Yet, another international congress of classical archaeology is over, the fifteenth since the first one was held in Athens in 1905, and the ninth, since 1958, patronized by AIAC. The atmosphere of the congress was friendly and relaxed, but also cold (the last word refers to the weather, for which the organizers can not be held responsible). On behalf of AIAC I wish to thank our Dutch colleagues for a well-organized and stimulating congress; however, we regret that their great efforts did not prompt a wider response. They certainly deserved it.
This year, for whatever reasons, the number of participants was lower than at previous meetings. According to the official list of participants only 447 scholars signed up, out of which 383 (= 85%) came from West-Europe (Austria 6, Belgium 7, Denmark 10, Finland 5, France 11, Germany 89, Greece 6, Italy 47, The Netherlands 138, Norway 2, Portugal 2, Spain 7, Switzerland 21, Sweden 12, United Kingdom 20), and 13 (3%) from East-Europe (Albania 1, Bulgaria 1, Croatia 1, Czech Republic 5, Hungary 1, Polen 1, Rumania 3), though a few of these scholars are well established in western countries). Another 5 (1%) came from Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa (Israel 2, Syria 2, Turkey 1), 39 (9%) from North America (Canada 3, United States 36), and 7 (2%) from other overseas countries (Australia 3, Brasil 2, New Zealand 1, South Africa 1). These numbers suggest that the notable "deserters" were English, French, Greek and Spanish, and that special efforts must be made in the future to allow scholars, especially from East-Europe and the Middle East/North Africa to participate in these congresses.

From a gender point of view women dominated counting 56% of the participants with Italy in the lead (73% women) among the nations bringing most participants to Amsterdam. The Netherlands topped the mens list with about 58% male participants, while the gender distribution among the North Americans was very well balanced.
On the threshold of a new millenium the theme for the congress was Classical Archaeology towards the Third Millenium. Reflections and Perspectives. The theme was intended to challenge the participants, and, in truth, in many ways the congress was more a presentation of the "status quo" of the discipline, rather than the presentation of visions for the future, i.e. more reflections than perspectives. However, having said this, the large variety of subjects presented demonstrated clearly that Classical Archaeology has become multidisciplinary ranging from pioneering technologies to traditional iconographical and stylistic studies.
The theme of the congress was divided into seven primary subjects, though these divisions were during the course of the congress often obfuscated by the organisation of the papers into six non-categorized sections run parallel with each other: 

1. Fieldwork: Papers on surveys and remote prospecting methods, landscape archaeology and computer applications dominated . No papers were presented on underwater archaeology or experimental and ethno-archaeology, and but one(!) focused on heritage management. 
2. Archaeometry, restoration and conservation of objects, museum archaeology: Few papers were delivered on these subjects; museum presentations dominated demonstrating a variety of solutions to improve the dialogue between the public and the specialist. Hardly anyone touched upon problems posed by pollution and the ethics of restoration, major problems in present day heritage management.
3. Architecture, built area, urban space: The major arguments dealt with by the speakers included metrology, building design, decoration and space, use/function of space. Interventions on technological research and petrology were absent. 
4. + G. Materials categories, and Iconography and iconology: Between the latter two subjects there was much overlap with a fairly well balanced division between Greek and Roman material. Viewpoints on sculpture and pottery dominated. Iconography has always been a strong field in classical archaeology and will continue to be so, but conology is an expanding field of study. A few speakers took firm standpoints against what they considered to be currently ashionable trends in the study of material categories in our field.
5. Social, economic, political issues: Greek colonization studies remain in the forefront, while odd papers touched upon trade, ethnicity, world systems theory. Strangely, no one brought up gender issues.
6. Cult, religion and funerary archaeology: Papers were fairly well distributed between themes dealing with myth and religion; symbolic meanings of objects; cult, temples and sanctuaries (function and ritual); and funerary archaeology. Few, if any, touched upon problems regarding sacred space and sacred landscape.

A new feature of this congress was the highly successful poster session. One afternoon was put aside for the presentation of posters and many might argue that more and livelier discussions were held at the various poster stands than in the auditoriums.
The official languages of the congress were, as in the past, English, French, German, and Italian. Although it has always been an AIAC policy to allow the organizing country to include the native tongue as one of the official languages, the Dutch organizers generously declined to do so.
Were this congress to be used as a model, English will have become the lingua franca employed by classical archaeologists at international meetings. Apart from native speakers, it proved to be the first choice among scholars whose native tongue was not among any of the official languages. Even among those that could have spoken in their own language, some preferred rather to use English. Of all papers given and posters offered 60% were presented in English, a very high number considering that only 14% of the participants had English as their native language, 18% were presented in Italian, 14% in German, and only 8% in French, which must be explained by the very low presence of French scholars (less than 3%).
Classical archaeology was born in an international spirit and it is its international quality that gives the disipline its strength. Research requires communication; if we cannot exchange ideas and information in a mutually intelligible manner, our field of science risk suffering severe set backs in its further development. As was pointed out during the congress, more than 25 languages are today in use by scholars in classical archaeology. Many publications aimed at the general public are, of course, published in the native language of each country; unfortunately however, due to political and economic pressure, many scientific publications are published in languages read by a select few. If this trend continues much important information will arrive on the international "research market" late, second-hand and perhaps distorted. Unfair though it may be, scholars that insist on publishing in their native tongue alone risk finding themselves exluded from international debate.
One hour of the congress was set aside for a meeting to inform colleagues in classical archaeology about AIAC. More than 100 persons, or nearly one quarter of the participants, attended the meeting, thus demonstrating in an encouraging way their interest in the association. Several interesting proposals for improving the activities of AIAC were put forward, proposals that will be presented to the AIAC board.
The purpose of AIAC's sponsorship of these quinquennial meetings is to provide an important forum to valuate the state and the directions of our discipline. We are very interested in receiving comments and criticism about the organization of the Amsterdam Congress. We also wellcome any suggestions for improvements. Finally, we should like to learn why so few went to Amsterdam, a question that was asked by many of the congress partecipants Was it too expensive, was the general theme not sufficiently challenging, was the congress held at an unfortunate time of summer, did it not offer "exotic" excursions to out-of-the-way archaeological collections or sites, or were there yet other reasons?
Please, whether you are an AIAC member or not, whether you went to Amsterdam or not, send us your observations by ordinary mail, fax, or e-mail (information on top of front page). With your consent the most interesting comments will be published in AIAC News. 

J. Rasmus BRANDT