Dr. Baker received her doctorate in Assyriology from Oxford University and is a member of the research project Wirtschaftsgeschichte Babyloniens im 1. Jahrtausend vor Christus based at the Institut für Orientalistik, Universität Wien.

Professor Beth Berkowitz, Jewish Theological Seminary Professor Yaakov Elman, Yeshiva University Professor Seth Schwartz, Jewish Theological Seminary Moderator: Professor Natalie Dohrmann, University of Pennsylvania The strong traditional story of Jewish recovery from the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE has been radically altered by a recent generation of scholars. The old narrative tells us that the rabbis stepped up to lead and inspire a devastated Jewish population. They built a Torah-based Judaism to fill the void left by the loss of the Temple and priesthood. They created and ran new institutions that patrolled and defined the contours of a rabbinically-inflected Jewish identity. New evidence of the relationship of rabbis with non-rabbinic Jews, and with imperial governments and cultures in both Babylonia and Palestine, coupled with the revelations gleaned from material remains tell us a different story. Rabbinic Judaism was at best a marginal voice in the Roman world; and most Jews likely paid them little or no mind. To the east of the Roman empire, rabbis living and working under the Sasanian empire reveal themselves to be profoundly influenced by the legal, religious, institutional, and cultural traditions of the Zorastrians among whom they lived. This newer scholarship has prompted a reconsideration of the role of the rabbis in the ancient world: * Who in fact were the rabbis and where did they come from? * If the rabbis were not at the center of post 70 CE Jewish life, who or what was? * When and how did the rabbis ultimately move from the periphery to the center of Jewish life? * What should a historian do with the vast corpus of rabbinic literature? * How do new historical narratives change how we read these canonical texts?

In order to properly welcome Dr. Richard Hodges to the University of Pennsylvania’s intellectual community, scholars at Penn and in the Philadelphia area will gather for a day of informal presentations and discussion of their research on the early Middle Ages. All presentations are free and open to the public. Students are encouraged to attend. 10:30-11:00 Coffee 11:00 – 12:45 Session One (Chair: Robert Ousterhout) Richard Hodges (Director, University of Pennsylvania Museum) Dark Age Economics in 2008 John Haldon (History, Princeton University) How Dark Were the Dark Ages? Ann Matter (Religious Studies, Penn) The Soul of the Dog-Man: Ratramnus of Corbie and the Dilemma of Humanity Robert Maxwell (History of Art, Penn) Medieval Urbanism and the Problem of Romanesque Art 12:45-2:00 Lunch 2:00-4:00 Session Two Annette Yoshiko Reed (Religious Studies, Penn) The First Christian Novel: The Pseudo-Clementines and their Early Reception Cameron Grey (Classics, Penn) The Origins of the Medieval Serfdom? (Re)reconsidering the Roman Colonate. Celia Chazelle (History, The College of New Jersey) Ritual, Art, and Evocations of the Holy Land in the Early Medieval British Isles Jessica Goldberg (History, Penn) Peering Backward: The Cairo Geniza and the Mediterranean 4:00-4:15 Coffee 4:15-6:15 Session Three Elizabeth Bolman (History of Art, Temple University) New Research at the Red Monastery (near Sohag, Egypt) Dale Kinney (History of Art, Bryn Mawr College) Recycling/Metamorphosis: Ancient Gems in Dark Age Treasuries Cynthia Hahn (History of Art, Graduate Center, CUNY) Portable Altars: Messages and Meanings Larry Nees (History of Art, Delaware) The Dome of the Chain and the Beginnings of Islamic Architecture in Jerusalem

This lecture will explore the image of Antiquity in early fifteenth-century Paris through an analysis of three illustrated manuscripts produced under the supervision of the humanist Laurent de Premierfait. Analysis of illustrations of the presentation copies of Laurent's translation of Cicero's De senectute, his illuminated version of Terence's Comedies and his translation of Boccaccio's De casibus virorum illustrium will show how imagery evolved as an important component of early French humanism. Laurent's visualization of antiquity in fifteenth-century France accomplishes both visual and cultural translation and reveals as much about contemporary medieval French concerns as about medieval conceptions of Antiquity.

There will be a reception beforehand, at 5:30, in the Mosaic Gallery. The lecture will be followed by a dinner afterward at Estia for a fee of $80 ($70 for Friends of the INSTAP Study Center members, Univ. of Penn Museum members, and ARCE-PA members).Transportation will be provided to the restaurant for a 7:30 dinner, and back to the Museum after the meal.

Tell Brak is one of the largest ancient tell sites in northeast Syria. This lecture focuses on the most recent excavations which produced unexpectedly early evidence for 'urban' growth together with a unique series of 'industrial' buildings with large quantities of both exotic raw materials and finished products, accompanied by many clay sealings, all to be dated around 4000 BC. Slightly later, and also unparalleled, is a massive 'death pit' from which a large number of human bodies have been recovered. These appear literally to have been thrown into the pit after a period of exposure following some form of 'massacre'; the bodies are accompaied by faunal and ceramic evidence for an associated celebratory, or perhaps, mourning feast.