The Netherlands Institute at Athens, in collaboration with the Royal Museums of Art and History Brussels, The National Archaeological Museum Athens, The Archaeological Research Unit of the University of Cyprus, The French School of Athens and The University College Roosevelt (NL) are very pleased to announce our new lecture in the Lecture series and Discussion Forum TEXNH: Making, creating, and agency networks in the Ancient Mediterranean world.
“The Economic Costs of Transplanted Temples”
by Dr. Simon Barker and Dr. Courtney A. Ward (Centre for Research on Ancient Civilizations, University of Warsaw)
to be held on November 5, at 18.00, at the Netherlands Institute at Athens
Discussant: Prof. dr. Ann Brysbaert, Director of Netherlands Institute Athens and Prof. of Ancient Technologies, Materials and Crafts (Leiden University, Faculty of Archaeology)
Abstract
The lecture will examine the economic implications of architectural recycling through the case study of the Temple of Ares. It is now more than 80 years since William Bell Dinsmoor first identified that the Classical Doric temple had been moved into the agora during the Augustan period based on the masons’ marks inscribed on the temple’s Pentelic architectural elements. Originally a rural temple dedicated to Athena Pallenis, it was transplanted wholesale 15 km south to the Athenian Agora during the Augustan period. The paper seeks to evaluate the investment in dismantling, transporting and rebuilding through the well-established methodology of architectural energetics, to examine the ‘cost,’ measured in terms of labour expenditure, of and to reconstruct the processes involved in the movement of “itinerant temples” during the Roman period. In indicating the labour required, the paper aims to set this transplantation into the wider economic contexts of temple building. It will investigate the economic ramifications of dismantling and moving an extant structure rather than building one from fresh material.
The event will also be streamed live. For registration please visit:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/4qlVGSmGQT66RTY7Qgq1gA