Friday, 26 February 2010

Center for Ancient Studies Annual Symposium Connections You Can Believe In: Syncretism in the Ancient World and Beyond Program: 9:30 Coffee in the Mosaic Gallery 10:00 Morning Session Robert Ousterhout (Director, Center for Ancient Studies) Welcome and Introduction Caitlín Barrett (Columbia University) Religious Syncretism in the Household and the Sanctuary: Egyptian and Egyptianizing Terracotta Figurines from Hellenistic Delos Jason BeDuhn (Northern Arizona University) Systematic Syncretism in Early Manichaeism Anne-Marie Luijendjik (Princeton University) Oracles You Can Belief In: Only Do Not Doubt 12:30 -1:30 Lunch Break 1:30 Afternoon Session Rina Talgam (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) New Filters to Classical Traditions: Christian and Jewish Attitudes towards Pagan Heritage in the Art of Late Antique Palestine David Frankfurter (University of New Hampshire) Remodelling Syncretism in Christianization: The Saint’s Shrine as Religious Crucible 3:00-3:15 Coffee in the Mosaic Gallery 3:15 Late Afternoon Session Jaime Lara (CASVA, National Gallery of Art) It’s All in the Blood: New Orthodoxies in the First Contact with Mesoamerica Heath Lowry (Princeton University) Hasluck & Beyond: The Fate of Muslim Sanctuaries in Post-Ottoman Greece Ross Kraemer (Brown University) Respondent Discussion 5:00 Reception in the Mosaic Gallery

Saturday, 24 October 2009

CAS Symposium 1:00 – 5:00 PM The city of Jerusalem exists both as a physical entity, fixed in time and place, and also as an idea that transcends its physical form. The symposium examines the monuments that testify to the sanctity of Jerusalem, as well as the rituals and representations that allow the “idea” of Jerusalem to be reproduced at distant locations. Session One: Building Jerusalem Rina Avner (Israel Archaeological Service): On the Roads to Jerusalem: Recent and Less Recent Finds Ted van Loan (History of Art, University of Pennsylvania): The Little Stone that Could Jordan Pickett (AAMW, University of Pennsylvania): Patronage Contested: Archaeology and the Early Modern Struggle for Possession at the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem Coffee Break Session Two: Imagining Jerusalem Sarah Lenzi (Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania): Pilgrimage and Meditation: The Dual Development of the Via Dolorosa Laura Whatley (History of Art, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Visualizing Jerusalem and Crusade in Medieval England Anne Lutun (Architecture, University of Pennsylvania): Visualizations of Jerusalem in Renaissance Milan and the Development of the Sacro Monte at Varallo Sponsored by the Center for Ancient Studies

Friday, 18 October 2013

Ancient Drugs: Pharmacology across the Ancient World
Center for Ancient Studies Annual Symposium, 18 October 2013
Rainey Auditorium at the Penn Museum

Morning session:  10:00 AM – 12:00 noon
Robert Ousterhout (Penn) Welcome
Alain Touwaide (Smithsonian): “Back to Eleusis: Did Ancient Greeks Know and Use Mind-altering Substances?”
Laurence Totelin (Cardiff): “Selling pharmaka: Buying Health: Pharmacology, Wealth and Branding in the Ancient World”
Steve Tinney (Penn): “The Lore of Plants and Poultices in Ancient Mesopotamia”

Speakers’ Lunch: 12:00 noon – 1:30 PM
Hosted by the AAMW program, 345 Penn Museum
[Optional visit to the Tablet Room]

Afternoon session: 1:30 PM – 5:00 PM

Robert K. Ritner (Chicago) “Drug Therapy in Ancient Egypt”
Pierce Salguero (Penn State Abington) “Buddhism & Medicine: The Role of Religion in the Trans-Eurasian Pharmacological Exchange”
Mark Plotkin (Amazon Conservation Team) “Flying Death: Arrow Poisons from the Ancient Scythians to the Amazon”
Douglas Emery and William Noel (Penn): “A New Witness to Galen’s Simples: Have at It”

Reception: 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Moelis Terrace, 6th floor, Van Pelt Library
[Viewing of pharmaceutical manuscripts in the Lea Library]

Friday, 7 September 2007

Organized to complement the Penn Humanities Forum annual theme of “Origins,” the Center for Ancient Studies spring symposium takes the theme “Ancient Origins, Modern Identities,” examining the ways in which pre-modern history and civilizations have been invoked in the construction of modern group identities (national, religious, or ethnic). The all-day symposium will take place on Friday 21 March in the Rainey Auditorium at the Penn Museum. Speakers will include John C. Shields (English, Illinois State), Phiroze Vasunia (Classics, Univ. of Reading), Valentina Follo (AAMW, Penn), Eric Cheyfitz (English, Cornell), Simon Kaner (Sainsbury Institute, East Anglia), Jo-Ann Gross (History, College of New Jersey), Eve Troutt Powell (History, Penn), Brian Spooner (Anthropology, Penn), Dmitry Schvidkowsky (Russian Academy of Art/Moscow Institute of Architecture). Mark your calendars!

April 20–21, 2018

This event is free and open to the public.

Co-sponsored by the Penn Museum and the University Research Foundation.

This year’s annual symposium will be an interdisciplinary examination of the formation and nature of urban settlement around the globe with speakers presenting case studies from Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, Iran, South Asia, China, North America, Mesoamerica and Central Asia in the ancient and medieval past. The theme was chosen to coordinate with the opening of the new Middle East Galleries in the Penn Museum.

Speaker Abstracts and Biographies

Friday, April 20th | Claudia Cohen Hall, Room 402
5:30 Keynote Lecture: Dominique Charpin (Collège de France): “The Role of Temples in Mesopotamian Cities: The case of Ur in the Old Babylonian period”

6:30 Reception

Saturday, April 21st | Penn Museum, Rainey Auditorium

Welcome and Introduction 9:00 Grant Frame and Holly Pittman (University of Pennsylvania)

Morning Sessions
Chair : TBA
9:15 Roderick Campbell (ISAW): “Ancient Urbanism and the Great Settlement Shang”
9:45 Lisa LeCount (University of Alabama): “The Preclassic ‘City’ of Actuncan: How collective action created and transformed an early ritual center in the Maya lowlands”

10:15 Coffee Break

Chair: Richard L. Zettler (University of Pennsylvania)
10:45 Heather D. Baker (University of Toronto): “Journey to the Late Babylonian City: The final phases of Mesopotamian urbanism”
11:15 Luca Maria Olivieri (Università di Bologna): “Bazira/Vajirasthana/Barikot: An early-historic city in northern Gandhara (Swat)”

11:45 Lunch

Afternoon Sessions
Chair : Lauren Ristvet (University of Pennsylvania)
1:30 Lothar Haselberger (University of Pennsylvania): “From Plato to Philly: Planning the best city”
2:00 Michael Frachetti (Washington University in St. Louis): “Urban Scaling, Nomadic cities, and Network Modularity: New paradigms in ancient urbanism”

2:30 Coffee Break

Chair : Megan Kassabaum (University of Pennsylvania)
3:00 Timothy R. Pauketat (University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana): “The Spirits of Ancient Cahokia and the Case for American Indian Urbanism”
3:30 Renata Holod (University of Pennsylvania): “On Streets, Markets, Lanes and Houses in not–so–Ancient Cities”

Closing Remarks
4:00 Grant Frame and Holly Pittman (University of Pennsylvania)

April 8-9, 2022