Profile
Joanne Spurza is a Classical Archaeologist specializing in Roman architecture and ancient
urbanism. She studied at Bryn Mawr College (AB, MA) and Princeton University (PhD) and is a
Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. An Associate Professor at Hunter, she teaches courses in Etruscan, Roman, Hellenistic and Egyptian archaeology, in Roman civilization and Classicalm mythology, as well as upper-level seminars on aspects of society, culture, religion and art in the Hellenistic, Roman and Late Antique periods, across the Mediterranean world. She has participated in excavation and fieldwork at Morgantina (Sicily), Polis (Cyprus), Ostia Antica and Rome.
Her principal field research centers on Ostia, port city of imperial Rome, where she has worked for three decades, in collaboration with the Parco Archeologico di Ostia Antica. Since 2008, she has directed the ‘Ostia Palazzo Imperiale Project,’ dedicated to the excavation, field study, documentation and conservation of the so-called ‘Palazzo Imperiale,’ a major, multi-purpose building complex (ca. 2nd-5th cent. CE), focusing especially on its baths and mosaic pavements. Additionally, she is co-publishing the Macellum, or covered market building, at Morgantina, Sicily – the earliest known surviving example of this building type (2nd cent. BCE).