The Pleiades Project -- the joint ISAW/Ancient World Mapping Center online gazetteer -- has just published its May 2011 Semiannual Report. In it, the project team summarizes recent developments across the effort, including major advances in:

• information content
• map visualization
• data portability and archiving
• cross-project interoperation

Annalisa Marzano, Visiting Research Scholar at ISAW during 2010-11, has been promoted to the rank of Reader at the University of Reading. Promotion to Reader is based on distinction in research. Last fall Dr. Marzano received the VIII Premio Romanistico Internazionale Gérard Boulvert, honoring her book Roman Villas in Central Italy.

In the Project Bamboo blog, Dr. Eric Kansa writes about the proposed "Places-Text" service. The blog post includes links to a demonstrator site and an introductory video. As explained by Kansa, the Places-Text demonstrator makes use of geographic content from our Pleiades project, by way of an on-going collaboration with Google Ancient Places.

The Places-Text service demo is one of several anticipated demonstrations of existing and possible applications and infrastructure being explored by the Mellon-funded Project Bamboo.

The American Philosophical Society has published the full list of new members on its website. More information about ISAW's Senior Fellows is available in our People section.

Jinyu Liu, associate professor of classical studies at DePauw University, and a 2007-2008 Visiting Research Scholar at ISAW, is one of the recipients of a New Directions Fellowship from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The award will fund innovative cross-cultural research on the impact of Greek and Roman classical works on the intellectual history of China. Based on a systematic investigation of the dissemination and reception of Graceo-Roman classics in late imperial and modern China, this project explores the roles Graeco-Roman antiquity played in the Chinese discourses on the value of classical traditions, both Chinese and non-Chinese, and strategies of constructing and appropriating the West in the context of China’s tormenting journey towards the formation of its modern culture.

This project represents a research direction that is distinctive from Jinyu Liu’s past scholarship, which focused on Latin inscriptions and Roman socio-economic history. The Fellowship will allow her to receive extra disciplinary training in languages, Modern Chinese History, Translation Theory, and Postcolonialism, and enable her to redirect her scholarly career into an area that allows for greater interdisciplinary inquiry. In 2011-2012, she will be based in Beijing as a visiting professor at Peking University. In 2012-2013, she will be resident in New York and taking various courses at Columbia University.

The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University is pleased to announce the addition of two new professors to the faculty: Lorenzo d'Alfonso and Roderick B. Campbell.

Lorenzo d'Alfonso, Assistant Professor of Ancient Western Asian Archaeology and History

Professor d'Alfonso earned his MA in Ancient Civilizations from the University of Pavia (1997) and his PhD in Ancient Anatolian and Aegean Studies from the University of Florence (2002). Since then he has worked as a post-doctoral fellow and adjunct professor at the Universities of Mainz, Konstanz, and Pavia.

His main research interests concern the social, juridical, and political history of Syria and Anatolia under the Hittite Empire and during its aftermath (16th-7th centuries BC). On these themes he has published a monograph on the judicial procedures of the Hittite administration in Syria (2005), a website of textual references (The Emar Online Database), more than 30 articles in volumes and journals, and co-edited two important volumes.

From 2006 to 2009 he was the director of an archaeological survey in Southern Cappadocia, and since 2010 he has concentrated his efforts on the site of Kınık Höyük (Nigde, Turkey)

Roderick B. Campbell, Assistant Professor of Early Chinese Art and Archaeology

Professor Campbell graduated from Harvard in 2007 with a dual degree in
 Anthropology (Archaeology) and East Asian Languages and Civilizations 
(Chinese History). Prior to coming to ISAW he was the Peter Moores Research Fellow in Chinese Archaeology at Merton College, University of Oxford. His research has been focused on theorizing ancient
 social-political organization, social violence and history and his 
geographical and temporal focus has been late 2nd millennium BC north
 China although an interest in broader comparison and long-term change is
 beginning to draw him beyond Shang China.

 With training as an archaeologist, historian and
 epigrapher, his work attempts to unite disparate sources of evidence 
with contemporary social theory.

Professor Campbell’s current fieldwork project, a collaboration with archaeologists from
 the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, is a zooarchaeological production analysis on what may be the world’s largest collection of
 worked bone at Anyang, the last capital of the Shang dynasty. Recent 
publications have included an article on early complex polities for
 Current Anthropology and a report on the Origin of Chinese 
Civilization Project (with Yuan Jing) for Antiquity. He has recently 
finished an edited volume manuscript on Violence and Civilization for 
the Joukowsky Institute publication series and is finishing up another 
manuscript on the archaeology of the Chinese Bronze Age for the Cotsen
 Institute. He has received numerous fellowships, awards and grants for 
his work including ones from the Luce Archaeology Initiative, the 
Chiang Ching-kuo foundation, and the Canadian Social Sciences and 
Humanities Research Council.

