Interdisciplinary Approaches to Marginalised Peoples in the Ancient World: Women and Children – 9 May 2025
Date: 9 May 2025
Venue: University of Groningen, Tammeszaal (floor 4, University Library, Broerstraat 4)
Credits: 1 ECTS
The study of ancient society in the classical world has traditionally focused on the urban elites or the male citizens, and has neglected the women, the children or adolescents, the old people, the disabled or sick, the enslaved and criminals, the foreign residents. This workshop aims to address this problem by tackling the topics of women and children (with a plan to have future workshops on the other groups). While the situation is rapidly changing, with these groups receiving increasing attention, these discussions remain restricted to historical or literary evidence. However, in recent years, mortuary archaeology (the study of mortuary practices) and bioarchaeology (the study of human remains, and associated analytical techniques such as ancient DNA and biodistance analysis to establish genetic relations, or isotopic analyses to reconstruct diet or provenance) produce fascinating insights into the life and death of precisely these neglected categories. These new insights have not been incorporated so far into historical reflection on these ‘silenced groups’. Classicists and ancient historians make little use of (bio)archaeological information, while (bio)archaeologists are not always familiar with the complexities of the ancient world, or ignore the potential of texts, epigraphy, or imagery. As a result, the different disciplines hardly interact with each other, at a time when new questions are being asked and new methods introduced. This workshop is an opportunity to bring together scholars from across the disciplines studying the ancient world, bridging the gap between these diverse disciplines and between the humanities and the sciences.
This event is organised by the CRASIS Marginalised Peoples Network.
We encourage student participation and ARCHON and OIKOS members can get 1 ECTS for attending the event and presenting a poster OR writing a reflective review of the event.
Event schedule:
09:30-10:00 Registration, tea and coffee, posters
10:00-10:15 Opening remarks and welcome
10:15-11:15 Keynote Speaker: Prof. Jacqueline Klooster – As it has never been told before…? Aspects of current mythological retellings from a female perspective
11:15-12:15 Keynote Speaker: Dr Anna Lagia – The impact of heavy metal exposure on living conditions in classical Laurion: Bioarchaeological insights from nonadult remains from Thorikos
12:15-13:15 Lunch
13:15-13:45 Dr Tamara Dijkstra – ‘I built this heroon for myself alone’: women as tomb patrons in Roman Pisidia
13:45-14:15 Dr Ana Zora Maspoli – To see or not to see. What a woman and a 10-year-old slave from Vindonissa can tell us about Marginalisation in the Ancient World
14:15-14:45 Sarah Siegenthaler – Ancient Charity and Extreme Poverty – The Prospects of Destitute Women and Children in the Roman Empire
14:45-15:15 Coffee break and posters
15:15-15:45 Vicente Rodrigues – Lucilla, or the Bone Collectoress: Christian women and martyrs in Roman North Africa (2nd to 4th Century CE)
15:45-16:45 Round table discussion chaired by Prof. Sofia Voutsaki and concluding remarks by Dr Anna Moles
17:00-18:00 Drinks reception (location TBC)
Lunch will be a vegetarian sandwich lunch. Please email a.c.moles@rug.nl before 1 May if you have any additional dietary requirements.
Call for papers is now closed
For those who applied to present a poster, please keep in mind the maximum dimensions of 75 x 150 cm (portrait).
Registration: You can register for the event until the 1st of May via this link https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe-1zIKW6BP3LboRzJErIq3gf02yyQuLm5nxu2oqx9RNF3OpA/viewform
Credits: 1 EC for attending the conference and presenting a poster OR handing in a report (send your poster or report to secretary@archonline.nl).
