Ready to bring your research to an international audience? Our Publication Grant can help! If you want to: 🌍 Translate your work into English; 📝 Turn your research into an article; 💻 Share your database online; 🔎 Publish data in another way Visit our website and apply by 27 September!✨

The MARE conference in January might feel lightyears away with summer in full swing ☀️ But before you head out for holidays or lace up your fieldwork boots, don't forget to send us your proposal! Seven days left — so finalise that draft and apply by July 24. Have a great summer! ✨ Read more here 👇

Conference 2027

conference 2027

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❗ Don't forget: the deadline for proposal submission to present at the NRN Annual Meeting in Isparta (Türkiye) is in two weeks! For more information and MARE grant opportunities, check out the MARE webpage: www.rug.nl/MARE-travel-grant

The MARE team meets each month to exchange ideas about mortuary rituals in the Roman Near East. This month, postdoc Jessica Plant joined us and shared her insights in the role of stucco in Roman tombs - so inspiring! Check out her research and the FACERE project on their website: facere.site/team/

Besides her research on funerary monuments, Tamara is working on more pretty awesome projects. Last Friday, the book on the House of the Tub in Hellenistic Halos, which she co-authored, was presented. Just leaving this here for your reading list! 📚

The CfP for the 9th Necropoleis Research Network Annual Meeting is out! Find the call, application form, and MARE grant opportunities on www.rug.nl/MARE-travel-grant , submit those forms and join us at the meeting hosted by Süleyman Demirel University in Isparta, 30 October-1 November 2026! ✨

Updates from MARE PhD Nicholas! Check out www.instagram.com/nicholasarch... or www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-... for more info about his work 👏

📣Only two weeks left to apply for the current round of the MARE Publication Grant! www.rug.nl/MARE-Publication-Grant Need some last-minute inspiration? Read all about the work of Banu Özdilek, recipient of the grant in 2025, below 🧵

New MARE team member!✨ Caroline studies the role of inscriptions in funerary rituals in Pisidia. Her PhD focuses on self-representation in funerary monuments from Thessaloniki, so funerary inscriptions are familiar territory. She's looking forward to exploring the commemorative rituals in Pisidia!

Thinking about publishing your work on funerary materials from the Roman Near East? Have a look at the MARE Publication Grant! The selection committee meets again on Friday 24 April, so now would be a good time to apply! www.rug.nl/MARE-Publication-Grant

🥳Celebrating a great achievement! On 21 November, MARE PI Lidewijde de Jong delivered her inaugural speech to officially receive the title Professor of East-Mediterranean and West-Asian Archaeology. Congratulations from the team! Obviously, we had to mark the occasion by carving her a stele 🤩

Congratulations to MARE postdoc Tamara, who has her co-authored chapter 'The Cities of the Dead' published! 🥳 In print soon: Dijkstra, T. & Borbonus, D. (2025). The Cities of the Dead. In P. Davies, & C. Williamson (Eds.), The Cambridge Urban History of Europe: Ancient Europe (Vol. 1, pp. 696-716)

Looking back on a fruitful Necropoleis Research Network Annual meeting, held in the Archaeological Museum of Chania, Crete ☀️So many inspiring presentations and conversations. Huge thanks to all organizers, speakers and attendees 🙌 Until next year!

Only one week until the Necropoleis Research Network Annual Meeting – and we’re excited to see a programme packed with inspiring themes to be explored! Looking forward to an Annual Meeting that connects scholars from across the field, fosters the exchange of ideas, and sparks new collaborations ✨

📣 MARE Publication Grant reminder! The selection committee meets again on 30 October, so make sure to apply before then :)

MARE Project @mareproject.bsky.social · last yr.

❗ Did you know that we have a MARE Publication Grant? Check out www.rug.nl/MARE-publica... for more information!

Tomorrow, prof. Jonathan Prag will give a lecture on the impact of Roman colonialism on Sicily, with a focus on epigraphic evidence. We are looking forward to it!

The call for papers for the Necropoleis Research Network (NRN) Annual Meeting in Crete, 24-26 October 2025, is out! The MARE project offers travel grants for scholars presenting on funerary materials of the Roman Near East - visit our site www.rug.nl/MARE-Travel-Grant for more information

🚨Publication alert! Want to learn more about cremation and identity in Roman Beirut? Check out this new article by Vana Kalenderian and colleagues. Highly recommended - a very interesting read! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Written in ‘her’ bones: Cremation and identity in Roman Beirut

At the time of its annexation in the 1st c. BC, cremation was not a customary practice in the Roman province of Syria. This contrasts with the western…

sciencedirect.com

❗ Did you know that we have a MARE Publication Grant? Check out www.rug.nl/MARE-publica... for more information!

Nicholas presented about Tyrian sarcophagi at the Graduate Archaeology Oxford conference this week - and discovered this sarcophagus at Blenheim Palace. It depicts Dionysus, Ariadne, Herakles, and Dionysiac thiasos. The scene was a favourite of the Romans, exclaiming 'Enjoy life while you can!' ✨

Today, PhD candidate Nicholas Aherne will introduce himself! His PhD is entitled 'Encoffined Bodies: on the Role of Decorated Sarcophagi in the Funerary Customs of Roman-period Phoenicia' 🔽

To start, we'd like to introduce one of the MARE PhD candidates: John Turco! John is working on his thesis entitled, Rituals in Space: Reconstructing Funerary Rituals through Gifts and Bones. Read more about his research in the replies ⬇️

Hi all! We are still quite new here, but starting to find our way round BlueSky. Be sure to check in, as we will introduce our team members in the next weeks. Looking forward to meet you all! :)

The sixth NINO Annual Meeting is held on Thursday 30 January at the University of Groningen. Theme: Heritage and politics in the Middle East: historical perspectives. To register, please send an email to ninoconf25@gmail.com Full program: https://buff.ly/42iqdkb

Hello all! We are the MARE (Mortuary Archaeology of the Roman East) project at the University of Groningen, and we are happy to join Bluesky! We will share updates about our research, grants, publications and more here – but check out our website as well: www.rug.nl/research/gro...

MARE - Mortuary Archaeology of the Roman East (Dutch Research Council – VICI)

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