Visiting Lecturer of Archaeology (2007-2008)

Biography

After graduating from Vassar with a degree in Latin and Ancient Greek, Elissa spent a year as a Regular Member at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. Shortly thereafter, she became a student at the University of Michigan in the Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology.

She recently returned from 5 months in Greece, collecting data for her dissertation, entitled, "Group Identity and Participant Action: Towards a Reinterpretation of Minoan Extra-Urban Ritual Space." Issues of identity, embodiment, landscape, and material culture all contribute to how she looks at peak sanctuaries, caves, and sacred enclosures in relation to larger socio-political phenomena such as the development of complexity on Crete.

In addition to dissertation related research on Crete, other field work has taken her to Moquegua, Peru, Corinth, Greece, and Monte Polizzo, Sicily. Currently, she is involved in the Vorotan Project in southern Armenia, with John Cherry and Sue Alcock, where her focus is the analysis of lithics, primarily studying project assemblages and the southern Armenian obsidian sources.

Publications

E. Z. Faro. 2007. “What to do about Figurines?” Archaeolog – all things archaeological. Available at https://traumwerk.stanford.edu/archaeolog/archaeology_and_religion/

E. Z. Faro (forthcoming) “Caves in the Minoan Ritual Landscape.” In Stable Places and Changing Perceptions: Cave Archaeology in Greece and Adjacent Areas Monograph of the Danish Institute at Athens, edited by F. Mavridis and J. Jensen. Athens.

E. Z. Faro (forthcoming) “The chipped stone.” In Leptiminus (Lamta): a Roman port city in Tunisia. Report 3, the Urban Survey, edited by D. Stone, D. Mattingly, and N. ben Lazreg. JRA Supplement. Ann Arbor, MI.

J.F. Cherry, E.Z. Faro, and L. Minc (in prep) “Field exploration and geochemical characterization of the obsidian sources in the Syunik region, southern Armenia.”

J.F. Cherry and E.Z. Faro (in prep) “Obsidian exploitation and lithic technologies in Syunik province, southern Armenia: work by the Vorotan Project, 2005-2007.”

J.F. Cherry and E.Z. Faro (in prep) “Obsidian sources and lithic technology” In “The Vorotan Project, southern Armenia: an interim report on the 2005-2007 seasons” by S.E. Alcock, J.F. Cherry, A. Tonikyan, M. Zardaryan.

E.Z. Faro (in prep) “The ceramic assemblage: a view into ritual activity” In Vrysinas: a Minoan Peak Sanctuary by I. Tzachili