Macalester College Classics Department News
EVENTS
Registrar's
schedule for Classics Department Spring 2008 courses
NEWS
The first issue of "Studies in Mediterranean
Antiquity and Classics" (SMAC) has been published on-line.
You can view it here.
Greece
and Rome
Professor
Michael Nelson traveled to Greece with a group of students from
January
6 to 21, 2007. This was " January in Greece," the
most recent of our winter-break study-abroad courses. To see
the flier
used
for the informational meeting about the Greece trip, please
click here. "January in Rome" will next be offered
in January 2009.
Kenchreai
Excavation
The American
School of Classical Studies in Athens (Greece) awarded
Prof. Rife a permit to conduct a large-scale excavation at ancient
Kenchreai, the eastern port of Corinth on the Aegean Sea, in 2007-2009.
This is a rare honor, because only two or three American scholars
are awarded permission to dig in Greece each year, and the American
School has not in recent decades (or perhaps ever) granted an excavation
permit to a liberal arts college. Prof. Rife has worked at Kenchreai
since 2002, directing an interdisciplinary study of a major cemetery
of Roman date. His excavations will expand beyond the cemetery
to include the entire northern district of the ancient port-town,
one
of the busiest in southeastern Europe
during the Roman Empire.
Prior
excavations at Kenchreai have proven that this spectacular site, which remains
today mostly buried under open fields, is a treasure-trove of well-preserved
glass and stone mosaics, monumental architecture, wall-painting, vast quantities
of pottery, inscriptions and coins, and even wooden and ivory-sheathed furniture.
Apart from its archaeological richness, Kenchreai is significant for the study
of economic and maritime history, and it is a crucial site for understanding
ancient cultural and religious diversity. The New Testament mentions the port-town
several times in relation to St. Paul's establishment of the congregation there
and his correspondence with local church members. Kenchreai also figures in the
most important scene of pagan conversion in ancient literature, the final chapter
of the great Roman novel The Golden Ass, in which the protagonist Lucius
enters the mystery-cult of Isis, which was imported to Kenchreai from Egypt.
Prof.
Rife's new excavations will target a previously unexplored early Christian basilica,
a neighborhood of lavish private residences on the waterfront, and a large square
structure overlooking the harbor that might represent the famous lost Temple
of Aphrodite at Kenchreai. The Kenchreai Excavations will provide a truly unique
opportunity for students, staff and friends to learn about archaeology and ancient
history firsthand; to work in the trenches alongside international experts in
several fields; and to live in one of Greece's most beautiful regions during
the balmy summer months. Prof. Rife will be looking for many participants--40-60
are projected per season--so start considering it now! To learn more about recent
work at Kenchreai, see: http://www.macalester.edu/classics/kenchreai/
Turkey
Twenty-six Classics students
traveled with Andy Overman, Nanette Goldman and Michael Nelson
to Turkey in January 2006. They
started in Istanbul and visited many locations, including Pergamum,
Sardis, Smyrna, Ephesus, Priene, Miletus, Didyma, Aphrodisias,
Hieropolis and Pisidian
Antioch. Click
here to read more and see pictures.
Click to see photo
albums created by student participant, Zachary Teicher .
Ford
Foundation Grant
Macalester has received a $100,000
Ford Foundation Grant. The project will build upon two initiatives that started
in our department, the archaeological
work in Israel, and the 2002 Mideast Peace Summit. Click
here to read more about it.
Mireille
Lee a Junior Fellow at Harvard
Mireille Lee spent the 2005-06 school
year as a junior fellow at Harvard's Center for Hellenic
Studies in Washington, D.C., America's top institute for research
on ancient Greece. She was one of 11 fellows from the U.S.
and Europe in residence during the 2005-06 academic year. Lee
pursued her studies on dress and gender in ancient Greece.
Rife
at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton
Joseph L. Rife was chosen to be a
Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.
The institute was
founded
in 1930 to support advanced
scholarship and fundamental research in historical studies,
mathematics, natural sciences and social science. Members
join an international community
of some 180 scholars. Rife joined 25 other members from
around the world in the School for Historical Studies for
the academic year 2005-06,
where he researched death, memory, social structure and
cultural identity in ancient Greece under Roman rule
Grants
in Support of the Kechchreai Project
The Classics Department
is pleased to announce that Professor Joseph L. Rife has
received two awards to support his interdisciplinary archaeological
study of the Roman cemetery
at Kenchreai, near ancient Corinth in southern Greece. The
Kenchreai Cemetery Project brings 10 to 12 Macalester students
to Greece each year, where
they join an international team of scholars surveying the
cemetery. In this context, they study death, social structure
and religion in a major
provincial port town during the Roman Empire. Rife was chosen
as a Shohet Scholar through a grant program of the International
Catacomb Society,
which supports one scholar each year whose work promotes
the preservation, restoration and documentation of the catacombs
in Rome and elsewhere that
contain paintings, epigraphy and artifacts depicting the
cultures and customs of early religions. Rife has also received
an award from Harvard's Loeb
Classical Library Foundation, which supports projects in
all areas of classical studies.
If you have news you'd like to see posted here please contact our web
site maintainer at pitman@macalester.edu
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