• Cardoso, Elsa. (2018). ‘The Scenography of Power in Al-Andalus and the Abbasid and Byzantine Ceremonials: Christian Ambassadorial Receptions in the Court of Cordoba in a Comparative Perspective,’ Medieval Encounters 24. Download
• Bello, Fierro and María Isabel. (2009). ‘Pompa y ceremonia en los califatos del Occidente islámico (ss. II/VIII-IX/XV).’ Cuadernos Del CEMYR 17, pp. 125-52. Download

***

Thursday,  27 March 2025, 16:00 @ MS TEAMS

Deconstructing Notions of the ‘Classical’: An Archaeology of Disability

Dr. Mantha Zarmakoupi
University of Pennsylvania

***

Recommended Readings:

•  Gissen, D., J. Stager & M. Zarmakoupi (2023). “An archaeology of disability: Athens, Venice, Pisa,” in: A. Anguissola & C. Tarantino (eds.), Aree archeologiche e accessibilità : riflessioni ed esperienze. Pisa : Pisa university press, pp. 19-38. Download

***

Thursday,  27 February 2025, 16:00
@ Janskerkhof 2-3, room 013 (Utrecht University)

PTSD from BCE? What psychiatry can (not) tell us about the ancient world

Arjen van Lil, MA
ARQ National Psychotrauma Centre

***
Recommended Readings:

• Rees, O. & J. Crowley (2015). “PTSD in Ancient Greece,” in Ancient Warfare 9.4. Download
• Mackowiak, P. & S. Batten (2008). “Post-Traumatic Stress Reactions before the Advent of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Potential Effects on the Lives and Legacies of Alexander the Great, Captain James Cook, Emily Dickinson, and Florence Nightingale,” Military Medicine 173, 12:1158. Download

***

Thursday, 19 December 2024, 16:00 @ Microsoft Teams

Polis revisited: How to write the history of the Greek city ; state

Prof. John Ma
Columbia University

***

Handout:

SEG 2-579; Edition and Translation

Recommended Readings:

• Ma, J. (2024). Polis: A New History of the Ancient Greek City-State from the Early Iron Age to the End of Antiquity. Princeton UP. Chapters 15 & 19

***

Tuesday,  26 November 2024, 16:00
@ Utrecht University, Drift 21, room 005

Mapping Civilization

Prof. Josephine Quinn
University of Oxford

***

Recommended Readings:

• Quinn, Josephine Crawley. 2024. How the World Made the West : A 4,000-Year History. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

***

Friday,  15 November 2024 @ 13:00, MS Teams

Inscribe. Reuse. Rewrite. Fragments of Brythonic identity from Welsh inscriptions (5th-9th c.)

Dr. Donato Sitaro
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen

***

Handout

Recommended Readings:

• Edwards N. “Rethinking the pillar of Eliseg.” The Antiquaries Journal 89 (2009): pp. 143-177,
• Edwards, N. “Early Medieval Wales: Material Evidence and Identity.” Studia Celtica 51, no. 1 (2017): pp. 65–87.
• Charles-Edwards, T. M. Wales and the Britons, 350-1064. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

***

Thursday,  31 October 2024 @ 16:00, MS Teams

Ex imperio matronis. Glocalizing the votive altars of the Rhineland Matronae-cult (20 BCE – 250 CE)

Fabienne Maraite, MA
Utrecht University

***

Recommended Readings:

• Versluys, M.J., ‘Roman visual material culture as globalising koine’, in: M. Pitts & M. J. Versluys, Globalisation and the Roman world. World history, connectivity and material culture (New York 2015), 141-174.
• Raepsaet-Charlier, M.-T., ‘Les Matrones ubiennes et la colonie agrippinienne’, Polymnia: Collana di Scienze dell’Antichità. Studi di Archeologia (2019), 167-191.

