HITTITES, GREEKS AND THEIR NEIGHBORS IN ANCIENT ANATOLIA
AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTION

Over a two and a half day period, thirty-five scholars from a variety of disciplines, including archaeology and art history, linguistics, philology and history, who have traveled from 13 countries and 4 continents and whose interests cover the entire eastern Mediterranean world gathered at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia to engage in a dialogue about cross-cultural interaction in Anatolia (ancient Turkey). Anatolia’s geographical position made it a key player in the eastern Mediterranean network, as a result of which its inhabitants were exposed to cultural contacts of many kinds. Yet only recently has its importance as a cultural intermediary between east and west begun to be fully appreciated. The purpose of the conference was to bring together scholars who might not normally travel in the same academic circles to engage in a discussion about Anatolia’s many cultural interfaces.

The weekend was a tremendous success, in large part because it successfully blended scholars from different fields of interest. Many participants have reported establishing new collaborations as a direct result of the meeting. One participant, Craig Melchert (Chapel Hill), summed it up when he wrote afterwards, “Thanks again to you and all of your helpers and sponsors for your excellent organization and generous hospitality. We participants were quite royally treated in terms of amenities, and I was also impressed by how smoothly the inevitable media problems were handled. One always wishes for more discussion time, but I can assure you that plenty went on outside the formal sessions, which is where most such interchange happens. The difference in this case was that you successfully brought together a much wider range of participants than usual, so there was real "cross pollination" not just specialized shop talk. I certainly learned a great deal and made useful new contacts.”
Keynote speaker and Mycenologist, Thomas G. Palaima (University of Texas at Austin), had this to say: “Thank you very much again for including me in the conference. It was very well run and the papers were of uniformly high quality. I also had a chance to talk over serious issues with about a dozen Anatolian/ NE types. It has led to two proposed collaborative papers and two young scholars on now planning to visit my research program. This is just great.”

The participants had high praise not only for the content and quality of the papers but also for the arrangements, including the hotel accommodations, the catering, the book display, and especially the beautiful Reception Hall at the Michael C. Carlos Museum where the sessions were held. An additional highlight was dinner on Saturday evening on the balcony of the Sycamore Grill in the historic village of Stone Mountain, Georgia, which offered loads of southern charm.

The Conference coincided with the grand opening of the new Galleries of Greek and Roman Art at the Michael C. Carlos Museum. The galleries present the Museum's classical collection in a new light, with dozens of recently acquired works on view for the first time, including the finest portrait of the Roman emperor Tiberius in the world. One of the highlights of the weekend was a brief tour of this exhibit, led by Curator Jasper Gaunt.

Hosted and co-sponsored by the Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies Department, the Conference was made possible by the generous support of many sponsors. From within Emory, the sponsors include the Center for Humanistic Inquiry, the Department of Anthropology, the Department of Art History, the Department of Classics, the Department of Religion, the Graduate Division of Religion, the Graduate Program in Culture, History and Theory, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Institute for Comparative and International Studies, the Michael C. Carlos Museum, the Office of International Affairs, the Program in Classical Studies, the Program in Mediterranean Archaeology and the Program in Linguistics. Support from outside the University came from the American Schools of Oriental Research, the Georgia Middle East Studies Consortium, the Georgia Humanities Council, the Foundation for Biblical Archaeology and the Hightower Fund.

Co-organizing the conference were Billie Jean Collins, Lecturer at Emory University, Mary Bachvarova, Professor of Classics at Willamette University and Ian Rutherford, Professor of Classics at Florida State University. The organizers plan to publish the papers in a conference proceedings. Updates on the progress of the volume will be posted on the official conference website at www.mesas.emory.edu/anatconf/. In the meantime, the abstracts of the papers will continue to be available there as well, along with pictorial highlights.

The conference was attended by many within the Emory community as well as by lay persons from the larger Atlanta community. Presenters included senior scholars as well as graduate students and we were particularly pleased that we were able to provide travel support to ensure the participation of young scholars from Europe as well as the United States. Another benefit of the conference was that many of the presenters from overseas left Atlanta bound for other locations within the United States either to give lectures or carry out other collaborations.

“Hittites, Greek and Their Neighbors” underscored how all our fields of study can benefit from a cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary approach. And if we have drawn attention to the importance of Anatolia in recovering the cultural heritage of the western world, then our efforts have been worthwhile. Many expressed the hope that this conference might be the beginning of a regular series of conferences on the topic. Itamar Singer (Tel Aviv University) predicted that the Conference would usher in a new era of cross-disciplinary cooperation and that this new attitude should be known as the “Atlanta spirit.”