Upcoming conferences and workshops
As you may know, I am a fan of conferences and workshops. It is not just about travelling, but also about meeting friends and building networks. To keep going to conferences and workshops, you have to keep planning ahead. Today I would like to tell you about my plans for 2025. So far, I know that I will be attending at least three events.
CAA 2025 in Athens
From 5 to 9 May the International Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) will be held at the University of West Attica in Athens, Greece. This conference is held every year, but as last year’s event was in Auckland, I wasn’t able to attend. This year, however, it is possible and I am not only attending but also co-organising a session at the conference.

Together with Aris Politopoulos (Leiden University), Angus Mol (Leiden University) and Despoina Sampatakou (University of Glasgow) I will organise a session entitles “Is It All Fun and Games?: The Value(s) of Archaeogaming and other Forms of Play in Digital Heritage and Archaeology”. We had an archaeogaming session in Amsterdam two years ago and it was quite successful! We are expecting many presentations on this topic and hope to be able to publish the talks afterwards.
14th ICAANE 2025 in Lyon
From 2 to 7 June, the International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (ICAANE) will be held at the Université Lumière Lyon 2 and the Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée in Lyon, France. The ICAANE is a conference on the archaeology of West Asia, and of course I will be there to talk about my work in that area. I am still thinking, but I plan to present my progress on my online viewer of the Ashurbanipal relief that I am currently researching. Frankly, I think the topic will be quite appropriate and interesting.
I might even do a second presentation, but I am not sure at the moment. In any case, ICAANE is the place where I know the most people. It is always a pleasure to catch up with old friends and colleagues, as almost everyone involved in West Asian archaeology will be there. The last conference was in Copenhagen, where I also was pretty active in organising a workshop within the conference.
Workshop on Paradata in Leiden
Between the 15th and 19th of September I have been invited to a special topic workshop in Leiden. It will be a closed workshop about paradata with a special focus on 3D data, but I am really looking forward to it. Not only do I have friends in Leiden, but I also like the city very much. Spending a week there and discussing interesting topics sounds like a win.
2nd DiKopA workshop in Darmstadt
Finally, our DiKopA project will organise a second workshop in 2025. We do not have an exact date yet, but I expect it to be very late in the year. This year’s workshop was very successful and a lot of fun. I sincerely hope that next year’s workshop will be the same. Also, I am currently organising something around Archaeogaming for some students and I really hope that the students who attended that event will also attend our second workshop, but we shall see. I will keep you posted!