Event: Friday Seminar: "Archaeological Expedition to Sinop, Turkey: Exploring the Origins of Trade at the Nexus of Eurasian Civilizations

Speaker: Dr. Owen Doonan, California State University, Northridge

Ancient Sinop was the crossroads of the ancient Black Sea, which has been itself described by the distinguished historian Georges Bratianu as the "Turntable of Eurasia."

Owen Doonan has led an interdisciplinary archaeological expedition to the Sinop region since the mid-1990s and through that research program has established a basic sequence of settlement, economic and cultural history in the region. The research has significant implications for the understanding of: (1) the entanglement of colonial and indigenous communities (ca. 630-200 BC); (2) the establishment of Roman infrastructure (1st – 3rd centuries AD) in a remote region of Asia Minor (the Roman term for modern Turkey); (3) the impact of the establishment of Constantinople (modern Istanbul) as the seat of a world empire, ca. 330-600 AD; and (4) the mysterious collapse of the flourishing Byzantine rural system ca. 650 AD.

Starting in the summer of 2015 Dr. Doonan's team has initiated a long-term program of excavations at Sinop kale, the heart of the ancient port and colony. He will speak on the new excavations in the context of the systematic survey and broader cultural and economic trends in the region.