Research seminars take place in the John Wymer Lab, Building 65a, Avenue Campus on Thursday's at 16:00 unless otherwise noted.
All university staff, students and members of the public are warmly invited. If you are interested in attending any of the talks below, please contact Olivia Britter for the Archaeology Departmental Seminar Series (ADSS) speakers and Rebecca Ferreira for the Centre for the Archaeology of Human Origins (CAHO) speakers. Proposals for future seminar speakers are very welcome.
| Date | Place | Time | Series | Speaker | Title | Abstract |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27th of September 2022 | Lecture Theatre B, Avenue Campus | 17:00 | The Green Lectures 2022 | Victoria Sabetai (Director of Research at the Academy of Athens) | Weddings in Ancient Athens: A journey through images, pots and findspots | Until the discovery of the Nymph Shrine at the foot of the Acropolis which proved to be the main wedding sanctuary of ancient Athens, knowledge about nuptials was based on mainly late and amalgamated evidence. Luckily, images offer primary evidence which should not be used as mere illustration of texts but must be analyzed in their own terms as visual art. The bride and the groom among their family are the protagonists of nuptial images but brides have been more extensively studied because of the interest in women’s history generated by feminism and feminist scholars in the second half of the twentieth century. Wedding imagery exalts social norms regarding gender ideologies, and highlights ideals of masculinity and femininity in Athens across time. The history of scholarship on the subject of ‘ancient women’ and the methodologies used to interpret genre scenes will underpin my discussion as I present examples from the Sanctuary of the Nymph which shed light on the way vase-painters pictured not only wedding customs but also concepts regarding marriage as the basis of the oikos and the polis, and the roles of the spouses in this scheme. |