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.
WHY SPONSOR A WEBINAR?
Several levels of support from $50-$1,000 are available. Proceeds go towards membership scholarships and towards increasing ASOR’s virtual resources. Each sponsorship is tax-deductible and you can give your friends free registrations to a webinar!
Bronze Level ($50): up to 2 guest registrations
Silver Level ($100): up to 5 guest registrations
Gold Level ($500): up to 20 guest registrations
Platinum Level ($1,000): up to 50 guest registrations
After you sign up for a sponsorship online or over the phone, email the names and email addresses of your guests to Felice Herman at membership@asor.org, who will send your guests a confirmation and the Zoom link before the webinar.
WANT TO SAVE $5.00 ON THE NEXT WEBINAR?
Join ASOR as a member! Click here for more details about discounts for events and other benefits of membership. Memberships start at $40 for the year as an Associate Member.
Not ready to join yet? Become a Friend of ASOR for FREE!
PAST WEBINARS
You can now purchase the link to the recording of any webinar. You can also purchase the bundle packages of all webinars from the 2020-2022 seasons. Please e-mail membership@asor.org for purchase details.
To see a printable pdf of the webinar titles from the 2020-2021 season, please click here. To see a printable pdf of the webinar titles from the 2021-2022 season, please click here.
Pricing:
Members: $6.00 per recording
Non-Members: $12.00 per recording
Bundle of 2020-2021 Webinars: $75.00
Bundle of 2021-2022 Webinars: $75.00
Bundle of 2020-2022 Webinars: $125.00
2021-2022 Season
A World at War: Protecting Cultural Heritage in Times of Conflict
Patty Gerstenblith (DePaul University), Lisa Ackerman (Columbus Citizens Foundation), Andrew Cohen (Government Professional and Cultural Heritage Expert) | May 12, 2022
Preserving Cultural Heritage in Hisban and Umm al-Jimal, Jordan
Øystein LaBianca (Andrews University), Elizabeth Osinga (Umm al-Jimal Archaeological Project), Darrell Rohl (Calvin University) | April 24, 2022
Back to the Field: Recent Discoveries & Summer Plans 2022
Lorenzo d’Alfonso (ISAW), Kathryn Grossman (NC State University), James R. Strange (Samford University) | April 3, 2022
Uncovering What is Nubian Beneath the Veneer of Egyptianness: Excavating the Archives
Debora Heard (University of Chicago) | March 20, 2022
Where Are They Now?: A Preview of 2022 ASOR-Affiliated Fieldwork Projects
Michael Given (University of Glasgow), Xenia-Paula Kyriakou (Florida Gulf Coast University), Stephen Batiuk (University of Toronto), Monique Roddy (Walla Walla University), Kent Bramlett (La Sierra University), Friedbert Ninow (La Sierra University), and Michael Hoff (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) | March 8, 2022
Excavations at Tel Gezer: A Personal Story
Sam Wolff (Tel Gezer Laboratory) | February 20, 2022
Tel Rehov: A Major Bronze and Iron Age City in the Jordan Valley
Amihai Mazar (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Nava Panitz-Cohen ( Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Nota Kourou (Athens University), Naama Yahalom-Mack (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Robert Mullins (Azusa Pacific University) | February 10, 2022
The Not-So-Innocents Abroad: The Beginnings of American Biblical Archaeology
Rachel Hallote (Samford University) | January 20, 2022
Synagogues as Jesus Knew Them
James R. Strange (Samford University) | December 2, 2021
Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City
Andrew Lawler | November 4, 2021
Jesus and Jerusalem on TV: How Do Bible Documentaries Get Made?
Robert Cargill (University of Iowa) | October 17, 2021
Digging the Divine?: Judahite Pillar Figurines and the Archaeology of Israelite Religion
Erin Darby (University of Tennessee) | October 7, 2021
David, Solomon, and Rehoboam’s Kingdom—The Archaeological Evidence
Yosef Garfinkel (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) | September 19, 2021
From Standing Stones to Sacred Emptiness: Textual and Visual Portrayals of Israel’s God
Theodore Lewis (Johns Hopkins University) | August 29, 2021
2020-2021 Season
Making May Matter: Webinarathon to Endow Diversity
Multiple Speakers | May 21-23, 2021
Archaeogaming: Why Video Games Deserve Their Own Archaeology
Tine Rassalle (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Shannon Martino (Morton College), Matthew Winter (University of Arizona), Michael Zimmerman (Rhode Island) | April 18, 2021
How the Bible Became a Book
William Schniedewind (UCLA) | March 21, 2021
The Mysteries of Mithras in Caesarea: Exploring the Cult’s Rites and Remains
Jane DeRose Evans (Temple University), Alexandra Ratzlaff (Brandeis University) | March 11, 2021
Archaeology and the Hidden Religious Culture of Israelite Women
Carol Meyers (Duke University) | February 21, 2021
Meet the Directors—Fundraiser to Support ASOR’s Affiliated Overseas Research Centers
Matthew J. Adams (AIAR), Pearce Paul Creasman (ACOR), Lindy Crewe (CAARI) | February 11, 2021
Early Synagogues, Jesus, and Galilee—A Jewish Perspective
Eric Meyers (Duke University) | December 13, 2020
Home Sweet Home: Ancient Israelite Households in Context
Cynthia Shafer-Elliott (William Jessup University) | October 18, 2020
Priestesses in the Days of Solomon and Ahab
Susan Ackerman (Dartmouth College) | September 13, 2020
Digging Deeper: How Archaeology Works
Eric H. Cline (The George Washington University) | August 9, 2020
ASOR Photo Collection has been growing over the past couple of months! Take a look at the 550+ images in 
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(170,170,170,0.01)” width=”1/6″ css=”.vc_custom_1496684098866{margin-right: 5px !important;margin-bottom: 20px !important;border-right-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 10px !important;padding-left: 10px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;border-right-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;border-bottom-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;}”][vc_wp_posts title=”BROWSE THE NEWS ARCHIVE” number=”4″][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(170,170,170,0.01)” width=”1/6″ css=”.vc_custom_1496684008271{margin-right: 10px !important;margin-bottom: 30px !important;border-right-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;border-right-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;border-bottom-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;}”][vc_column_text]
This ambitious, expedited campaign is made possible by a 2:1 leadership pledge of $150,000 by Trustee Carolyn Midkiff Strange. We can reach our goal by raising $75,000. Every dollar contributed (up to $75,000) will be matched with two dollars. A contribution of $100, will be matched with $200; a gift of $5,000, will be matched with $10,000; and so forth.
