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About the lecture:

Greek luxury toreutics and especially silver and high-end bronze vessels are found all around the ancient world and quite frequently in the domains of the neighbors of the Greeks. However, there is very little direct information about the artists and craftsmen who created these objects, and even less on their patterns of circulation and their acquisition modes. The literary and epigraphic sources are taciturn on these matters, but the artifacts themselves offer some insight worthy further investigation. Besides the obvious stylistic features, which, of course, do not represent an always reliable guide, the production techniques, the weights, the marks and graffiti are now investigated, along with some locally or regionally favored iconography. The trade networks and other exchange modes, combined with the grid of find spots (whenever known) of such luxury items, provide some new interesting aspects about the local elites, who were their customers and users.    

About the speaker:

Athanasios Sideris, affiliated member of Charles University (Prague), is a classical archaeologist whose work centers on the economy and ecology of the Greek world; metal artifacts and trade; Ephesian, Phokian and Boeotian history and archaeology; Graeco-Thracian and Greco-Scythian contacts; provenance concerns in private collections; and the reception of Classics. He has led excavations and surveys in Greece, Bulgaria, Iraq. While head of the History and Archaeology department in the Foundation of the Hellenic World, Athens, he was involved in numerous projects related to the digitization of cultural resources, especially in the field of Virtual Reality. He has also curated and organized several exhibitions and serves on numerous editorial boards.