lived long before anyone ever put words on a page? Join Harvard scientist Daniel Tabin to discover how ancient DNA can help us piece together the lives of people who lived thousands of years ago—and hear about the remarkable stories he has helped bring back to light.
20-minute talk followed by 10-minute Q&A session. Recommended for ages 10 and up.
Regular museum admission rates apply.
Presented by the Harvard Museum of Natural History and Harvard Museums of Science & Culture

Re-Encountering Egypt: Museums and the Human Experience in the Age of AI
2026-03-07 15:30 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Saturday, March 7
3:30 pm EST
In-person only at the Penn Museum, Classroom L2
No registration required
Special Event: Annual Korsyn Lecture in honor of Felix J. Korsyn
Speaker: Prof. Rita Lucarelli, Associate Professor of Egyptology, Faculty Curator of Egyptology at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California Berkeley
Title: Re-Encountering Egypt: Museums and the Human Experience in the Age of AI
Abstract:
In an age increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, where images, texts, and even ancient cultures can be generated instantly, what role do museums still play in helping us understand the past? This lecture revisits Egypt as a case study to explore the enduring human value of museum experiences in a digital and AI-driven world.
Drawing on examples from Egyptian collections and exhibitions, the speaker’s own 3D and VR projects and student engagement with the ancient Egyptian collection of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology of UC Berkeley, the talk examines how museums create forms of knowledge and emotional connection that cannot be reduced to data or algorithms alone. While AI offers powerful new tools for access, reconstruction, and interpretation, it also raises important questions about authenticity, presence, and the meaning of cultural encounter.
By re-encountering Egypt through the physical, sensory, and social space of the museum, this lecture argues that museums remain vital sites where history is not only learned, but felt, questioned, and shared.
Speaker Bio:
Prof. Rita Lucarelli studied at the University of Naples “L’Orientale,” Italy, where she received her MA degree in Egyptology. She holds her Ph.D. from Leiden University, the Netherlands. Her Ph.D. thesis was published as The Book of the Dead of Gatseshen: Ancient Egyptian Funerary Religion in the 10th Century BC. She worked as a Research Scholar and a Lecturer at the Department of Egyptology of Bonn University, where she was part of the team of the “Book of the Dead Project”. She is currently an Associate Professor of Egyptology at UC Berkeley and Faculty Curator of Egyptology at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology of the University of California, Berkeley and Fellow of the Digital Humanities in Berkeley. Her specialty is the study of the ancient Egyptian magic and religion, and the reception history of ancient Egypt, in particular in Black Visual Arts and music.
She is presently working at a project aiming at realizing 3D models of ancient Egyptian coffins, the “Book of the Dead in 3D” and a VR App, “Return to the Tomb”, which recreate the tomb space where an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus is brought back, from the museum to the tomb. She is also completing a monograph on demonology in ancient Egypt entitled “Agents of punishment and protection: ancient Egyptian Demonology in the First Millenium BCE”. Rita Lucarelli is also involved in a teaching Higher Education in the San Quentin State Prison, in California.
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Lectures are FREE to ARCE Members, $7 for University of Pennsylvania Museum Members and UPenn Staff and Faculty, $5 for Students with ID, and $10 for the general public.
Light refreshments served starting at 3pm.
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The American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1948 by a consortium of educational and cultural institutions to support research on all aspects of Egyptian history and culture, foster broader knowledge among the general public, and strengthen American-Egyptian cultural ties. The ARCE Pennsylvania Chapter (ARCE-PA) is the local branch of the national institution. We host monthly events including scholarly lectures, Egyptian-themed workshops, social events, and guided tours of the Penn Museum’s Egyptian galleries. For more information or to learn about the perks of membership, please send an e-mail to info@arce-pa.org, or visit our website at www.arce-pa.org.

