2008-2009 Public Lecture Program

for the

TOLEDO SOCIETY,

the local chapter of the

ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA (AIA)

  All lectures are illustrated, non-technical, free and open to the public.

 

1.         7:30 pm, September 19 (Friday), 2008   ***********************************************

Chapurukha Kusimba, Ph.D., Curator of Anthropology, and Bruce Patterson, Ph.D., MacArthur Curator of Mammals, Department of Zoology, both at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago

        Co-sponsored by the Toledo Museum of Art as part of the “It’s Friday” series and in association with the TMA’s
                  exhibit “In Brightest Africa: Carl Akeley and African Art from the Toledo Zoo”.

          Lecture “Past and Present Archaeological and Ethnographic Research in Kenya”

Venue Toledo Museum of Art, Little Theatre [2445 Monroe St. in Toledo] . From I-75, take exit 202B at Collingwood
Blvd (if southbound) or exit 203A at Bancroft St (if northbound). Follow the signs to Monroe St. and the Toledo Museum
of Art. Park behind the Museum in its Visitors' Lot.

Lecture Synopsis This lecture addresses Carl Akeley’s contributions to zoology and the museum sciences, including anthropology. It focuses on the land, animals and peoples of Kenya reflected in his work, collecting and famous sculptures, which document and comment on the animal-human conflicts of the past 100 years.

2.         7:30 pm, October 10 (Friday), 2008   ***********************************************

Mette Moltesen, Ph.D., Curator of Ancient Art, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, Denmark, and currently a Senior Fellow in residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, NY.

        Co-sponsored by the Toledo Museum of Art as part of the “It’s Friday” series

    * * * Annual Kurt T. Luckner Lecturer * * *

 Lecture Agrippina the Younger: Sister, Wife, and Mother of Roman Emperors – the Re-used Statue of a Roman
           Empress

           Venue Toledo Museum of Art, Little Theatre [2445 Monroe St. in Toledo] . From I-75, take exit 202B at Collingwood
           Blvd (if southbound) or exit 203A at Bancroft St (if northbound). Follow the signs to Monroe St. and the Toledo Museum
           of Art. Park behind the Museum in its Visitors' Lot.

           Lecture Synopsis A rare over life-size statue in dark green Egyptian stone (greywacke) represents the Roman empress
          Agrippina as a priestess of her deified husband, the emperor Claudius. Found in fragments during construction of a hospital
          in 1884 in Rome, the head was sold to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, while the body remained in Rome at the
          Capitoline Museum. Only recently has it been possible to reconstruct the statue. Archaeological and conservation studies
          have shown that the portrait head was re-cut and re-used at a later period, perhaps to represent a late-antique empress who
          wished to model herself on one of the most influential woman of the Roman Empire.

 
3.         7:30 pm, November 14 (Friday), 2008   ***********************************************

Marcello Barbanera, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Università di Roma "La Sapienza" in Rome, Italy 

                    Co-sponsored by the Toledo Museum of Art as part of the “It’s Friday” series

           Lecture The Metamorphosis of Greek and Roman Ruins – from Aesthetics to Archaeology

           Venue Toledo Museum of Art, Little Theatre [2445 Monroe St. in Toledo] . From I-75, take exit 202B at Collingwood
           Blvd (if southbound) or exit 203A at Bancroft St (if northbound). Follow the signs to Monroe St. and the Toledo Museum
           of Art. Park behind the Museum in its Visitors' Lot.

           Lecture Synopsis Did the ancients have ancient  ruins? Yes, ruins of older buildings (city walls, destroyed  cities,
           abandoned tombs) were aleady part of the landscape that a Greek or Roman traveller could experience. For a Greek of
           the 5th century BC it was not  unusual to see ruins of a Mycenaen tombs, built 600 year earlier, and to reminisce on the
           names of famous by-gone heros. A Roman could have heard of some destroyed city, and ventured to see one, like
           Carthage or Corinth. What was the mental disposition of ancients toward their own ruins? How did western man then
           later look at ruins after the collapse of the ancient world? What was the understanding of ancient ruins in the Middle
           Ages, in the Renaissance and up to the present time? How do we deal now with ruins in a modern city like Rome, in
           attempt to make them understandable to everyone? These are some of the pertinent questions this lecture will address,
           and in doing so it will give a  panoramic view of ruins and their meaning in the western culture.