***

Thursday, 6 June 2024 @ 17:15, Drift 21, room 006, Utrecht University

New perspectives on rural economies in antique northern Bactria: the first field seasons at Kulal Tepa (southern Uzbekistan)

Dr. Lauren Morris
Charles University Prague

***

Recommended Readings:

• Morris, L. 2020. ‘Constructing ancient Central Asia’s economic history’. In S. von Reden, M. Dwivedi, L. Fabian, K. Leese-Messing, L. Morris, and E.J.S. Weaverdyck (eds.) Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies. Volume 1: Contexts, 669–692. Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenburg. Morris
• Morris, L. 2022. ‘Economic development under the Greek Kingdoms of Central Asia to the Kushan Empire: Empire, migration, and monasteries’. In S. von Reden, L. Fabian, and E.J.S. Weaverdyck (eds.) Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies. Volume 2: Local, Regional, and Imperial Economies, 695–744. Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenburg. Morris (II)

***

Thursday, 2 May 2024 @ 17:00, MS Teams (online)

Shifting frontiers, imagined geographies: A global perspective on ‘the North-East’ as a nomadic frontier zone of the ancient world

Dr. Milinda Hoo
Utrecht University

***

Recommended Readings:

Stark, Sören 2020. ‘Central Asia and the Steppe.’ In: R. Mairs (ed.) The Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek World, 78-105. London/New York: Routledge. Steppe

***

Thursday, 28 March 2024 @ 16:00, Sweelinckzaal (Drift 21, room 005)

The Almo valley at the urban borders of Rome: new archaeological discoveries

Dr. Rachele Dubbini
University of Ferrara

***

Thursday, 7 March 2024 @ 16:00 (MS Teams)

How to kill an Epicurean: Valerius Maximus on Cassius

Dr. Jeffrey Murray
University of Cape Town

***

Recommended Readings:

• ‘Introduction’ in Jeffrey Murray and David Wardle (eds.), Reading by Example: Valerius Maximus and the Historiography of Exempla. The Historiography of Rome and Its Empire 11 (Leiden, 2022), pp. 1-14.
  7.
• ‘Valerius Maximus on vice’ in Jeffrey Murray and David Wardle (eds.), Reading by Example: Valerius
  Maximus and the Historiography of Exempla. The Historiography of Rome and Its Empire 11 (Leiden,
  2022), pp. 233-26.
• Handout Valerius Maximus: How to kill an Epicurean HANDOUT (Utrecht March 2024)

***

Thursday, 15 February 2024 @ 16:00 (Drift 23, r. 206)

Museums, Violence and Human Remains: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Provenance from Austria

Constanze Schattke MSc
Natural History Museum Vienna/University of Vienna

***

Recommended Readings:

• Fernanda Olivares, Constanze Schattke, Hema’ny Molina, Margit Berner, Sabine Eggers, “Re-telling the story of Selk’nam ancestors: from Karokynká/Tierra del Fuego to Austria,” Human Remains and Violence, Volume 9, No. 1 (2023), 49–69.olivares
• Constanze Schattke, Fernanda Olivares, Hema’ny Molina, Lumila Menéndez, Sabine Eggers, “Osteobiographical re-individualisation of the Selk’nam human remains at the Natural History Museum Vienna,” Human Remains and Violence, Volume 9, No. 1 (2023), 28–48.schattke
• Susan Pollock, “The violence of collecting,” Am. Anthropol. 125 (2023), 377–389. pollock
• Sebastian M. Spitra, “Austria Approaches Its Colonial Past: Prospects of a New Restitution Law
  for Cultural Objects,” Santander Art and Culture Law Review 2.8 (2022), 307-322. spitra

***

Thursday, 14 December 2023 @ 16:00 (MS TEAMS)

Why was the jund revolting? Tribal Affiliation and Political Opposition in Early Islamic Ifrīqiya

Dr. Antonia Bosanquet, Utrecht University

***

Recommended Readings:

