Past Events

Stay informed about local events by becoming a member of the Archaeological Institute of America and selecting Western Massachusetts as your local society. For a complete list of Classics and Archaeology lectures in the Five Colleges, see the Amherst College Classics Lecture Schedule. All lectures are free and open to the public.

2025–2026

Date	Speaker	Title	Lecture Designation
October 18, 2025		International Archaeology Day

2024–2025

Date	Speaker	Title	Lecture Designation
April 10, 2025	Akin Ogundiran	Archaeology of the Ọyọ Empire: Domesticity of Governance & Politics of Dependency, 1600-1836	AIA National Lecture: Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lecture
March 8, 2025	Joanne Murphy	Power Plays at Pylos: The Past and Memory in the Tombs and at the Palace	31st Annual Phyllis Williams Lehmann Lecture
October 26, 2024		International Archaeology Day
October 8, 2024	Clemente Marconi	Towards an Archaeology of Cult in a Greek Colony in the West: New Excavations in the Main Urban Sanctuary of Selinunte	Ellen and Charles S. La Follette Lecture

Photo of a golden signet bead with a griffin, excavated from Pylos, with text advertising the lecture title, lecturer, and location details

Flyer advertising International Archaeology Day on Saturday Oct. 26 at the Bromery Arts Center Plaza, UMass Amherst

2023–2024

Date	Speaker	Title	Lecture Designation
April 18, 2024	Whitney Battle-Baptiste	‘We Are Shaped by Space’: Some Archaeological Perspectives of the Materiality of Black Life	Ellen and Charles S. La Follette Lecture
October 14, 2023		International Archaeology Day
October 5, 2023	Benjamin Hellings	Managing and Curating Yale University’s Numismatic Collection	AIA National Lecture: William E. Metcalf Lecture in Numismatics

Flyer advertising International Archaeology Day, hosted by the Western MA Society of the AIA on Saturday, October 14th at 12-3pm in the Bromery Arts Plaza at UMass Amherst, with a rain location on the 2nd floor of Herter Hall Annex

2022–2023

Date	Speaker	Title	Lecture Designation
April 1, 2023	C. Brian Rose	Archaeology, Museums, and War	30th Annual Phyllis Williams Lehmann Lecture
February 13, 2023	Catherine Baker	Artifacts and Archaeological Processes: The Lives and Afterlives of Objects at Pompeii	Ellen and Charles S. La Follette Lecture
October 15, 2022		International Archaeology Day
September 27, 2022	Fiona Greenland	Operation Demeter: What Italy’s Largest Antiquities Bust Reveals about Archaeological Looting Today	AIA National Lecture

2021–2022

Date	Speaker	Title
March 3, 2022	Heather Lee McCarthy	Ramesside Royal Women’s Tombs, The Book Of The Dead, And The Deir El-Medina Iconographic Tradition
September 30, 2021	Leticia R. Rodriguez	Matrices of the Mother Goddess: Some Reconsiderations of Kybele in Western Anatolia

Flyer advertising the lecture by Dr. Leticia R. Rodriguez

2020–2021

Date	Speaker	Title
April 7, 2021	Patty Gerstenblith	Preserving The Past: Archaeological Heritage, The Art Market And Conflict In The Middle East
February 25, 2021	Bridget Sandhoff	Girls Will Be Boys? Investigating Images Of Athletic Women In Ancient Etruscan Art
October 17, 2020		International Archaeology Day

Flyer advertising the lecture by Dr. Bridget Sandhoff

Flyer advertising the lecture by Prof. Patty Gerstenblith

2019–2020

Date	Speaker	Title
March 9, 2020		Film Screening: “The Destruction of Memory” by Tim Slade (2016)
March 5, 2020	Steven Tuck	Where Did the Pompeians Go? Searching for Refugees from the Eruption of Vesuvius, AD 79
November 7, 2019	Gil Renberg	Dreams in Greek and Roman Religion: The Evidence of Inscriptions

2018–2019

Date	Speaker	Title	Lecture Designation
April 6, 2019	Kenneth Lapatin	Rediscovering the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum	29th Annual Phyllis Williams Lehmann Lecture
February 13, 2019	Andrea Berlin	Revolt! Why the Jews took on Rome
September 27, 2018	Paul Miller	Places for the Living and Places for the Dead

