Felix Romuliana:
An Imperial Roman Palace in Serbia 
Lecture
October 22 at 8:00 p.m.
A UNESCO World Heritage site since 2007, Felix Romuliana is located in eastern Serbia near the village of Gamzigrad. Home to the impressive and well-preserved remains of an imperial palace and near-by burial monuments, the site was the birthplace, residence, and burial place of the third century Roman emperor Galerius. As residence to a reigning emperor and his family, the palace was a treasure trove of artistic production: mosaics from the site rival in quality much more famous examples from Constantinople, while sculptural finds have proven the existence of two previously unknown imperial portrait types, including one in the most coveted stone available in the Roman world. But the palace's history did not stop with the death of Galerius. From a later phase of use are the remains of two Christian basilicas and a baptistery dated between the late fourth and seventh centuries. Christian occupants of the site were responsible for dismantling and in some cases violently destroying the pagan imagery that once adorned the palace. Although archaeological excavations have been underway since the 1950s, many questions remain about this important and puzzling site. A new Serbian-American cooperative archaeological project aims to seek out answers.
Speakers
Anne Hunnell Chen studies the art and architecture of the Roman Empire, with a particular focus on Late Antique intercultural exchange with the Persian Empire. She received a Ph.D. in Art History and Archeology from Columbia University. She has excavated at various locales across the Roman world, including sites in Spain and Italy, and since 2010, at the Roman imperial palace at Felix Romuliana (Serbia), a UNESCO World Heritage site. In 2013-14, she spent a year as a fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where she worked on the international loan exhibition Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age. Currently, Dr. Chen heads a digital documentation project aimed at creating an integrative, networked database and teaching resource for Roman archaeological sites throughout the Balkan region. 
S teven Karacic is interested in the role played by material culture in the spread of imperialism. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at Bryn Mawr College in December of 2014, and he is curre ntly a Postdoctoral Fellow with  the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey . Steven has conducted research on a number of ancient empires including the Hittites, New Kingdom Egypt, the Neo-Assyrians, Achaemenid Persians, and R omans. Much of his research is grounded in fieldwork, which he has conducted in Greece, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman. Most recently, his interests have brought him to Felix Romuliana where he will co-direct a survey that seeks to shed new light on the network of Roman roads linking Felix Romuliana to the larger region of the Timok River Basin. 


Sarah Craft is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Classics at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, having completed her Ph.D. at the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University in 2015. She has worked extensively in Turkey at a number of archaeological projects, 
where her research interests lie in the late Roman and Byzantine landscapes, particularly to regional patterns of devotional movement, and how those patterns relate to topography, patterns of settlement, monuments of early Christianity and the wider travel infrastructure. She is currently working on the sacred landscapes of Byzantine Greece in the Mazi Archaeological Project, as well as on digital initiatives to integrate and expand access to Roman sites across political boundaries in the Southeastern Europe Digital Documentation Project.