• Hugh Kennedy, “The Origins of the Aghlabids” in: Glaire D. Anderson et al (eds.), The Origins of the Aghlabids.  Brill: Leiden, 2017, pp. 33 -48. Aghlabids

***

Thursday, 16 November 2023 @ 16:00 (MS TEAMS)

Agency, Memory, and Communities of Experience in Late Antiquity: Jerome on his Childhood and Youth

Prof. dr. Ville Vuolanto, Tampere University

***

Recommended Readings:

• Ville Vuolanto, “Experience, Agency, and the Children in the Past: The Case of Roman Childhood” (2017). Children
• Ville Kivimäki, Antti Malinen and Ville Vuolanto, “Communities of Experience”, Digital Handbook of the History of Experience (2023). Communities of Experience

***

Thursday, 15 June 2023 @ 16:00 (Janskerkhof 15A)

How to Make Things Shine: Mercury and Long-Distance Networks in Post-Roman Western Europe

Dr. Irene Bavuso, Utrecht University

***

Recommended Readings:

• Duggan, Maria, ‘Britain in the Atlantic: Late Antique Ceramics and Connections’, in Duggan, Maria, Jackson, Mark, and Turner, Sam (eds.), Ceramics and Atlantic Connections: Late Roman and Early Medieval Imported Pottery on the Atlantic Seabord. Proceedings of an International Symposium at Newcastle University, March 2014, 13–24, Oxford 2020. Duggan

***

Thursday, 25 May 2023 @ 16:00 (Drift 25, r. 102)

Mythical Women, Modern Novels: The wave of current rewritings from a female perspective.

Dr. Jacqueline Klooster, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Recommended readings:

• Barbara Goff. ‘Do We Have a New Song Yet? The New Wave of Women’s Novels and the Homeric Tradition, ‘ Humanities  11.2, no. 49 (2022), pp. 49–49. Song
• Lilian Doherty,  Gender and the Interpretation of Classical Myth. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2001, pp. 15-45. Chapter I

***

Thursday, 11 May 2023 @ 16:00 (@ MS Teams)

Routes of Exchange, Roots of Connectivity: The dynamics of ancient trade networks

Dr. Marike van Aerde, Universiteit Leiden

Recommended readings:

• M. E. J. J., van Aerde & A. G. Khan, Carvings & Community: inclusive heritage solutions for protecting ancient Karakorum petroglyphs under threat, Journal of Archaeohistorical Studies 1.2 (2021), pp. 77-90. Carvings&Community

***

Thursday, 23 March 2023 @ 16:00 (Microsoft TEAMS)

Iunca- Borj Younga: New Investigations of a Coastal Site in the Syrtis Minor

Prof. Anna Leone, Durham University

Recommended readings:

• Ammar Othman; Anne Leone; Patricia Voke; Maurizio Marinato; Maria Utrero Agudo; Nabil Belmabrouk, Management Plan For the Protection of the Site of Iunca – Impact Case Study: Issue I, Durham University / Institut National du Patrimoine, 2020. IUNCA

***

Thursday, 16 February 2023@ 16:00 (ON LOCATION – Janskerkhof 15A, Room 004)

Horvat ‘Ethri – A Jewish Village and its Public Building from the 1^st-2^nd Centuries CE in the Judean Shephelah 

Prof. Boaz Zissu, Bar-Ilan University

Recommended readings:

• Zissu B, and Ganor A. “Horvat ‘Ethri – a Jewish Village from the Second Temple Period and the Bar Kokhba Revolt in the Judean Foothills.” Journal of Jewish Studies 60, no. 1 (2009): 90–136. Horvat Ethri

***

Thursday, 19 January 2023 @ 16:00 (Microsoft TEAMS)

On image-texts, ornaments, and ontologies: towards a holistic approach to funerary customs 

Prof. dr. Lidewijde de Jong, Universiteit Groningen

Recommended readings:

