Public Programs @ The Institute
Series: Annual Aphrodisias Lecture
New Research and Discoveries at Aphrodisias in 2026
Roland R. R. Smith, Director, Excavations at Aphrodisias;
Lincoln Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art Emeritus, University of Oxford; Research Professor, the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU
Ine Jacob, Field Director, Excavations at Aphrodisias;
Stavros Niarchos Foundation Professor of Byzantine Archaeology and Visual Culture, University of Oxford
Monday, December 7, 2026, 6:00pm
Join us to hear Roland R. R. Smith and Ine Jacobs speak about the most recent work carried out by NYU-IFA at Aphrodisias in southwest Turkey, in collaboration with Oxford University. Aphrodisias is one of the most important sites of the Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean, with superbly preserved public buildings, monuments, and houses, from the first century BC to the sixth century AD.
The 2026 season pursued restoration and anastylosis in the Sebasteion and Tetrapylon Street, excavation in the Governor’s House and the House of Kybele, and an ambitious new restoration project in the Urban Park / Place of Palms. From its underground pagan cult complex, the House of Kybele continued to bring the unexpected – such as figured wall-paintings and a mysterious inscribed Greek-Egyptian tablet.
Roland Smith is an expert in Greek and Roman art, with a special interest in the visual and urban culture of the eastern Mediterranean in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. He taught at the IFA from 1986 to 1995 and has been director of the NYU Aphrodisias project since 1991. He retired from his position as Lincoln Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art at Oxford University in 2022, and now devotes more time to Aphrodisias and the publication of the project’s results.
Ine Jacobs is a late antique and Byzantine archaeologist at the University of Oxford, where she has been Stavros Niarchos Foundation Professor of Byzantine Archaeology and Visual Culture since 2015. She has been Field Director at Aphrodisias since 2016, and has long excavation experience in Anatolia. She has a special interest in the archaeological and religious history of ordinary Christians, Jews and pagans in late antiquity.
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