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Jordan Pickett

patara
Associate Professor
Graduate Coordinator
Director for UGA Croatia Cultural Heritage and Archaeology Maymester Program

Jordan Pickett is an Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Georgia (UPenn, PhD 2015). His work focuses on the environment and geography of architecture and settlement in the Eastern Mediterranean. Jordan has authored or co-authored articles and chapters on climate, earthquakes, infrastructure, and architecture for the Dumbarton Oaks Papers, the Journal of Archaeological Science, PLoS One, the Journal of Late Antiquity, Quaternary Science Reviews, and Cambridge University Press, among others. 

Jordan has on-going projects concerned with Late Antique eruptions of volcanoes in South America, the evolution of Roman roads in the Balkans, and communicable diseases in Byzantium as understood from archaeology. He serves as director for UGA's Heritage and Archaeology Maymester Program in Venice and Croatia that takes 20 students abroad every year, and as graduate coordinator in the Department of Classics, the largest Latin program in the United States. Jordan is also the lead co-PI with Benjamin Anderson (Cornell) for study of fortifications on the Byzantine Acropolis at Sardis, as part of the joint Harvard-Cornell Expedition to Sardis since 1958.

Education:

MA and PhD 2015 Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World, University of Pennsylvania

BA 2007 Art History, Religious Studies, Medieval History at Indiana University

Selected Publications:

2024                “Earthquakes and State Response at Antioch” for Antioch on the Orontes: History, Society, Ecology, and Visual Culture, ed. A. de Giorgi (Cambridge: CUP, 2024), 433-450 [link]

2023                “Earthquakes and Urban Adaptation in Late Antiquity” in The Power of Nature: Agency and the Archaeology of Human-Environmental Dynamics, ed. M. Smith (Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 2023), 77-98 [link]

2022                “Settlement, environment, and climate change in SW Anatolia: dynamics of regional variation and the end of Antiquity” for PLOS One, lead co-author with Matthew Jacobson, also Alison L. Gascoigne, Dominik Fleitmann, and Hugh Elton. [link]

2022                “Water and Social Relationships in Byzantine Neighborhoods” for Byzantine Neighbourhoods, eds. B. Anderson and F. Kondyli, Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies Series (London: Routledge, 2022), 125-152. [link]

2021                “A Social Explanation for the Disappearance of Roman Thermae” for Journal of Late Antiquity 14.2 (2021): 375-414. [link]

2021                “Conflict Architecture: Making History at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, Hebron” for Architecture and Visual Culture in the Late Antique and Medieval Mediterranean, eds. V. Marinis, A. Papalexandrou, and J. Pickett (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), 177-192 [link]

2020                “Hydraulic Landscapes of Cities in the East Roman World” for Landscapes of Pre-industrial Cities, ed. G. Farhat, Landscapes Studies Series (Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2020), 115-142. [link]

2018                “Earthquakes as the Quintessential SCE [Short-Term Catastrophic Event]: Methodology and Societal Resilience” for Human Ecology 46special issue with the Princeton Climate Change and History Research Initiative, eds. J. Haldon, A. Izdebski, and S. White (2018): 1-14 [lead co-author with Lee Mordechai] [link]

2017                “Water and Empire in the de Aedificiis of Procopius” for Dumbarton Oaks Papers 71 (2017): 95-125 [link1/link2

2016                “Architectural energetics for tumuli construction: the case of the medieval Chungul Kurgan on the Eurasian Steppe” for Journal of Archaeological Science 75 (2016): 101-14 [first author with John Schreck, Renata Holod, Yuriy Rassamakin, Oleksandr Halenko, Warren Woodfin] [link

2016                “Temples, Churches, Cisterns and Pipes: Water in Late Antique Ephesus,” in De Aquaeductu Atque Aqua Urbium Lyciae Pamphyliae Pisidiae: The Legacy of Sextus Julius Frontinus, International Congress on the History of Water Management and Hydraulic Engineering in the Mediterranean Region. Antalya, October 31 – November 9, 2014, ed. G. Wiplinger, Babesch Annual Papers on Mediterranean Archaeology Supplement 27 (Leuven: Babesch/Peeters, 2016), 297-312 [link]

2016                “The environmental, archaeological and historical evidence for climatic changes and their societal impacts in the Eastern Mediterranean in Late Antiquity”, for Quaternary Science Review 136: 189-208 [2nd co-author with Adam Izdebski, Neil Roberts, Tomasz Waliszweski] [link]

2016                “Water in Byzantium” in Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Belgrade 22-27 August 2016: Round Tables, eds. B. Krasmanović and L. Milanović (Belgrade: AIEB), 835-839 [link]

2014                “Patronage Contested: Archaeology, Crusader Interventions, and the Early Modern Struggle for Possession at the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem,” in Visual Constructs of Jerusalem, eds. Bianca Kühnel, Galit Noga-Banai, Hanna Vorholt = Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, no. 18 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), pp. 35-45 [link]

2013                “The University of Pennsylvania Excavations (1927-1933) in Historical Context: Biblical Archaeology and the Late Antique” and “Religious Devotion in Domestic Contexts”, Late Antique Beth Shean Revisited Issue, Expedition Magazine of theUniversity Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology 55.1 (Philadelphia: University Museum Press, Spring 2013): pp. 12-15 and 21-23 [link]

2011                “The Apse Mosaic of Hagia Eirene: the Splendor of Iconoclasm” in Mosaics of Anatolia, ed. G. Sözen (Istanbul, 2011): pp. 309-320 [link]

Articles Featuring Jordan Pickett

Professor Jordan Pickett will be presenting this week at Indiana University's "Macedonia in the Mediterrranean Context: Ports, Connections, and Culture" conference, alongside speakers from across the US, UK, and Greece.

Undergraduate Programs

UGA Classics explores Greek and Roman culture (material; intellectual; religious) from Troy to Augustine; Classical languages and literatures (Greek, Latin, and in English translation); and the reception of Classical Antiquity with A.B. and M.A. Classics degrees with multiple areas of emphasis. Double Dawgs degrees focus on careers in Historic Preservation and World Language Education. Minor degrees in Classical Culture and Classics and Comparative Cultures complement degree programs across campus. New to Classics? Take a course with us on campus or in Europe and acquire future-ready skills.

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