The Dakhla oasis lies in a depression in the middle of one of the driest locations on Earth, some 400 miles due west of Luxor in Egypt’s Western Desert. Nevertheless it prospered: it was home to extensive cultivation and thriving settlements during the Roman period, including Amheida or ancient Trimithis. Tonight’s lecture incorporates recent work from the just-concluded 2026 excavation season at Trimithis into what we have learned over the last two decades about how Egyptians at the very edge of the Roman empire turned the western oases into a city, complete with traditional Egyptian temples (and later churches), painted villas, Roman baths, schools, and a sophisticated culture of feasting.

David Ratzan joined ISAW in 2014 as the Head of the ISAW Library. Before coming to ISAW he was a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Greek and Roman Classics at Temple University and a lecturer in Contemporary Civilization in the Core Curriculum at Columbia University, where he also served as Curator of Papyri pro tempore in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library. His publications include several edited volumes, including Missing Mothers: Maternal Absence in Antiquity (with Sabine Huebner; Peeters, 2021), and Law and Transaction Costs in the Ancient Economy (with Dennis Kehoe and Uri Yiftach-Firanko; University of Michigan Press, 2015). Starting with the 2023 field season, he is the Director of NYU's Amheida Excavations in Egypt, along with his colleague Nicola Aravecchia (Washington University), who is Archaeological Director. 

Sponsored by the department of Greek, Latin, and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and the Archaeological Institute of America. Free and open to the public.