• Crawford, C.D. 2014, “Relating Image and Word in Ancient Mesopotamia” in Critical approaches to ancient Near Eastern art, eds. B.A. Brown & M.H. Feldman, De Gruyter, Boston, pp. 241-264. Image and Word
• de Jong, L. 2022, “De Doden Dichtbij: grafrituelen in het Romeinse Nabije Oosten”, Tijdschrift voor Mediterrane archeologie, vol. 67, pp. 53. Grafrituelen
• Squire, M. 2018, “‘To haunt, to startle, and way-lay’: Approaching ornament and figure in Graeco-Roman art” in Ornament and figure in Graeco-Roman art : rethinking visual ontologies in classical antiquity, eds. N. Dietrich & M. Squire, De Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 1-35. Ornament and Figure

***

Thursday, December 8 @ 16:00 (Microsoft TEAMS)

Epigraphy, Machine Learning and Data: a case study on the Ithaca project. 

Dr. Thea Sommerschield, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

Recommended readings:

• Thaller, M. (2012). “Controversies around the Digital Humanities: An Agenda”. In Historical Social Research Vol. 37, No. 3(141), pp. 7-23. DOI: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41636594
• Gordin, S. and Romach, A. (2022). The Cuneiform Wide Web: From Card Catalogues to Digital Assyriology. Available online at: https://www.asor.org/anetoday/2022/10/cuneiform-wide-web
• Prag, J.R.W. (2021). I.Sicily and Crossreads: a digital epigraphic corpus for ancient Sicily. In A. Karivieri, C. Prescott, P. Campbell and K. Göransson (eds.), Trinacria, ‘an island outside time’. International Archaeology in Sicily, Oxford: Oxbow Books, pp. 181-192. Available online at: https://www.academia.edu/86192131/I_Sicily_and_Crossreads_a_digital_epigraphic_corpus_for_ancient_Sicily

***

Thursday, November 3 @ 16:00 (Drift 21, r. 1.05)

The matter of Antiquity. How things created the ancient world

Prof. Miguel John Versluys, Leiden University

Recommended readings:

• Pitts, M. & M.J. Versluys. 2021. ‘Objectscapes. A manifesto for investigating the impacts of object flows on past societies’, Antiquity. A review of world archaeology 95:380, pp. 367-381. Objectscapes
• Fernández-Götz, M., D. Maschek, & N. Roymans. 2020. ‘The dark side of the Empire: Roman expansionism between object agency and predatory regime’,  Antiquity. A review of world archaeology 94: 378:, pp. 1630-1639, together with the reactions by A. Gardner, A. Jiménez, M.J. Versluys and L. Khatchadourian (pp. 1640-1652) as well as the reply by the authors (pp. 1653-1656). The Dark Side

***

Thursday, October 6 @ 16:00 (online, MS Teams)

Will, Self, and Difference: Ex-Jews and Conversion in Late Antiquity

Prof. Andrew Jacobs, Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University

• Andrew Jacobs, ‘“Coloured by the Nature of Christianity”: Nock’s Invention of Religion and Ex-Jews in Late Antiquity’, in: Robert Matthew Calhoun, James A. Kelhoffer, and Clare K. Rothschild (eds.), Celebrating Arthur Darby Nock: Choice, Change, and Conversion (Tübingen, 2021), pp. 257 – 278. Celebrating Nock
• Andrew Jacobs, ‘Interpreting conversion in antiquity (and beyond)’, Religion Compass (2021), pp. 1-9. Conversion
• The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, tr. Frank Williams (Leiden, 2009), 3.1-13.5. Epiphanius

***

Thursday, September 29@ 15:00

The Limits of Freedom: self-sale, indentured labour and debt bondage in the late antique and early Islamic Middle East

Prof. Robert Hoyland, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University

