in honour of Hector Williams

We are glad to inform you that an international e-conference on bone objects in the Hellenistic, Roman and Early Byzantine periods in the eastern Mediterranean, Near East, Black Sea area and Balkans will take place on May 14, 2025 on Zoom.us. Ancient bone objects were found in relatively large quantities in the entire Mediterranean, from Spain to Syria and Egypt to France, where they were manufactured between the Neolithic and Medieval periods. The art of carving animal bones involves especially antler and horn. However, the spectrum of the worked bone objects recovered from Anatolia, rest of the eastern Mediterranean, Near East, the Black Sea area and Balkans is very varied, and reflects different characteristics of Graeco-Roman and Early Byzantine daily life. In these areas they were also utilised as grave goods secondarily. They were exported or imported over the entire ancient Graeco-Roman and Early Byzantine worlds.

In this conference papers dealing with ancient artefacts or objects manufactured by worked bone, antler, ivory, animal teeth, mother of pearl and cockleshell will be included. Main material groups made by bones are as follows: items connected to personal grooming, weaponry, artifacts used for spinning or in pottery decoration, artifacts related to cosmetics, jewellery, combs, pins for clothing and women’s hair, items related to dressmaking and textile (particularly sewing needles, weaving implements or buttons), parts of soldiers’ equipment, items used for leather working, amulets and other magical items, knife handles, musical instruments, playing stones (e.g., lopsided dices), frames of various kinds (e.g., of mirrors), furniture (including fittings, wood sidings and inlayed decoration), boxes, plaques, writing items (for example, κάλαμοι, calami in Lat.), liturgical and religious items (e.g., crosses and reliquaries), half-finished products and miscellania. Just in the rest of the Roman world, hairpins are the most numerous artifacts made of bone or antler in the Eastern part of the Empire. Gaming pieces represent the other widespread and customary instrumentum category of the worked bones. Several other material groups also used during the processing of bone artefacts, for example, some objects may have been filled with coloured wax to make them to stand out.

So far the study of this material group has been overlooked, whereas there is still a huge amount of unpublished material from excavations, field surveys and museums in the entire Mediterranean and rest of the ancient world. There is a regular conference series of the Worked Bone Research Group (WBRG; cf. ) which include almost all periods and areas. In our e-meeting in 2025 we only focus on bone objects between the fourth century B.C. and the sixth century A.D., and attempt to set out a comprehensive model for the study of bone objects, including their definition, typology, chronology, contexts, function, regional characteristics, production and distribution patterns in the whole eastern Mediterranean geographies, including the Near East, Black Sea area and Balkans. The increasing number of recent finds in the concerned areas over the last thirty years, thanks to the development of preventive archaeology, has tended to challenge our previous observations and assumptions on Graeco-Roman and Byzantine worked bone objects.

It is also our intention to create a complete bibliography of previous publications on bone objects for several areas and chronologies.

We warmly invite contributions by scholars and graduate students from a variety of disciplines related to this material group. Intended to bring together scholars of Greek, Roman and Early Byzantine instrumenta / artefacts’ archaeology to discuss a range of issues concerning this material group characteristics, this video conference should be an excellent opportunity to increase our knowledge about ancient worked bones. The following theme groups are the main questions of the conference which are prescriptive:

