AIA-6F: Ancient Apulia. New Perspectives (Colloquium)

ZOOM PASSCODE: 348812

Organizers

Valeria Riedemann Lorca, University of Washington; and Karolina Sekita, Tel-Aviv University

Discussants

Luigi Todisco, Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro”

Overview Statement

Ancient Apulia (modern Puglia) was home to a complex blend of highly interconnected local peoples called Iapygians and foreign settlers (e.g., Greeks in Taranto). Despite the efforts made in the past decades toward a new appreciation for the region and its distinctive material culture (e.g., T.H. Carpenter et al., The Italic People of Ancient Apulia [Cambridge University Press, 2014]), the most relevant studies, current research, and new findings are still largely published in Italian and French. As a result, Apulia is mainly ignored in English-speaking scholarship, while the region is almost completely absent from curricula at most higher education institutions.

The organizers of this session see some of the main problems toward the underrepresentation of ancient Apulia in publications and conferences—against, for example, an increasing presence of Etruscan studies in recent years—being the lack of a proper name for studies of the region, which tends to get lost in the broader spectrum of what is defined as pre-Roman Italy. Another problematic aspect has been the hyperfocalization of Apulian red-figure vases to the detriment of a more inclusive approach to the diversity of the material culture from the region. This issue will be addressed by two papers: “A Necessary Apulian Perspective: The Study of Excavation Materials and Red-figure Ceramics in an Interdisciplinary Form in the Post-Trendall Era,” and “From Bovino-Castelluccio dei Sauri to the Apulian Tavoliere: New Data on the Stone Sculptures of Protohistoric Daunia.” This session also seeks to bring Apulia to the forefront by presenting current research in new areas that provide evidence of trade and mobility of goods, people, and ideologies between Osco-Samnites, Greeks, and Romans (“Recent Research on Arpi: A Very Large Daunian Urban Agglomeration in the Hellenistic Period”), and new findings, still unpublished (“Aristocratic Burials from Rutigliano (Bari) in Peucetia: Assemblages, Prestige Goods and Images from Tombs of Contrada Purgatorio”). Finally, two papers propose a reconsideration of the visual and archaeological evidence (“Funerary Naiskoi on Apulian Red-figure Pottery: Sources and Implications Revisited”) and the role of specialized research centers in promoting a renewed interest in this particular geographic area (“Trendall in Apulia: Dale Trendall and the Trendall Archive”). This colloquium will not only provide a critical assessment of the current state of Apulian studies and new insights into the archaeology of the region, but it will also enable paper presenters to share their new significant findings with the American Institute of Archaeology’s wider international audience.