Laurel Taylor, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Art History
ltaylor@unca.edu
Laurel Taylor is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Art History. She teaches a wide variety of courses on material culture, art history and archaeology. Her research interests include funerary ritual and commemoration and rural archaeology. Dr. Taylor’s current archaeological fieldwork is at the Etruscan and Roman site of Cetamura del Chianti, Italy. Dr. Taylor has also directed excavations at the UNC Asheville field school at Palazzaccio, a Roman period farmhouse located outside of Lucca, Italy, and part of the UNESCO ‘Project of 100 Roman Farms’. Previously Dr. Taylor worked with the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell's excavations at a palace of Herod the Great in Caesarea Maritima, Israel and has published preliminary studies on the mosaic and fresco remains from the palace. Dr. Taylor is president of the Western North Carolina chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America. Her publications include a wide range of topics, from gender studies to craft in the ancient world to funerary ritual and monuments. She served as the co-chair for the Etruscan Interest Group (2019-2021) for the Archaeological Institute of America and currently serves as the Editor in Chief for the Journal of Etruscan and Italic Studies.
Education
PhD, Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Pennsylvania
MA, Classical Archaeology, Florida State University
BA, International Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Selected Publications
“Multum in Parvo: Miniature Votives, Artisans and Ritual at Cetamura del Chianti” in Sacred Landscapes of Roman Central Italy. Votive Deposits and Sanctuaries (400 BC - 400 AD) eds. F. Fabbri and A. Sebastiani. Brepols, MediTo Series. (Forthcoming)
Co-editor and author, Consumption, Ritual and Society: Interpretive Approaches to Food and Drink in Etruscan Art and Archaeology. Brepols, New Approaches in Archaeology (Forthcoming May 2023).
“Beyond the Banquet: Typologies of feasting in Etruscan Visual and Material Culture,” in Consumption, Ritual and Society: Interpretive Approaches to Food and Drink in Etruscan Art and Archaeology (Forthcoming May 2023).
Contributing author, curated exhibition, “I Romani nel Chianti,” Chianti Museum, Gaiole in Chianti, June-September 2022.
Book Review: Jacopo Tabolli. Veii (Cities and Communities of the Etruscans). Austin: University of Texas Press, 2019. The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 111 , November 2021 , pp. 266 - 268 DOI: <https://doi.org/10.1017/S0075435821000101 >
Selected Papers
Panel workshop: Archaeological Institute of America, Annual conference, “Engaging with Etruscans: some pedagogical strategies.” (New Orleans, 2023)
Organizer, Archaeological Institute of America, Annual international conference
(January 2022): Dynamics of scale: manipulation, perception and agency in Pre-Roman Italy.