Open MINDS Institute with Giovanni Ruffini, "Christian River: Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia from Rome to Islam" - Tuesday, October 26 at 12:00 PM

The ancient civilizations of the Nile Valley present a paradox to the modern world. They have left us thousands of years of accomplished art and architecture and an unbroken literate tradition dating from antiquity to the present day. And yet they remain largely unknown. Their Christian periods give us the chance to study indigenous African civilizations at the intersection of classical antiquity and the rise of Islam.

Giovanni Ruffini is a professor of classical studies in the Department of History at Fairfield University. He specializes in the social and economic history of Greco-Roman history and of Christian Nubia. He is the author of Life in an Egyptian Village in Late Antiquity: Aphrodito Before and After the Islamic Conquest (Cambridge); Medieval Nubia: A Social and Economic History (Oxford); and Social Networks in Byzantine Egypt (Cambridge).