Broadening Horizons 7

Preliminary program is out!

2025-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

We are happy to announce that the preliminary program for the BH7 is now published! Head to the program page</a> to see the list of speakers and the schedule of the conference. A Book of Abstracts</a> is also available. These two pages are interconnected, so you can see the abstract of each talk by clicking on the title in the schedule, and view the position of each speaker in the program by clicking the respective link in their abstract page.</p>

Take also a look at the general information</a> for the conference, including the location of the registration desk, the Wi-Fi access, and the guidelines for speakers and poster presenters.</p>

More information about the social events will be published soon, stay tuned!</p>

We are looking forward to seeing you at the conference!</p>

Registration is open!

2024-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

The organizing committee is happy to annouce that the registration to the Broadening Horizons 7 Conference is now open! Please head to the registration page</a> for more information.</p>

We encourage participants to read carefully the information on the r egistration page</a>, note also that by registering to the conference, participants agree to the BH7 Terms and Conditions</a>.</p>

If you think something is missing, or if you have any question, be sure to email us at bh7.sapienza@uniroma1.it</a>.</p>

We are looking forward to see you in Rome!</p>

Call for Papers Closed!

2024-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

The call for papers for the Broadening Horizons 7 is now closed! We have received more than 100 submissions and we thank all the colleagues that sent an abstract. The organizing committee will read and evaluate the abstracts and will provide an answer with the confirmation of acceptance to the conference by the 15th of October.</p>

If you did not receive an abstract submission confirmation email, please reach out to us at bh7.sapienza@uniroma1.it</a>.</p>

Stay tuned, payment procedures will also open after the abstracts evaluation.</p>

Call for Papers Extended!

2024-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

Good news! The deadline for the abstract submission has been extended until 1st of October 2024 (24.00 CET)</strong>.</p>

There is still time to submit your abstracts for the Broadening Horizons 7 Conference, review the five thematic sessions</a> and register from the registration page</a>!</p>

They said yes! About the keynote speakers

2024-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

The Broadening Horizons 7 organizing commitee is glad to annouce the Keynote Speakers for the five thematic sessions. While the names are already available in the session page, here are more information for the more curious!</p>
Marcella Frangipane</h2>
Prof. Marcella Frangipane</a></strong> is Emeritus Professor at Sapienza University and member of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome. She has taught Prehistory and Protohistory of the Near and Middle East and Strategies and Methods of Archaeological Research at the Sapienza University of Rome for undergraduate, master and PhD degrees. She is the author of more than 170 publications in international journals and volumes, among which 4 books. She has participated in field research in Mexico, Italy, Egypt and Turkey, becoming field vice-director of the Sapienza excavations at the Late Predynastic site of Maadi (Egypt), and, in 1990, the director of the Italian Archaeological Project in Eastern Anatolia (excavations at Arslantepe-Malatya and Zeytinli Bahçe-Urfa, Turkey). The Arslantepe Project, where Prof. Frangipane has worked since 1976, is the core of her research activity and the main inspiration of her research interests for themes such as the rise and early developments of hierarchical and unequal societies, the rise of centralised economies, bureaucracy, and the State in the ancient Near East, with particular reference to Mesopotamian and Anatolian environments.</p>
Jana Mynářová</h2>
Prof. Jana Mynářová</a></strong> is Assyriologist and Egyptologist, Professor of History and Culture of Asia and Africa and the Head of the Institute of Comparative Linguistics at the Charles University in Prague. She received her M.A. in Cuneiform Studies and Egyptology (2000) and Ph.D. in Philology – Languages of Asia and Africa from Charles University (2004). Her research focuses on political, social and economic history of the Near East and Egypt in the second millennium BC with special attention given to documents from the so-called Amarna archive. She is the author and editor of a series of monographs including Language of Amarna – Language of Diplomacy. Perspectives on the Amarna Letters (2007), and the Crossroads series (2011, 2015, 2019). Since 2021 she is a co-editor of the Bulletin of ASOR.</p>
Kristen Hopper</h2>
Prof. Kristen Hopper</a></strong> is Assistant Professor on the Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa (EAMENA) Project at Durham University in the UK. Since 2018, she has been engaged in the development and delivery of EAMENA- Cultural Protection Fund (CPF) training with national heritage agencies, NGOs, and civil society groups in Lebanon, Iraq (including the KRI), Syria, Jordan, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. She has also been working with the Council for At Risk Academics (Cara) Syria Programme to support Syrian academics displaced during the conflict continue their research. She specialises in GIS and remote sensing techniques in archaeology, and is especially interested in how these methods can be applied to study landscapes of empire, water management in arid landscapes, and for cultural heritage monitoring and protection.</p>
Bettina Bader</h2>
Dr. Bettina Bader</a></strong> is the head of the research group Archaeology in Egypt and Sudan (Department of Prehistory and Western Asian and Northeast African Archaeology, formerly OREA) at the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences since January 2021. She is currently leading the START Project "Beyond Politics: Material Culture in Second Intermediate Period Egypt and Nubia" awarded by the Austrian Science Fund, and head of research group "Material culture in Egypt and Nubia". Over the years her time span of interest expanded to include the time from the First Intermediate Period to the early New Kingdom working on several post-docs at the Universities of Vienna, Cambridge, UK, and again Vienna with prestigious grants awarded by the Austrian National Bank, the European Commission and the Austrian Science Fund.</p>
Federico Zaina</h2>
Dr. Federico Zaina</a></strong> is a landscape archaeologist and cultural heritage risk assessment specialist. His geographic focus include the Middle East and Mediterranean regions. Since 2007, he participated in 40 archaeological excavation and survey campaigns in Turkey, Syria and Iraq. He's co-director of the Land of Kufa survey project in Iraq. Since 2015, he covered roles in EU-funded projects regarding the preservation and communication of cultural heritage (HEaT and EDUU) capacity building (WALADU, BANUU). He's currently Project Manager at the Department of Production at the Museo delle Antichità Egizie di Torino.</p>

