What we’re about
**www.BASONOVA.org**
BASONOVA WEBSITE
BASONOVA is a non-sectarian society open to anyone who has an interest in biblical-era archaeology or the history of ancient times. During Covid we met exclusively by Zoom. We are now returning to meeting in-person at a variety of local Northern Virginia ethnic restaurants. Sharing group tables, we break bread with interesting people from all walks of life. We call ourselves a society because there is an important social aspect to our organization, which recently began its third decade.
Join us to listen to well-informed scholars and field archaeologists. Many of these lecturers have international reputations and educate us for an hour with richly illustrated images of their work.
Since the pandemic, we joined with our sister group in Maryland, BAF, to host a long season of twice-monthly virtual Zoom lectures. BASONOVA began in 1994 as an unofficial offshoot of Hershel Shanks' Biblical Archaeology Society and has grown to become a popular destination to meet a wide range of warm and thoughtful people interested in the biblical history and archaeology of ancient times.
**Membership form at: www.basonova.org**
LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU. BE SAFE!
~ Don
Board Member
Upcoming events
1
Archaeology and the Creation of the Iliad and the Odyssey
Location not specified yetWednesday, December 10, 2025 at 8 pm via Zoom
Myths, Monument, and Memory: Archaeology and the Creation of the Iliad and the Odyssey
Speaker: Michael Cosmopoulos – University of Missouri at St. Louis
This lecture examines how the physical remnants of the past, ruins, monuments, and long-lived “places of memory”, shaped the creation of the Homeric epics. Drawing on archaeological evidence from several ancient Greek sites, including Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos, Iklaina, and Eleusis, it explores how visible Mycenaean structures endured in the landscape for centuries and became anchors for oral traditions that preserved and reshaped memories of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages.
These enduring remains fed a shared reservoir of heroic stories that eventually crystallized into the Iliad and the Odyssey. The lecture concludes by reconsidering the origins of the epics and the likelihood of multiple poets behind “Homer.”
Reservations are required. Please register.at:
https://basonova.org/next-lecture-reservation.html8 attendees
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