The online international conference on ancient animals will be held in two sessions on November 2-3, 2024 and January 11-12, 2025 at the University of Liverpool. It is organized by Kenneth Kitchell, Guendalina Taietti, Katia Margariti.

For the Conference Abstracts, please visit: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1y6vQHgFtvCfkJu2wE7wqkEd5OESujl3v

Conference Program

Saturday November 2, 2024
Morning Session (9:00 – 12:00 UK time)
Access using Zoom Meeting ID: 985 5003 9903 / Passcode: TAP!2NovMo
9:00-9:30 Laura Harris (Macquarie University) The Use of Implements in Ploughing in the New Kingdom Period, Egypt.
9:30-10:00 Stella Nikolova (National Archaeological Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) Multicultural culinary practices? A case study on the preliminary results of the faunal analysis from the site of Emporium Pistiros, Bulgaria (5th – 3rd century BCE).
10:00-10:30 Sian Lewis (University of St. Andrews) The sturgeon, the marmot, the jerboa and the gazelle: in search of animal regionality.
10:30-11:00 Ivan Vranić, Selena Vitezović, Nemanja Marković (Institute of Archaeology, Belgrade) Birds at the Late Iron Age „Hellenised“ site of Kale-Krševica (southern Serbia).
11:00-11:30 Athanasios Sideris (Charles University / Masaryk University) The puzzling iconography of felines in the Greek art.
11:30-12:00 María Flores Rivas (Complutense University of Madrid) One of the animals expressing the divine identity of Dionysos? The bear and the Homeric Hymn to Dionysos (VII).
LUNCH BREAK: 12:00 – 13:00
Afternoon Session (13:00 – 16:30 UK time)
Access via Zoom Meeting ID: 969 6645 3456 / Passcode: TAP!2NovAf
13:00-13:30 Hendrik Müller (Hochschule Fresenius)
Medical Skills of Animals in Aelian.
13:30-14:00 Franklin Sargunaraj (Bar-Ilan University) De Natura Animalium: Discovering Ancient Zoological Thought by Comparative Analysis of Aelian’s Descriptions with Modern Scientific Findings.
14:00-14:30 Eleni Hall Manolaraki (University of South Florida) Zoopharmacognosy in Pliny’s Natural History.
14:30-15:00 Dan Mills (Georgia Institute of Technology)
The Physiognomy of the Ass in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses.
15:00-15:30 Joel Allen (The City University of New York)
Thinking Through Skin in the Severan Era: The Fungibility of Animal Hides and Hybrids in Pseudo-Oppian’s Cynegetica.
15:30-16:00 Marina Cavichiolo Grochocki (Arizona State University)
Vandalizing Domestication: Luxorius’ serving animals.
16:00-16:30 Guendalina D.M. Taietti (University of Liverpool), Giannis Solos (Independent scholar) Ancient Greek and Chinese Hippiatrica.

Sunday November 3, 2024
Morning Session (9:00 – 12:00 UK time)
Access via Zoom Meeting ID: 979 8159 7376 / Passcode: TAP!3NovMo
9:00-9:30 Alka Starac (Archaeological Museum of Istria)
A house full of wild, dangerous, or fantastic animals. Depictions of animals from the houses of the Principate in Roman Istria.
9:30-10:00 Linda Dobosi (Eötvös Loránd University) Animal Footprints on Roof Tiles from Roman Pannonia.
10:00-10:30 Thorsten Fögen (Northeast Normal University / Durham University)
Two ‘Epigrammatic’ Dogs from Roman Antiquity.
10:30-11:00 Francesco Tanganelli (Independent scholar)
Perseus’ dog? Some considerations about the relationship between the hunting dog and the ancient Greek hero.
11:00-11:30 Arianne Novella Martínez (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia)
The Dogs Howling in the Torchlight: Chthonic Images of Hekate.
11:30-12:00 Marcela Alejandra Ristorto, Silvia Susana Reyes (Universidad Nacional de Rosario – Centro de Estudios Helénicos y de Tradición Clásica)
The Role of Dogs in the Erotic Magic of the Greek Magical Papyri.
LUNCH BREAK: 12:00 – 13:00
Afternoon Session (13:00 – 16:30 UK time)
Access via Zoom
Meeting ID: 956 8459 3936 / Passcode: TAP!3NovAf
13:00-13:30 Maja Miziur-Moździoch (Independent scholar) Who is Ptolemy II Philadelphos? Seeing the ruler through his animals. 13:30-14:00 Filippo Marani Tassinari (Kunst-Universität Graz)
The elephantarch dynasty: symbology and deployment of elephants in the Seleucid Empire and eastern Hellenistic world.
14:00-14:30 Kenneth Kitchell (University of Massachusetts Amherst, Emeritus)
The Hedgehog of the Sea.
14:30-15:00 Antonio Ruiz Sánchez (Universitat de València), Sebastián Uribe Rodríguez (Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales, Colombia)
Mean-whale: Mythical and Biological Perspectives towards Cetaceans in Antiquity.
15:00-15:30 Michael Anthony Fowler (East Tennessee State University)
Greek Human Sacrifice through the Animal Prism: Archaeological Insight on the Human-Animal Analog and the Logic of Substitution.
15:30-16:00 Bridget Thomas (Truman State University)
Seeing Ancient Greek Sacrifice Through the Animal Experience.
16:00-16:30 Jenna R. Rice (University of Colorado)
Dromedaries, Bactrians, and Animal Specialization in the Army of Alexander the Great.

