In English

Closed to the public

IUAES, Commission on Anthropology of the Middle East

Fortitude in Face of Turmoil

Program

In English

In person at the Swedisch Research Institute in Istanbul

The history of the region of Karia in southwestern Anatolia is marked by cultural interactions, between Karian communities and their Greek-speaking neighbours along the coast and islands, with the Lykians to the east and the Lydians to the north. The incorporation of the region into the Achaemenid domain further involved the settlement of Persians in Asia Minor, though the local Hekatomnid dynasts administered the satrapy on the ground during the fourth century BC. The Hellenistic period witnessed heightened interchange, with Karia never fully incorporated into the domain of one kingdom for any period of time; this ushered in a period of increased mobility, in particular with the movement of troops across the Mediterranean.

This conference will focus on the period between the last decades of Achaemenid influence in Karia and the end of the Hekatomnid dynasty, through to the early imperial period, when the advance of the Roman Empire resulted  in a period of relative stability. The emphasis will be on local perspectives and how the communities of the region responded to the changing political environment, examining civic culture, religious practices, and how the inhabitants of Karia engaged with their landscape and history.

The last conference dedicated to Hellenistic Karia took place in Oxford in 2006 and shone a light on the growth of interest in southwestern Anatolia; this conference aims to assess what developments have taken place in the interim, with the broader chronological focus allowing questions of continuities (or ruptures) between periods to come to the fore. We invite contributions that engage with the ways that scholarly research in Karia has advanced in the last two decades, in particular those that engage with new data or discoveries, or novel approaches to old questions. The focus will be on those that engage with epigraphic and archaeological data, allowing Karian perspectives to come to the fore.  

The conference is organized by HiSoMA (Lumière Lyon 2 University) and the Institut Français d'Études Anatoliennes (IFEA), with the support of the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul (SRII), the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI-Istanbul), the Anadolu Medeniyetleri Arastirma Merkezi (ANAMED, Koç University), the University College London (UCL), and the IPLI Foundation.

Scientific committee

Prof. Riet van Bremen (University College London)

Prof. Alain Bresson (University of Chicago)

Dr Naomi Carless Unwin (University of Warwick)

Prof. Olivier Henry (Université Lumière Lyon 2)

Assoc. Prof. Julietta Steinhauer (University College London)

Program