Interdisciplinary Approaches to Inequality in the Ancient Greek World conference – 30 April 2026

Date: 30 April

Location: KNAW Trippenhuis, Kloveniersburgwal 29, 1011 JV Amsterdam

Credits: 1 ECT

Levels of social differentiation varied between different time periods, between urban and rural settings, and across the different regions of the ancient Greek world. Seeking to understand the causes behind greater discrepancies in social differentiation that are at the heart of the resulting health inequalities, can aid with a modern understanding of certain timeless social problems. This understanding has the potential to help with reducing circumstances under which people’s health suffers due to their socioeconomic position in society by raising awareness of the ubiquity of the problem.

The aim of this KNAW Early Career Partnership Event is to integrate evidence that is often studied in isolation to build a more holistic understanding of how social divisions (gender, wealth, status, occupation, kinship, ethnicity, and locality) shaped social status, identity, health and lived experiences, with a particular interest in marginalised groups. By combining these approaches, this should enable clearer insights into the causes and consequences of health inequality in the past and to highlight its relevance for understanding persistent social problems today. The temporal and geographic scope of this meeting is flexible in taking a broad definition of the ancient Greek world.

The intended outcome of this meeting is to bring specialists from different disciplines (classicists, ancient historians, epigraphers, economic historians, demographers, archaeologists, bioarchaeologists and geneticists) together to create new research partnerships (or at least open eyes to possibilities for collaboration) and ensure collaborative efforts in better understanding the causes and impacts of social and health inequality.

Schedule

09.30: Anna Moles (University of Groningen) – Introduction
09.45: Christina Williamson (University of Groningen) – Equality in your dreams. Votives of healing at the Asklepieion in Pergamon
10.25: Kostas Vlassopoulos (University of Crete) – Class and inequality in antiquity: understanding ancient peculiarities
11.05: Coffee break
11.30: Maeve McHugh (University of Birmingham) – Labouring Bodies: Women and Farming in Classical Greece
12.10: Onno van Nijf (University of Groningen) – Athletics, exercise and health (in)equality
12.50: Lunch break
14.00: Efthymia Nikita (The Cyprus Institute ) – From Skeletons to Society: Bioarchaeology and the Challenge of Interpreting Inequality in the Ancient Greek World
14.40: Eirini Skourtanioti (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology/Francis Crick Institute) – TBA
15.20: Michael Richards (Simon Fraser University) – Isotope evidence for dietary inequality in the Greek Bronze Age
16.00: Coffee break
16.20: Round table discussion
17.00: Drinks reception
18.30: Speakers dinner

Registration: https://forms.gle/rbxXXVTbFJzbMsUQ7

Credits: ARCHON members can receive 1 ECT for attending the conference and handing in a reflection report afterwards. Please send the report to secretary@archonline.nl within a month after the event.