2024

26th April

The representation of the face with its features and its expressions has always reflected the choice of the artists, or those who commission the piece, and/or its subject, according tointention and function of the artwork, and the beliefs and the context of the time and the culture when it was fashioned.
Some such portraits were destined for the darkness of the tomb, as were the plastered and painted skulls of the Neolithic, the golden masks of Mycenaean nobles, and the portrayals of the deceased on Fayum mummy portraits. Others were for the bright light of public and private spaces, such as the smiling kouroi and kore portraits of Archaic period in Greece, or infused with ideal beauty for Greek temples, or the sober grandeur and dignity of the Roman emperors.
Yet all were intended to immortalise the essence of the person they portrayed, the focus of the 6th annual Bilkent Archaeology Day. In this celebration of portraiture, we shall explore this prominent aspect of the distant and near, past, the impulse to capture the soul and character of a person through portraiture, whether idealised or realistic, whether inspired by ritual or political factors. To do so we will examine and the motives and intentions of the artists, and the role of social, religious, and political factors in the society behind the creation of the artwork, and so better define the role of portraiture in its original context.

The detailed program of the Bilkent Archaeology Day 2024 can be found here.

27th March

Evening Lecture by Dr. Julia Koch (Institute of Classical Studies, University of Giessen): “Phrygians at the Black Sea? Exploring Ritual Landscapes in Northern Anatolia”

Time and Location: 17:30, Room H-232 (Faculty of Humanities and Letters)

GE points will be given

Abstract

The Kingdom of Phrygia is traditionally located in the western Anatolian Plateau centering on the capital at Gordion on the Upper Sangarios River. Recent scholarship, however, has reconstructed the territorial expansion of the Phrygian Kingdom on a large scale both to the east and to the northeast of Gordion for political control over the region of the Halys River bend during the later 8^th/7^th century B.C. The Devrez Valley north of Çankırı at the foot of the Ilgaz Mountains is seen to have marked the northern limits of the Phrygian state. In this lecture we cross the Ilgaz Mountains towards the southern Black Sea to survey the religious landscape inventories of Iron Age northern Anatolia influenced by Phrygian culture: rock-cut facades and idols, stepped altars carved from the living rock, cult statues and niches, and so-called house shrines sculptured in miniature. At the sanctuary of Phrygian Zeus at Tios two sherds incised with Paleo-Phrygian graffiti were found next to East Greek and Attic pottery near an Archaic temple, while in Tios’ hinterland Phrygian grave goods were deposited in a tumulus. Votive offerings of Attic drinking vessels dedicated to Kybebos and terracotta figurines of the goddess ritually deposited in a sacrificial pit at the Greek seaport of Amisos shed further light on the significance of sanctuaries as stage for the maintenance of local cult tradition and intercultural exchange. By presenting new and less recent finds of sacr(aliz)ed places this talk offers fresh insights into Iron Age northern Anatolia abundant with astonishing ritual landscapes and it is hoped to encourage further discussion on colonial encounters of diverse migrant communities – both Greek and Phrygian – settling along the southern Black Sea coast.