On Thursday, November 11 at 6 pm, Dr. Carrie Atkins (University of Toronto, Mississauga) will present a webinar lecture entitled “Religious Ritual On Board the Greco-Roman Ship.” Please join us!

Click here to register for the Zoom webinar

Abstract: For Greco-Roman sailors or passengers aboard a ship, aspects of daily life occurred within a ship’s physical boundaries while at sea. These activities were related not only to sailing and trading, but also to eating, sleeping, and performing rituals. The material remnants of these ritual activities have been little studied, yet represent key evidence in understanding the impact of mobility on ritual practices aboard the Greco-Roman ship. In this lecture, I discuss archaeological evidence for potential ritual objects from shipwrecks in the Mediterranean alongside textual and iconographic depictions of these rituals. Not all ritual objects found in shipwrecks provide evidence for shipboard ritual but instead were likely transported as cargo. For some multifunctional objects that had a potential use both in religious ritual or for general activities, I suggest these objects could construct temporary sacred spaces aboard the ship when employed at poignant times in the voyage. These rituals, however, were not prescriptive nor ubiquitous but instead were chosen by individuals, shaped by cross-cultural connectivity and mobility.

On Thursday, April 18 at 6 pm in Jepson Hall room 118 at the University of Richmond, Deborah Carlson (Associate Professor of Nautical Archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M University, and President, Institute of Nautical Archaeology) will present “The Tektaş Burnu Shipwreck: Shedding New Light on Classical Ionia.” As the only 5th-century B.C. shipwreck ever to be fully excavated in Aegean waters, the Tektaş Burnu ship sheds important light on local trade networks at a time when Ionia was thought to be mired in an “economic paralysis” brought on by the high cost of Athenian imperialism in the decades following the Ionian Revolt of 499 B.C.

Co-sponsored by the Richmond Society of the Archaeological Institute of America and the UR Department of Classical Studies, the lecture will be free and open to the public.