AIA

4/9 AIA Lecture: 'The Past in the Past, The Power of Monuments in Ruin'

Brian Gordon — Sun, 09 Mar 2025 17:02:48 +0000

4/9 AIA Lecture: 'The Past in the Past, The Power of Monuments in Ruin' Brian Gordon Sun, 03/09/2025 - 11:02

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AIA Lecture: 'Normalizing Loot: A Case Study of a Plundered Imperial Shrine'

Brian Gordon — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 20:09:56 +0000

AIA Lecture: 'Normalizing Loot: A Case Study of a Plundered Imperial Shrine' Brian Gordon Fri, 02/28/2025 - 13:09

Presented by Dr. Elizabeth Marlowe (Professor of Art History, Colgate University)

Wednesday, March 12th at 7PM, Eaton Humanities 1B80 and via Zoom

This talk will discuss a corpus of dozens of life-size bronze statues of Roman emperors and empresses that were looted in the 1960s at Bubon, an unexcavated site in southern Turkey, and ended up in collections across the U.S. What was lost in the process? Why–and how–are some museums resisting efforts to return these statues to Turkey today?

Wednesday, March 12th at 7PM in HUMN 1B80 and via Zoom

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AIA Lecture: A Late Bronze Age “Naval Station” at Kalamianos (Saronic Gulf), Greece?

Brian Gordon — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 20:39:25 +0000

AIA Lecture: A Late Bronze Age “Naval Station” at Kalamianos (Saronic Gulf), Greece? Brian Gordon Wed, 01/22/2025 - 13:39

Wednesday, January 29th, 2025 at 7PM

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AIA Lecture: 'Stress, Sex, and Death: Health and Survival in the Context of Medieval Famine and Plague'

Brian Gordon — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 19:10:05 +0000

AIA Lecture: 'Stress, Sex, and Death: Health and Survival in the Context of Medieval Famine and Plague' Brian Gordon Mon, 01/20/2025 - 12:10

Wednesday, February 19 at 7PM in Eaton Humanities 250

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AIA Lecture: Feasts Fit for Pharaohs: Food and Drink in Ancient Egypt

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 16:59:20 +0000

AIA Lecture: Feasts Fit for Pharaohs: Food and Drink in Ancient Egypt Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/30/2024 - 10:59

Download the poster

Wednesday, November 20, 2024 at 7PM - CU Visual Arts Complex, Room 1B20

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AIA Lecture: Experiencing Epiphany in the Ancient Greek Sanctuary

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 19:12:15 +0000

AIA Lecture: Experiencing Epiphany in the Ancient Greek Sanctuary Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/07/2024 - 13:12

Experiencing Epiphany in the Ancient Greek Sanctuary

Wednesday, November 6, 2024 @ 7PM
Eaton Humanities 250 & Zoom
Download the poster

ABSTRACT

Sensory studies of embodiment have gained traction in recent years as unparalleled tools for examining the vicissitudes of ancient lived experience. When used in conjunction with cognitive studies, it becomes possible to tease out the links between (over)stimulation, deprivation, and religious transformation. Kinesthetics, in particular, can facilitate a nuanced embodied account of approach, (in)accessibility, and viewshed orchestration, by prioritizing the role of the body in movement within the landscapes and edifices of the built environment. The intersection of space, place, and body within the religious setting of the sanctuary thus becomes a nexus of gradually unfolding experience, understanding, and transformation.

Through a series of three case studies drawn from the 5th-3rd c. BCE, this paper focuses on how divine epiphany, made manifest through the multisensory experiences within the Greek sanctuary, served as the key to the transformative effect of ritual, a crucial component to understanding ancient religion. Eleusis, the site of the renowned Mysteries, serves as an example of how the combination of sensory overstimulation and deprivation can prime the body of the worshipper to receive the divine knowledge at the root of the ritual. Delphi, the oracular heart of Greece, showcases how physical exertion in service to the gods constituted its own form of worship and prepared both worshippers and priestly attendants to communicate with the god. And Samothrace, home of the Sanctuary of the Great Gods, ties together the strains of sensory stimulation and physical expenditure of energy into a synesthetic encapsulation of ritual transformation within a charged sacred landscape.

Ultimately, this paper reveals the role of multisensory experience in the religious transformation that lies at the heart of Greek ritual practice by foregrounding kinesthetics as the link between the human participant and sacred built environment.

