The city of Jerusalem exists both as a physical entity, fixed in time and place, and also as an idea that transcends its physical form. The symposium examines the monuments that testify to the sanctity of Jerusalem, as well as the rituals and representations that allow the "idea" of Jerusalem to be reproduced at distant locations.

Round Table discussion featuring Leslie Brubaker (University of Birmingham), Brian Rose (Penn), Jamal Elias, (University of Pennsylvania), and Richard Clay (University of Birmingham). Moderated by Robert Ousterhout (University of Pennsylvania). Penn Museum, Classroom 2 (use the Kress Entrance)

Registration: 9:30 am – 10:00 am Symposium: 10:00 am - 6:30 pm The sacred city of Abydos served as the primary cult center of the Egyptian god Osiris, the ruler of the netherworld. The immense religious importance of this site is evident in its rich archaeological remains, which cover all phases of Egyptian civilization. Archaeologists will discuss their excavations at sites dating from the Early Dynastic Period (3000-2686 BCE) through the New Kingdom (1550-1069 BCE). Since 1967, the University of Pennsylvania–Yale–IFA Expedition to Abydos has conducted excavations to investigate the complex history and development of this important site. Speakers at the symposium will include Dr. David O'Connor (Co-Director, Penn-Yale-IFA Expedition to Abydos), Dr. Matthew Adams (Shunet el-Zebib, North Abydos), Dr. Janet Richards (University of Michigan Abydos Middle Cemetery Project), Dr. Josef Wegner (Senwosret III Mortuary Complex, South Abydos Project), and Dr. Stephen Harvey (Ahmose and Tetisheri Project). The lectures will be followed by a reception in the Mosaic Gallery at Penn Museum. Following the lectures, Dr. David O'Connor will be signing copies of his new book, “Abydos: Egypt’s First Pharaohs and the Cult of Osiris.” Pre-Registration fees: $15 General admission $5 Museum members Free to ARCE-PA members or with PennCard Pre-register here: www.arce-pa.org/register 
Registration at the door: $20 General admission $10 Museum members $5 ARCE-PA members or with PennCard

A Colloquium on the Significance of Meat in Human Society The relationship between ourselves and the animals we eat is vexed, prompting an anxiety runs like a leitmotif through cultures and civilizations around the world. Baudrillard, for example, writes, “Bestiality, and its principle of uncertainty, must be killed in animals.” Yet the butchery of animals is fraught, often transformed by ritual into a sacred violence that must be contained, or displaced entirely into an alien world of abbatoirs and meat processing plants. Vegetarianism, the complete renunciation of eating meat, is only the most obvious response to these anxieties, although even here the gradations of vegetarianism—from lacto-ovo to veganism—point to a persistent anxiety over the ethical boundaries that separate us from other creatures. Have we the right to inflict pain on other animals? Does the sentience of an animal imbue it with rights? Even before the advent of the Animal Rights Movement such issues were fundamentally important to major world religious traditions, notably Hinduism and Buddhism. Western thinking, though heir to some taboos regarding food, was long ready to exploit a Cartesian notion of animals as natural automata. Ironically, the farther we have moved from a coherent, direct system of raising, killing and eating animalls, the more disquiet we seem to feel regarding our carnivory. At the same time, however, research suggests that meat eating played a crucial role in the development of humans and human society. Meat adaptive genes have been linked to longer lifespans, and carnivory is a high yield food practice. If hunting was the defining social action that distinguished us from apes, does meat eating make us human? In this colloquium we bring together speakers froma variety of fields, ranging from primatology to religious studies. Our aim is to present a set of papers that bridges the divisions between different fields of inquiry and explores every aspect of the meat experience from a truly interdisciplinary approach. Our contention is that cultural studies, broadly construed, can only profit by encouraging a much greater degree of communication between academic disciplines. We do not aim at a unified theory of cultural development, but do believe that the theme of “meat” permits and requires an examination of every aspect of human culture, possibly even of human nature. For more information, please visit http://www.classics.upenn.edu/conferences.html#meat. All events free and open to the public.

For more information, please contact Dr. Chris Thornton at cpt2@sas.upenn.edu.

