Ancient Seminar Lecture of the Institute of Fine Arts / NYU with Dimitris Plantzos:
Dying as a Macedonian in Egypt: Styling Social Identity through Hellenistic
Burial Practices
In-Person and Virtual Lecture*
Advance registration is required
This lecture discusses the Hellenistic necropoleis of Alexandria in Egypt: the tombs, the finds, the paintings, Greco-Egyptian ideas on death and dying. We will be exploring Macedonian responses to death and dying, as well as the ways Macedonian mortuary habits were transmitted, transposed, developed and “edited”, once the Macedonians found themselves on top of the world, and in lands so different from their own. From Macedon to Asia and Egypt, and from Aigai and Mieza to Shatby, Macedonians had to renegotiate their fundamental beliefs on death and the afterlife, committing themselves to the amalgam we now understand as “Ptolemaic Alexandria”.
Dimitris Plantzos is Professor of Classical Archaeology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He is the author of Greek Art and Archaeology, 1200–30 BC (2016) and The Art of Painting in Ancient Greece (2018). In 2012, he co-edited The Blackwell Companion to Greek Art with Professor Tyler Jo Smith. He currently serves as Director of the BA Program in Archaeology, History, and Literature in Ancient Greece, offered by the School of Philosophy at Athens University.
This program is co-sponsored by the New York Society of the Archaeological Institute of America.
*The program will be presented onsite at the James B. Duke House and live-streamed. Please note we have transitioned from Zoom to a new, web-based live-streaming platform for our events. You can now access our public programs directly through your browser. Kindly RSVP below to receive the live stream link.