Poseidon's Return: Representing the Turbulence of Climate Change

The classical archaeological site of Paestum (Campania, Italy) and the associated museum constitute one of the most important centres for the conservation and study of Greek and Roman material culture. The site has been twice listed by UNESCO in recognition of its exceptional architectural and environmental character. While archaeological excavations continue, the Museum promotes an innovative program of conferences, symposia and other cultural events whose object is to the reinterpretation of the classical heritage in the contemporary moment. Dr. Gabriel Zuchtriegel, with whom I co-curated the exhibition Poseidonia city of water, characterised our exhibition and associated research program as the most ambitious and significant achievement of his first period of tenure. The exhibition was widely reviewed in the press and attracted exceptional numbers of visitors. The exhibition catalogue, in which my chapters appear, is a peer-reviewed research publication of extraordinary interdisciplinary interest as it successfully and profoundly rethinks the relationship of archaeological knowledge and responsibility to the current environmental crisis; without any dilution of scholarship, in fact through a decisive strengthening of interconnections between the environmental sciences, the arts and the related fields of classical material archaeology and philological studies, it breaks entirely new ground in demonstrating the relevance of the new humanities to the understanding and management of climate change. This publication, like the preceding 2018 conference in which I also participated, attracted all the leading figures in Southern Italian classical archaeological research. The scientific committee for the publication consisted of leading scholars in the relevant fields.