In a time when globalisation, migration and cultural conflict permeate the agenda in many places in the modern world, the ancient city of Palmyra has again attracted attention with its fascinating history as one of the world’s first multicultural societies.

Palmyra was an oasis in the Syrian desert that had its golden age during the Roman period. Outside Syria, The Glyptotek holds the world’s largest collection of the city’s funerary portraits, currently on display in the critically acclaimed special exhibition The Road to Palmyra.

This day-long event will take an in-depth look at Palmyra; at the city and rich culture that flourished for centuries before the Romans destroyed the city in 273 AD, following Queen Zenobia’s attempt to break away from the Roman Empire.

The day will feature talks on the development of Palmyra, on the trade between East and West, on the Palmyrene elite and societal structure, and on the gods worshipped in Palmyra and their temples, with rich opportunity to learn more about the intriguing portraits that provide us with such vivid insight into how the Palmyrenes portrayed themselves for the outside world.

Programme
10.15: Introduction to the topic and to the exhibition The Road to Palmyra by curator Anne Marie Nielsen (in the exhibition)
11.00: Welcome with Professor Rubina Raja and curator Anne Marie Nielsen
11.15: Grzegorz Majcherek: “From village to city and back again - an outline of urban development of Palmyra”
11.45: Eivind Seland: “Palmyrene trade networks”
12.15: Lunch break
13.15: Jean-Baptiste Yon: “Belonging to the elite in Roman Palmyra”
13.45: Ted Kaizer: “Palmyrene religion in 5 objects”
14.15: Coffee break
14.45: Maura Heyn: “Men, Women, and Children in Palmyra”
15.15: Kenneth Lapatin:” Palmyra in Malibu – Exhibition at the Getty Villa”
15.45: Summary
16.00: Opportunity to join the speakers in the exhibition

Ticket prices
Adults: 150 DKK
Season ticket holder / Under 27: 85 DKK
Students with valid student ID / Under 18: free of charge
Tickets include entrance to the museum, a light lunch, water and coffee.

As there is a limited number of seats, it is necessary to purchase a ticket in advance here on billetto.
Ticket give access to all the museum’s exhibitions on the day of the event.
Tickets are non-refundable, but may be passed on.

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Speakers:

Rubina Raja is professor of classical archaeology, director of Centre for Urban Network Evolutions. She also heads the Palmyra Portrait Project, which she founded in 2012. She has published widely on Palmyra and portrait culture in the Roman period and has co-curated the special exhibition The Road to Palmyra at Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. In connection with the exhibition, she published the new collection catalogue of the Palmyra collection held at Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.

Grzegorz Majcherek, PhD is a researcher at the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw. His scholarly interests center around Roman architecture and pottery in the Eastern Mediterranean. His professional career is shared between Palmyra and Alexandria. He is directing the Polish Archaeological Mission and has participated in archaeological research in Palmyra for many years.

Eivind Heldaas Seland is professor of ancient history and premodern global history, Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen, Norway. His research interest is in the interaction between environment, economy, ideology and political power in the ancient world. Seland is the author of Ships of the Desert, Ships of the Sea. Palmyra in the World Trade of the First Three Centuries CE (Harrassowitz 2016).

Jean-Baptiste Yon is Senior researcher at the French CNRS (French Institute for the Near East in Beirut). He has worked extensively on the history and the epigraphy of the Hellenistic and Roman Near East. He is currently working in Lebanon (excavations at Tyre) and in Jordan and is a member of the Palmyra Portrait Project.

Ted Kaizer (MA Leiden; DPhil Oxford) is Professor in Roman Culture and History at Durham University. His main research interest is the social and religious history of the Near East in the Late Hellenistic and Roman period. He is the author of The Religious Life of Palmyra (Stuttgart, 2002) and has written articles on various aspects of religion and history of the Classical Levant.

Maura K. Heyn is professor and department head in the Department of Classical Studies at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  Her research focuses on the ways in which the Palmyrene funerary sculpture was used in the negotiation of social identities in the aftermath of Roman conquest.

Kenneth Lapatin is curator of antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California, USA. A graduate of Berkeley and Oxford, he has excavated sites above ground and underwater in England, Greece, Israel, and Italy. His most recent books and exhibitions have addressed ancient luxury, Palmyra, and the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum.