The North Urban Paestum Project seeks to expand our understanding of the sanctuary that boasts as its centerpiece the innovate archaic Temple of Athena. Under the directorship of Rebecca Ammerman (1991 Fellow), research has been conducted by Colgate University in collaboration with the Parco Archeologico di Paestum e Velia and several Italian universities since 2017. The methods employed in the project include geophysical prospection by means of ground-penetrating radar, coring (by hand and deep machine-made cores), and archaeological excavation. The results of five seasons of fieldwork offer a new vision of the history of the site from late Neolithic times to the modern day and the transformation of the landscape that the construction of the temple entailed.

Speaker

Rebecca Miller Ammerman is the Roy D. and Margaret B. Wooster Professor of the Classics at Colgate University and director of the North Urban Paestum Project. She also served as Elizabeth A. Whitehead Visiting Professor at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in 2008–9. A frequent resident of Venice with ties to Ca’ Foscari, Ammerman has introduced countless students to the canals and calles of La Serenissima. Her archaeological research centers on the religious landscapes of southern Italy, with a special focus on the votive dedication of terracotta figurines and reliefs in Magna Graecia. Ammerman is the author of The Sanctuary of Santa Venera at Paestum II: The Votive Terracottas (2002) and several studies on excavated assemblages of votive terracottas from Metaponto, such as that in The Chora of Metaponto 7: The Greek Sanctuary at Pantanello, edited by J. C. Carter and K. Swift (2018).