CAS Workshop 2009 The thirteenth century CE in the eastern Mediterranean and adjacent regions witnessed dramatic political encounters, hostile conflicts, and movements of peoples. At the same time, new cultural contacts between groups of differing ethnicities and confessions seem to have inspired a rich development in architecture, the visual arts, and material culture. Set against the “official” written history, a detailed examination of the cultural production may offer a more nuanced view of the period. The purpose of the workshop is to generate discussion on a subject of common interest, bringing together area scholars for an informal conversation. The CAS annual workshop asks invited participants to give a 15-minute introduction to an aspect of their research related to the central topic as a stimulus to discussion. For more information, including a full schedule, visit www.sas.upenn.edu/ancient/workshop09.html

Mon March 30 10:00 am to 5:30 pm This conference deals with the various peoples and civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and the land of the Bible, with a particular emphasis on drawing connections between those worlds. Fifteen colleagues and former students of Dr. Barry Eichler will give presentations on new insights gained from recent research on the languages and cultures of the ancient Middle East, covering topics such as law and society, political and social history, as well as mythology, religion and linguistics. Among the papers to be presented are: “Commercial Practices at Ugarit and Biblical Law” (McGeough), “Cyrus, Elam, and the Bible” (Waters), “Divine Causality and Babylonian Divination” (Rochberg), “The Exodus Narrative as an Expression of the Cosmic Combat Motif” (Aster), “Marked for Servitude: Mesopotamia and the Bible” (Fox), “A New Look at the Theological Background of the Mesopotamian Flood Stories” (Klein), and “What is the Book of Job About” (Berlin). Dr. Eichler is Curator Emeritus of Penn Museum’s Babylonian Section, and he was also an associate professor of Assyriology in Penn’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations for almost forty year before his retirement in 2007. The presenters include: S. Aster, Yeshiva University J. Barrbee, Philadelphia A. Berlin, University of Maryland N. Fox, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion K. McGeough, University of Lethbridge P. Delnero, Johns Hopkins University S. Holtz, Yeshiva University J. Klein, Bar-Ilan University M. Maidman, York University R. Rochberg, University of California, Berkeley M.T. Roth, University of Chicago M. Rutz, University of Pennsylvania R. Steiner, Yeshiva University C. E. Suter, Basel M. Waters, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire

CAS Graduate Conference - 20-21 March 2009, Penn Museum When interactions between ancient cultures are characterized as confrontations with inevitable "winners" and "losers", one group emerges to dominate political, cultural, and historical discourse. However, such a view tends to overlook or oversimplify the extent to which cultures and ethnic groups influence one another. This interaction often mutually influenced each culture in areas as broad as economy, material culture, literature and the arts, and government. This conference aims to discuss the appearance and results of cultural contact broadly, as found throughout the ancient world. While the term 'ancient' has different connotations in every discipline and can imply different chronological parameters, nevertheless, its fundamental connotations are relatively stable: e.g., a period of considerable remoteness of time and radical changes in cultural paradigms in such basic areas of human activity and experience as technology, economics, and epistemology. These common principles that underlie conceptions of 'ancient' are the focus of the Center for Ancient Studies. Open to the public; free admission with registration at event. Keynote: “The First Investigations of the Highland/Lowland Frontier of the Classic Maya Civilization: Unexpected Discoveries and New Insights into Ancient Identity, Ethnicity, and Political Economy” Dr. Arthur Demarest Ingram Professor, Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University Director, Vanderbilt Institute of Mesoamerican Archaeology For full schedule of events, please visit www.sas.upenn.edu/ancient/catalysts.html

The Center for Ancient Studies at the University of Pennsylvania will sponsor a one-day symposium on “Celebrations of Continuity and Change: Triumph and Spectacle in the Ancient World” to take place all day Friday 6 March 2009, beginning at 9:30 a.m. All lectures are open to the public and will take place in the Rainey Auditorium at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. The keynote speaker will be Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and fellow of Newnham College. She is Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement and author of the book The Roman Triumph, published in 2007. Other speakers include Kostas Zachos (Greek Archaeological Service), Mehmet Ali Ataç (Bryn Mawr College), David O’Connor (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU), Lillian Armstrong (Wellesley College), Larry Silver (Penn), and Julian Raby (Smithsonian Institution). Lecture topics will range from ancient Egypt through the Ottoman Empire. The symposium is timed to accompany the exhibit “Grand Scale: Monumental Prints in the Age of Dürer and Titian,” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from 31 January through 26 April 2009. Curated by Penn History of Art Professor Larry Silver, the exhibit features large-scale and multiple-plate prints, several of which recreate Roman triumphs, while others expand upon the theme of the triumph to celebrate more exotic subjects. For more information, please go to http://www.sas.upenn.edu/ancient/triumphs.html.

5:30 PM Reception in the Mosaic Gallery (Free and open to the public) - 6:00 PM Lecture (Free and open to the public) - 7:30 PM Gala dinner with the speaker at the White Dog Café - *To make a reservation for dinner please e-mail Elizabeth Shank at elizabethshank@hotmail.com by November 14, 2008