Upcoming Events and Information
New Haven Society (Yale) 2025-2026 AIA Lectures
We are pleased to announce that lecturers and dates have been finalized for the 2025-26 lecture series!
UPCOMING: Spring 2026, AIA Solow Lecture:
“Sacred Ground, Shifting Peoples: Cycles of Tradition in Ancient Sicily” a lecture by Professor Andrew Ward, Fairfield, Feb 6, 2026, from 5:00-6:00 PM: Phelps Hall 401 (Yale) & Zoom
“Sacred Ground, Shifting Peoples: Cycles of Tradition in Ancient Sicily”
Prof. Andrew Ward
Archaeological Institute of America & Dept of Classics, Yale University FRIDAY FEB 6, 2026 5:00-6:00 PM: PHELPS 401 & Zoom Zoom link: https://yale.zoom.us/j/5153886829
This lecture examines how people at the ancient city of Selinunte used ritual to negotiate identity, memory, and belonging in a world shaped by migration, conflict, and cultural contact. Founded on the southwestern coast of Sicily in the late seventh century BCE, Selinunte (Greek Selinus) sat at a key crossroads of the ancient Mediterranean, where what it meant to be Greek, native Sicilian, Phoenician or Carthaginian over the centuries was in constant flux. In this context where place and material are some of the few constants, ritual could provide a sense of belonging through the veneer of tradition. Recent archaeological work, particularly in the city’s main urban sanctuary, shows that religious practices were never simply preserved or abandoned. Instead, rituals connected to building, sacrifice, communal dining, and dedication combined older traditions with new forms in ways that made sense for each community at a particular moment. Early “Greek” contexts include indigenous material, revealing both cooperation and inequality rather than cultural replacement. After the city’s destruction in 409 BCE, returning refugees rebuilt parts of the sanctuary to evoke continuity, even as shared ritual knowledge was lost. Later, “Punic” settlers reengaged with the same sacred spaces, evoking belonging through the incorporation of old objects and places into practices that seem divergent only to the outside observer. By focusing on what was maintained, altered, or forgotten, Selinunte helps us move beyond a simple choice between continuity and rupture. In doing so, it offers a powerful ancient parallel to our own world, where even the most seemingly fixed traditions rarely stand up to scrutiny.
RECENT AIA LECTURES (New Haven, Yale):
“Out of Anatolia: Hittites, Homer and the Trojan War,” a lecture by Professor Sarah Morris, UCLA, Oct 8, 2025, from 5:30-6:30 PM: Phelps Hall 401 (Yale) & Zoom
One hundred years ago, scholars identified proto-Greek personal names and places in Hittite texts of the Late Bronze Age that anticipated those in Homeric epic. Over the past century, scholars have debated linguistic and historical connections between these Anatolian texts of the second millennium BCE and early Greek epic poetry, especially the identification of Aḫḫiya(wa) with Homeric “Achaeans.” Yet events recorded in Hittite documents texts resemble more closely interactions in western Anatolia in the first millennium BCE, as narrated by the Greek historian Herodotus, than they illuminate or foreshadow heroic events in epic verse. Meanwhile, early east Greek art, archaeology, and poetry preserve other tales of Anatolian heroes and cities behind the Iliad, and attest to the survival of Bronze Age ritual practices in western Anatolia.
“The Past in the Past: Traditionalism in Archaic Crete,“ a lecture by Professor Grace Erny, University of California, Berkeley, April 14, 2025, from 5:30-6:30 pm.
“Self-Fashioning in a Roman Province: Gender, Dress, and Difference in the Isiac Funerary Reliefs from Athens,“ a lecture by Professor Lindsey Mazurek, Indiana University, Bloomington, January 29 2024, from 5-6 pm.
“Rural Matters: Studying the Countrysides of Ancient Cyprus,” a lecture by Professor Catherine Kearns, University of Chicago, Nov 8 from 5-6 pm
“Block by Block: Piecing Together Athenian Democracy,” a remote ZOOM lecture by Professor Jessica Paga, The College of William & Mary, April 5, 2022, from 5-6 pm”
“Feasts of Silver in the Persian Empire,” a remote ZOOM lecture by Dr. Susanne Ebbinghaus, Harvard University, March 31, 2021 at 5:30 PM.
“Awash in Innuendo at the Baths of Caracalla,” a remote ZOOM lecture by Professor Maryl Gensheimer, University of Maryland, November 2 2021, from 5-6 pm
“The Perikles Cup: New Archaeological Evidence for Athens’ Most Famous Politician?” a lecture (Phelps Hall) by Professor Matthew Simonton, Arizona State University, March 3 2020, from 5:30-6:30 pm
“Barge of Heaven: Cleopatra the Goddess,” a lecture (Phelps Hall 207) by Professor Alison Futrell, University of Arizona, February 26 2019, from 5:30-6:30 pm
“Roman Wall Painting: Pliny, Pigments, & Polychromy,” a lecture (Phelps 207) by Professor Hilary Becker, SUNY Binghamton, March 6 2018, 5:30-6:30 pm
“Rams in Space: The Ambracian Gulf as a Landscape of Symbols,” a lecture (Phelps 207) by Dr. Kristian Lorenzo, The Meadows School, October 24 2017, 5:30-6:30 pm
Archaeology Brown Bag Lunches
Sponsored by the Yale University Council on Archaeological Studies and the Department of Anthropology, these lectures typically take place during the academic year on Fridays at 12:00 PM, in Room 101 of 51 Hillhouse Avenue.
Cultural Heritage at Risk
Archaeological looting is a global issue that threatens the preservation of our shared cultural heritage. Of special concern is the looting of archaeological sites and monuments in the Middle East. For current news and relevant websites, click here.
Follow online as ancient civilizations are unearthed – join the AIA and ARCHAEOLOGY Magazine’s interactive digs.