Archaeological Institute of America

Religious Ritual on board the Greco-Roman Ship
2022-03-03 19:00 (America/Chicago) | MA
Bass Lecture

Mosaics and the Antioch Recovery Project
2022-03-03 18:00 (America/Phoenix) | TBA (Central Arizona), Phoenix, AZ, United States
Kershaw Lecture

Ramesside Royal Women’s Tombs, the Book of the Dead, and the Deir el-Medina Iconographic Tradition
2022-03-03 17:30 (America/New_York) | MA
La Follette Lecture

Etruscans at the Crossroads: The Lost Cities of Tuscany
2022-03-03 16:30 - 18:00 (America/Chicago) | MA
Zoomed lecture, free and open to the public.
Rachel Horner Brackett Lecture – Etruscans at the Crossroads
Thursday, March 3 · 4:30 – 6:00pm
Google Meet joining info
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/ncy-ymyr-fjy
Or dial: ‪(US) +1 240-428-7995‬ PIN: ‪770 814 570‬#
More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/ncy-ymyr-fjy?pin=2102514701672

"The Social Life of Roman Soldiers: The Role of Wives, Children and Families in Roman Military Communities" Elizabeth M. Greene
2022-03-02 19:30 - 20:30 (America/Chicago) | MA
Elizabeth M. Greene, Canada Research Chair in Roman Archaeology, University of Western Ontario (egreene2@uwo.ca)
Research over the past few decades has shown quite clearly that women and children were part of life in the Roman army far more than had ever been considered before. The evidence and spatial patterning of material within and outside Roman forts makes this clear, but still research on the social role of these individuals lags behind. This presentation concentrates on Dr. Greene’s current research into this aspect of the Roman army, considering the evidence that illuminates the varied roles of non-combatants within these somewhat unique settlements. The presentation highlights the very different realities for the wives and children of officers and the family members of, for instance, a foot soldier, who was paid far less and was not legally allowed to contract a marriage while serving. This lecture follows on past talks I have given that present the archaeological evidence for the presence of women at Vindolanda and pushes the argument toward women’s social roles within military communities and the intersectional identities of those living in the Roman provinces and in military communities on the frontiers.

20,000 Leagues Under the Wine-Dark Sea
2022-03-02 18:00 (America/New_York) | MA
Caskey Lecture

Synoikismos: Formation and Forms of Ancient Greek Cities
2022-03-02 17:00 (America/Chicago) | Bryant Hall 209, The University of Mississippi, University, MS, 38677, United States

“In the Footsteps of Roman Soldiers: Excavations at Vindolanda and the Archaeological Landscape of Hadrian’s Wall”
2022-03-01 19:30 - 21:00 (America/Chicago) | MA
In the past few decades the Roman fort at Vindolanda has had some of the most extraordinary finds from the northern frontier of the Roman Empire that have truly changed our understanding of life in the Roman army. The site lies near Hadrian’s Wall in a remote countryside in Northumberland, England and was part of the original frontier line in this location in the late first century CE. Decades of excavation at the site have given us an extraordinary view into the lives of soldiers living in this frontier region. Greene has excavated at Vindolanda since 2002, directing trenches in new areas of the site for several years, and will give a presentation focusing on the recent excavations and new hypotheses from this work. Highlights of the presentation concentrate on the extraordinary finds from the site, including Roman shoes, numerous inscriptions and artifacts, as well as the unparalleled corpus of writing tablets (letters and military records), to reveal what life was like on the edge of the Roman empire and how the site has changed many accepted views of life in the Roman army.
Speaker: Elizabeth Greene, University of Western Ontario
To join the virtual meeting, go to https://knox-edu.zoom.us/j/89207455252?pwd=[REDACTED]

In the Footsteps of Roman Soldiers: Excavations at Vindolanda and the Archaeological Landscape of Hadrian’s Wall
2022-03-01 19:30 (America/Chicago) | MA

