About the Symposium

The geographical scope of the symposium is the Mediterranean basin which has been home to Near Eastern, Ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman civilizations. The topics addressed in the symposium cover a broad chronological period starting from the 3rd millennium BC until the end of the 19th century AD. In this context, the symposium will feature papers on shopping practices in similar and different cultural geographies and the tools used in shopping. The platform will include all elements of the shopping practice and the proceedings will be published within one year. The main focus of the symposium will be the cultural, political and economic aspects of shopping practices in Mediterranean cultures however, it is expected that various related topics such as shopping tools like scales and steelyards and their weights, and coins when associated with shopping; depictions of shopping activity or tradesmen featured on sculptures and reliefs, wall and vase paintings, mosaics; epigraphic and literary sources as well as shopping facilities like agorae and shops will also be covered. The symposium will also include presentations on material in museums and collections or found during archaeological excavations. The symposium will be held between 27 and 29 November 2023 at Koç University AKMED Conference Hall in Antalya, a city on the Mediterranean coast of Türkiye. The travel and accommodation of the invited participants will be covered by AKMED, and there will be no participation fee. The symposium language is English and the duration allocated per presentation is limited to 20 minutes plus 10-minute discussion.
We express our gratitude to Dumbarton Oaks for their generous support to the symposium.