Jess Paga, PhD | Associate Professor | William & Mary

Professor Paga specializes in Greek archaeology and history, particularly of the Archaic and Classical periods. Her research is primarily focused on Greek architecture, political history, and epigraphy. Professor Paga is also an active field archaeologist, and has excavated at various sites in Greece, including the Athenian Agora, Cyprus, Corinth, Argilos, and Samothrace, as well as Italy, at Segesta, Sicily.

Wednesday, November 6, 2024 at 7PM - Eaton Humanities 250

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AIA Lecture: Caesar’s Cervisia

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 16:10:59 +0000

AIA Lecture: Caesar’s Cervisia Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/07/2024 - 10:10

Caesar’s Cervisia

Wednesday, October 16, 2024 @ 7PM
Eaton Humanities #150 & Zoom
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ABSTRACT

Examinations of Roman cuisine often downplay the role of beer in the ancient Roman diet seeing it as a symbol of barbarity. This presentation examines the plausibility of beer as a standard component of the Roman soldier’s diet and seeks to highlight when it may have become necessary for military advancement. Julius Caesar’s reliance on auxiliary forces to campaign in the North from 58-51 BCE ensured that cultures known for producing beer influenced legionary forces reliant on local resources to survive. This lecture also asserts the implausibility of wine consumption amongst Caesar’s men and concludes that the acceptance of beer as a standard component of the Roman soldier’s diet begins with Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul and Britain.

Travis Rupp

is a full-time Assistant Teaching Professor in Classics, Art History, History, Anthropology, and Mechanical Engineering at the ��Vlog�ƽ��, where he has taught for 13 years. Since 2010 he has taught Egyptian, Near Eastern, Greek, and Roman. His scholarly expertise focus on ancient food and alcohol production, ancient sport and spectacle, and Pompeii and the cities of Vesuvius. He worked at Avery Brewing Company for nine years as the Wood Cellar and Research and Development Manager. Rupp holds the title of Beer Archaeologist and founded Avery’s Ales of Antiquity Series, which ran from 2016-2020. He serves on the National Advisory board for the Chicago Brewseum and owns The Beer Archaeologist - a company dedicated to research and experimental archaeology of historic beer. As a result of his career and passions, Rupp is researching and writing about the beginnings of beer in the Roman military, brewing in the early monastic tradition, and beer production in Revolutionary America. His first book will be about the changing definition of beer throughout history. Recently Rupp’s travels and research abroad have focused on monastic brewing in Italy from 400-900 CE, brewing in Roman Britain during the 2nd century CE, beer production at Mt. Vernon and Monticello, and the survival of the Belgian brewing tradition during WWI.

Wednesday, October 16, 2024 at 7PM - Eaton Humanities 150

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AIA Lecture - Power of the Ancestors at Pylos, Greece

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 19:24:38 +0000

AIA Lecture - Power of the Ancestors at Pylos, Greece Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/01/2024 - 12:24

Power of the Ancestors at Pylos, Greece

Wednesday, February 21st at 7:15pm
Eaton Humanities #250
Free and open to the public

Abstract

Tholos tomb near Palace at Pylos

Over the past few decades, archaeologists have assigned ancestors significant roles in the supernatural orders of most ancient societies. They argue that ancestors, through their connection to the divine or supernatural, wielded a power that could transform society and grant exclusive rights over limited resources to those who could argue either for a familial connection to the ancestor or have access to the dead. These arguments are primarily derived from ethnographic research carried out on communal, formal burial areas that were used for long periods of time. Several scholars have argued that Mycenaean elites (16^th-12^th c. BCE) in Greece drew power from their ancestors and were reliant on that source of power for their continued success.

Based on a detailed examination of the dates of the tombs’ use, the wealth of the artifacts in them, and location of the tombs at Pylos, I argue that the metaphysical components and significance of the mortuary arena and ancestors at Pylos fluctuated and instead of having a constant static function the manipulation of the ancestors cycled in relation to the changing political economy at the palace.

The varied lengths of time during which individual tombs were in use, the different locations of the tombs at different periods in relation to the palace, the changing quantities and values of the objects deposited in the tombs during the burials, and the chronologically limited evidence for any non-funerary rituals at the tombs all indicate diachronic changes in the importance of ancestors among the elite groups at Pylos.