Central Plains Maize Farming and the Cahokian Diaspora
2022-02-28 19:00 (America/New_York) | MA
Anawalt Lecture

Behind-the-Screens with Sarah Clunis (Free for HMSC Members)
2022-02-28 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Sarah Anita Clunis, Director of Academic Partnerships and Curator of African Collections, Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology
Located in the Kasaï Oriental Province along the Sankuru River in the central part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Kuba identify themselves as the children of Woot and the tale of their origins is often reenacted in masquerades for the royal Kuba court. The focus of this Black History Month Behind-the-Screens is a conversation with Peabody Curator of African Collections, Sarah Clunis, about three royal Kuba masks—housed at Harvard’s Peabody Museum—that as a triad re-enact the founding of the Kuba kingdom and highlight the significance of gender and status in Kuba political systems and Kuba life.
Presented by Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology and Harvard Museums of Science & Culture
Not a member of Harvard Museums of Science & Culture? Become a member today so you can join us on February 28th! Visit us at https://hmsc.harvard.edu/membership

Careers in Archaeology: Networking Event and Social Hour
2022-02-28 17:30 - 19:00 (America/Chicago) | Florence, Florence, - None -, 9121, India
Join members and guests of the Archaeological Institute of America’s Iowa Society for a virtual conversation via Zoom about how to land a job in or related to archaeology. We will discuss different specializations as well as the types of preparation each typically requires. Hop around to different breakout rooms to meet with specialists and archaeologists. Topics include:
— Iowa archaeology and cultural resource management (with State Archaeologist, Dr. John Doershuk!)
— Grad schools in archaeology: getting in and surviving
— Alternative careers associated with archaeology
— Publishing your first article and other early career advice
— Finding a dig/project
If you already have a career in the field and would be interested in hosting a breakout room or lending your professional advice, we strongly encourage you to attend! Those interested in hosting a room can contact the society president (debra-trusty@uiowa.edu).
If you aren’t interested in a career in archaeology but just love the topic, we have a special room for you filled with trivia questions about world archaeology!
Please register in advance: https://uiowa.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwoc-qspzotGNWPR2Jq0__ev7jfzLfjVqOa

The Archaeology of Cheese: Cattle, Strainers, Chemistry, and Genes
2022-02-26 13:00 (America/Denver) | TBA (Denver 1), Denver, CO, United States

Sensing the Past: Sensory Experiences in Ancient Mesopotamia (a 4-D Presentation)
2022-02-25 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | MA
Manton Lecture

Excavations at 63 ½ Coming St.: Exploring an evolving urban African-American landscape in Charleston
2022-02-24 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | MA
The discoverers of one of Archaeology magazine’s Top 10 Discoveries of 2021, the slave tag found at 63 ½ Coming St. in Charleston, SC, discuss the development and evolution of the urban landscape of Charleston, with a particular emphasis on evidence for African-American life and culture in 19th c. Charleston.
Speakers: James Newhard, Grant Gilmore, and Scott Harris (College of Charleston)
Feb. 24, 7-8 pm EST; virtual lecture via Zoom. Register in advance: https://cofc.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAvce2tqTgpH90jeku3XJhQOVt2r65GMZEb

On the Literacy and Education of Ancient Egyptian Artists (Free Virtual Lecture)
2022-02-24 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, 6 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Dimitri Laboury, Associate Professor of Ancient Egyptian Art History, Archaeology, History and History of Religions; Research Director, Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research in Ancient Egyptian Art History and Archaeology; Director of the Ancient Egyptian Art Historical Research Unit, University of Liège, Belgium
One of the salient characteristics of ancient Egypt undoubtedly is its hieroglyphic script. The “code” to decipher this writing system was cracked precisely two hundred years ago, in 1822, by the brilliant French linguist Jean-François Champollion—the founding father of Egyptology. The complexity of Egyptian hieroglyphs resulted in a low literacy rate among the Pharaonic population. In this lecture, Dimitri Laboury will address the level(s) of literacy and scholarly education among the makers of the countless hieroglyphic monuments that help make ancient Egypt so famous. Was every ancient Egyptian artist capable of reading and writing hieroglyphs? And in that society, who were the real experts in hieroglyphic writing?
Presented by Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East and Harvard Museums of Science & Culture

