Public Lecture Series 2026-2027

Come join us for fascinating lectures on archaeological topics from all over the world!  Our lectures are held at UBC's Vancouver Campus as indicated below. These lectures are free and open to the public, whether or not you're a member, but we encourage you to join the AIA and support its mission of archaeological education, fieldwork and advocacy.

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Tuesday, October 6, 2026

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"Citizenship on Display: The production of military diplomas, wayfinding in Rome, and the Roman veteran"

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Dr. Leanne Bablitz

Professor of Roman History

Dept. of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies

The University of British Columbia​​

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Time: 7:30 PM

Location: UBC-Vancouver, Buchanan A, Room 103

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Between 14 and 96 CE, nearly 400,000 non-citizen soldiers retired from the Roman army and navy after more than 25 years of service. Their reward was a grant of Roman citizenship. These grants had two physical forms: large constitutions posted in Rome (entirely lost today) and individualized small bronze copies for each soldier, known as military diplomas. Each diploma records with exactitude—down to the building and even line—where the soldier’s name appeared on Rome’s Capitoline Hill, the religious centre of the city. These directions offer an unexpected window onto how Rome made law visible. In this talk, Dr. Bablitz explores what military diplomas reveal about the display of official documents and the enormous administrative effort required to produce and continually update them. Dr. Bablitz asks what these monumental lists meant to the people who encountered them in Rome, and what it meant for a veteran to know that, at the centre of the empire, his name had been permanently inscribed in bronze.

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Tuesday, October 27, 2026

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** AIA National Lecturer **

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"Royal Jewelry of Nubia"

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Dr. Solange Ashby

Associate Professor

Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures​

UCLA

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Time: 7:30 PM

Location: UBC-Vancouver, Buchanan A, Room 103

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Some of the most exquisite and skillfully crafted jewelry of the ancient world comes from Nubia, a region spanning southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Egyptologist Solange Ashby takes a closer look at adornments worn by priestesses and queens who often served in ritual roles associated with the goddess Hathor. Ashby provides historical and religious context for stunning gold objects excavated in Sudan in the early 20th century, including pieces displayed in the exhibition Nubia: Jewels of Ancient Sudan from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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Tuesday, November 24, 2026

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"Tupananchiskama: Ancient Andean Cosmovision"

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Dr. Luis Manuel Gonzalez

Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, UBC

Research Associate, Archaeology Centre, University of Toronto​​

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Time: 7:30 PM

Location: UBC-Vancouver, Buchanan A, Room 103

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This presentation explores the deep-seated worldviews of ancient Andean civilizations through the lens of material culture, drawing on nearly 100 pre-Columbian ceramic, textile, bone, and wood artifacts from the Alan R. Sawyer collection at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA). Spanning more than 2,500 years of cultural history, these belongings offer a tangible entry point into Andean cosmovision—a relational worldview anchored in balance, reciprocity (ayni), and the understanding of nature as a living entity. Rather than viewing these objects as static art pieces, this talk examines how they functioned as active agents mediating relationships between human communities, sacred forces, and the ancestral realm. Centering on the Quechua concept Tupananchiskama, the discussion illustrates how ancient Andean philosophy frames life and death as part of a cyclical process of transformation and renewal, highlighting the enduring resilience and relevance of Indigenous Andean knowledge. 

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Tuesday, January 19, 2027

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"Archaeology and the Study of Divine Rulership"

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Dr. Megan Daniels

Assistant Professor of Ancient Greek Material Culture

Dept. of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies

The University of British Columbia​

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Time: 7:30 PM

Location: UBC-Vancouver, Room TBD

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This talk explores how archaeology can be used to study long-term historical processes across interconnected societies. I present research from my recently completed book that analyzes how ideas of divine authority developed across the Near East and Mediterranean in the Bronze and Iron Ages (3000-500 BCE). These ideas were not specific to one region or society, but developed as widely adapted mythical and iconographic paradigms that can be studied through the texts and material culture of multiple interacting groups. In particular, I focus on how divine authority was, in part, expressed through kings' intimate relationships with powerful goddesses, beginning with the goddess Inanna in Mesopotamia in the late fourth millennium BCE. I will present a few specific case studies that combine texts (myths) and material culture (iconographies) to illustrate some examples of how this ideology of rulership was shared and adapted across different societies, overall emphasizing how archaeology can be a part of larger historical syntheses.

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