Expanding the Ancient World K-12 Educator Workshop | The Power of Monsters in Ancient Western Asia: Magic, Seals, Monuments and the Logic of Images
2026-03-10 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | MA
This workshop will take place online; a Zoom link will be provided via email to registered participants.
Registration is required at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfyQI1d1826G0ZeS19z8s46qt_KvtysJAgmaBAYjIXDu_pZ2Q/viewform
Expanding the Ancient World is a series of professional development workshops and online resources for teachers. Keyed to the NYC Department of Education Social Studies Scope and Sequence, this program is designed to offer K-12 educators opportunities to develop their knowledge of the ancient world and to provide classroom-ready strategies for teaching the past with reliable sources. Featuring inquiry-based workshops, flexible lesson plans, and up-to-date research, Expanding the Ancient World aims to equip teachers with information and skills that they can share with their students. CTLE credits will be offered to New York State teachers.
Sphinxes, lions, griffins, winged demons, angels, chimeras of all sorts are some of the most captivating and enduring images of Mediterranean antiquity. Monsters are found across in objects of all sizes, from tiny scarab amulets to monumental statues, across the region. They were part of the visual imaginary of people in antiquity, cutting across regions, periods, social classes, and communities. In this workshop, we will explore hands-on the language of monsters through active observation, drawing, and collaging. What was the way people engaged with these images and how did they use them to affect the world around them? How can a sphinx be found at the same time as the monster to be banished in a spell, guarding the gates of a city, and perched on top of a gravestone? Together, we will be analyzing case studies of various monsters and understand how they took part in the ancient imaginary by actively recreating these same mechanisms. Through this lesson, we will discuss the shared functions of monuments, amulets, magic, and seals in the ancient Mediterranean and Western Asia and strategies of image reproduction in antiquity. This will further provide insights in how the power of an image can continue, change, weaken, expand or be subverted both in antiquity and nowadays.
Workshop led by Leopoldo Fox-Zampiccoli (PhD Candidate, ISAW).
Participants will receive 1.5 CTLE hours.
If you have any questions regarding the Expanding the Ancient World program please email ETAW@nyu.edu.
Please check isaw.nyu.edu for event updates.
ISAW is committed to providing a positive and educational experience for all guests and participants who attend our public programming. We ask that all attendees follow the guidelines listed in our community standards policy.

The Future of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife
2026-03-11 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
Free Hybrid Lecture
The Future of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife
Wednesday, March 11, 6:00–7:00 pm ET, Advance registration recommended for online and in-person attendance
Speaker: Rune Nyord, Associate Professor and Chair, Art History Department, Emory University
Could some of our familiar ideas about the ancient Egyptian afterlife be more Christian than Egyptian? Recent studies suggest that themes we often assume to be central, such as judgment, salvation, and eternal life, were profoundly shaped by the Christian expectations of early Egyptologists. This poses a significant challenge for contemporary Egyptology: how should we think about ancient Egyptian religion when our basic framework has been shaped so strongly by Christianity rather than by Egyptian evidence? Rune Nyord proposes a new way forward that re-centers the social setting of the ancestor cult and considers funerary texts such as the Book of the Dead as ritual texts—continuous with other Egyptian ritual practices—rather than as “guidebooks” to the afterlife.
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA. 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.
Detail of Hunefer: Papyrus of Hunefer. British Museum, EA9901. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Climate Change and Resilience in Medieval Anatolia
2026-03-12 16:00 - 17:30 (America/Edmonton) | Business Building 2-09, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
AIA’s George H. Forsyth, Jr. Memorial Lecture (Link: https://www.archaeological.org/endowment/george-h-forsyth-jr-memorial-lectures/)
Dr. Marica Cassis, Department of History, University of Calgary
What does climate resilience mean in the context of the Late Roman and Medieval World of Anatolia? Current excavations at the site of Çadır Höyük in Yozgat province, central Türkiye provide insight into how communities adapted and changed in response to a variety of climate and social changes over the course of these periods. In examining this evolution, we gain a greater sense of how medieval society made sense of their changing environmental conditions through changes to their physical environments and their use of natural resources.

Public Lecture: Dr. Alexander Dale (CMLL Department, Concordia University)
2026-03-12 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Concordia University, H420, 1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd W, Montreal, QC, H3G-1M8, Canada
On Thursday, March 12th, Dr. Alexander Dale (CMLL Department, Concordia University) will deliver a presentation entitled, Two Lesbian Brothers: the quest for fortune and glory in the Archaic Greek East. The talk will take place at 600pm in Hall Building 420. It is sponsored by the Concordia Classical Students Association and the Archaeological Institute of America, Montreal Society.

