28 V 2026 Kristina Sessa (Ohio State University), Disaster at Scale: Experiencing Ruinous Events in Late Antiquity

This talk examines how men, women, and children in Late Antiquity responded to the material, social, and cultural contingencies of disasters on different scales of time, space, and social organization. ...

21 V 2026: Giulia Rossetto (University of Vienna), The Sinai Palimpsests and Their Contributions to the Study of Late Antique Greek Scripts and Texts

Most of the written heritage of Late Antiquity survives thanks to the diligent copying of Byzantine scribes. Paradoxically, some texts endure for the opposite reason: their attempted erasure. These occur ...

14 V 2026: Elisabeth R. O’Connell (British Museum), From Byzantium to Aksum: Displaying the Red Sea port of Adulis at the British Museum

In his 25 September 1868 report to the Trustees of the British Museum (BM), Augustus Wollaston Franks announced the arrival of fragments of marble excavated from the ruins of a ...

7 V 2026: Mischa Meier (University of Tübingen), Jerusalem under Heraclius (610-641): Christians, Jews, Muslims, and the End of the World

The lecture deals with the city of Jerusalem under Emperor Heraclius (610-641) as a focal point of intense apocalyptic expectations among Jews, Christians, and early Muslims. It argues that three ...

30 IV 2026: Anastasiia Liakhovich (UW), Between Languages, Landscapes, and Power: Linguistic Strategies of Naming Space in Middle Byzantine and Medieval Armenian Hagiography

This paper explores how Middle Byzantine Greek and medieval Armenian hagiographies use linguistic strategies and narrative devices to create imaginary geographic worlds. Moving beyond the view of landscape as a ...

23 IV 2026: Maria Mossakowska-Gaubert (CNRS, Orient et Méditerranée / UW), Silk in Late Antique Egypt: Texts and Textiles

Throughout antiquity, silk fabrics were a luxury commodity and a marker of social status due to their high cost. They probably first appeared in the eastern Mediterranean at the end ...