– Bone objects from archaeological field projects, museums and private collections,
– Graeco-Roman bone objects in comparison with the bone objects of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic periods, Bronze and Iron Ages,
– Graeco-Roman bone objects in comparison with the Minoan and Mycenaean bone objects,
– Etymology of bone objects in ancient Near Eastern, eastern Mediterranean and Aegean languages,
– Ancient Greek, Latin and Byzantine textual sources on bone objects,
– Typological evolution and design of bone objects,
– Selection criteria for some certain animal genres for bone-working,
– Decoration of bone objects, as detailed chronologies should be established for both the produced forms and their decoration,
– Chronologies of these objects that can highlight the social spread of these products,
– Manufacturing technics, manufacturing tools, major production centres and workshops of bone objects in the Hellenistic, Roman and Early Byzantine periods, their organisation and interactions.
– Distribution of bone objects, economic and social aspects: in what type of socio-economic context are they found?,
– Typological and functional features of bone objects during the Hellenistic, Roman and Early Byzantine periods: what might the utilitarian, social and/or symbolic functions or practices of these objects have been?
– Identification of the economic factors that contributed to the standardization in the bone-working,
– What ancient Greeks, Romans and Byzantines thought about afterlife? Bone objects in the eastern Mediterranean funerary contexts,
– The role of monastic or religious economy in Early Byzantine bone-working,
– Commodities and their trade through bone objects,
– Relations of bone objects to metal, terracotta, glass, wooden or stone objects: how did this material group fit in with objects made from different materials, particularly metal, glass, or wood? Can any stylistic links be found between them?
– Roman bone objects in the eastern and western Mediterranean and Europe, and their differences,
– Hellenistic and Roman gravestones and other iconographic media depicting bone objects,
– Conservation of worked bone objects, especially excavated finds: current strategies and future approaches,
– Archaeometric analyses of these objects,
– Miscellanea.

On these themes and questions, all approaches and methods susceptible to bring some progress to our current knowledge are of course welcome: archaeology, physical anthropology, archaeozoology, osteoarchaeology, bioarchaeology, palaeohistology, ancient history, history of art, cultural anthropology etc.

A special focus of the workshop is the identification of workshops from different regions, cities and areas, in particular capital cities (such as Byzantium, Ephesus, Pergamum, Antioch-on-the-Orontes, Alexandria, Athens, Rome etc.) with main workshops. A regional approach will enable us to understand the influences and contacts between workshops. Were these exclusively urban activities, or also rural? What motivated their establishment? Political powers, raw materials, the development of urban centres and the urban elite (merchants, craftsmen, religious orders, etc.) or economic outlets? And, are there any imitations or copies in certain localities suggesting competition between workshops?

Another important topic is the manufacturing techniques which were varied and depended on the composition and morphology of each raw material type as much as on the artefact to be produced. Regardless of the raw material, the manufacturing process of an ancient bone object was usually multi-stage:

1. Selection and acquisition of the raw material;
2. Preparation of the raw material, including cleaning, drying and cutting into pieces;
3. The appropriate working processes using instruments like knives, chisels, files, lathes and bow-drills;
4. Finishing the worked objects by grinding, polishing and colouring.

The previous finds reflect that mostly manufacturing techniques were related to an organized production where the different manufacturing stages were standardized and predefined, which can be identified as a chaîne opératoire. Particular attention should be paid to these technical aspects, which are the integral parts of the uniqueness of most of the ancient worked bone objects.
We also need to look at the distribution of these objects on a local, regional, and even supra-regional scale, and trade networks. Some have crossed the overseas, such as Anatolian products unearthed in England. How can these exchanges be explained?

Our conference is primarily virtual, and will take place on Zoom; but if any of the participants will wish to appear in Izmir physically, she/he is welcome to present her/his paper in our conference room to the audience which will also be livestreamed and broadcasted simultaneously on Zoom.

All the readings and discussions in our e-conference will be in English, and recorded for later viewing as a podcast on YouTube. The proceedings of the conference will be published in the forthcoming issues of the Archaeology of western Anatolia (AwA) in 2026. The conference is free of charge.

We would be delighted, if you could consider contributing to our conference and contact us with the registration form below until March 1, 2024. Our e-mail address is paphlagonia@deu.edu.tr

For all your queries concerning the conference our phone and WhatsApp number is +90.544.540 78 34. The organizers seek to widen participation at this conference, and would like to encourage colleagues from all parts of the world to attend. We kindly request that you alert any interested researches, colleagues and students within your research community who would be interested in participating at this e-conference, either by forwarding our first circular and poster through your Academia, Researchgate, Instagram, X, YouTube, Facebook accounts, or other similar social media, or by printing them and displaying in your institutions. Please share them also on your ListServs. We hope that you will be able to join us on Zoom, and look forward to seeing you!