Ancient Antioch, located in present-day Antakya, Türkiye, was one of the great urban, artistic, and religious centers of the Roman and Byzantine worlds. This lecture presents new research on artifacts excavated during the 1930s Princeton expeditions and now held in museums across North America. Through provenance research, archival investigation, and close study of the objects themselves, it reconstructs the histories of these dispersed collections and reveals new perspectives on Antioch’s role as a center of artistic production and cultural exchange. The lecture also examines how archaeological objects acquire new meanings as they move from excavation sites into museum collections.

Nicole Berlin is Associate Curator of Collections at the Davis Museum, Wellesley College, where she specializes in ancient Mediterranean art and archaeology. She co-leads the international Excavating Antioch project and serves as curator of the corresponding exhibition, while her research focuses on Roman houses, mosaics, archaeological archives, and museum collections. Her publications have appeared in venues including Antioch on the Orontes (Cambridge University Press, 2023), Trends in Archive Archaeology (Brepols, 2024), and the Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal. Dr. Berlin has held fellowships at the Walters Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Johns Hopkins University. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. from Johns Hopkins University and B.A. from Northwestern University.

This lecture will take place live on ZOOM, followed by a question and answer period.

REGISTRATION OPENS SEPTEMBER 4, 2026

Mosaic crew, A-008905, Antioch Excavation Collection, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, https://collections.visualresources.princeton.edu/A-008905. Image: Antioch Excavation Collection, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University. Creative Common License (CC BY-SA 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/