Bilkent Archaeology Day
Friday 26 April
You are kindly invited to participate to the Bilkent Archaeology Day 2024 on
Immortalising the Essence: Portraiture for Private and Public Spaces
on Friday 26 April
at 14:00-17:30
Art Gallery, Main Campus Library
GE points will be given
The representation of the face with its features and its expressions has always reflected the choice of the artists, or those who commission the piece, the intention and function of the artwork, and the beliefs of the time and the culture when it was fashioned.
Some such portraits were destined for the darkness of the tomb, as were the plastered and painted skulls of the Neolithic or in different time and place, the portrayals of the deceased on Fayum mummy portraits. Others were for the bright light of public and private spaces, infused for example with the sober grandeur and dignity of Assyrian and Hittite kings or Roman emperors.
Yet all were intended to immortalise the essence of the person they portrayed and to capture the soul and character through portraiture, whether idealised or realistic, whether inspired by ritual or political factors. Such will be the focus of the 6th annual Bilkent Archaeology Day.
Since the creation of the Bilkent Archaeology Day, the event is divided into two main sessions dedicated to the same topic: this year as well, the Club of Archaeology will organize in the morning a Students Symposium with the participation of students from Mimar Sinan University and of Ahi Evran University. In the afternoon, the department will hold the conference where faculty members will present their research, as well as colleagues from other universities or institutions and alumni.
Prof. R.R.R. Smith will launch the afternoon Symposium as a keynote speaker and will talk about The Styled Self: Portrait Honours in Context at Aphrodisias in Caria.
All the talks will be recorded on the YouTube channel of the department.
Program
Morning Session: Students Symposium
10.00-10.20
Opening Speeches
10.20-10.40
Fatma Zehra Demirci (Bilkent University)
Face Off: Political and Religious Mutilation in Portraiture in Long Late Antiquity
10.40-11.00
Buse Acar (Bilkent University)
Earthly Faces, Celestial Bodies: Roman Emperors and Their Depictions with Zodiac Signs
11.00-11.20
Elif Aze Bol (Bilkent University)
Sex and Age Identification through Examination of Cranium in Skeletonized Remains
Forensic Anthropological Approaches
Q&A
11.30-11.50
Coffee Break
11.50-12.10
Mert Akkaya (Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University)
The Place of Women in Byzantine Society: Byzantine Empresses
12.10-12.30
İsmail Ceylan (Ahi Evran University)
Anguished Facial Expressions in Ancient Sculptures
12.30-12.50
Selman Oğuzcan Ünal (Bilkent University)
The Many-Faced Emperor: Did Constantine the Great’s Face Become a Spolia in Re?
Q&A
Afternoon Session: Department Symposium
14:00 – 14:40
Keynote speaker: Bert Smith (Bilkent University)
The Styled Self: Portrait Honours in Context at Aphrodisias in Caria
Q&A
14:50 – 15:10
Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya (Hacettepe University)
Pigments, Lime and the Earth:Constructing portraits and maintaining collective past in the Tepecik-Çiftlik neolithic community
15:10 – 15:30
Emma Baysal (Ankara University, DTCF)
The face as a canvas: body augmentation as identity creation in prehistory
Q&A
15:40 – 16:00
Coffee break
16:00 – 16:20
Elif Denel (ARIT)
Ancestors as Actors of Social (Dis)Order in Iron Age Assyria and Neighboring Polities
16:20 – 16:40
Müge Durusu-Tanriöver (Temple University, Philadelphia)
Portraits of Political Power in Late Bronze Age Anatolia
16:40 – 17:00
Julian Bennett (Bilkent University)
Immortalising an Enigma: the Funerary Monument of Severius Acceptus
17:00 – 17:20
Caroline Thomas (Curator, Louvre Museum, Egyptian Art Department)
Depicting the Dead: Lifelike Paintings on Mummy Panel Portraits from Roman Egypt
Q&A