Attic-style relief stelai in the Black Sea region

HELLENIC STUDIES SEMINAR SERIES

When:
Tuesday, April 8, 2025 | 18:00 – 20:00

Where:
Deree Faculty Lounge, The American College of Greece

Organized by:
The Institute of Hellenic Culture and the Liberal Arts – The American College of Greece

Speaker:
Jane Rempel
Assistant Professor in Classics, Cambridge University

The seminar can also be attended via Zoom. The link will be provided on the day of the event and sent via email to those opting for online participation.

After the seminar, refreshments and light snacks will be offered.

About the seminar:

Of the many factors impacting the development of poleis in the Black Sea, the role of Athens is one that has long received attention due to the rich evidence for trade, diplomatic and cultural exchanges between the two regions. In the Classical period, and particularly the prosperous fourth century BCE, Athenian goods are found amongst the grave goods of elite burials around the Black Sea. This talk considers the less numerous but more visible Attic-style grave stelai that have been found in the Black Sea region, which stand out from local grave marker traditions in both their figural decoration and the use of marble. Against a backdrop of regional patterning, this talk demonstrates the use of these grave markers varied from polis to polis and argues that consumption of Attic figural stelai and their associated funerary imagery was highly selective, driven by the competition of prosperous and heterogeneous elite markets in the Black Sea.

For more information, please contact us at [email protected]

About the speaker:

Jane Rempel is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Classics at Cambridge University. She has been trained in classical archaeology in Canada (BA), the UK (MSt) and USA (PhD), and was formerly based in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the archaeology of the Greeks and the communities they interacted with in the Black Sea region during the classical period and she has conducted fieldwork in southern Russia, Ukraine, Armenia and most recently at Sinop, Turkey.