• Arietta Papaconstantinou, “Credit, Debt and Dependence in Early Islamic Egypt”, in: J.-L. Fournet & A. Papaconstantinou (eds.), Mélanges Jean Gascou: textes et études papyrologiques (Paris, 2016), pp. 213-262.Credit&Debt
• Alice Rio, “Self-sale and Voluntary Entry into Unfreedom, 300–1100”, Journal of Social History vol. 45: 3 (2012), pp. 661–685. Self-sale
• Petra Sijpesteijn, “Shaving Hair and Beards in Early Islamic Egypt: An Arab Innovation?”, Al-Masāq, 30:1 (2018), pp. 9-25, Sijpesteijn

***

Thursday, June 9 @ 16:00

Dead Men Tell No Tales: Erasing Bodies and People in the Later Roman Empire

Kay Boers MA, Utrecht University

• “An Eye for an Eye. Religious Violence in Donatist Africa,” in: Michael Gaddis, The Is No Crime For Those Who Have Christ. Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire (University of California Press: Berkeley, 2005: 103-130.Eye
• Richard Miles, “Textual Communities and the Donatist Controversy,” in: Richard Miles (ed.), The Donatist Schism: Controversy and Contexts (Liverpool UP, 2016):  249-283. Donatist

***

Thursday, May 19 @ 16:00

Digging up Democracy: The Story of the Fifth Century Public Wells and the Development of the Athenian Agora

Dr. Floris van den Eijnde, Utrecht University

• John McKesson Camp, The Destruction of Cities in the Ancient Greek World.
  Integrating the Archaeological and Literary Evidence (Cambridge: CUP, 2021): chapter 4.  /  The Persian Destruction of Athens

***

Thursday, April 28 @ 16:00

The Making of Medieval Rome

Prof. Hendrik Dey, Hunter College

• The Making of Medieval Rome : A New Profile of the City, 400-1450 (Cambridge: CUP, 2021), chapter 2.

***

Thursday, March 24 @ 16:00 

Participatory Heritage Approaches at Contested Sites of Conflict: Creating Space for Discussion

Prof. Suzie Thomas, University of Antwerp

• Suzie Thomas, ” Doing Public Participatory Archaeology with “Difficult” Conflict Heritage: Experiences from Finnish Lapland and the Scottish Highlands,” European Journal of Postclassical Archaeologies 9 (2019).PCA_9_Thomas

***

Thursday, March 3 @ 16:00

Biblical Tales Retold and the Authority of the Scriptures

Prof. Erich S. Gruen, UC Berkeley

• J. L. Kugel, Traditions of the Bible (Cambridge Mass., Harvard U.P, 1998), 1-30.
• M. Zahn, Genres of Rewriting in Second Temple Judaism (Cambridge, Cambridge U.P., 2020), 196-226.

***

Thursday, February 10 @ 16:00

HistoGenes: Triangulating Early Medieval Populations in the Carpathian Basin through Genomic, Archaeological, and Historical Models

Prof. Patrick J. Geary, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton and PI HistoGenes

• Walter Pohl, Johannes Krause, Tivadar Vida, and Patrick Geary, “Integrating Genetic, Archaeological, and Historical Perspectives on Eastern Central Europe, 400–900 AD,” Historical Studies on Central Europe 1, no. 1 (2021): 213–228.

• Carlos Eduardo G. Amorim et al., “Understanding 6th-century barbarian social organization and migration through paleogenomics,” NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | (2018) 9:3547

***

Thursday, January 20 @ 16:00

The Epigraphic Culture of Small Towns: A Spatial Data Analysis

Dr. Pieter H.A. Houten, Research Associate, University of Hamburg

• John Bodel,“Latin Epigraphy and the IT Revolution,” in J. Davies and J. Wilkes (eds.), Epigraphy and the Historical Sciences (Oxford: Oxford U.P. 2012): 275-296
• H. Orengo,”Open Source GIS and Geospatial Software in Archaeology: Towards their Integration into Everyday Archaeological Practice,” in: A. T. Wilson and B. Edwards (eds.) Open Source Archaeology: Ethics and Practice (De Gruyter Open, 2015): 64-82.
• For a useful course manual, developed by dr. Houten, click here.

