Accomplishments

Archaeology Group Digs UNL Engineers' Presentation

A poster presentation featuring the reconstruction of an ancient Roman Temple in Turkey was awarded a second-place prize from the Archaeology Institute of America Conference in January. The twist? It was awarded to a team from the College of Engineering.

Travis Schafer, a graduate student in the Architectural Engineering program at the college's Omaha campus in The Peter Kiewit Institute (PKI), presented the findings of a team of faculty and students from UNL and Clark University. Their work is restoring a Roman temple from the third century C.E. in the ancient city of Antiocheia ad Kragos.

This interdisciplinary project is led by UNL architectural engineering assistant professor Ece Erdogmus, who specializes in mason restructures; Michael Hoff, professor of art history; and Rhys Townsend, associate professor of art history at Clark University, Worcester, Mass. Work began in 2005, when the ruins consisted of a "heap of collapsed marble blocks," Erdogmus explained. Each year, a group of UNL students joins the field work team, including 2007 architectural engineering students Schafer and Mary Naughtin, and UNL art history students Emma Clute and Shana O'Connell.

Three-year funding for the project has been provided by the National Science Foundation and Harvard Loeb Classical Library Foundations, as well as through financial support from UNL. Funds continue to be raised to complete the project.