Professor Yoshiyuki Suto, Nagoya University, Japan
Professor Suto, one of the leading Classicists in Japan, will be visiting the Department of Classics October 1-10, 2006. He is one of the principal excavators of the important settlement site of Akoris in Middle Egypt. Professor Suto will give two lectures during his stay at Stanford:

For the Department of Classics, Professor Suto will present:
Text and Local Community in the chora of Ptolemaic Egypt
"In this lecture I will discuss the social function of several Greek inscriptions from Ptolemaic Egypt. Although the documentary papyri tend to give the impression of a highly centralized state structure, various texts inscribed on natural rock or on temple walls shows us the manner in which local elites also played a significant role in mediating the relationship between the ruling Greeks and local inhabitants. By examining these texts I would like to shed new light on the social dynamics inside one particular local community of Middle Egypt, where our Japanese mission has been conducting archaeological investigations since 1997."

For the Archaeology Center at Stanford, Professor Suto will present:
Akoris: Excavating a Hellenistic Village in Middle Egypt
"The archaeological investigations at Akoris have yielded valuable data concerning life in a small village in Late Period and Hellenistic Middle Egypt. One of the most surprising results is the discovery of more than three hundred stamped amphora-handles of Mediterranean origins. They clearly show that this rural village was not socially isolated under the Ptolemaic rule but retained close economic relations with Alexandria, and that people enjoyed the common cultural milieu of the contemporary Eastern Mediterranean World. I will also discuss the significance of the activities in the nearby limestone quarry fields, the extensive traces of which afford valuable clues in a local quarrying operation in Ptolemaic times."