Kenneth Harl, professor of ancient history at Tulane University, will present a lecture titled “The Shrine of Zeus and Cybele at Aezanis: The Hellenization and Romanization of Phrygian Cults” at 7:30 p.m. March 9 in Love Library, Room 102. The lecture is free and open to the public.
The site of Aezanis - the modest Turkish village of Çavdarhisar - boasts one of the finest preserved Roman temples in the Mediterranean world. Excavations show this ancient Phrygian sanctuary to the Anatolian mother goddess and weather god at Aezanis were dramatically transformed in the reign of Hadrian, AD 117-138, when the city was enrolled in the Panhellenion, an ancient equivalent of the United Nations.
Imperial and local patronage transformed the city’s religious, economic and social identity and life into a Greek one. By the study of the coins and the surviving monuments, it is possible to document these changes as a model of how most cities in Asia Minor reinvented themselves as Greek cities loyal to the Roman order.
Harl has been a professor in the Department of History at Tulane University since 1978. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University. Harl has published widely on ancient numismatics, Roman economy and the cults of Roman Asia Minor.
UNL, the Department of Art and Art History at UNL and the Lincoln-Omaha Society of the Archaeological Institute of America will sponsor Harl’s lecture.
The Archaeological Institute of America is North America’s oldest and largest archaeological organization. With more than 250,000 members and more than 100 societies across the U.S. and the world, they are united by their shared passion for archaeology and its relevance to our present and future.
For more information, visit www.archaeological.org.
