The Caesar’s Forum Project at the Archaeological Institute of America’s Annual Meeting
With the colloquium session "Caesar’s Forum: The Urban Histories of Central Rome", the Caesar’s Forum Project presented the newest results from the excavations as well as from the associated individual research projects to a world-wide audience at the virtual AIA 2021 Annual Meeting.
By Postdoc Sine G. Saxkjær.
On 5 January 2021, the Caesar’s Forum Project participated in the Archaeological Institute of America’s Annual Meeting with a colloquium session titled "Caesar’s Forum: The Urban Histories of Central Rome", organised by UrbNet Centre Director Professor Dr. Rubina Raja, Dr. Jan Kindberg Jacobsen and Postdoc Dr. Sine Grove Saxkjær.
Taking the site of Caesar’s Forum as point of departure, the session’s papers presented on different cultural epochs from prehistory to historical times, thereby tying together the various phases into a combined review of Rome’s urban history.
The session was initiated by Prof. Dr. Rubina Raja with an introduction to the excavation-based Danish-Italian research project on behalf of the project’s directors – Dr. Jan Kindberg Jacobsen, Dr. Claudio Parisi Presicce and Prof. Dr. Rubina Raja – followed by a presentation of the newest results from the excavations. After this, results from the Caesar’s Forum Project’s associated postdoc and PhD projects were presented in chronological order, starting with PhD student Nikoline Sauer, who gave a paper on “Huts, Houses, and the Urbanization of Archaic Rome”. Postdoc Dr. Sine Grove Saxkjær gave a paper on “Urban Ethnicities and Roman Genealogies”, which examined the interrelation between the Roman gentes, the city formation and the emergence of the history of early Rome, while the last two papers following the session’s short break dealt with epochs beyond antiquity. PhD student Line Egelund presented the paper “Caesar’s Forum in the Early Medieval Period”, which explored the afterlife of the Caesar’s Forum site and its tangible remains, while Postdoc Dr. Trine Arlund Hass’ paper “Caesar, Rome, and the Danes” reflected on the role that Caesar and ancient Rome played in the travellers’ understanding of the city in the 19th and 20th centuries. The colloquium session concluded with a discussion chaired by Prof. Dr. Christopher Hallett.
For more about the Caesar’s Forum Project: https://cas.au.dk/en/cfp/.
For the latest results from the excavations, see Jacobsen, J. K., Murro, G., Presicce, C. P., Raja, R. & Saxkjær, S. G. (2020). "Practicing Urban Archaeology in a Modern City: The Alessandrino Quarter of Rome", Journal of Field Archaeology 46:1, 36-51, https://doi.org/10.1080/00934690.2020.1834255.