FRIENDS OF ASOR WEBINARS
The Mysteries of Mithras in Caesarea: Exploring the Cult’s Rites and Remains
Friends of ASOR presents the next webinar in our monthly series on March 11, at 7:00 pm EST, featuring Prof. Jane DeRose Evans and Dr. Alexandra Ratzlaff. These two experts will take you on a journey underneath the ruins of ancient Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean Sea coast of modern Israel. A bustling port city before and during the lifetime of Jesus, this site has provided a wealth of information for scholars studying Caesarea’s Roman era, when it was ruled by Herod the Great, king of Judaea (37 BCE – 4 BCE). When the late Prof. Robert J. Bull’s team arrived to dig in the sand dunes near this ancient harbor in 1974, they discovered a row of warehouses dating to the Roman period. After crawling through several of the structures to decide which one to excavate, they chose the northernmost one in the row. Inside the vault, which had been used in later periods to dispose of decapitated bodies, the excavation team discovered the remains of a Mithraeum, or a place of worship for the mystery cult of Mithras. Join Prof. Evans and Dr. Ratzlaff as they discuss what we know about how the initiates formed the Mithraeum, and what we can uncover about the cult’s secret rites from the frescos painted on the vault walls and the objects left behind following its abandonment. The webinar will conclude with a live Q&A session.
Jane DeRose Evans is Chair and Professor of Art History at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University. She earned the A.B. in Classics from Franklin & Marshall College, and the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Classical Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania. Jane met Robert Bull (then of Drew University and the Director of the JECM project) when he asked her to publish the excavation coins from the JECM excavations at Caesarea, and she continued to work with him on the materials from Caesarea for many years after they were published. She is currently a numismatist for the Harvard-Cornell Sardis Expeditions and The George Washington University’s Bir Madkhour Project. She leads the team to publish the results of the JECM excavations of the building on top of the warehouses.
Alexandra Ratzlaff is a Lecturer in the Department of Classical Studies at Brandeis University. She earned her BA in Classical Studies and Archaeology at The George Washington University and PhD in Archaeology at Boston University. Alexandra is a Classical and Near Eastern Archaeologist specializing in the Eastern Mediterranean. She is currently an Associate Director of the Tel Kabri Excavations. Beginning in 2021, she will be the Co-Director of a new project at the Roman Fort of Birsama in Israel. She has excavated in Israel on various projects for the last fifteen years. Her research interests include the Roman army, the Late Antique economy, Roman and Byzantine ceramics, Bronze Age economies and state structure. She is also the Project Lead for the Brandeis Techne Group at Autodesk, a long-term research project aimed at developing new equipment and methodologies for digital imaging in archaeology and the humanities.
ASOR Sustaining Members: $0 | ASOR Members: $5 | Public: $10
To receive your ASOR member discount, log into the online store. If you are new to ASOR, please click on the “New Visitor Registration” link to register your e-mail address and choose password for our online store. Once logged in, navigate to “Meeting and Event Registration” to register for the webinar and pay the fee. Each paid registrant will receive a confirmation e-mail when you pay for the webinar. If you do not receive this e-mail, then you are not registered. Please e-mail membership@asor.org with any questions or issues with registering.
You will be e-mailed the Zoom Webinar link in the week prior to the lecture on March 11, 2021. If you do not receive the link by the close of business on the Monday before the webinar, please e-mail membership@asor.org immediately. All webinars are recorded and all paid registrants will be sent a link to view the recording.
All proceeds from this lecture are used to fund scholarships for members impacted by COVID-19 as well as increasing ASOR’s online resources, which are free to the public.