Prof. Debby Sneed, Assistant Professor of Classics, California State University, Long Beach, "Disability and the Greek Ideal: A Case Study in Marble"
2026-03-12 18:30 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | College of the Holy Cross, Hogan Campus Center, Room 401 (an accessible space), 1 College Street, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
The study of Greek art is heavily influenced by the notion of the ideal and idealized human body, which has long been assumed to exclude aspects of bodily difference and disability. In this talk, I consider a collection of 6th century BCE sculptures of maidens (korai) that were found on the Athenian Acropolis. As traditionally interpreted, these statues all stood together as representations of the feminine ideal in Greek art, but scholars tend to separate one maiden from her sisters because her body does not fit into modern definitions of beauty. By returning her to her rightful place in this collection, I present a reassessment of Greek sculptural ideals and, with it, of our understandings of Greek art, display, and dedication in late 6th century BCE Athens.

Escape from Pompeii: Tracing survivors from the 79 CE eruption of Vesuvius
2026-03-14 11:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum at Miami University, 801 S. Patterson Ave, Oxford, Ohio, 45056
Escape from Pompeii: Tracing survivors from the 79 CE eruption of Vesuvius
Dr. Steven Tuck, Archaeologist and Professor in the History Department at Miami University
Dr. Tuck will change the story of Pompeii from one of death and destruction to one of survival and hope. Through his research, he has traced those Romans who escaped the eruption of Vesuvius and discovered how and where they rebuilt lives, families, and businesses, while carrying with them reminders of their former lives.
About the Speaker:
Steven L. Tuck is Professor of History and Classics at Miami University. He has been recognized eight times for his undergraduate teaching and is the author of A History of Roman Art and many articles and chapters on Roman art, especially the art of gladiators and spectacle. He has also published extensively on disasters and disaster response in the Roman world. He has also created five courses for The Great Courses and some of his work has been featured in the recent PBS documentary “Pompeii: The New Dig” and in a recent episode of NPR’s Radiolab. His current research involves tracing those who escaped Pompeii during the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, which appears in his new book Escape from Pompeii: The Great Eruption of Mount Vesuvius and its Survivors Oxford University Press, 2025.

The Problem of Distinguishing the Coronado Expedition’s Multiple Routes Across Southeastern Arizona
2026-03-17 18:30 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Pecos Trail Café, 2239 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe, NM, 87505, United States
(Lecturers: Richard and Shirley Flint). There has been recent reporting of the discovery of what appear to be traces of sixteenth-century European presence in extreme south-central and southeastern Arizona. As a result, assertions have been made that those traces are indications of an outpost of the Coronado Expedition, called Suya in the surviving documentary record and San Gerónimo III by many modern scholars. Re-examination of sixteenth-century written records, however, shows that identification of that particular archaeological site as Suya is far from the only possibility. There are a total of at least eighteen known expeditionary episodes dating from the sixteenth century that could have left behind part or all of the material traces that have to date been identified in southern Arizona. The small, short-term occupation of Suya was dwarfed by the passage of the whole expeditionary force. Yet the current investigation claims to have located multiple sites associated with the minor Suya event and none linked to the vastly larger full expedition or any of its other sub-units. The evidence for Suya is thin, mostly conjectural, and not distinguishable from other events of the expedition.

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

From Money to Metal: How to Operate a Civic Mint in the Roman Empire
2026-03-18 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | Joseph Merrick Jones Hall 108, Tulane University, Freret Street, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
Speaker: Dr. Kenneth W. Harl, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, Tulane University
Based on analysis of the coins themselves, Professor Harl reconstructs how Greek cities in the Roman Empire manufactured and distributed bronzes coins. Not only do the coins reveal the stages of production by workers and the engraving of dies by artists, but they also offer a means of calculating the output of money. The scale of production and organization of labor are both far more impressive than hitherto realized. The coins struck by mint of Marcianopolis (today Devnya, Bulgaria) in the reign of the Emperor Macrinus (217-218) offer the test case for explaining how metal was turned into money.

