The conference papers will investigate settlement practice, theory, and metaphor in building and material culture. There will be studies of geomancy and divination as determinants of traditional settlement forms, symbolic and productive landscapes, and the interplay of climate, social relationships, and ideology with settlement patterns and structures. Presentations will include Geography and Settlement in Ancient Egypt, Ritual Organization in the Ancient Indus Cities of Mohenjo Daro and Harrappa, Etruscan Boundaries and Prophecy, and Mayan Cosmology and Spatial Distribution. Case studies on settlement practice in Dahomey, Zuni, and other surviving indigenous cultures will be presented, as well as examples of extreme settlement conditions in the Russian Arctic and Saharan Oasis. 3601 Locust Walk, on the University of Pennsylvania campus.
All sessions are open to the public and free of charge.
Funding has been provided by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, and the Center for Ancient Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.