January Conference Session

Saturday January 11, 2025
Morning Session (9:00 – 12:00 UK time)
Access via Zoom Meeting ID: 957 0191 7960 / Passcode: TAP!11JanM
9:00-9:30 Jordon Houston (University of Auckland)
Indelible Companions: Scythian Tattooed Horses and Hooved Griffins.
9:30-10:00 Vasiliki Stamatopoulou (Ephorate of Antiquities of Thessaloniki / Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)
Horse jewelry. The case of the gilt harness from Katerini.
10:00-10:30 Rosanagh Mack (University of Reading)
The Animals of Ancient Thessaly Seen Through Its Coinage.
10:30-11:00 David Serrano Ordozgoiti (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
Bestiae Potestatis: New Perspectives on the “Animal Series” in Gallienus Numismatics.
11:00-11:30 Juan Piquero Rodríguez (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia)
Mules and ritual theriomorphism in Mycenaean Texts and Beyond: an attempt of interpretation.
11:30-12:00 Sebastián Francisco Maydana (Universidad de Buenos Aires) Hybrids, Animals and Theriomorphs in Egyptian Iconography from the 4th Millennium BCE.
LUNCH BREAK: 12:00 – 13:00
Afternoon Session (13:00 – 16:30 UK time)
Access via Zoom 
Meeting ID: 966 2624 0602 / Passcode: TAP!11JanA
13:00-13:30 Carlo Canna (Independent Scholar)
The Neades of the Island of Samos (Greece, Eastern Aegean): an analysis of speculative reconstruction on the fantastic monsters described in a Greek legend of the fifth century B.C.E.
13:30-14:00 Katia Margariti (Zoa: Animals in Greco-Roman Antiquity)
The watchful sentinels: funerary Sphinxes in Archaic and Classical Athens.
14:00-14:30 Annetta Alexandridis (Cornell University)
Breeding the Centaur: The West Pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia in its Connection to the Land.
14:30-15:00 Christina Aamodt (Independent scholar) The Symbolism of the Snake in the Mycenaean Culture.
15:00-15:30 Nicholas J. Molinari (Salve Regina University)
Δράκων ἑλικτός: A New Iconographic Form of Acheloios as a Bearded and Horned Serpent, Its Origin in Milesian Orphism, and Its Significance during the Revolt Against Lysimachos.
15:30-16:00 András Patay-Horváth (Eötvös Loránd University)
Birds, heroes and toponyms.
16:00-16:30 Cristiana Zaccagnino, Jan-Mathieu Carbon (Queen’s University) Not Just Athena’s Bird: The Many Faces of the Owl.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Morning Session (9:00 – 12:00 UK time)
Access via Zoom
Meeting ID: 956 5053 0306 / Passcode: TAP!12JanM
9:00-9:30 Babette Puetz (Victoria University of Wellington) From Guarddog to Hellhound: Animal invective in Aristophanes’ comedies.
9:30-10:00 Rui Carlos Fonseca (University of Madeira / University of Lisbon)
Seeing the Odyssey and Odysseus’ return through the animal prism.
10:00-10:30 Andriana Domouzi (University of Athens)
The speaking horse Hippo: Euripides’ posthuman dea ex machina in the fragmentary tragedy Melanippe Wise.
10:30-11:00 Angelina Gerus (University of Warsaw)
If Vice Were a Beast: Animal Metaphors in Plutarch’s Ethical Programme.
11:00-11:30 Chiara Militello (Università degli Studi di Catania) Animal Cognition in “Simplicius”’s Commentary on Aristotle’s On the Soul.
11:30-12:00 Aleksandra Klęczar (Jagiellonian University) The king, the donkey, the Dead river: in search of a motive.
Afternoon Session (13:00 – 17:00 UK time)
Access to Zoom
Meeting ID: 933 7407 5394 / Passcode: TAP!12JanA
13:00-13:30 Alessandra Scaccuto (Independent scholar)
Representing Animal Sexuality in Greek and Roman Literature.
13:30-14:00 Enrico Piergiacomi (Technion – Israel Institute of Technology)
An Epicurean Historia animalium? Theoretical Framework and Selected Case Studies.
14:00-14:30 Seth Levin (Bryn Mawr College)
Autonomy in Action: Gryllus’ Cynic Supervision of His Body.
14:30-15:00 Lora Holland Goldthwaite (University of North Carolina Asheville)
When is a Deer Just a Deer? Two Case Studies of Diana as a Theriomorphic Deity.
15:00-15:30 Gordana Jeremić, Selena Vitezović (Institute of Archaeology, Belgrade) Deer in the arts and crafts in the Late Antique provinces of Dacia Ripensis and Dacia Mediterranea.
15:30-16:00 Stamatis Fritzilas (Academy of Athens)
Monkey Riding a Horse on Greek Art.
16:00-16:30 Bernice R. Jones (Independent Scholar) The Impact of the Egyptian Baboon God Thoth on the Near East and the Aegean.
16:30-17:00 Sherry Mossafer Rind (Poet) From ancient science to modern poetry.