While our Belfast Annual meeting has recently come to an end, we are looking ahead already to the 30th Annual meeting, to be held in Rome! As you will be aware, the preparations have actually started years prior to this kick-off date, which happens immediately on the day after the Belfast AMBM.

Indeed, after three decades of existence, the EAA goes to Rome, to the “eternal city”. Some like this proverb, some not so much; archaeologists cannot really work with the notion of “eternity”, since our lives, work and entire perception indicate constant change. This is the main reason why the 2024 motto does not contain this well-known expression. Perhaps the most fascinating thing about our next venue is the awareness of continual changes in the material (and social) sphere. These can be detected in the palimpsest of antique buildings which have been in use over the past two millennia, undergoing adjustments according to their needs and being repaired after injuries caused by nature or by human conflicts. Yet, there is still some feeling of eternal meaning of memories and of power, as exemplified by the numerous medieval and later burial and memorial monuments that were erected in the Forum Romanum, apparently with the desire to become part of the spirit of the sacred place. These kinds of thoughts immediately hit all who read the townscape, the changes in the layers of debris, the transformation process on building walls.