Since Tuesday, and thru till Saturday (25-29 March 2008), the 12th INTERNATIONAL AEGEAN CONFERENCE, is being held at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and the theme this time is: “DAIS - The Aegean Feast”. In addition to a very impressive amount of lectures dealing with food and feasting in Aegean archaeology, there are several lectures that will discuss aspects of food and feasting among the Philistines.

Among the many lectures (see here for the list of participants and here for the abstracts), here are those that relate to the Philistines:

Ann E. KILLEBREW (The Pennsylvania State University) and Justin S.E. LEV-TOV (Redlands),
Early Iron Age feasting and cuisine: an indicator of Philistine-Aegean connectivity?

Aren MAEIR (Bar-Ilan University), Aegean feasting and other Indo-European elements in the Philistine household?

Assaf YASUR-LANDAU (University of California at Santa Cruz),
Hard to handle: aspects of organization in Aegean and Near Eastern feasts

As you can see, I was supposed to be at the conference and present a paper, but due to the aftershocks of the long faculty strike, I felt that I could not leave for a week and a half since as is the semester had been so substantially shortened. So, I am currently sitting at home and I am not in Melbourne…

So, instead, Louise Hitchcock, who as of last season (and hopefully for many years to come) has joined the Safi staff (and will be coming with a “down under” contingent this summer), and who is also one of the organizers of the conference, was kind enough to read my paper at the conference in my absence.

Here (safihearth10thcmearen-small-version.jpg) is a picture of Louise and yours truly at the dig last summer.

I would have very much enjoyed to be at the conference, since the topic is fascinating in general, there is much to learn on the Aegean in general and the relationships between the Aegean and the Sea Peoples/Philistine phenomenon, I’ve never been to Australia, AND, there is a tour of wineries as part of the conference! Several very good reasons to go!!

Without a doubt, I will have to find another occassion to get there!

In any case, as in all previous of these conferences, the proceedings will be published in the AEGAEUM series, hopefully in the not-too-distant future.

Aren

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