In this talk, I present my findings from a recent digital and architectural restudy of the temple of Apollo at Syracuse. Built in ca. 590 BCE, it was the first major Greek temple to be built entirely from stone, and thus it is fundamental to our understanding of the origins of Doric architecture. In addition to its architectural significance, the building has a monumental inscription (IG XIV 1) carved into its eastern steps, which should be intimately connected to the dedication of the temple, and yet whose reading has been controversial since its discovery in 1864 up to the present day. During fieldwork at the site in 2018, I created a 3D model enhanced using new computational methods which makes clear that the accepted readings of the inscription are inaccurate in several key areas. The changes support a new interpretation of this enigmatic inscription as a celebration of an ancient technological breakthrough, one that made it possible to erect the gigantic columns in the temple's peristyle.

Format: Hybrid

Join us in person at 19 Ursula Franklin Street (Room AP130) followed a wine reception or online via Zoom.

How this extraordinary Canadian’s talents and his Egypt excavation and collecting activities paved the way for the opening of Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum.

Dr. Charles Trick Currelly has been long celebrated as the visionary first director of the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology and one of its founding fathers. Yet this extraordinary Canadian has left a legacy far greater than that. Currelly was not an adventurer or a thief of priceless antiquities. He stumbled into archaeology, diverted from pursuing a doctorate in socialism, and was not your typical British imperialist but a radical leftist in his day. He sought not to pilfer or plunder Egypt’s finest treasures but to bring back to Canada items he legally purchased and earned (through the EEF) of a modest variety in order to educate and inform generations to come: tools of the tradesmen and peasantry, small items of daily life, and other finely crafted pieces to illustrate the arts and crafts of man through the ages.

By investigating his archaeological and buying achievements in Luxor Egypt alone, it is possible to see that the nature of his excavations, along with the special character of the pieces he brought home to Toronto amounts to an impressive and singular Egyptian collection in Toronto.

Around 1450 BCE, a catastrophic series of destructions befell towns and villages all across the island of Crete. Bronze Age Cretan or ‘Minoan’ society would never be the same again, most of its palaces in ruins. And yet, there are new beginnings. Some sites see fresh building programs, others rebuild substantially though using prior structures, while others largely reuse what remained. These varied patterns of construction, reuse, rebuilding, recycling, and modification are complex and have thus resisted concerted analysis. In this talk I will show how through spatial analysis and digital methodologies, such as 3D scanning and 3D modelling, it becomes possible to shine new light on this complexity and interpret architectural change and the life history of buildings during periods of instability and transformation.

After two years of virtual events, we are so pleased to be able to celebrate the end of another wonderful year with the continuation of our Annual Banquet tradition! On Tuesday, April 26th, you are invited to attend our annual end-of-year AIA Toronto Society reception and banquet, generously arranged and supported by our Executive member and Past President, D. Ian Begg. The banquet will be held at the University of Toronto Faculty Club at 41 Willcocks St., Toronto, immediately following a very special lecture by Dr. Rita Freed (Curator, Boston Museum of Fine Arts) on ancient Nubian art and a cultural show in collaboration with the Sudanese Community Association of Ontario. This is an exceptional opportunity to once again come together as a Society, to dine in a lovely, historic space, and finally to be able to mingle with your fellow members and the distinguished guest speaker.

Members will have received a physical registration form in the mail, but if you would prefer to register online, please click here to purchase your banquet tickets virtually.

Tickets are:

$90.00 for members and guests

$45.00 for student members

Each ticket includes a three-course dinner with wine, preceded by a wine reception and delicious hors-d’oeuvres. The online registration charges a small service fee on top of the ticket price, but you will also be saving yourself a trip to the mailbox!

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at aiatorontosociety@gmail.com. Otherwise, we hope to see you on April 26th for the final event of the 2021-2022 program!

Enduring over 7,000 years, Nubian empires produced more pyramids than Egypt, colossal statues of kings, exquisite gold jewelry and some of the world’s most sophisticated ceramics. Yet few people have heard of it, and fewer still can recognize its many monuments. This lecture will present an overview of Ancient Nubia, discuss its current resonance and suggest how knowledge of this ancient culture can serve as a source of empowerment today.

Please join us before the talk at 5:30pm at the Faculty Club for a Nubian Cultural Show presented by the Sudanese Community Association of Ontario. This talk is made possible in partnership with the Sudanese Community Association of Ontario.

Join us for a virtual social event via Zoom after the last talk of the season on April 27th at 7:30pm EST. For Zoom link and password, please sign up for our mailing list.