Dr. Joanne Murphy (Associate Professor, University of North Carolina at Greensboro)

Joanne Murphy is Associate Professor with the Department of Classical Studies, University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She holds her degrees from the University of Cincinnati (Ph.D.), and University College Dublin, and her fields of study are Greek archaeology, archaeological methods and theory, the archaeology of religion, and the archaeology of mortuary systems. She is Director of the Kea Archaeological Research Survey, and Co-director of the restudy of the Pylian tombs. Publications include Ritual in Archaic States (edited volume, University Press of Florida, 2016), and Death and Palaces: A Detailed Study of Pylian Tombs (in preparation).

Short bibliography and/or website on lecture topic:

C.W. Blegen, M. Rawson, W. Taylour, and W. P. Donovan, The Palace of Nestor 3. Acropolis and Lower Town. Tholoi and Grave Circle. Chamber Tombs. Discoveries Outside the Citadel (1973).

J. Murphy, J. Davis, S. Stocker, and L. Schepartz, “Late Bronze Age Tombs at the Palace of Nestor, Pylos” in J. MURPHY (ed.), Variations on a Theme: Late Bronze Age Mortuary Practices in Greece (2021), pp. 26-44

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AIA lecture: Interconnectivity and Local Responses: A View from the eastern Adriatic island of Brač

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 21:18:29 +0000

AIA lecture: Interconnectivity and Local Responses: A View from the eastern Adriatic island of Brač Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/12/2023 - 14:18

Interconnectivity and Local Responses: A View from the eastern Adriatic island of Brač

Wednesday, January 24th at 7:15pm
Eaton Humanities #250 & Zoom (REGISTER HERE)
Free and open to the public

Abstract:
Inhabitants of the islands off the coast of southern Croatia were exposed to the ebb and flow of goods that traverse the long and narrow Adriatic Sea, and local influences can be readily seen. For the past two seasons, excavations by a CU ��Vlog�ƽ��-University of Split team on an 11th-century BCE hillfort on the western side of Brač have begun to illuminate the very complex history of the site from the Neolithic to Roman period. Our results are both surprising and groundbreaking for the region, bringing into focus for the first time the archaeology of a tell site in the Adriatic.

Dr. Sarah A. James (Associate Professor, CU ��Vlog�ƽ�� Classics)

Sarah James (PhD 2010, The University of Texas at Austin) is an archaeologist who studies ancient Mediterranean economies and societies through material culture. Her publications include two books, four edited volumes, and dozens of articles and book chapters. She is the co-director of the Western Argolid Regional Project (a pedestrian survey) and a lead ceramicist for the Sikyon Archaeological Project (excavations in the agora) in southern Greece. New areas of her research focus on ancient Dalmatia and Adriatic trade networks from the 9th-1st c. BCE, as director of the Brač Island Project.

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AIA lecture: Environmental Change in Ancient Anatolia

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 18:41:06 +0000

AIA lecture: Environmental Change in Ancient Anatolia Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 10/26/2023 - 12:41

Environmental Change in Ancient Anatolia

Professor John M. Marston

Wednesday, November 8th at 7:00pm
Eaton Humanities #250 & Zoom (REGISTER HERE)
Free and open to the public

ABSTRACT

Identifying how societies make decisions about agricultural practices is important for understanding why some agricultural systems flourish over hundreds or thousands of years while others lead to environmental degradation and societal collapse. Archaeological data offer a unique long-term perspective on the sustainability of agriculture and how societies adapt to complex, intertwined changes in environment and economy on both local and regional scales.

In this lecture, Dr. John M. Marston (Boston University) presents recent work from the ancient urban center of Gordion in central Anatolia (modern Turkey), where complex agricultural strategies were employed to adapt to coincident environmental and social change on both local and regional scales. By situating Gordion within its regional agricultural setting over time, Marston concludes that an understanding of local political economy is necessary to reconstruct agricultural decision making and helps to understand patterns of anthropogenic environmental change.

Dr. John M. Marston

(PhD UCLA) is a professor of archaeology and anthropology at Boston University. As an environmental archaeologist, he studies the long-term sustainability of agriculture and land use, with a focus on ancient societies of the Mediterranean and western and central Asia. His research focuses on how people make decisions about land use within changing economic, social, and environmental settings, and how those decisions affect the environment at local and regional scales. A specialist in paleoethnobotany, the study of archaeological plant remains, Marston’s contributions to the field include novel ways of linking ecological theory with archaeological methods to reconstruct agricultural and land-use strategies from plant and animal remains. His current research projects include multi-proxy reconstruction of agriculture in Bronze and Iron Age urban centers of Turkey and Hellenistic, Roman, and Early Islamic sites in Israel.

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