Maaike van Berkel, Lucinda Dirven, Mark de Kreij
Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
The NINO Annual Meeting is a gathering of advanced students and researchers in the field of Near Eastern studies – spanning antiquity to the early modern period. It offers a lively forum for sharing current projects, discussing new ideas, and connecting with colleagues across disciplines. This year, Radboud University is hosting the annual NINO day.
The organisers look forward to welcoming all scholars working on the Near East for a conference around the topic of Makers, Materials, and Us. Crafts and Industries in the Near East (3000 CE–Now).
The ancient world comes down to us primarily through artefacts and monuments. One way or another, all disciplines engaged in studying the Near East analyse these things to think and talk about people. At this year’s NINO day, we invite scholars to focus specifically on the substance of ancient objects and structures, and the hands of their makers.
Canals dug in the Egyptian desert, clay tablets from Ur, hand-made pottery, finely crafted manuscripts, all of these items of use have a story to tell about the context of their creation. The materials and tools selected did not only determine the shape of the object in the past, but they also influence the object’s journey through time and space to their current place in, e.g., museum collections.
Maaike van Berkel, Lucinda Dirven, Mark de Kreij – Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen.
The keynote lecture will be given by Prof. Nadine Panayot: Who Makes an Object? The Afterlives of Ancient Glass.
As curator of the Archaeological Museum of the American University of Beirut, she initiated an impressive project after the Beirut explosion of 2020 (see video below).
The afterlife of ancient objects, and how we, as researchers, engage with them in their current locations, will be the subject of a roundtable discussion at the end of the day. Several heritage experts, in addition to our keynote speaker, will take part in this discussion and interact with the public.
An award ceremony of the NINO Thesis Prizes 2026 is part of the Annual Meeting.
Attendance is free of charge; please register.