Earlier Events

Date	Speaker	Title	Lecture Designation
April 7, 2018	Jack Davis and Sharon Stocker	Excavation of the Griffin Warrior’s Grave at Pylos	28th Annual Phyllis Williams Lehmann Lecture
March 8, 2018	Hillary Becker	Counterfeit Goods in the Roman Commercial Landscape
November 9, 2017	Scott Branting	Spies, Satellites and Archaeology: Monitoring Cultural Heritage	AIA National Lecture: Kershaw Lectures in Near East Archaeology
March 25, 2017	John Clarke	New Research Strategies and Recent Discoveries at Oplontis	27th Annual Phyllis Williams Lehmann Lecture
February 23, 2017	Chris Hallett	Ancient Bronzes as Art Objects: Roman Collectors and Corinthian Bronzes
October 20, 2016	Owen Doonan	Archaeological Expedition to Sinop,Turkey: Exploring the Origins of Trade at the Nexus of Civilizations	AIA National Lecture: George M.A. Hanfmann Lecture
October 5, 2016	Patricia Mangan	What Was Left Behind: An Archaeological Investigation of the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary
April 11, 2016	Kathleen Lynch	A 5th Century BC Supper Club: Evidence of Semi-Public Dining from the Athenian Agora	Ellen and Charles S. La Follette Lecture
March 22, 2016	Elizabeth Greene	Law, Ethics, and Underwater Archaeology: The Wreck of Cesnola’s Napried
February 23, 2016	Nicholas D. Cahill	New Discoveries at Sardis in Anatolia
October 6, 2015	Kara Cooney	Hatshepsut: How a Woman Ascended the Throne of Ancient Egypt	26th Annual Phyllis Williams Lehmann Lecture
April 9, 2015	Malcolm Bell III	Sicily in the Age of Archimedes
March 11, 2015	Kris Trego	Ancient Shipping and Underwater Archaeology in the Mediterranean
November 13, 2014	Richard Neer	The Invisible Acropolis: Democracy and the Senses in Classical Athens	25th Annual Phyllis Williams Lehmann Lecture
October 10, 2014	Michal Artzy	Four Millennia in the Bay of Akko: Ecological and Geopolitical effects on the Positions of the Harbors
September 23, 2014	Steven Ellis	The Roman Cult of the Right: Superstition in the (Re-)Shaping of Shop-fronts and Street Activity in the Roman World
April 17, 2014	Andrew Wilson	Water, Nymphs and a Palm Grove: The So-Called ‘South Agora’ at Aphrodisias	24th Annual Phyllis Williams Lehmann Lecture
March 6, 2014	Maria Liston	Death comes to the Theban Band: Skeletons from the Battle of Chaironeia (338 B.C.)
November 7, 2013	Morag Kersel	The Politics of Public Display: Archaeology, Museums and Artifacts from the Holy Land
September 19, 2013	John Younger	The Temple of Zeus at Olympia: an Archaeological Biography
April 16, 2013	Lindsay Oxx	The Part and the Whole: An Assyrian Synecdoche
April 11, 2013	Alexandra Carpino	Beauty and Violence: Matricide Myths on Etruscan Bronze Mirrors	Ellen and Charles S. La Follette Lecture
March 7, 2013	Lynne Lancaster	Olive Oil and Architecture in North Africa
October 18, 2012	Jacques Perreault	The Kilns of Thasos: an Island Potter’s Workshop in Ancient Greece (6th C BC)	AIA National Lecture: Oscar Broneer Memorial Broneer Lecture
September 20, 2012	Sarah P. Morris	Passing Children Through the Fire: Ritual Infanticide in the Ancient Mediterranean	23rd Annual Phyllis Williams Lehmann Lecture
April 5, 2012	Jeffrey Hurwit	The Shipwreck of Odysseus: Problems of Imagery in Late Geometric Art	22nd Annual Phyllis Williams Lehmann Lecture
March 7, 2012	Susan Rotroff	The Unsolved Mystery of the Agora Bone Well	AIA National Lecture: Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lecture
December 1, 2011	Sinclair Bell	From Ben Hur to Nascar: Fans, Fame, and the Roman Circus
October 18, 2011	Gregory Aldrete	Reconstructing and Testing Ancient Linen Body Armor: The Linothorax Project	Ellen and Charles S. La Follette Lecture
April 5, 2011	Larissa Bonfante	The Etruscan Underworld
March 24, 2011	Andrew Wallace-Hadrill	Herculaneum: Living with Catastrophe	21st Annual Phyllis Williams Lehmann Lecture
February 3, 2011	Barbara Barletta	The Temple of Athena at Sounion
November 4, 2010	Roger Smith	Exploring Tristán de Luna’s Lost Galleon: A Study of Florida’s Earliest Shipwreck

You can help! Our records of the Society’s history are incomplete. If you have information about events hosted by the WMSAIA prior to 2010, please reach out to the current Secretary.