Friends of Hopkins Justin Leidwanger Lecture

The 6th-century AD Marzamemi "church wreck" and its cargo of prefabricated religious architectural elements have long held a place in discussions of seaborne trade. Since 2012, renewed investigations of the site have offered clues to the character and patterns of maritime connectivity between the divergent east and west Mediterranean at the end of the Roman Empire, and the possible roles of imperial and local patronage in the ambitious building programs that marked the late antique religious world. 

Justin Leidwanger

Since 2011, he has co-directed annual investigations in the Archaic through late Roman harbors of Burgaz, off the Datça peninsula in southwest Turkey, with Elizabeth S. Greene (Brock University) and Numan Tuna (Middle East Technical University). Prior to this, he directed maritime landscape surveys off the coast of Cyprus (2003-2009). Over the past six years, he has been involved in issues of ethical stewardship, responsible management, public involvement, and collaboration in maritime archaeological investigations. On this topic, he has co-authored a number of recent articles and co-organized a series of international workshops and conferences in collaboration with the Penn Cultural Heritage Center, where he is active as a Fellow. In the Classics Department, he teaches courses on Roman archaeology, Greco-Roman architecture and engineering, Mediterranean seafaring and network connectivity, archaeological ethics, and the ancient economy. As faculty at the Stanford Archaeology Center, his lab serves as a research base for field projects as well as a center for pottery analysis (petrography and portable XRF).