Meg Dains | The University of Sydney

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner: Ceramics in the religious landscape of ancient Emporio

The 8th –7th century BCE settlement of Emporioon Chios and its two sanctuaries were first excavated and reported more than fifty years ago. Since then, several rehabilitation and salvage excavations have yielded a substantial corpus of new material. My research aims to investigate the extent to which it might be possible to reassess sites such as Emporio, excavated and studied at multiple points in the past according to then-contemporary approaches, through a synthesis of old and new datasets and the taking of a new approach. The concept of a religious landscape is utilisedas an analytical frame to explore how both the physical and cultural dimensions of the relationships between the settlement of Emporioand the sanctuaries within its purview were constituted and interrelated. The material remains from the settlement and its associated sanctuaries form the archaeological assemblages for the study and are key to understanding these sites and their interconnections. Ceramics have not been included in studies of the sanctuary assemblages since their analysis in the original excavation report. As part of my research, I am attempting to address this lacuna using previously unstudied ceramic material from both sanctuaries. This paper outlines the challenges and my approach, presents some preliminary results and discusses these findings in the broader context of the religious landscape.

Meg Dains is in the final year of a PhD in Archaeology at the University of Sydney. Her thesis is entitled Emporioin Chios: The Religious Landscape of an Early Iron Age Settlement in the Aegean. Using Emporioas a case study her research takes a multi-faceted approach to the question of re-establishing a role in current scholarship for such legacy sites, taking advantage of the availability of new data and the broadening of the parameters of debate on ancient Greek religion.

Registration

This event will be a hybrid event at the CCANESA Boardroom (Room 480 Level 4 Madsen Building F09) and via Zoom. On-campus places are limited by Covid restrictions. Bookings for Zoom and on-campus attendance are essential.

Please contact Yvonne Inall | yvonne.inall@sydney.edu.au