Social Complexity and Maritime Connectivity in Nuragic Sardinia: The South Montiferru and the North Campidano (PhD Completion Seminar)

A paper by Laura Pisanu, University of Melbourne for the Ancient World Seminar at 1:00 on Monday 6 May in Arts West North Wing 556 and via Zoom.

To receive the Zoom link please email Dr Edward Jeremiah (edwardj@unimelb.edu.au).

From the 16th to the 6th century BC Nuragic groups inhabited Sardinia (Italy). They have generally considered to be hierarchically organised and to have played a secondary role in the Mediterranean connectivity. However, archaeological record points towards more complex explanations. Focusing on the Montiferru and Campidano, Nuragic social complexity and maritime connectivity are investigated. Data collected during fieldwork activities and research periods in Italy and Greece have been studied using GIS-based and typological analyses and they are critically reassessed.

In conclusion, new insights on social complexity of Nuragic communities and their role in the panorama of Mediterranean trade are provided.

Laura Pisanu is an Archaeologist and a PhD Candidate at the University of Melbourne working on Nuragic sites in western Sardinia and interactions between Sardinia and Mediterranean cultures over the Bronze and Early Iron Age. Laura completed the Scuola di Specializzazione in Beni Archeologici (level 8 EQL), master’s and bachelor’s degree in archaeology at the University of Cagliari. She has extensive fieldwork experience including at the UNESCO site of Su Nuraxi in Barumini (Sardinia).

Dying in Magna Graecia: New Insights from the Archaic Necropolis of Métauros

A paper by Clara-Maria Hansen, University of Vienna for the Ancient World Seminar at 6:00 on Monday 29 April via Zoom.

To receive the Zoom link please email Dr Edward Jeremiah (edwardj@unimelb.edu.au).

The Métauros Archaeological Project (MAP) is a new project focusing on a vast ancient necropolis comprising c.1500 graves in the area of modern Gioia Tauro, Calabria. Métauros, the settlement to which this necropolis belonged, is located in a prime location at the coast, with a large natural harbor and Sicily is in a direct line of sight. Described either as a Greek polis or anchorage (ὕφορμος) in the ancient literary sources, the settlement of Métauros was situated in a region referred to in antiquity as “Magna Graecia”, and therefore in traditional research closely associated with the concept of Greek colonization. This concept, however, implies simplistic models of identity construction and lived mobilities. This has been questioned in more recent research, and instead, a greater complexity in matters of culture, identity, and mobility has been suggested.

In line with these newer approaches, the goal of MAP is the documentation, analysis, and publication of material that was brought to light during several emergency excavations conducted in second half of the previous century. This paper presents preliminary results from the first sample under investigation, a number of approximately 250 archaic tombs from the “Canerossi” plot dating between the early 7th and 5th centuries BCE. Although still a new project, it is already becoming clear that the site of Métauros harbors immense potential for the study of mobility and regional dynamics, the construction of community identity, as well as ancient perceptions of the funerary sphere.

Clara-Maria Hansen is a PhD researcher with the ERC-funded project MIGMAG, which is an acronym for “Migration and the Making of the Ancient Greek World.” This project considers expressions of civic identities along with different scales of human mobility in the Mediterranean during the Early Iron Age and the Archaic Period. Within MIGMAG, her research delves into ancient Greek foundation myths in the Western Mediterranean, particularly in Italy, the Iberian coast, Corsica, and North Africa. For her doctoral project, she has been studying the Archaic necropolis of Métauros in southern Calabria, the first project in the new Métauros Archaeological Project. Her research interests have a broad scope and mainly revolve around periods of significant change, cultural and social developments, identity formation, and its integration into communal structures. She is also the founder of the theatre group Ekstasis at the University of Vienna, which performs ancient plays in an authentic manner, reflecting her passion for ancient literature.

Ancient Oceans in Early Medieval Contexts: Faith and Experience at Play

A paper by Sarah Corrigan, University of Melbourne for the Ancient World Seminar at 1:00 on Monday 29 April in Arts West North Wing 556 and via Zoom.

To receive the Zoom link please email Dr Edward Jeremiah (edwardj@unimelb.edu.au).

While literary texts featuring sea voyages are a global phenomenon, medieval Ireland witnessed the production of a distinct type of such narratives. These Latin and Irish narratives differ quite widely in terms of content and structure, but central to each is a remarkable sea voyage that serves to bring the protagonists closer to the divine. Historically these narratives find their roots in two practices: the sentencing of convicted criminals to being set adrift at the sea and the religious practice of Irish clerics to seek hermitage in the ocean. However, they are also fundamentally underpinned by a cosmological conceptualisation of heaven and hell as being located in or accessible through the far reaches of the Ocean that encircled the known world. This paper will investigate some of the ways that these texts bring lived experience, otherworld cosmologies, and religious faith into conversation with one another.

Dr Sarah Corrigan joined the Discipline of Classics and Archaeology at the University of Melbourne in 2023 as the inaugural Allan J Myers Lecturer in Latin Language and Literature. Sarah completed a PhD in Classics at the University of Galway, Ireland, in 2017. She has worked as a postdoctoral researcher both at the University of Galway and at the Royal Irish Academy Dublin. Her research and teaching span the ancient and early medieval Latin worlds, with an emphasis on the ways in which they are connected.

