CAS Annual Symposium Fall 2022

"Translation Projects Across the Ancient World"

December 3, 2022




CAS Annual Symposium Spring 2022

"The Future of Ethnoarchaeology"

April 8-9, 2022




CAS Annual Symposium Spring 2018

"Cities in the Ancient World"

April 20–21, 2018

This event is free and open to the public.

Co-sponsored by the Penn Museum and the University Research Foundation.

This year's annual symposium will be an interdisciplinary examination of the formation and nature of urban settlement around the globe with speakers presenting case studies from Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, Iran, South Asia, China, North America, Mesoamerica and Central Asia in the ancient and medieval past. The theme was chosen to coordinate with the opening of the new Middle East Galleries in the Penn Museum.

Speaker Abstracts and Biographies

Friday, April 20th | Claudia Cohen Hall, Room 402
5:30 Keynote Lecture: Dominique Charpin (Collège de France): “The Role of Temples in Mesopotamian Cities: The case of Ur in the Old Babylonian period”

6:30 Reception

Saturday, April 21st | Penn Museum, Rainey Auditorium

Welcome and Introduction
9:00 Grant Frame and Holly Pittman (University of Pennsylvania)

Morning Sessions
Chair : TBA
9:15 Roderick Campbell (ISAW): “Ancient Urbanism and the Great Settlement Shang”
9:45 Lisa LeCount (University of Alabama): “The Preclassic ‘City’ of Actuncan: How collective action created and transformed an early ritual center in the Maya lowlands”

10:15 Coffee Break

Chair: Richard L. Zettler (University of Pennsylvania)
10:45 Heather D. Baker (University of Toronto): “Journey to the Late Babylonian City: The final phases of Mesopotamian urbanism”
11:15 Luca Maria Olivieri (Università di Bologna): “Bazira/Vajirasthana/Barikot: An early-historic city in northern Gandhara (Swat)”

11:45 Lunch

Afternoon Sessions
Chair : Lauren Ristvet (University of Pennsylvania)
1:30 Lothar Haselberger (University of Pennsylvania): "From Plato to Philly: Planning the best city"
2:00 Michael Frachetti (Washington University in St. Louis): "Urban Scaling, Nomadic cities, and Network Modularity: New paradigms in ancient urbanism"

2:30 Coffee Break

Chair : Megan Kassabaum (University of Pennsylvania)
3:00 Timothy R. Pauketat (University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana): "The Spirits of Ancient Cahokia and the Case for American Indian Urbanism"
3:30 Renata Holod (University of Pennsylvania): “On Streets, Markets, Lanes and Houses in not–so–Ancient Cities”

Closing Remarks
4:00 Grant Frame and Holly Pittman (University of Pennsylvania)