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.

AIA Special Event: Eric Cline is coming to Emory! (March 19)
2026-03-19 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Emory University, White Hall, Room 101, 1672 North Decatur Road, Atlanta, GA, 30322, United States
What: Dr. Eric Cline is coming to Emory!
This lecture is NOT to be missed by archaeology enthusiasts or anyone with an interest in ancient Egypt.
This is a special presentation sponsored by the Atlanta Chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA).
Who: Dr. Cline wrote the single best-selling archaeology book of the last 15+ years: 1177 B.C: The Year Civilization Collapsed. He may well be the American archaeologist best-known to the general public today, while also maintaining his “day job” as professor of archaeology at George Washington University.
Why: Dr. Cline will be sharing a brand-new lecture with us! He just published a new book, which will be the topic of the lecture: Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed.
Extra Credit: Includes book signing! The campus bookstore will be selling a selection of Dr. Cline’s books at the event, and he will sign books for anyone who purchases them there.
When: Thursday, March 19, at 7:00pm
(Be on time! Due to Emory’s security policy, the venue doors will be locked at 7:15pm)
Where: Emory University, White Hall, Room 101
Address: 301 Dowman Dr, Atlanta, GA 30322
( see event website for venue details: http://tiny.cc/clineAIA )
How: FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!
RSVP at http://tiny.cc/clineAIA
To guarantee a seat, you must RSVP by Tuesday, March 17. (RSVP is not required but is appreciated to ensure we plan accordingly.)
Everyone who RSVPs by March 10, will be entered in a raffle to win a signed copy of Dr. Cline’s new book! (Must be present to win.)
Parking :
Fishburne Parking Deck at 1672 North Decatur Road, Atlanta, GA 30322
( see event website for venue details: http://tiny.cc/clineAIA )
Lecture Title: “Speak to the King, my lord and my Sun god”: Love, War, and Diplomacy in Canaan during the Amarna Age”
by Eric H. Cline
Event Website: http://tiny.cc/clineAIA
Synopsis
In 1887, a cache of nearly 400 clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform was discovered at Tell el-Amarna, the capital city of the heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten. Dating to the fourteenth century BCE, it is the only royal archive that has been discovered from New Kingdom Egypt so far. Within the archive are fifty letters exchanged with the other great powers of the day, including the Hittites, Babylonians, and Assyrians. However, there are also nearly three hundred letters sent by vassal Canaanite rulers, such as Biridiya, the king of Megiddo; Abdi-Heba, the king of Jerusalem; and Rib-Hadda, the king of Byblos. The letters offer a glimpse into the vibrant diplomatic world of the Late Bronze Age, revealing royal marriages, elaborate negotiations, and exchanges of luxury gifts between the great kings, as well as political maneuvering and appeals from the vassal kings of Canaan, including Biridiya, who sent six letters to the Egyptian pharaohs. They also, however, provide a window through which we can glimpse the competition among antiquities dealers and museums to acquire the tablets; the scholarly race between British and German teams to decipher them; and the colonial-era context in which they were unearthed.
Speaker’s Bio
Eric H. Cline is Professor of Classics and Anthropology, the former Chair of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and the current Director of the Capitol Archaeological Institute at George Washington University, in Washington DC. A two-time Fulbright Scholar, National Geographic Explorer, NEH Public Scholar, Getty Scholar, and member of the Explorers Club, with degrees from Dartmouth, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania, he is an active field archaeologist with more than thirty seasons of excavation and survey experience in Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Cyprus, Greece, Crete, and the United States, including ten seasons at Megiddo (1994-2014), where he served as co-director before retiring from the project in 2014, and another ten seasons at Tel Kabri, where he currently serves as Co-Director. He is the author or editor of more than twenty books and nearly one hundred articles; translations of his books have appeared in twenty-three different languages. He is perhaps best known for “1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed”, but also for “Digging Up Armageddon: The Search for the Lost City of Solomon”, which tells the story of the 1925-1939 University of Chicago excavations at Megiddo, a century after they first began.
