Announcements

---

22‒23 May 2025

Meant to Move: Kinetic Expression in Figurines from Ancient Western Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean

Freie Universität, Berlin, 

BerGSAS Auditorium, Hittorfstr. 18

Interdisciplinary workshop conceptualized and organized by Elisa Roßberger and Marina Weiss (Institute of Near Eastern Archaeology of the Freie Universität, Berlin), in cooperation with Régine Hunziker-Rodewald (Straßburg/Berlin), Stephanie Langin-Hooper (Dallas), and Enrica Inversi (London). Supported by EXC 2020 Temporal Communities and hosted by BerGSAS.

Made of clay, stone, and other materials, ancient figurines capture postures and gestures, and reflect everyday and ritual actions, practices, and thoughts. Though static, they encapsulate sequences of motion and encode cognitive frameworks and embodied experiences.

This workshop explores figurines from ancient Western Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean during the second and first millennia BCE as markers of action and experience, and thus as entry points for associative thinking within distinct cognitive realms or performative settings. We will examine their role as both representations and active agents, capable of embodied responses and performative engagement.

For more information and the program, click here.