Professor Campbell will begin offering seminars this fall, and Professor d'Alfonso in the spring of 2012. Please join us in welcoming them to our community.

Roger Bagnall, Leon Levy Director

ISAW's latest exhibition, Nubia: Ancient Kingdoms of Africa, opens today. A much-expanded companion website is now also available at http://www.nyu.edu/isaw/exhibitions/nubia/.

ISAW's next exhibition, "Nubia: Ancient Kingdoms of Africa," will be on display at 15 East 84th Street in New York City from March 11 - June 12, 2011. More information is available on the Nubia: Ancient Kingdoms of Africa website.

If you're interested in this one-year position, please see the full job description at http://www.nyucareers.com/applicants/Central?quickFind=52507.

If you are self-employed, or represent an organization interested in providing services under contact, please contact our Associate Director for Digital Programs, Tom Elliott at tom.elliott@nyu.edu.

The Pleiades Project -- the joint ISAW/Ancient World Mapping Center online gazetteer project -- has just published its December 2010 Quarterly Report. In it, the project team summarizes recent developments across the effort, hoping to stimulate participation in an online users meeting scheduled for 16 December.

Due to popular demand, ISAW's exhibition "Before Pythagoras: The Culture of Old Babylonian Mathematics" has been extended through 23 January 2011.

The University of California Press has just published ISAW Director Roger Bagnall's book, Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East (200 pages, ISBN: 9780520267022).

More information is available from the UC Press website.

Issue 3 of the ISAW Newsletter (fall 2010) has been published. A PDF copy has been posted to the Newsletters page on the ISAW website.

Seth Sanders, Visiting Research Scholar at ISAW, was awarded the The Frank Moore Cross Award on November 19th, 2010 at the Annual Meeting of theAmerican Schools of Oriental Research in Atlanta for his book:

The Invention of Hebrew (University of Illinois Press, 2009)

The Frank Moore Cross Award is presented to the editor/author of the most substantial volume(s) related to ancient Near Eastern and eastern Mediterranean epigraphy, text and/or tradition. This work must be the result of original research published during the past two years.

The book was also a finalist for the Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award of the 2009 National Jewish Book Awards.

Seth's book was also the subject of a session of the Hebrew Bible, History, and Archaeology Program Unit at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Atlanta on November 21, 2010

Book Review: Seth L. Sanders, The Invention of Hebrew (University of Illinois Press, 2009)

Matthew Suriano, University of California-Los Angeles, Welcome (5 min)
John Hobbins, United Methodist Church, Presiding (10 min)
Avraham Faust, Bar Ilan University, Panelist (20 min)
Bruce Zuckerman, University of Southern California, Panelist (20 min)
Simeon Chavel, University of Chicago, Panelist (20 min)
Steven Grosby, Clemson University, Panelist (20 min)
Seth Sanders, Trinity College - Hartford, Respondent (30 min)
Discussion (25 min)

Visiting Research Scholar Lecture:
Late Roman Taxation: The East/West Divide
by Gilles Bransbourg

ISAW Lecture Hall
15 East 84th Street
New York, NY 10028
This event it free and open to the public

The streamlining of Roman taxation and monetary systems at the turn of the 3rd and 4th centuries AD provides a unique insight into the financial factors that governed the Roman Imperial budget.

For full details, please see the ISAW event notice for Late Roman Taxation: The East/West Divide

Pergamon and its Maritime Satellite Elaia: New Research on Urban Space and the Territory of a Hellenistic Capital
by Felix Pirson
Director, German Archaeological Institute (DAI) - Istanbul

ISAW Lecture Hall
15 East 84th Street
New York, NY 10028
This event is free and open to the public

The aim of the paper is to present first results of the new research program and to show how modern field archaeology produces data for spatial approaches currently discussed in the humanities. In this context, a particular focus will be laid on the 2010-excavtions of so-called natural sanctuaries at Pergamon and on the tumuli (gravemounds) of Pergamon.

For full details and to RSVP (space is limited), please see the ISAW event notice for Pergamon and its Maritime Satellite Elaia.

We are proud to report that Dr. Annalisa Marzano, a visiting research scholar at ISAW this year, was awarded a Honorable Mention and a Silver Medal at the VIII Premio Romanistico Internazionale Gérard Boulvert. The award ceremony was held in Rome at the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche on November 5.

This prize aims at encouraging the development of research in Roman Law and at recognizing the works of young scholars of all nationalities on topics concerning Roman law and related studies. Although Dr. Marzano’s book,Roman Villas in Central Italy: A Social and Economic History, is not a study in Roman Law, the jury recognized its 'notable scientific quality'. Describing the book as 'a work of great relevance for the study of the villa and the organization and management of the territory …. which with an impressive research... presents a very coherent and convincing reconstruction', the international jury honored it with this special award.