Encountering Ancient Lives by Visualising the Structures and Decoration of Death: Photogrammetry in the Tombs of Dra Abu el-Naga

A paper by Christopher Davey, University of Melbourne, for the Ancient World Seminar at 1:00 on Monday 22 April in Arts West North Wing 556 and via Zoom.

To receive the Zoom link please email Dr Edward Jeremiah (edwardj@unimelb.edu.au).

The Macquarie University Theban Tombs Project has worked for thirty years in the Theban Necropolis. Christopher Davey has been a member of the team for ten years. The seminar will consider the origins of tomb decoration recording in Egypt and the reasons for doing such work. After introducing the Theban Tomb Project at Dra Abu el-Naga, the recent season that involved the application of photogrammetry to record and visualise two tombs will be described, and the results discussed.

Christopher Davey is the Executive Director of the Australian Institute of Archaeology and an Honorary Fellow of the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne. Prior to studying archaeology and ancient languages at the universities of Cambridge and London, he worked in the resource industry where for a time he was an underground mine surveyor. He first excavated in Egypt in 1976.

The Athenian Funeral Oration: After Nicole Loraux

18 April, 7:00 (online: free)
Greek Community of Melbourne

David Pritchard (University of Queensland)

The funeral oration, a tradition observed almost annually for classical Athenians
fallen in war, underwent a significant reinterpretation nearly four decades ago by
Nicole Loraux. In her seminal work, The Invention of Athens, Loraux shed light on
the crucial role of this genre in shaping Athenian identity. She demonstrated how each
iteration of the speech contributed to maintaining a consistent self-identity for over a
century. However, Loraux’s exploration had its limitations. By minimizing the focus
on authorship, she neglected crucial questions surrounding individual speeches.

In his lecture, “The Athenian Funeral Oration: After Nicole Loraux,” Professor
Pritchard aims to address the significant questions overlooked by Loraux and to
provide the intertextual analysis lacking in The Invention of Athens. This examination
reveals a deeper political impact of the funeral oration than previously acknowledged.

Part of the Greek History and Culture Seminars hosted by the Greek Community
of Melbourne This talk will be online-only. For more information and links, see the Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/792457726144441/ or watch
the Youtube stream here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cMPtArbBjI/.

Classical Association of Victoria Teachers’ Wing Annual Conference

The 2024 Classical Association of Victoria In-service Day for teachers will be held at Melbourne Grammar School on Tuesday 30 April.

The keynote speaker is Dr Andrew Connor (Monash University): “Pompeii”.

Pompeii’s newly discovered Enchanted Garden room. Photo by Ciro Fusco courtesy of Pompeii Parco Archeologico.

Other sessions include:

•  Introducing the new Classical Studies Study Design
• Classical Culture & the Hellenic Museum
• Latin at the speed of speech
• Examiner’s Reports for Latin and Classical Studies
• Keep up with the latest developments in Classics
• Network with colleagues from a range of schools

Download the registration flyer.

Divine Might: Public Lecture by Natalie Haynes

Monday 13 May 2024, 6:15 to 7:30

Venue:Kathleen Fitzpatrick Lecture Theatre, Basement, West Wing, Arts West Building, Parkville campus.

Bestselling-author Natalie Haynes returns to the University of Melbourne after her first sensational visit in 2019, and she returns to the world of Greek myth she so wittily explored in Pandora’s Jar. Now she turns her focus onto Olympus itself – not on the gods, who have had far more attention than they deserve over the millennia since these stories were first told, but on the goddesses!

Here we meet Athene, who sprang fully formed from her father’s brow (giving Zeus a killer headache in the process), goddess of war, guardian of the city named for her and sacred to her, and provider of wise counsel. Here too is Aphrodite, born of the foam (or, as some sources say, sperm released from a castrated Titan’s testicles), the most beautiful of all the Olympian goddesses, dispensing desire and inspiring longing – but with a nasty line in brutal punishment for those who displeased her. And then there is Hera, Zeus’s long-suffering wife, whose jealousy of his repeated dalliances with mortals, with nymphs, with other goddesses, led her to wreak elaborate and often painful revenge on those she felt had wronged her. Well, wouldn’t you? We also meet Demeter, goddess of the harvest and mother of the hapless Persephone; Artemis, the huntress, virgin goddess of childbirth (Greek myth is full of confusion); the Muses, all nine of them; wide-bosomed Gaia, the earth goddess; and Hestia, goddess of domesticity but also of sacrificial fire.

Link to tickets (free): https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/divine-might-public-lecture-by-natalie-haynes-tickets-872249280077

Triumphal Petitions of the Second Punic War: A Reappraisal of Livy’s Triumphal Narrative

A paper by Christopher Dart, University of Melbourne, for the Ancient World Seminar at 1:00 on Monday 15 April in Arts West North Wing 556 and via Zoom.

To receive the Zoom link please email Dr Edward Jeremiah (edwardj@unimelb.edu.au).

