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Welcome to the webpage of the Accordia Research Institute

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Accordia is a research institute in the University of London. It operates in association with the Institute of Archaeology, UCL and with the Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. It is dedicated to the promotion and co-ordination of research into all aspects of early Italy, from first settlement to the end of the pre-industrial period. 

 

We organise lectures, research seminars, conferences and exhibitions on aspects of Italian archaeology and history, and publish a regular journal on the same theme; details of the 2024-2025 lecture series can be found here. 

 

Accordia also has an extensive programme of research publications. We publish specialist volumes, seminars, conferences and excavation reports. Our policy is to encourage and support research into early Italy, especially by younger scholars, to get new work disseminated as rapidly as possible, and to improve access to recent and innovative research. We believe our books and our journal represent a valuable contribution to the development of the subject area. Accordia publishes its own Journal, the Accordia Research Papers. 

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We also run - or are associated with - a number of research and fieldwork projects based in Britain and in Italy.

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Accordia operates on a voluntary, non-profit basis, supported by subscriptions and donations. Publications are self-financing. Everyone gives their services without payment.

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News and Recent Publications​

 

We are pleased to announce the creation of a new prize for the best paper in the Early Career Talks series. The winner will be chosen by an Accordia committee and the prize will consist of 10 Accordia books of the winner’s choice.  We are happy to share that Giacomo Fontana (now of Texas Tech University) is the winner for 2023-2024 for his talk on ‘Empty hillforts: challenging narratives on Samnite society beyond urban-centric views’. Congratulations, Giacomo!

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• The Accordia Research Papers 16 (2019-2023) was published in summer 2024.​
   

• A new book edited by Fabio Saccoccio and Elisa Vecchi, entitled, Who do you think you are? Ethnicity in the Iron Age Mediterranean was released in 2022.

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Accordia Events  2024-2025

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The full programme for this year's Accordia Lectures can be found here. This year we are continuing with in person lectures, held either at the Senate House or the Institute of Archaeology in Gordon Square.

 

The second series of Early Career Researcher seminars organised in conjunction with the University of Nottingham is held on Zoom.

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Accordia Lecture

Tuesday, March 11, 17.30​

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Joint Lecture with the Institute of Classical Studies

Room 264, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1

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Ritual behaviour in early Roman religion: opportunities and challenges of an archaeo-anthropological perspective

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Vincenzo Timpano, Humboldt University of Berlin​

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The study of ancient religion has long been based on a philological approach, while more recently attention has been paid to archaeological evidence, often considered as a support to what is transmitted by written sources, especially in the case of cultures with a significant textual tradition of a religious nature. The qualitative improvement of archaeological data has led to the analysis of the material remains of ritual behaviour, the so-called votive deposits, an improper definition of more or less coherent sets of finds, too often dismissed as simple deposits of discarded material and/or studied through a chrono-typological approach. More recently, however, a holistic approach has been adopted that considers their topographical/stratigraphic context, their intrinsic characteristics, as well as their relationship with the architecture / spatial organisation and cultic paraphernalia of the site to which they belong. Less attention has been paid to the immaterial elements of religious ritual practices – sacred utterances, myths, religious beliefs, partially described by other types of sources – which can be investigated by analysing the significant relationship between the physical and cognitive dimensions of ritual: through their material presence, artefacts, architecture and landscapes, they contribute to making thoughts and beliefs tangible.

With particular reference to Archaic Rome, and on the basis of a context-specific methodology, this presentation explores recent insights in the archaeology of ritual, and will also attempt to determine the specific meaning and relevance of ritual behaviour with regard to the life cycle of cult buildings and the perception of (ritual/collective) memory in early Roman society.

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The sacred area of S. Omobono after the demolition of the 1930s

(AFSRCM, S. Omobono, b. 29, 1, c. 3349a)

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Accordia Early Career Talks 

Tuesday, March 25, 2025  at 17:30 via Zoom 

 

A Tale of Two Cities: Ardea and Satricum’s cult places and their environment between the Archaic and the Middle Republican Ages

Tommaso Della Seta, University of Groningen

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The Copper Age in Liguria and the spread of the Bell Beaker phenomenon

Chiara Dodero, University of Genoa

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