Contents AIACNews 35: 

J. Rasmus Brandt: Editorial 

Corinna Riva:  
Il periodo orientalizzante nel Piceno  

Carmine Pellegrino:  
Il centro etrusco-campano di Pontecagnano  
 
Caroline Goodson:  
Topography of Sanctity: Building for Relics in Early Medieval Rome  

Gianfranco De Rossi:  
La topografia cristiana della diocesi di Cuma  

Editorial 

After nearly 6 years my career as president of AIAC is over. I leave the position for two reasons, firstly because according to the statutes a person is not re-eligible more than once, secondly because my contract as the director of the Norwegian institute in Rome has come to an end and I shall from 2003 take up a professorship at the University of Oslo.  

I leave the organization with mixed feelings. Personally seen it has been an interesting and challenging experience which has given me many new friends and expanded my network of colleagues in and outside Italy. Unfortunately it has also been a job that has been difficult to combine with the ever increasing and pressing demands on the director of a foreign institution in Rome. I have thus not been able to follow up the Association as much as I had wanted to.  

When I took over as president AIAC had started a period of transition, for economic and organizational reasons giving up the publication of Fasti archeologici, the annual bibliographical journal and flagship of the Association. With its limited resources the Association decided instead to invest in an Internet connection and a quarterly “bollettino” to establish a closer contact with its members. In later years its activities has been expanded to the arrangement of monthly, thematic seminars organized and presented by young Italian and foreign students in Rome, thus establishing a forum through which international networks among the younger generation of scholars can be created. 

AIAC has in recent years also taken firm stands in a few cases regarding the administration of the cultural heritage in Rome and its hinterland. The public manifestation of opinion can at times create uncomfortable feelings among members, so the ideal situation would be if the Association could become a consultant, rather than opinion maker to controversial heritage questions.  

In the future it will be important for AIAC to establish closer ties with other national and international archaeological associations, an idea I have been contemplating for some time, but not found time and energy to put into effect. Likewise it may be time to look at AIAC’s organization to see if it can be improved and made more international.  

One model could be to connect the election of the board to the International Congress of Classical Archaeology, in which case the congress ought to be arranged every three, and not every five years, as now. Such a change would establish a closer contact between AIAC and its members, and perhaps also contribute to the creation of closer contacts between classical archaeologists across the many specialized fields in our discipline. Could the Congress in Harvard/Boston in August be used as a forum to discuss the future of AIAC? 

I will use this occasion to thank all members for the support they have given AIAC through their membership. Furthermore I want to thank the board and the staff of the office for many years of pleasant and profitable collaboration. And, lastly, I am very happy to see that my two colleagues and friends in the presidency, Paolo Liverani and Lisa Fentress, has taken over as respectively president and vice-president, now assisted by Olof Brandt from the Swedish institute as secretary. The Association is absolutely in good hands. 
 

Activities of AIAC 2000-2002: 
 

XV International Congress of Classical Archaeology at Amsterdam, 1998 

The acts of the XV International Congress of Classical Archaeology, patronized by AIAC, was promptly published by the organizers of the event, in two volumes in the Allard Pierson Series 12 in the spring 2000. 

XVI International Congress of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge/Boston, 2003 

AIAC has, in close collaboration with the organizers, followed the preparations of the XVI International Congress of Classical Archaeology, to be arranged by Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge/Boston) Aug. 23-26, 2003. The theme for the congress, suggested by the organizers and approved by AIAC, is: Common grounds – the integration of archaeology, arts, science and the humanities. 

XVII International Congress of Classical Archaeology, 2008 

The board has approached a few potential organizers for the XVII International Congress of Classical Archaeology in the year 2008. The board hopes to be able to present the chosen candidate at the closing of the Cambridge/Boston congress. The aim of the board is to bring the conference back to the Mediterranean area. 

AIAC News 

In 1994 the first issue of AIAC News - Bollettino informativa dell’AIAC was published and it has since then been published regularly four times a year, at occasions as double issues. During the period of the present board nos. 22-34 have been published. The bulletin (8 pages per issue), has contained articles on ongoing archaeological research, excavations, conferences, museums, exhibitions, research projects, legislation on cultural heritage, news from AIAC, etc. Members are invited to send their contributions. J. Rasmus Brandt has been responsible editor, assisted by Walter Valentini.  

