Director, Kelsey Museum of Art; Professor, Classical Studies/History of Art
ratte@umich.eduOffice Information:
phone: 734.764.0547
Center for Middle Eastern & North African Studies; CMENAS Faculty
Education/Degree:
PhD Classical Archaeology, University of California, Berkeley, 1989MA Classical Archaeology, University of California, Berkeley, 1984
BA Classical Archaeology, Harvard College, 1981
Highlighted Work and Publications
Vani Regional Survey
Christopher Ratte, G. Kvirkvelia and R. Hughes
Name of Periodical: Georgian Archaeology at the Turn of the 21st century
Year of Publication: 2010
Page Numbers: 32-34
New Research on the Region around Aphrodisias
Christopher Ratte
Name of Periodical: Hellenistic Karia
Year of Publication: 2010
Page Numbers: 253-67
The Carians and the Lydians
Christopher Ratte
Name of Periodical: Die Karer und die Anderen
Year of Publication: 2009
Page Numbers: 135-47
The Founding of Aphrodisias
Christopher Ratte
Name of Periodical: Aphrodisias Papers 4: Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 70
Year of Publication: 2008
Page Numbers: 7-36
Reflections on the Urban Development of Hellenistic Sardis
Christopher Ratte
Name of Periodical: Love for Lydia
Year of Publication: 2008
Page Numbers: 125-33
Aphrodisias V: The Aphrodisias Regional Survey
Christopher Ratte and P.D. De Staebler, Editors
Excavations at the Hellenistic and Roman town of Aphrodisias in southwest Turkey have revealed an unusually well-preserved ancient city of approximately 10,000 inhabitants, famous in antiquity for its sanctuary of Aphrodite and its virtuoso sculptors. This volume presents the results of an archaeological survey of the surrounding region, carried out between 2005 and 2009. This project combined intensive and extensive survey, remote sensing, and geological reconnaissance in an interdisciplinary study of the interaction between human habitation and the natural environment in an 800-square...
See MoreLydian Architecture: Ashlar Masonry Structures at Sardis
Christopher Ratte
From the sixth to the fourth century B.C., the western Anatolian region of Lydia was home to a distinctive local tradition of ashlar masonry construction. The earliest datable example of fine stone masonry in the environs of Sardis, the capital of the Lydian empire, is the tomb of King Alyattes, who died in ca. 560 B.C. Contemporary monuments include a city gate and monumental terraces. Alyattes’ son Croesus was overthrown by the Persians in 547 B.C., but the Lydian building tradition survived in chamber tombs at Sardis and throughout Lydia.
This richly illustrated volume examines...
See MoreArchaeology and the Cities of Asia Minor in Late Antiquity
Ortwin Daily and Christopher Ratte, Editors
The city was the fundamental social institution of Greek and Roman culture. More than the sack of Rome, the abandonment of provincial towns throughout the Mediterranean world in late antiquity (fourth-seventh centuries A.D.) marks the beginning of the Middle Ages. This volume examines archaeological evidence for this last phase of urban life in Asia Minor, one of the Roman empires most prosperous regions. Based on the proceedings of a symposium co-sponsored by the University of Michigan and the German Archaeological Institute, it brings together studies by an international group of ...
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