Fall 2026 – Spring 2027 lecture season
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.
Kathleen Lynch, “No Plates, No Bowls in the Cupboard: How Did Ancient Athenians Set Their Table?”
Thursday, October 1, 2026, at 4:30pm
UMass Amherst
Lecture held in the Campus Center 168C (1st floor)
Reception to follow in Campus Center Hadley Room (10th floor)
Annual David F. Grose Lecture, UMass Amherst Department of Classics
About the speaker: Kathleen Lynch is the Dorothy and Marion Rawson Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Cincinnati. She is a classical archaeologist who has worked on sites in Italy, Greece, Albania, and Turkey. In particular, she is a ceramic specialist interested in Athenian figured wares from archaeological contexts. Her research spans a number of ceramic-related topics, from issues of Attic chronology to iconography to symposia, and considers the role trade played in shaping Attic potters’ and painters’ outputs. In general, the goal of Kathleen’s research is to place material culture back into its context of use in order to understand better the people who used the objects. She is currently publishing ceramic material from Gordion and the excavations of the Athenian Agora. Kathleen’s book, The Symposium in Context (ASCSA Publications, 2011) won the 2013 AIA Wiseman Award for best book in archaeology. She won the 2014 UC Dolly A.B. Cohen Award for excellence in teaching, and the Provost’s Award for faculty excellence in 2016.
IAD Archaeology Fair
Save the Date: Saturday, October 3, 2026
UMass Amherst
International Archaeology Day (IAD) is a celebration of archaeology and its contributions to society. Every October the AIA and archaeological organizations around the world present archaeological programs and activities for people of all ages and interests. Whether it is a family-friendly archaeology fair, a guided tour of a local archaeological site, a simulated dig, or a presentation from a visiting archaeologist, the interactive, hands-on IAD programs provide a chance to uncover the past and experience the thrill of discovery.
Jane Sancinito, “Evidence of Mobile Religious Practice from Roman Coins”
Save the Date: Tuesday, March 9, 2027
Amherst College
AIA National Lecture – William E. Metcalf Lecture in Numismatics
Abstract: Ancient temples appear regularly on Roman coins, celebrating the piety of the Roman populace and the generosity of republican and imperial builders. They offer invaluable evidence for structures that have been lost to time, but they tell us relatively little about ancient religion that we would not know from texts and surviving structures. A handful of coins, however, show a different, now-lost kind of worship-space: mobile temples and shrines that could be carried or lifted in processions or on pilgrimages. Ancient polytheistic religion was flexible and worshippers had access to multiple ways of honoring their gods. Still, it was usually expected that humans would travel to the gods, not the other way around. These coins suggest that that was not always the case, and that sometimes the gods would hit the road and see a bit of the world. This paper looks at these portable shrines and attempts to reconstruct both the practicalities of their physical forms and the purposes they might have served for religious Romans.
About the speaker: Jane Sancinito is Associate Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She is a specialist in the social and economic history of the ancient Mediterranean world and author of the book, The Reputation of the Roman Merchant (University of Michigan Press, 2024). Her current research focuses on ancient stereotypes and the concept of greed in antiquity. She is also a numismatist, specializing in the coinage of Roman and Byzantine Syria, the iconography of money, and numismatic education.
Maggie Popkin
Saturday, April 17, 2027 at 11:00am
Smith College
33rd Annual Phyllis Williams Lehmann Lecture
About the speaker: Maggie Popkin is Professor of Art History and Classics at Case Western Reserve University. She specializes in ancient Roman art and architecture. Her research interests include the relationship between architecture, art, and spectacle in the Roman world and the impact of visual culture on memory, cultural affinities, and power dynamics in the ancient world. Prof. Popkin has published articles on a range of topics, from archaic Greek vase painting to materiality in Republican Roman architecture. Her first book, The Architecture of the Roman Triumph: Monuments, Memory, and Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2016), examines the monuments built along the path of the Roman triumph, an elaborate ritual celebrating Roman military victories over foreign peoples, and their role in shaping how Romans experienced and remembered the triumphal ritual. Her second book, Souvenirs and the Experience of Empire in Ancient Rome (Cambridge University Press, 2022), investigates ancient souvenirs and memorabilia and their profound role in mediating memory, knowledge, and cultural affinities in the Roman Empire. Her current research examines the material and visual culture of ancient sport and its role in creating, sustaining, and subverting power structures in the Roman Empire; and the potential of extended reality technologies for studying embodied religion and sacred space.
Western Massachusetts Society of the AIA 