Rhys Townsend
Professor Emeritus, Visual and Performing Arts
Senior Research Scholar, Visual and Performing Arts
Scholarly Interests
Early Christian and Byzantine Art Underwater Archaeology Classical Tradition in Art Greek and Roman Art and Archaeology, concentrating in architecture
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Professor Townsend received B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel, where he double-majored in ancient Greek and Latin. He continued at Chapel Hill for his graduate work, changing fields to Art History and receiving his Ph.D. in 1982. That same year he joined the faculty at Clark and has been there since, with two short sojourns—one to teach at Harvard for a year, another to serve as the Program Officer for Archaeology at the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, D.C.
Professor Townsend's research interests are in classical art and archaeology generally, and ancient Greek and Roman architecture more specifically. For many years his research took him to Athens, Greece, where his work culminated in his book, The East Side of the Agora: Remains Beneath the Stoa of Attalos, volume 27 in the acclaimed series of final publications of the Excavations of the Athenian Agora, the preeminent American excavation in Greece. More recently, he has turned his attention to Roman architecture in Turkey. From 1996-2004, he directed the architectural component of the Rough Cilicia Survey Project, an archaeological survey of more than 100 square kilometers on Turkey’s southern shore, recording dozens of sites that had never been mapped before. Since 2005, he has turned his attention to the reconstruction of a Roman temple at one of these sites, Antiochia ad Cragum. He is co-editor of Rough Cilicia. New Historical and Archaeological Approaches and author of many articles on various aspects of Greek and Roman architecture.
In addition to his research, Professor Townsend has served in various administrative positions. In addition to his stint as Program Officer for Archaeology at the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, D.C., Professor Townsend has also been Chair of the Visual and Performing Arts Department at Clark; during his tenure the Traina Center for the Arts was constructed. And for five years, from 2002 to 2007, Professor Townsend was the chief administrative officer of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Founded in 1881, the American School is a research institute that provides graduate students and scholars from some 180 affiliated North American colleges and universities (of which Clark is one) a base for the advanced study of all aspects of Greek culture, from antiquity to the present day. Each year the School awards more than 20 fellowships, publishes a scholarly journal as well as several scholarly books and monographs. It has two year-round excavations, two world-class libraries, and an archaeological science lab among its facilities.
Degrees
- Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1982
- B.A., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1974
Affiliated Department(s)
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Scholarly and Creative Works
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New Old Stones at Antiochia in Rough Cilicia: A Novel City Name and a Proposed Visit by Hadrian and Sabina
Published in Journal of Roman Archaeology
March
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2021
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Issue #34
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Antiochia ad Cragum Excavations: 2018 Season
41. Kazı Sonuçları Toplantısı.41. Uluslararası Kazı, Araştırma ve Arkeometri Sempozyumu
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Diyarbakır, Turkey
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2020
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Vol. 3
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Politics, Patronage, and Architectural Style in Augustan Asia Minor
Ute Lohner-Urban and Ursula Quatember, eds, Zwischen Bruch und Kontinuität/Continuity and Change, BYZAS 25 (2020)Zwischen Bruch und Kontinuität: Architektur in Kleinasien im Übergang von Hellenismus zur römischen Kaiserzeit (Continuity and Change: Architecture in Asia Minor during the Transitional Period from Hellenism to the Roman Empire)
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Karl-Franzens-Universität, Graz, Austria
April
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2020
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Vol. 25
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The Antiochia ad Cragum Archaeological Research Project: 2018 Season
Published in Anadolu Akdenizi Arkeoloji Haberleri (ANMED)
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2019
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Vol. 17
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Antiochia ad Cragum Excavations: 2017 Season
40. Kazı Sonuçları Toplantısı40. Uluslararası Kazı, Araştırma ve Arkeometri Sempozyumu
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Çannakale, Turkey
May
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2019
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Vol. 3
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Preventative Conservation Efforts and Monument Management Plan Development for the Roman Temple at Antioch ad Cragum
13th North American Masonry Conference, Proceedings13th North American Masonry Conference
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Salt Lake City, Utah
June
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2019
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Southeastern Anatolia at a Crossroads: a Multicultural Mediterranean Area from the Hellenistic to the Early Byzantine Period
Chapter: Materials and Techniques of Construction in the Northeast Temple at Antiochia ad CragumPublished by Archaeopress
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