We are honored to announce the first HAD Faculty Conversation of the semester by Akiva Sanders, “Freedom and Equality in the Early Bronze Age: Clues from Household Items”
Date: Postponed (TBA)
Time: Postponed (TBA)
Venue: Postponed (TBA)
About the Project: Freedom and equality are fundamental values in our society. But are they fundamentally at odds? Are there times and places where they can coexist? Where equality can be maintained over multiple generations without drastically restricting self-expression? This lecture, drawn from my recently published book, looks at how local communities reconstructed society in the centuries following their destruction of the world’s earliest known palace (ca. 3200 BCE) at the site of Arslantepe in the Upper Euphrates Valley of Eastern Turkey. We will explore their houses that served as communal places of gathering and locations of self-expression that were both unique and imaginative. However, for five hundred years, none of these places became institutionalized in a way that removed agency from the following generations.
About the Speaker: Akiva Sanders is an archaeologist and art historian who tries to understand the past through the varied experiences and attempts at self-expression of those who inhabited it. His research focuses on the assembly and disassembly of monumental central institutions in Mesopotamia: the changes in daily life, sources of meaning, and interpersonal relationships that accompanied these pivotal moments, methods of resistance to institutional authority, and the creative aftermath of institutional collapse. He approaches these questions with evidence from settlement archaeology, art history, population genetics, and ancient fingerprints.
Please RSVP using this link.
* This event is for Pratt community.