Affiliation: UC Irvine
My research focuses on migration and mobility in the ancient Greek world with the goal of understanding the lived experiences of migrants themselves. Currently, I am working on the burial practices of migrants who died in Classical Athens (5th-4th centuries BC). While archaeological interpretations of migrant burials have traditionally focused on the degree to which migrants are assimilated or “othered,” I argue that intersecting aspects of identity, such as age, gender, and status, along with the circumstances of the migration event must also be considered in order to develop a migrant-centered approach to the ancient evidence. This work also draws on anthropological and sociological studies of contemporary migrant funerals, as well as my own experiences growing up as part of two migrant communities in Los Angeles.
I am currently part of two excavation projects, including at the site of Naukratis, a Greek port-of-trade in Egypt, a site which offers insights into how migrant Greeks lived, traded, worshipped, and interacted with the local Egyptian community in the 6th-4th centuries BC. In addition, I am working at the site of Methone in northern Greece, a colony of Eretria in southern Greece, where I am publishing the material from a 7th century BC workshop that produced ceramic, bronze, and ivory objects. I am also interested in the history of the discipline of archaeology, how the ancient Greco-Roman past has been used throughout history until today and am passionate about making the field of Classical archaeology more diverse and accessible.
Nearly 300 years before the establishment of Alexandria, Egypt was home to communities of Greeks, as well as Carians, Cypriots, and Phoenicians, who settled in the Nile Delta. Some would have arrived as mercenaries in the services of the Egyptian Pharaoh, while others arrived as traders who took advantage of the Nile Delta as a gateway between Egypt and the wider Mediterranean world. This talk explores these communities at sites including Memphis, Naukratis, and Tell Defenneh, where these migrants lived, traded, worshipped, and buried their dead. The archaeological evidence reveals how individuals from different cultures around the Mediterranean fused seemingly different traditions and practices to negotiate these multicultural spaces.
Classical Athens is widely known for being the birthplace of democracy, a political system in which any free male could participate in the governing of the city-state. Yet this democratic system excluded a range of individuals from citizenship, including women, slaves, and immigrants. This talk will explore the archaeological evidence for one of these groups: immigrants, including both Greeks from other city-states and non-Greeks such as Phoenicians or Egyptians. Despite coming from a range of places around the Mediterranean and Black Seas, all of these immigrants all died in Athens and were laid to rest in one of the city’s cemeteries. The archaeological evidence of these burials will be used to tell the stories of some of these immigrants, including a man from the island of Chios, a young girl from the island of Lesbos, and a community from the region of Messenia. By re-creating these ancient funerals, this talk sheds light on the lived experience of migrants and centers them as agents rather than “victims” of the Athenian state.
