New frontiers: - Institute of Classical Studies



New frontiers: Archaeologies of cultural interaction in Iberian AntiquityInstitute of Classical Studies, Classical Archaeology Seminar. Spring 20205pm at Senate House, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU29th January 2020 (Room G22)Marta Díaz-Guadarmino (University of Durham)Title: Stelae and early colonisation of Iberia in 1st Millennium BCIn this seminar I will discuss stone stelae as one of the most significant and interesting sources of information for the study of cultural interaction, and particularly cultural appropriation, in Iberia during the 1st millennium BC. During the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age, communities in western and southern Iberia created two distinct, and successive, stelae traditions: first, the iconographic tradition of ‘warrior’ stelae, and then the tradition of epigraphic stelae with SW script, which constitutes the earliest evidence of alphabetic writing known in Western Europe. These two traditions are similar in that they depict elements of diverse provenance using a typically local expression, a stela with carved elements. Stelae are, therefore, valuable testimonies of the ways in which local communities appropriated knowledge acquired through their engagement in long distance connections. In this context, the recent discovery of the stela of Montoro in southern Spain adds some intriguing facts as well as complexity to our understanding of cultural appropriation in Iberia during the 1st millennium BC. This stela depicts a series of carved signs that belong to distinct contemporary alphabets but that do not make sense together, that is, they were not meant to be part of a text to be read, but were probably selected as they were considered significant (e.g. prestigious, magic). In this seminar I will outline our current knowledge about stone stelae in 1st millennium BC Iberia (iconographic, epigraphic, and the case of Montoro) and discuss the implications of these data for our current understanding of Iberian communities in terms of cultural interaction.5th February (Court Room)Leandro Fantuzzi (University of Cadiz)Title: Salted fish trade between the Punic West and Classical Corinth: tracing economic interactions through the scientific analysis of transport amphoraeAbstract: In the late 1970s, archaeological excavations at Corinth uncovered a fifth-century BC building with outstanding findings, which included hundreds of Punic amphorae used for transporting dry-salted fish from the western Mediterranean. Based on the types of amphorae identified, their provenance was broadly related to the wide region of the Straits of Gibraltar, extending from southern Spain to northern Morocco. Still to this day, the findings of similar amphorae in other eastern Mediterranean sites are very infrequent. For this reason, the so-called ‘Punic Amphora Building’ at Corinth remains an essential context for our understanding of economic interactions between Classical Greece and the Punic West. However, four decades later, some key questions were still unanswered: where exactly did these amphorae come from? And which Punic city or cities were involved in these commercial exchanges with Corinth and other Greek cities? A recent interdisciplinary project, based on the scientific analysis of the amphorae through the application of instrumental analytical techniques, has been re-studying this one-of-a-kind context in order to tackle these issues and shed new light into long-distance maritime trade networks between East and West in the Classical period4th March (Room G22)Javier Martínez Jiménez (University of Cambridge)Title: The late antique site of Casa Herrera in MéridaAbstract: The site of Casa Herrera, near Mérida, is one of the best examples of late antique sites in the Iberian Peninsula, not only because of the degree of preservation of the site, but also because its long chronological sequence, which runs from the 1st to the 10th centuries. Its rural location but eminently peri-urban nature also makes it a great reference site to understand the evolution of the city of Mérida, one of the main cities in Roman and late Antique Hispania. After being the subject of various interventions throughout the 20th century, in 2012 and 2013, a series of excavations were organised as part of the International Archaeology Course of Mérida which targeted not the early Christian basilica (the main monument of site), but the largely unexplored surroundings as well. In this paper we intend to present the results of these last campaigns, highlighting the links and relevance Casa Herrera has not just to understand the evolution of a key archaeological site (such as Mérida), but also as a key case study in discussions about post-Roman rural landscapes, the development of early monasticism in the West and the transition from Roman into Islamic monumentality18th March (Room G22) - CANCELLEDManuel Fernández-G?tz (University of Edinburgh), Jesús F. Torres Martínez (Complutense University Madrid) and Jordi Principal (Archaeological Museum of Catalonia)Title: Re-writing the Roman conquest of northern Iberia: archaeological discoveries and theoretical perspectivesAbstract: Rome's conquest of the Iberian Peninsula was a long-term process which lasted approximately two centuries. While mentioned in written sources, our knowledge of the military campaigns has been revolutionised in the last two decade thanks to spectacular archaeological discoveries. This paper will present an overview of the Roman conquest, focusing on the first and last territories to be incorporated: Catalonia and the Cantabrian region in the far north. Together with some battlefields, the material evidence includes Roman camps, other elements of military infrastructure and the destruction of indigenous settlements during the wars.?1st April (Room G22) - CANCELLEDIsabel Sánchez Ramos (UCL)Title: Building a new kingdom after Rome: Visigothic IberiaAbstract: The Regnum Gothorum in the Iberian Peninsula was consolidated since the middle second half of the 6th century. An ambitious political, cultural and territorial program was set into action in order to reach the unification of the ancient Roman Hispania. This paper aims to present the current archaeology research carried out in Toledo and its territory in the framework of the Late Antique Iberia. Urban evolutions in the Iberian Peninsula cities are broadly comparable with transformation in other Western Mediterranean regions between Rome and the early medieval period. The ‘barbarian’ monarchies of the Western Europe were the sole expression on the political continuity of Rome following the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476 The goal in this presentation is to explain the impact and original strategies in urbanism, townscapes and territorial organisaton of Visigoths in the Iberian Peninsula, with particular attention to the new Visigothic Capital settled in Toledo.Convenor: Borja Legarra Herrero (UCL) ................
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