Seventh Meeting of the 2012/2013 Academic Year

Thursday March 14th at 7:30 pm, University Centre A180 (Senate Room)

Professor John P. Oleson (University of Victoria)

Will present a lecture entitled “From Church to Farmhouse: The Fate of Christians and Churches in Early Islamic Humayma (Jordan).”

Humayma, ancient Hauarra, was a small Nabataean, Roman, Byzantine, and Early Islamic settlement in the Hisma desert of southern Jordan. Despite the small population, five Byzantine churches turned up during Prof. Oleson’s excavations at the site, embellished with elaborate marble chancel screens. His talk will deal with the process of excavating and interpreting the churches, which show interesting patterns of parallels and diversity in plan, along with extensive use of a modular system of design. Three of the churches appear to have been abandoned in the seventh century and subsequently occupied only by occasional squatters. The other two churches fell out of use at some point in the seventh and eighth centuries, but were then intensively reoccupied for several centuries as farmhouses. The lecture will deal with possible reasons for the patterns of reuse or abandonment, and the evidence they provide for the social and economic conditions at this isolated site during the Late Byzantine and Early Islamic period.

The Classical Association of Vancouver Island is UVic’s organization for people interested in the Greek and Roman worlds. Monthly lectures by local and international scholars take place on campus. Everyone is welcome.

To join CAVI and be on our mailing list, please send your name, contact information (address/email), and membership dues (10$/year, cheques payable to CAVI):

CAVI – Department of Greek and Roman Studies
PO Box 3045 STN CSC
Victoria, BC V8W3P4

For more information, please contact: Dr. Brendan Burke, Chair, Department of Greek and Roman Studies (bburke@uvic.ca). Questions or corrections about our mailing list, contact Sonja Bermingham at 250 721 8514
 

Free and open to the public.