November 9, 2012
by Elizabeth Christian
AIA President Elizabeth Bartman gives us an exclusive preview of the upcoming Presidential Plenary Session at this year’s Annual Meeting.
“I am very excited to preside over this panel on the ancient city.
This is the second of the three presidential panels that I will be organizing during my 3-year term, all devoted to major themes of archaeological research. What’s especially provocative is that the panel will feature a mix of Old and New World archaeologists, including several who work in Southeast Asia and North America, areas rarely covered in our Annual Meeting. Miriam Stark of the University of Hawai’i-Mānoa leads off the session by posing fundamental questions about how we define cities and the nature of the evidence we use to understand them–early cities in Cambodia serve as the laboratory for her investigations. Nicola Terrenato of Michigan seeks to explain the rise of Rome by discerning patterns in the social, economic, and architectural activity in central Latium over centuries. James Kus of Fresno looks at the relationship between city and hinterland in pre-Inca Peru. Timothy Pauketat of Illinois links Cahokia’s development to religious change; religion and ceremony also motivate urban development in Minoan Crete, the subject of Jan Driessen of Louvain’s paper.
Touching upon architecture; communication and transport networks; the relationship between city and hinterland; the role of aristocratic elite and other social groups; ritual and ceremony, these papers cover a range of complex issues that lie at the core of our concepts of urbanism.”
Session 6B, entitled AIA President Elizabeth Bartman’s Plenary Session: The Ancient City, will be held on Saturday, January 5th, at 2:45 pm.
Join President Elizabeth Bartman and culinary expert Maureen Fant on the upcoming AIA Tour, “Taste of Ancient Rome“. This custom-designed tour will explore the fabulous sites and flavors of Rome in style.