Call for Papers is out!

2024-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

We are happy to announce that the Call for Papers for the 7th Edition of the Broadening Horizons Conference is now open! We welcome both papers and posters submission. The call will close on September 15th, 2024</strong></del> October 1st, 2024 (24.00 CET)</strong>.</p>
Presentations offering wide-ranging and diverse perspectives on the proposed topics are particularly encouraged. The Organizing Committee will assess the abstracts received according to their quality and pertinence to the conference themes. Accepted speakers and poster presenters will be notified shortly afterwards.</p>
Please review the Call for Papers page</a> for more details, and use the linked submission form to submit your participation! (Available also at the following external link</a>). Read more also in the BH7 1st Circular</a>.</p>
Registrations opening will be annouced in due time, stay tuned and we look forward to meeting you in Rome!</p>

Theme

2024-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

Changes, Challenges, and New Frontiers</h2>
There is a call for the Ancient World Studies to go global and engage in multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. By increasing its outreach, this field can break through the boundaries of the academic community and play an active role in contemporary society. Through five thematic sessions, BH 7 aims at bringing together people working with different theoretical and methodological approaches to discuss how the connection between traditional and innovative strategies may open new frontiers and pose new challenges to investigate, understand, and explain past societies. The conference welcomes papers on archaeology, Egyptology, history, ancient languages, ancient religions, history of art, the application of scientific methods, social sciences, data science, and computer science to the investigation and reconstruction of the past, and finally on the protection, promotion, and communication of Cultural Heritage.</p>