The Art of Wine Flinging: Kylix and Kottabos at the Greek Symposium
2022-02-24 18:00 (America/Chicago) | Nashville Parthenon, 2500 West End Avenue, Nashville, TN, 37203, United States
Boegehold Lecture

POSTPONED--Shopping for artists’ materials in ancient Rome: pigment shops, pigments, and product choice
2022-02-24 17:30 (America/Chicago) | Texas Tech University, Room TBA, Lubbock, TX, 79410, United States
This event is postponed until a later date this spring. New date to come!

Roman Baths Here, There, and Everywhere
2022-02-24 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | MA
Church Lecture

The Archaeology of “Race” in the Roman Empire: Aethiopians in the Imperial Imagination
2022-02-23 18:00 (America/New_York) | Leggett 537, Harold G. Leggett Building, Randolph College, 2500 Rivermont Avenue, Lynchburg, VA, 24503, United States

Anna Agbe-Davies, “The Mis-Education of Pauli Murray”
2022-02-22 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | MA
Tuesday, February 22, 2022
7:30 p.m. ET
Join Zoom Meeting
https://davidson.zoom.us/j/99143304841
Meeting ID: 991 4330 4841
Anna Agbe-Davies, “The Mis-Education of Pauli Murray”
About the lecture:
This presentation considers education, womanhood, and signs as refracted through the life of human rights pioneer Pauli Murray, prompted by the archaeological investigation of her childhood home in Durham, North Carolina. It is part of a work-in-progress that investigates the place material culture and the routines of daily life in African American women’s struggles for equality.
About the speaker:
Dr. Anna Agbe-Davies, associate professor of anthropology at UNC–Chapel Hill, is a historical archaeologist with research interests in the plantation societies of the colonial southeastern US and Caribbean, as well as towns and cities of the 19th and 20th century Midwest, with a particular focus on the African diaspora. She has worked on sites in and around Jamestown (VA), Colonial Williamsburg, New Philadelphia (IL), and the Phyllis Wheatley Home for Girls on the south side of Chicago.

Caveat Lector: The historical record and the archaeology of provincial collapse on Rome's northern frontiers during the third century CE
2022-02-22 19:30 - 21:00 (America/Chicago) | TBD, Trinity University, San Antonio, 78212, United States
The third century CE is arguably the most poorly understood period of the Roman Empire. Nonetheless, it is a critical time in World History, as it ushered in the transition of the Classical World to Late Antiquity and saw the end of the Roman system as defined by Augustus. One of the most consequential changes of the period was the loss of substantial frontier territories that lay beyond the traditional riverine boundaries of the Empire; the Agri Decumates in southwest Germany and the province of Dacia in Romania. This paper examines the relationship between the historical sources and the archaeological narrative for the end of Roman authority in these regions and offers new interpretations of the processes that led to their collapse based on forensic analysis of the archaeological evidence.
Evan Scherer is a post-doctoral researcher at Newcastle University, where he is currently bringing legacy data from archaeological excavations of Roman sites in Romania to publication, including a cult site associated with Liber Pater at Apulum (Alba Iulia) in western Transylvania, and the late Roman fortified site of Salsovia (Mahmudia) in the Danube Delta. He has worked at Roman sites on Hadrian’s Wall and in London in the UK, in Romania, and in Rome.