AIACNews 35 is co-edited by by J.R. Brandt and Olof Brandt (Istituto Svedese di Studi Classici), after which Nathalie de Haan (Istituto Olandese)  will take over as the new responsible editor.  

AIACNet - Internet Homepage 

In 1997 AIAC went on Internet with its own Homepage.  

In this, aimed to be a useful working tool for all interested in classical archaeology, can be found information about the association, its statutes, AIAC News articles, links to a large number of other homepages (museums and monuments, excavations, institutions, etc), and three "What's on"-agendas, one for activities in the archaeological field in Rome (Agenda Archeologica di Roma), one for all other cultural activities in Rome (Agenda Culturale di Roma, in collaboration with "Unione internazionale degli istituti di archeologia, storia e storia dell'arte in Roma"), one for archaeological activities in Athens, and one for activities in the archaeological field in Italy.  

Within the limits of its financial resources the homepage has been gradually expanded during the present board and can now on average count over 100 visits per day. 

Incontri AIAC 

In 2000 the board promoted an initiative of monthly conferences, called Incontri AIAC. The aim was to create a forum for young Italian and foreign doctoral students in Rome, in which they could present their works in progress to a wider public. The first cycle of conferences took place in 2000/2001, the third cycle of conferences is now under way.  

The conferences are arranged thematically with 2-4 speakers each time and they are headed by a discussant. The organizing committee is composed of the young  scholarss  under the auspices of AIAC, the brunt of the organisation in these three years taken by Tessa d’Alessio, doctoral student at Università degli studi di Roma (“La Sapienza”). Member institutes have graciously offered conference facilities.  

Premio AIAC 

In 2001 AIAC announced for the first time a prize of 5.000 Euro to young scholars to the support of publication costs of a scientific monograph in the field of classical archaeology. Seven works were received from scholars from Italy, England, United States, and Canada and the jury was composed by Paolo Liverani, Stephane Verger, and Sergio Rinaldi Tufi, with Tony King as external consultant.  

The prize was won by Michael MacKinnon for his thesis, Animal Production and Consumption in Roman Italy: integrating the Zooarchaeological and Ancient Textual Evidence. The work is now under publication as a supplement volume to Journal of Roman Archaeology. The jury evaluated also the works of Amy C. Smith, Political Personifications in Classical Athenian Art, and of Gabriele Cifani, Storia di una frontiera. Dinamiche territoriali nella media valle tiberina dal villanoviano alla conquista romana, worthy of publication. 

 It is the intention of the board to institute the prize as a returning event, within the financial possibilities of AIAC (see below) 

Corpus Signorum Imperi Romani 

At the International Congress of Classical Archaeology in Paris in 1963 AIAC took the initiative 
to create a Corpus, divided by land and provinces, of well documented and illustrated catalogues of Roman sculpture produced and found in various regions of the Roman Empire. In 2001, patronized by AIAC, the first two volumes of sculpture in Spain was published, followed by a third volume in 2002, bringing the total of volumes of the Corpus to 72. The Spanish volumes were presented at a manifestation at Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueolgía en Roma in collaboration with AIAC in January 2002. 

Various 

1. As communicated in the last triennial report AIAC has since 1997 been engaged in legal battles against the Italian State which wants to appropriate the association’s offices in Palazzo Venezia. In 1997 AIAC won the first legal case; in 1999 AIAC won another legal case, this time for a postulated non-paid astronomical accumulated rent for its offices, a case that was reopened in 2001 with a reduced claim. Also this case was just recently won by AIAC, but the motivation for the verdict has not yet been presented. This long period of legal cases brought against the association has, due to lawyer’s fees, inflicted some economical difficulties on AIAC, and thus reduced some of its activities in the last few years. 

2. In 2000 AIAC took officially firm stands against a plan to put an iron fence around Pantheon in Rome, and in 2001 it supported an initiative to have land around Trajan’s Portus at Ostia made accessible to visitors. 
 
I should like to use this opportunity to thank the presidency, the board members, and the office staff for a pleasant and constructive collaboration in the three years’ period now approaching its end.