Sessions

2024-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

Session 1: Exploring Archaeology as a Global Science.</h2>
Keynote Speaker: Marcella Frangipane</a> (Sapienza University; Accademia dei Lincei, Rome)</em></p>
This session aims to highlight the current dynamics of interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity in the field of Archaeology. We invite submissions presenting research outcomes, examining archaeological data through diverse approaches borrowed from other research domains ranging from computational analysis and hard science, to social sciences. We encourage contributions that illustrate the rich tapestry of methodologies shaping modern archaeological research.</p>
Session 2: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Ancient Economies.</h2>
Keynote Speaker: Jana Mynářová</a> (Charles University, Prague)</em></p>
The study of ancient economic systems plays a pivotal role in reconstructing past societies. Subsistence strategies, resource control and management, trade dynamics, and the acquisition of luxury goods and essential raw materials mirror the social and political organization of ancient communities, and their interactions with each other. Material culture and textual sources reveal diverse micro and macro aspects of these complex intertwined systems on both rural and urban scales. This session invites papers that analyze ancient economic systems drawing evidence from textual, archaeological, or combined sources employing theoretical approaches, traditional or modern methodologies.</p>
Session 3: Urban and Landscape Studies: Finding Interpretative Approaches.</h2>
Keynote Speaker: Kristen Hopper</a> (Durham University, UK)</em></p>
Landscape studies fuelled debates on urban and rural environments in the ancient world, focusing on settlement patterns and territorial socio-economic strategies of cities. Analyzing the diachronic development of the ancient socio-economic landscape involves considerations such as resource exploitation, communication networks, and demography. Similarly, a synergy of geological, paleo-environmental, and textual datasets may shed light on the relationships between cities, rural, and pastoral communities. This session invites papers that encompass both theoretical and empirical approaches, dealing with urbanism and its definition in different historical and geographical contexts, examining interactions between urban and non-urban settlements, and the exploration of long-term landscape change patterns in different regions.</p>
Session 4: Crafting Identity and Clusters through Material Culture, Iconography and Texts.</h2>
Keynote Speaker: Bettina Bader</a> (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Wien)</em></p>
The study of the various elements of material culture and textual communication is pivotal for the understanding of how people constructed identities and created connections across space and time. Delving into evidence may reveal valuable insights into how material culture was used for shaping social identities, delineating individual status within a community, and signaling the inter- and cross-community relations. This session welcomes papers that explore material culture and iconography as manifestations of group identity. Whether through traditional analytical methods, interdisciplinary approaches integrating texts and images or art history, or the adoption of methodologies from different fields such as cognitive science, semiotics, sociology, or political communication. The aim of this session is to enhance our understanding of the multiform nature of identity construction and social dynamics across diverse contexts and periods.</p>
Session 5: Public Engagement and Cultural Heritage. The Role of Communication and Dissemination in the Humanities.</h2>
Keynote Speaker: Federico Zaina</a> (Museo delle Antichità Egizie di Torino, Turin)</em></p>
This session seeks papers that discuss activities of awareness-raising, capacity-building, and innovative strategies for dissemination and communication of Cultural Heritage. Papers dealing with new analytical approaches and open-access research data accessible to both academic and non-academic audiences are highly welcome. Of particular interest are projects leveraging the use of innovative technologies, such as digital tools for virtual reconstructions of artifacts and museums, GIS predictive modeling for safeguarding archaeological sites, and the digitization of archival materials for broader dissemination. Likewise, special attention will be given to talks that discuss the involvement of local communities as active actors in the preservation and presentation of their local past, and the results of collaboration efforts between scholars and non-academic partners from different countries.</p>

Committees

2024-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

Organizing Committee</h2>
The Organizing Committee is composed of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers as well as several Alumni of Sapienza University of Rome and one member of the organizing committee of the last BH6 conference. This collective underscores Sapienza’s pivotal role as a hub fostering seamless connections within both national and international research communities.</p>

Name</th> Affiliation</th> </tr>
Federico Cappella</a> </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr>
Marinella Ceravolo</a> </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr>
Licia De Vito</a> </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr>
Nathalie Kallas</a> </td> Freie Universität Berlin</td> </tr>
Valentina Oselini</a> </td> University of Milan</td> </tr>
Chiara Reali</a> </td> University of Wien</td> </tr>
Andrea Titolo</a> </td> University of Turin</td> </tr>
Luca Volpi</a> </td> Universidad Autónoma de Madrid</td> </tr> </table> </div>
Executive Team</h2>

Name</th> Affiliation</th> </tr>
Ida Ceccarelli </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr>
Alessandro Cecchini </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr>
Irene Cenciarelli </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr>
Francesca Chessa </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr>
Julia Karlsson </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr>
Dorothea Latini </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr>
Lauren Malkoun </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr>
Emma Vanoli </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr> </table> </div>
Scientific Committee</h2>

Name</th> Affiliation</th> </tr>
Johnny Samuele Baldi</a> </td> French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)</td> </tr>
Francesca Balossi Restelli</a> </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr>
Paola Buzi</a> </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr>
Franco D'Agostino</a> </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr>
Marta D'Andrea</a> </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr>
Carmen Del Cerro Linares</a> </td> Universidad Autónoma de Madrid</td> </tr>
Nicola Laneri</a> </td> University of Catania</td> </tr>
Carlo Lippolis</a> </td> University of Turin</td> </tr>
Nicolò Marchetti</a> </td> Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna</td> </tr>
Augusta McMahon</a> </td> University of Chicago</td> </tr>
Simone Mühl</a> </td> Deutsche Archäologische Institut Berlin</td> </tr>
Davide Nadali</a> </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr>
Francisco J. Núñez</a> </td> University of Warsaw</td> </tr>
Tatiana Pedrazzi</a> </td> Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR)</td> </tr>
Luca Peyronel</a> </td> University of Milan</td> </tr>
Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel</a> </td> Université de Strasbourg</td> </tr>
Elisa Rossberger</a> </td> Freie Universität Berlin</td> </tr>
Federica Spagnoli</a> </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr>
Alice Stevenson</a> </td> University College London</td> </tr>
Agnese Vacca</a> </td> University of Milan</td> </tr>
Lorenzo Verderame</a> </td> Sapienza University of Rome</td> </tr>
Willemijn Waal</a> </td> Leiden University</td> </tr> </table> </div>