Please register HERE

In the collection of Philadelphia Museum of Art is an exceptional Nepali painting that depicts pilgrims walking winding paths, fording fast-flowing rivers, and climbing steep cliffs as they make their way through the Kathmandu Valley. Their destination—the holy lake of Gosainkund—is at the right end of the painting and pilgrims traverse the work’s fourteen feet, three and a half inches (4.35 metres) to reach it. On the road they encounter numerous sacred sites that dot the urban centres or stand alone in the landscape.

This article probes how the format of the Gosainkund painting lends itself to the creation of a sacred map that unfolds experientially, and, in turn, reinforces the religious potency of the Kathmandu Valley and beyond. Rather than focusing on scientific precision, the artist appears to use the horizontality of the object to plot towns, rivers, and mountains in relation to each other as they might be encountered on a journey. I believe this assists viewers in locating sacred sites—which are often identified by hand-written labels—and allows them to use the painting to trace a unique pilgrimage, choosing the places they want to “visit” en route. By walking along the length of the work and following an individualized route with their eyes, I suggest that viewers are able to emulate the bodily movements of the pilgrims who make their way through the valley, performing darshan at select spots. And while viewers are unable to bathe in the purifying waters of the holy lake, they may accrue religious merit by offering worship at Gosainkund—the remnants of ritual substances sprinkled on the deity represented within the holy lake are still visible, transforming the painting into an icon and making it a potent stand-in for a physical pilgrimage.

Dr. Neerja Poddar is the Ira Brind and Stacey Spector Associate Curator of South Asian Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Please register HERE

Religious ritual in ancient Greece regularly incorporated music, so much so that certain instruments or vocal genres frequently became associated with the religious veneration of specific gods, such as Apollo, Dionysos, and Kybele. The rural, Attic cult of Pan and the Nymphs should also be included among this group: though little is often known about the specific practices in each individual cult, the literary and visual evidence associated with the cults make repeated reference to music performed on the pan-pipes — and to auditory and sensory stimuli more generally — as a prominent feature of these gods’ worship. Taking the Vari Cave, sacred to Pan and the Nymphs, as my case study, I consider it together with the surviving marble votive reliefs from that space, in order to explore the sounds and sensations associated with the veneration of the rural gods. I argue that the sensory experience offered by the cave and the images within it would have enhanced the worshipper’s experience of the ritual and the gods for whom they were performed. In this way, visual and auditory perceptions blurred together to create a powerful synaesthetic experience of the divine.

Anchored by the close analysis of a single object— a Late Classic Maya codex-style dish known as the Resurrection Plate—this talk examines a variety of empty spaces created in diverse grounds in the material culture of ancient Mesoamerica. It is argued that these collectively reflect a fundamental metaphysical conception held by Mesoamerican

peoples of holes and voids as necessary prerequisites for the emergence of life and its associated creative energies and material abundance. With iconography that appears to have anticipated the hole that was eventually drilled through its center as part of a regionally prevalent funerary practice by creating imagery that, the planned interaction of the imagery with this hole in the Resurrection Plate evokes a variety of beliefs and practices related to the act of perforation that were broadly shared across Mesoamerica. These include the breaking open of the earth to release its agricultural abundance, the drilling of fire, and the piercing of human flesh. Taken together, these associations serve to demonstrate the consistent, widespread, and transmedial experience of voids as fecund nodes of generative potential.

Register by clicking here

Tuesday, January 26th @ 6pm – The AIA Toronto Society and the Archaeology Centre present Gayle Gibson on, “One of my Oldest Friends Comes from Cobourg: The Story of Antjau, the Egyptian Mummy in the Royal Ontario Museum”

The AIA Toronto Society and the Archaeology Centre present an illustrated lecture by Gayle Gibson (Teacher, Egyptologist, Royal Ontario Museum) on “One of my Oldest Friends Comes from Cobourg: The Story of Antjau, the Egyptian Mummy in the Royal Ontario Museum.” Registration is required for this event: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BBCP7g87TY2v8gv4V12sRw

The AIA Toronto Society and the Pan-Laconian Federation of Ontario present a lecture in commemoration of the 2500th anniversary of the Battle of Thermopylae by Professor Paul A. Cartledge (Cambridge University and Honorary Citizen of Modern Sparta).

Please register at: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dYdO3ZrjRxeprHlCxb1YGA

Join us for the first lecture of our 2020/2021 season on Tuesday, October 27th at 6:00pm EST via Zoom. Dr. Patrick Hunt will be giving his talk titled “Hannibal’s [War] Elephants.” All are welcome.

Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/91573040511