Untold Stories at the Museum of the Bible. Artifacts, Provenance, and Bias in the Contact Zone
2022-02-21 18:00 (America/Chicago) | WEBINAR (Minneapolis-St. Paul 2), Minneapolis, MN
Wilkie Lecture

“A New but Naughty ‘Sam Wide Group’ Kylix at the Walters Art Museum”
2022-02-18 17:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | MA
Dr. Lisa Anderson-Zhu (Walters Art Museum) will speak about “A New but Naughty ‘Sam Wide Group’ Kylix at the Walters Art Museum.”
Join via Zoom at the link below. The password, if prompted is “baltimore”.

Boomtown Blues: Archaeologies of Expansion and Collapse in Amazonia
2022-02-17 19:30 (America/New_York) | MA

Games of Chance and Fate: Patolli Game Boards from the Ancient Maya site of Gallon Jug, Belize
2022-02-17 19:00 (America/New_York) | MA
Dr. Claire Novotny (Kenyon College)
Graffiti provides a unique and informal perspective on the lived experiences and daily cultural practices of ancient people. In the ancient Maya culture, graffiti of ritual processions, human figures, and game boards were incised into plastered walls, benches, and floors in buildings that formed civic ceremonial centers. Game boards, called patolli, are particularly fascinating because they seem to combine leisure, gambling, and ritual practices. Patolli boards are found throughout Mesoamerica and we can draw on rich ethnohistorical evidence to make our interpretations. Recent research at the ancient Maya site of Gallon Jug, located in northwestern Belize, documented several patolli boards incised into a plaster floor on a platform in Courtyard B-01, an elite residential group. In this talk I will review our current understanding of patolli game boards and put them into context within the Maya world and Mesoamerica more broadly. I will address questions about how and why the residents of Gallon Jug may have used the patolli boards, and whether they were part of a singular ritual or a recurring strategy for divination employed by a resident ritual specialist.

Continuity and change in Etruscan religion under Roman hegemony
2022-02-17 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Vancouver) | Florence, Florence, - None -, 9121, India
Dr. Kevin Dicus (University of Oregon)
Roman imperial ambitions began with the occupation of Italy. The Etruscans, once the dominant civilization, experienced great cultural and political upheavals. Foreign traditions, goods, and belief systems entered their territories, challenging and changing their ways of being. Scholars have referred to the process as “Romanization”: conquered peoples adopt Roman customs, recognizing their obvious appeal and ultimately identifying as Roman. More recently, the Romanization paradigm has been contested, and this talk continues to critique it. The talk examines Etruscan religion before and during Roman expansion to measure Roman influence on it. In particular, it introduces a widespread ritual in which people dedicated terracotta body parts at Roman and Etruscan sanctuaries from the 4th to the 1st centuries BC. That the Etruscans readily participated in a ritual with Greco-Roman roots has been seen to mark an end of Etruscan orthodoxy. Close examination, however, reveals that Etruscans did not adopt the anatomical votive tradition to replace their own established practices; instead, they retained the agency to adapt the ritual, changing it in ways that made it more meaningful to their experiences and gave people greater control than before in their personal relationship with the gods.

