Join us in Witherspoon Hall to hear Michael Hoff, professor of art history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the fall 2025 featured speaker for the Archaeological Institute of America’s National Lecture Program. Since 2005, the University of Nebraska has been conducting excavations at the Roman-era city of Antiochia ad Cragum on the south Turkish coast. The city was by no means a major player in the political spectrum of the Roman Empire. In fact, its name hardly appears anywhere in ancient historical and literary sources. Yet through excavation, this non-descript little town has offered up so much information regarding how ordinary Romans went about their lives. The site made its first presence as a base for the infamous Late Hellenistic “Cilician Pirates.” It serves again as a pirate base during the Byzantine era, preying upon pilgrims to the Holy Land, and then there’s a final pirate presence in the 17th century. Hoff’s lecture explores the historical development of the town and chronicles the major finds made during the first twenty years, including the rich array of mosaics that helped make the excavations among the more prominent in the eastern Mediterranean.
This event is sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at Creighton University.
More details at: https://joslyn.org/events/twenty-years-of-excavation-at-antiochia-ad-cragum-in-rough-cilicia-turkiye-pirates-mosaics-and-more-pirates/