You are kindly invited to participate to the Bilkent Archaeology Day 2023 on Grounding Selves: Archaeological Approaches to Past Identities

on Friday 31 March at 13:30.

Hybrid event:

C-Block Amphi (Faculty of Economics)

or

Zoom Meeting

Material culture plays a significant and complex role in the construction, expression, and maintenance of social identities. These identities can operate at the scale of the individual or group, and be structured around diverse, often overlapping spheres as ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability, place of origin, political affiliation, socioeconomic status, or religion.

While identity has been at the forefront of archaeological research for several decades, recent scholarship has drawn particular attention to the hybrid, pluralistic, and fluid nature of social identities, focusing on how they are created, maintained, or negotiated through diverse behaviours and practices, such as dietary habits, mortuary practices, ritual behaviours, iconographic styles, or architectural traditions.

In the 5th annual Bilkent Archaeology Day, we explore the myriad ways in which material culture both shapes and is shaped by social identities. In our aim to bring together a wide array of theoretical approaches and data-sets, we invite contributions that evaluate the relationship between material culture and identity, as well as case-studies focusing on material expressions of identity from specific periods and places.

Program

13:30-13:40

Welcoming speeches

13:40-14:10

Keynote speaker

Musa Kadıoğlu (DTCF, Ankara University)

Nysa on the Meander: A Roman city with its glorious Greek past

14:10-14:30

1. İlgiGerçek (Bilkent University)

What’s in a Name? Studying Identity in “Hittite” Anatolia

Discussion

14:30-14:45: Discussion

14:45-15:00:Break

15:00-15:20

Luca Zavagno (Bilkent University)

“Fluidity as a way to life”. Local identities at the periphery of Byzantium in the Early Middle Ages (ca. 600-ca.850)

15:20-15:40

Ivana Jevtic (Koç University)

Change of Identity: Byzantine Frescoes as Museum and Exhibition Objects 

15:40-16:00: Discussion and Conclusion