The OPUMPA Project: Ancient Mineral Mining and Pigment Use in Stone Age Swaziland
2022-02-17 17:30 (America/New_York) | University of Missouri-Columbia, 112 Swallow Hall, Columbia, MO, 65211
“The OPUMPA Project: Ancient Mineral Mining and Pigment Use in Stone Age Swaziland,” presented by Dr. Brandi L. MacDonald (Assistant Research Professor, The Archaeometry Laboratory at the University of Missouri Research Reactor).
This lecture will be held in person in Swallow Hall 101 at the University of Missouri-Columbia, but we are also providing a zoom link to accommodate anyone who would prefer to attend remotely.
The lecture will begin promptly at 5:30 pm, with an in-person reception following. This reception is open to the public.
Date: Thursday February 17th, 2022
Time: 5:30 PM (CST)
Location: Swallow Hall 101
Zoom registration link (required for remote attendance):
https://umsystem.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwsf-6uqDksHNXpJ17JAswVEAGRlX4-RcQn
Abstract: “Red mineral pigments, known to many as “ochre”, captured the attention of humans throughout the Middle and Late Stone Ages in Africa. These iron-rich minerals were highly valued for their pigmentaceous properties and were used to decorate cave walls with rock art, to paint portable objects, as a component of mortuary practices, among many other social, ritual, and symbolic contexts that are still practiced today. The OPUMPA project focuses on archaeological investigations at Ngwenya, the world’s earliest known ochre pigment mine dating to over 40 kya, and surrounding archaeological sites that span the Middle and Late Stone ages, through to the historic period. Using advanced methods in archaeological science, we used geochemical analysis to reconstruct the mining and transport of ochre mineral pigments from Ngwenya and other sources across Swaziland, in some cases over hundreds of kilometers, suggesting the presence of long-distance social networks. This talk will review some highlights from this ongoing project, including pigment mining landscapes and rock art across Swaziland.”

Archaeology Abridged with Dr. Kate Liszka "Forts, Prisons, or Rudimentary Vaults? The Three so-called “Fortresses” of Pharaoh at Wadi el-Hudi and their Connection to Amethyst Mining"
2022-02-17 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | MA
Acquiring amethyst in Ancient Egypt was a tricky business. But the cut raw amethyst, the amethyst mines, and the people in the desert all needed to be guarded. As part of the mining procurement process, the Egyptians created massive stone settlements and networks of guard posts in the desert. The settlements have often been compared to contemporary Egyptian forts in the Nile Valley, and the ones in the desert were supposedly built to protect from oncoming armies. Liszka directs the Wadi el-Hudi Expedition whose team has been investigating these structures in the Eastern Desert since 2014. In this talk, she will share recent archaeological work from the Wadi el-Hudi region in the Eastern Desert in order to scrutinize the location, design, and use of these so-called “forts” and address the purpose of their construction. The talk will also investigate how the Egyptians protected these assets and expeditions with hundreds of soldiers, connecting roads, and watch posts strategically placed across the desert.
This lecture will also be available in American Sign Language. ASL interpretation will be provided by Trail Blazing Interpreters. Due to Zoom limitations on mobile devices and tablets, participants interested in accessing ASL interpretation should log in using the desktop version of Zoom.
Dr. Kate Liszka is the Benson and Pamela Harer Fellow in Egyptology and Associate Professor of History at California State University San Bernardino. She earned her doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania and from 2012 to 2015 was a Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer at Princeton University. Her areas of specialization include Nubians in Egypt, the Medjay, ethnicity and identity in Antiquity, multicultural Interactions in frontier regions, the Pangrave Archaeological Culture, and large-scale mining expeditions in Antiquity. Dr. Liszka is the Director of the Wadi el-Hudi Expedition in the Egyptian Eastern Desert.

Tales from Under the Mediterranean Sea: Reminiscences of a Maritime Archaeologist
2022-02-16 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Hale Science Building, Rm. 270, 1350 Pleasant Street, Boulder, CO, 80302, United States
The lecture presented by Dr. Robert Hohlfelder (Emeritus Professor, CU Boulder), will cover some of the most amazing discoveries of his long career including: A Treasure Trove of 4th Century CE Glass Panels Found in the Sea, Pixie Dust and Roman Imperial Maritime Infrastructure, The Amazing Levitating Roman Amphoras, Two Harrowing Episodes 1,000 feet Below Sea Level, and his “most dangerous” moment.
About the speaker: Dr. Robert Hohlfelder is an emeritus professor in the Department of History, University of Colorado Boulder and currently a Visiting Research Scholar at Wolfson College, University of Oxford. His areas of specialization are maritime history and the archaeology of the Classical world (late Roman history, and numismatics). He was taken part in, or directed, over 40 maritime archaeological expeditions in the Mediterranean.
