News Article

PLEASE NOTE: This lecture had originally been scheduled for late March but was changed to April 7.

Gonzaga University’s 2005-06 Archaeology and Ancient History Lecture Series will conclude with a lecture by Cheryl Ward, assistant professor of anthropology at Florida State University, on Friday, April 7 at 4:30 p.m., in Gonzaga’s Jundt Auditorium.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is titled, “Pirates: Ancient Harbors, and Underwater Archaeologists in Rough Cilicia.” Since 1996, the Rough Cilicia Archaeological Survey has systematically surveyed the mountainous and heavily forested region where ancient literary sources located the principal pirate bases of Korakesion (Alanya) and Antiochia ad Cragum. The Cilician pirates are the best known, but not the only, ancient marauders from this region, and their depredations had sufficient impact that by 67 B.C., Pompey mounted the largest naval expedition the world had ever seen in a successful effort to remove their threat to peaceful mercantile exchange and provisioning of the Roman Empire. 

In 2004, Professor Ward joined the survey and spent two weeks directing an international team charged with locating specific harbors, anchorages, and other archaeological evidence for maritime activities in western Rough Cilicia. During the first century A.D., Roman emperor Claudius granted Cilicia to his client king Antiochus IV of Commagene. Antiochus founded new colonies at Iotape (centrally located on the headland) and Antiochia ad Cragum, probably right on top of the original pirate community. For the first time, archaeologists have identified a major harbor for Antiocha ad Cragum. Anchors, ceramics, and some intriguing bronze artifacts point to its use before and during the time when pirates were most active and provide clues to its use.

While it can be difficult to precisely identify pirate remains because the outlaw status of a pirate society naturally encourages its members to hide from those in authority, the maritime survey recovered important evidence about the region’s history and documented a virtual explosion of the economy in the Late Roman period. Professor Ward’s illustrated lecture describes the 2004 field season and incorporates its findings into the emerging story of life in western Rough Cilicia more than two millennia ago.

Andrew Goldman, assistant professor of history at Gonzaga, gave the first lecture in the series Nov. 17, 2005, titled, “Discovering a Roman Military Post: The 2004-05 Excavations in the Roman Town at Gordion (Turkey).” Bradley Parker, assistant professor of ancient Near Eastern history and archaeology in the University of Utah history department, delivered the second lecture on Feb. 28 on “Geographies of Power: Neo-Assyrian Imperialism in Theoretical Perspective.” 

For more information, contact Assistant Professor Goldman at (509) 323-6691 or via e-mail at goldman@gonzaga.edu.