***

Thursday, December 9 @ 16:00

The Paradox of Northern Gaul: From Very Peripheral (450 AD) to the Centre of an Empire (800 AD)

Prof. Frans Theuws, Leiden University and PI Rural Riches

• Frans Theuws, “Long-Distance Trade and the Rural Population of Northern Gaul,” in B. Effros and I. Moreira (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World (2020).Theuws oxfordhb-9780190234188-e-39

***

Thursday, November 25 @ 16:00

What the Romans did for us? (re)Constructing the Limes and the Roman Netherlands

Dr. Saskia Stevens, Utrecht University and Pl Constructing Limes

Lecture handouts:

• Richard Hingley, “Assessing How Representation of the Roman Past Impacts Public Perceptions of the Province of Britain,” Public Archaeology 2021

***

Thursday, November 4 @ 16:00

Stereotypes, Time and Space: New Approaches to Ethnicity, Medicine, Power and Religion in Europe, 950-1250

Dr. Claire Weeda, Institute for History, Leiden University

Lecture handouts:

• • Claire Weeda, Ethnicity in Medieval Europe, 950-1250. Medicine, Power and Religion (Woodbridge: York Medieval Press, 2021), Chapter 2: Weeda Ethnicity in Medieval Europe

***

Thursday, October 14 @ 16:00

Such a Long Journey: The Migration History of an African-Born Individual Discovered in Imperial Rome

Dr. Kevin Salesse, Founder and Director of the IsoArchHDatabase and President of the IsoArcH Association

Lecture handouts:

• Kevin Salesse et al., “Far from Home: A Multi-Analytical Approach Revealing the Journey of an African-Born Individual to Imperial Rome,” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 37 (2021)

***

Thursday, September 23, 2021

Masada: A Heroic Last Stand Against Rome

Prof. Jodi Magness, Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism

UNC, Chapel Hill

Lecture handouts:

• Jodi Magness, Masada: From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth (Princeton: Princeton U.P., 2021).
• Via UU library.
• Shaye J. D. Cohen, “Masada: Literary Tradition, Archaeological Remains, and the Credibility of Josephus,”  Journal of Jewish Studies 33 (1982): 385-405.

***

Thursday, June 10, 2021

“Could We Do This? Did They Do That?” Negotiating the Ancient World on Screen

Prof. Rebecca Usherwood, Department of Classics,
Trinity Dublin College

Lecture handouts:

• Kathleen M. Coleman, “The Pedant Goes to Hollywood: The Role of the Academic Consultant,” in: Martin M. Winkler ed. Gladiator Film and History (Malden: Blackwell, 2004): 45-52.
• Susan Treggiari, “Women in the Time of Augustus,” and Erich S. Gruen, “Augustus and the Making of the Principate,” both in: The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus

***

Thursday, May 20, 2021

“Reading the Unread: Unlocking History Through Automated Virtual Unfolding of Sealed Documents using New X-Ray Technologies”

Prof. Rebekah Ahrendt, Department of Media and Culture Studies,
Utrecht University

Lecture handouts:

• “Unlocking History through Automated Virtual Unfolding of Sealed Documents Imaged by X-ray Microtomography,” Nature Communications  12: 1184 (2021): 1-10.

• “The Postmasters’ Piggy Bank. Experiencing the Accidental Archive,” French Historical Studies 40 (2017): 189-213.

***

Thursday, May 6, 2021

“The New Science of Ancient Disease”

Prof. Kyle Harper, Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing, University of Oklahoma

Lecture handout:

“Germs, Genomes, and Global History in the Time

of COVID-19,” Journal of Global History 15:3 (2020): 350–362.