PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Program in Hellenic Studies
Facilitated by Anthony Grafton (Princeton University) and Thomas Da Costa Kaufmann (Princeton University)
East Pyne 010
Symposium website
Sponsored by The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, The Friends of the Princeton University Library, The Council of Humanities, The Department of Art and Archaeology, The Department of Classics, The Program in Hellenic Studies, Princeton
Ekaterina P. DellaPorta (Hellenic Ministry for Culture, Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103
Discoveries of ancient shipwrecks and works of art from the Greek seas lead us to wonder whether the search for more antiquities should not turn from land to the sea. The synergy of archaeology and modern technology leads to new research methodologies in underwater archaeology in great depths, where important wrecks survive, inaccessible by conventional diving techniques. Underwater archaeological sites in Greece consist of either shipwrecks or of submerged settlement remains, while every underwater archaeological site constitutes a single unique instance, with its own individual problems of protection from a variety of threats, natural or induced by human activities. The physical environment of this branch of archaeology differentiates it with respect to: material of the research; in situ underwater work procedures related to the application of new technologies in deepwater archaeology; and specific issues relating to management and protection. This paper attempts an interdisciplinary approach to this sui generis archaeological heritage.
Ekaterina P. DellaPorta (kdellapo@princeton.edu) is Ephore of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, currently serving as Ephore of Byzantine Antiquities and post-Byzantine monuments of the Cyclades. After studying History, Archaeology and French literature at the University of Athens, she received a D.E.A. in Byzantine History from the Sorbonne. In 1979 she joined the Archaeological Service of the Ministry for Culture and worked at the 2nd Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities in Cyclades and the 6th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities. From 1983 to 1992 she worked at the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities. From 1992 to 1997 she was appointed to the Permanent Representation of Greece by the European Union in Brussels. During 1998-2006 she was Director of the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities. Her interests include underwater archaeology, history, and history of art focused mainly on the Venetian period of the Ionian Islands. Her research activities consist of underwater excavations and, in particular, deepwater surveys for establishing an underwater archaeological map of the ancient shipwrecks in the Greek seas. She teaches cultural management and international cultural laws in the postgraduate program of museology at the University of Athens. A member of the Scientific Committee of the Centro Universitario Europeo per I Beni Culturali at Ravello in Italy, she has been especially concerned with the legal protection of underwater antiquities and has represented the Hellenic Ministry for Culture on underwater archaeology issues at the Council of Europe and UNESCO.
Site Visits in Greece: Student Presentation
Undergraduates: Bryan Cockrell ’08, Whitney Mosery ’08, Jonathan Winnerman ’08.
Graduate Students: Rosa Andujar (Classics), Joshua Gillon (Philosophy), Lance Jenott (Religion), David Jorgensen (Religion), Sarit Kattan–Gribetz (Religion), Leigh Lieberman (Art and Archaeology), Donna Zuckerberg (Classics)
with
Michael Flower, Senior Researcher, Department of Classics
and
AnneMarie Luijendijk, Assistant Professor, Department of Religion.
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103
"The Language of the Gods: Prophecy, Oracles, and Divination" is an interdisciplinary PAW/CLA/HLS seminar investigating the function, representation, and techniques of divination in the Ancient World from the second millennium BCE until Late Antiquity. Please join the class as they relate their exploration of oracular sites in Greece on a 10-day trip during fall recess.
Anne Alwis (University of Kent,Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103
The vita of saints Julian and Basilissa of Antinoopolis offers an unusual insight into early Christian marriage. Forced into an advantageous alliance by their parents, the virginal couple vow a life of celibacy on their wedding night and form a spiritual family. This paper will focus on the consequences of two aspects of this momentous decision during a time of Christian persecution. The first is the visceral reaction of the families, pagan and Christian, affected by the breakdown of normative societal structures and the consequences of their grief, piercingly and unusually portrayed by the hagiographer. The second focus is the underlying eschatological premise to this tale, where virginity equals immortality and thus a resurrection unanticipated by the dumbstruck families of Antinoopolis.
Anne Alwis (aalwis@Princeton.EDU) has been a lecturer in Classical Literature and Language at the University of Kent, Canterbury, since 2004. She pursued Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at King's College, London, and was a Rome Scholar at the British School at Rome in 2002. Her main interests lie in hagiography and narrative. She has also published on masculinity and manuscript transmission. Her current project is a translation-commentary volume on continent marriage, which also focuses on issues of gender, sexuality, celibacy and the development of hagiographic ‛romance’ from the fourth to eleventh centuries.
Alicia Simpson (Koç University, Istanbul; Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Respondent: John Haldon (Department of History and Program in Hellenic Studies)
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103
The Historia of Niketas Choniates is the single most important source for Byzantine history in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries and one of the most sophisticated and accomplished works in Byzantine literature. The complex manuscript tradition of the text bears witness to a sequence of composition that spanned decades and was influenced by the circumstances and purpose of the author at each distinctive phase of production. A comparative analysis of the two main versions of the text reveals a clear-cut pattern of revision which encompassed both the style and the substance of the narration. This can ultimately assist us in identifying the historian’s purpose in writing the final and now definitive version of the Historia.
Alicia Simpson (ajsimpso@princeton.edu) is an assistant professor of Byzantine and medieval history at Koç University, Istanbul. She was educated in Greece and the United Kingdom and received her Ph.D. from King’s College, London in 2004. She was a junior fellow in Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks Research Center (Fall 2003) and most recently a recipient of a grant from the Onassis Foundation for a Byzantine Studies Colloquium entitled "Niketas Choniates. A Byzantine Historian and Writer" that she organized (with Stephanos Efthymiades) at Koç University in May 2007. Her latest article is "Before and After 1204: The Versions of Niketas Choniates’ Historia" in DOP 60 (2006). Her book-in-progress builds upon her doctoral research and aims to provide a new reading and interpretation of the Historia of Niketas Choniates.
Marco di Branco (Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Respondent: Michael Cook (Department of Near Eastern Studies)
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103
The aim of this paper is to analyze the image of the Greeks as represented in the texts of medieval Arab historians. First, the talk will focus on the origin of the Greek people made to descend from Yûnân b. Yâfit, a character also mentioned in the book of Genesis. Secondly, the significance of the term al-Yûnâniyyûna, corresponding to the Greek name Ίωνες («Ionians») will be examined. Through an Aramaic intermediary, the term gains great popularity in the Muslim world to indicate the Greeks before the rule of Rome, in juxtaposition to the word al-Rûm, used to refer to Romans and Byzantines. Finally, the last part of the paper will be dedicated to the discussion of the “disappearance of classical history” – which is the almost total lack in the works of Arab historians of references to Greek historical events and characters before the age of Alexander the Great – in striking contrast with the deep admiration for Classical and Hellenistic culture expressed by the members of the Abbasid élite.
Marco di Branco (marcodi@princeton.edu) is a historian teaching Byzantine History at the University of Rome La Sapienza and at the University of Basilicata, also serving as research fellow at the University of Milan. He is the author of many articles and books on late antiquity, as well as Byzantine and Arabic history. His book on the image of late antique Athens, La città dei filosofi. Storia di Atene da Marco Aurelio a Giustiniano (Florence 2006), has just been published, while his translation and commentary of an unpublished work by Theodoros Palaiologos is in press. He is currently revising for publication a monograph on Greek and Roman History in the Islamic sources.