The paper takes as its starting point the sources for the history of the Roman triumph under the Republic, in particular the “fasti” triumphales and Livy’s history. The progressive monopolisation of this important and ancient Republican ritual by Augustus and his immediate successor Tiberius implies important considerations about what contemporary sources do and don’t say about the history of the triumph. Arguably the greatest literary work of the Augustan Era, Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita, sits uneasily with the regime under which it was written. Interpreting the position of Livy’s monumental history of the Republic in relation to other sources will be discussed, using the example of triumphs by two strongman politicians from the era of the Second Punic War, Claudius Marcellus and Fabius Maximus.

Dr. Christopher J. Dart is currently an ARC-funded Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies. His research focuses on the socio-political history of the Roman Republic and early empire. He is the author of The Social War, 91 to 88 BCE: A History of the Italian Insurgency against the Roman Republic (Routledge, 2014) and co-editor of the forthcoming book How Republics Die: Creeping Authoritarianism from the Ancient to the Modern World.

Fulvia vs. Octavia: feminae principes in the Age of Civil War

A paper by Christian Bagger, University of Melbourne, for the Ancient World Seminar at 1:00 on Monday 8 April in Arts West North Wing 556 and via Zoom.

To receive the Zoom link please email Dr Edward Jeremiah (edwardj@unimelb.edu.au).

Throughout the Late Republic, elite senatorial women played an increasingly active role in Roman socio-political life. With C. Julius Caesar lying dead in the Theatre of Pompey on the Campus Martius, an internal struggle threw the Republic into a turmoil like never before, giving birth to the Triumvirate r.p.c. of M. Antonius, Lepidus, and Young Caesar. In the narratives of Plutarch, Appian, and Cassius Dio two women step onto the stage of Triumviral politics, surpassing all others in fame, notoriety, and exemplarity. Fulvia, damned for all posterity, rose to fame with her alleged role in the proscriptions and her very visible and active role in the Perusine war. Octavia, the exemplary matrona, became the ideal for all elite matronae to follow. However, these two women also came to represent the clash between the old “traditional” Republican female roles and the new possibilities offered by the profound changes in the Roman political landscape. As the emerging Imperial domus and the ideology of the emperors took shape, so too did the narratives which describe this pivotal time in Roman history. Through the narratives of Plutarch, Appian, and Cassius Dio, this paper will reconstruct and reappraise the roles Fulvia and Octavia played in Triumviral politics in the years 47-31 BCE.

Christian is a PhD Candidate in Ancient History at the University of Melbourne. Christian’s research focuses on elite senatorial women in the Late Roman Republic (ca. 133-27 BCE) and their perceived and real influence on the socio-political environment in the times of civil wars, political unrest, internecine strife, socio-economic changes, and transitions. Christian is a former fellow of the Danish Institute in Rome and is currently a junior editor and contributor to the Danish online encyclopedia on the topics of Ancient Civil War, The Late Roman Republic, and Women and Power in Ancient Rome.

Megaliths on the Move: Contemplating Archaeology, Dramaturgy and Robotics

A paper by Aleksandra Michalewicz, University of Melbourne, for the Ancient World Seminar at 1:00 on Monday 25 March in Old Arts 254 and via Zoom.

To receive the Zoom link please email Dr Edward Jeremiah (edwardj@unimelb.edu.au).

The ‘Stone-Robots’ is a collaboration involving archaeologists, theatre specialists, and roboticists at the University of Melbourne, and examines the intersection of cultural heritage and technology through unique immersive performances featuring robots disguised as monoliths. Inspired by significant standing stones from around the world, the team has staged performances at Science Gallery Melbourne in November 2022 and the Victorian College of the Arts in January–February 2024, offering audiences unique interactive experiences with mobile robotic swarms. The project explores data physicalisation and the transformation of digital representations into tangible artefacts, using digital versions of standing stones provided by research partners in Morocco, The Gambia, Costa Rica, and Mongolia. It raises questions about the creation of artificial sites – especially in Australia – as well as responsibility and custodianship. The work aims to fill a research gap in human-scale swarm behaviours, and seeks insights into secular ritual, contemplation, trust and embodied knowledge. In reimagining standing stones and robotic swarms, the project investigates the re/construction of archaeological sites as loci of human interaction, technological engagement and creativity.

Aleksandra Michalewicz is an interdisciplinary researcher at Melbourne Data Analytics Platform (MDAP) where she applies digital and computational methods to data-driven and data-intensive collaborations. She is also a Digital Research Academic Convenor (DRAC), contributing to strategic programs, infrastructure and initiatives that enhance digital research at the University. She holds an MA in Classics and a PhD in archaeology and has taught at Melbourne, La Trobe, Monash and Deakin universities. Her expertise includes digital archaeology, digital heritage, digital HASS, legacy data investigation, research design, research data governance, sensitive data, digital and data ethics and interdisciplinary research methodologies and practices. She has excavated in Georgia between 2008 and 2018 with Georgian-Australian Investigations in Archaeology, the Landscape Archaeology in Georgia research group and for the Mtskheta Institute of Archaeology, and in 2022 with a La Trobe University ARC-funded expedition in Jordan.