Visiting Assistant Professor
Area of Specialization
Biography
Victor Martínez is an art historian and active field archeologist, with a primary focus on the material culture of the Roman Empire. Dr. Martínez began his archaeological career by excavating with the Palatine East Excavations (PEE), a short distance from the Colosseum in Rome, Italy. He is committed to the archaeologist’s responsibility to study excavated materials from the initial research question, to the trench, and through to final publication. He has published the terracotta sculpture from the site. Currently, he serves as associate director of the Palatine East Pottery Project (PEPP), whose task it is to study and to publish the near 20 tons of ancient Roman pottery recovered from the excavation. PEPP’s findings will be published as part of RES ROMANAE, the online portal for the University of California Berkeley’s Roman Material Culture Laboratory. Dr. Martínez will further build upon this research for a book, entitled Networks of Consumption: Feeding the Imperial Roman Capital ca. 250-550 CE.
Dr. Martínez is also co-director of the Northern Valleys Research Project, which examines the cultural and urban transformations of Spain’s Upper Ebro Valley from the Roman era to the Middle Ages. This project combines traditional and digital humanities methods. Currently, the research team plans to produce a 3D model of medieval Nájera and an edited volume, Building Memory: Materializing Cultural Identities at San Vicente del Valle from the Roman Imperium to the Kingdom of Castile.
Dr. Martínez was a first-generation college student and is the child of immigrants, experiences that form the foundation of his own teaching philosophy. As a Chicano scholar and professor, Dr. Martínez has a special passion for mentoring students from underrepresented communities and underprivileged backgrounds. Professionally, he has leveraged these interests while serving on the Committee on Diversity and Inclusion for Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS). Throughout his career Dr. Martínez has further been an advocate for the preservation and protection of all cultural objects, sites, and knowledge, having served two terms on the Cultural Heritage Policy Committee of the Archaeological Institute of America.
Education Details
Ph.D University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
M.A. University of Missouri-Columbia
B.A. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Selected Publications
“Aswan Ware in the Tyrrhenian Central Italy,” Acta Rei Cretariae Romanae Fautores 47 (2023) 77-85. Co-authored with Archer Martin
“Same as it ever was? Structured Light 3D-scanning and Specific Gravity of Late Roman transport amphorae from North Africa and Spain,” pp. 366-372 in V. Caminneci, E. Giannitrapani, M. C. Parello, M. S. Rizzo, eds. LRCW 6: Late Roman Coarse Wares, Cooking Wares and Amphorae in the Mediterranean: Archaeology and Archaeometry. Land and Sea: Pottery Routes. Roman and Late Antique Mediterranean Pottery 19. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2023. Co-authored with J. Ikaheimo.
Guest participant, with Las Nietas de Nonò, in the art film, FOODTOPIA: en el suelo áspero (2022)
“Image Matters: Augustan Renovation before Actium,” pp. 471-493 in M. C. Pimentel, A. M. Lóio Simões Rodrigues, and R. Furtado, eds. Augustan Papers. New Approaches to the Age of Augustus on the Bimillennium of His Death (=Spudasmata 184.2). New York and Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 2020.
“Rethinking the fragmentary (w)hole in archaeology: a microscopic paradigm for understanding macroscopic problems,” pp. 233-248 in T. Derda, J. Hilder, and J. Kwapisz, eds. Fragments, Holes and Wholes: Reconstructing the Ancient World in Theory and Practice. Journal of Juristic Papyrology Supplements, Volume 30. Warsaw: University of Warsaw, Department of Papyrology, 2017.
Selected Awards
AIA-NEH Grants for Post-Fieldwork Research and Publication (2023)
Visiting Scholar, American Academy in Rome (2022)
Franklin Research Grant, American Philosophical Society (2018, 2014)