Michael Vickers, Jesus College/Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (emeritus): Wandering Stones: Recycling the Ancient World

A walk through many a Mediterranean city with a classical past reveals pieces of ornamental marble and other stones that were once part of Greek or Roman buildings, but which have changed either their shape or significance, or both over the centuries. This study of spolia (the technical term for such recycled material) will pay particular attention to Constantinople (now Istanbul) and Venice, a city built on mud-flat in a lagoon but whose buildings are encrusted with marble brought from the eastern Mediterranean. Porphyry will figure large, as will Pentelic and Proconnesian marble. Fragments of the Parthenon turn up in a most unexpected quarter.

Michael Vickers of Jesus College/Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (emeritus) will present "Wandering Stones: Recycling the Ancient World'" at a free public lecture on Tuesday, February 26th at 7:00pm, sponsored by the CU Department of Classics. This lecture will be held in Hellems Room 201 at the University of Colorado Boulder.