4.         7:30 pm, December 12 (Friday), 2008   ***********************************************

James A. Harrell, Ph.D., Professor of Geology at the University of Toledo in Toledo, OH; and President of the AIA-Toledo Society

        Co-sponsored by the Toledo Museum of Art as part of the “It’s Friday” series

          Lecture “In Search of Ancient Egyptian Gemstones”

          Venue Toledo Museum of Art, Little Theatre [2445 Monroe St. in Toledo] . From I-75, take exit 202B at Collingwood
          Blvd (if southbound) or exit 203A at Bancroft St (if northbound). Follow the signs to Monroe St. and the Toledo Museum
          of Art. Park behind the Museum in its Visitors' Lot.

          Lecture Synopsis A rich variety of colorful gemstones were used in ancient Egyptian jewelry and other decorative arts,
          including agate, amazonite, amethyst, carnelian, emeralds, garnet, jasper, lapis lazuli, obsidian, rock crystal, sard/sardonyx,
          and turquoise. These have been the focus of the speaker’s geoarchaeological research for the past several years. In this
          presentation, he will show examples of many beautiful pieces of gemstone jewelry and also describe his survey of the
          ancient gemstone mines in Egypt’s remote and barren deserts.  

5.         7:30 pm, January 9 (Friday), 2009   ***********************************************

Suzanne Hargrove, M.A., Chief Conservator, and Sandra Knudsen, Ph.D., Associate Curator of Ancient Art and Trustee of the AIA-Toledo Society, both at the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, OH

        Co-sponsored by the Toledo Museum of Art as part of the “It’s Friday” series

Lecture How Did They Do That? Ancient Jewelry Techniques

          Venue Toledo Museum of Art, Little Theatre [2445 Monroe St. in Toledo]. From I-75, take exit 202B at Collingwood
          Blvd (if southbound) or exit 203A at Bancroft St (if northbound). Follow the signs to Monroe St. and the Toledo Museum
          of Art. Park behind the Museum in its Visitors' Lot.

          Lecture Synopsis The Toledo Museum of Art has a small but choice selection of ancient Greek jewelry. Greek goldsmiths
          achieved a level of excellence rarely equally by artists of any other culture or time. How did they create tiny metal sculptures?
          How were they constructed? How did they decorate the surfaces with granulation and intricate wire filigree? Where did the
          gold and colored stones come from? Discover some of the secrets revealed by microscopic analysis and archaeological
          research in this presentation.

 
 
6.         7:30 pm, February 6 (Friday), 2009   ***********************************************

Geoff Emberling, Ph.D., Director of the Oriental Institute Museum and Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

        Co-sponsored by the Toledo Museum of Art as part of the “It’s Friday” series

          Lecture “Khorsabad, Capital of Ancient Assyria”

          Venue Toledo Museum of Art, Little Theatre [2445 Monroe St. in Toledo]. From I-75, take exit 202B at Collingwood
          Blvd (if southbound) or exit 203A at Bancroft St (if northbound). Follow the signs to Monroe St. and the Toledo Museum
          of Art. Park behind the Museum in its Visitors' Lot.

Lecture Synopsis When the Assyrian King Sharrukin (Sargon II) took the throne in 721 BC, he decided to build a new
capital city and proclaimed: "I built a city with the peoples of the lands which my hands had conquered at the foot of
Mount Musri...the 'Palace Without a Rival' for my royal abode I built there." Now known as Dur-Sharrukin ("Fortress of
Sargon") and in modern times more commonly as Khorsabad, the huge city was built around a citadel containing the
palace of Sargon with its great relief sculptures, as well as templesand elite residences. This lecture will present the power,
beauty, and cruelty of the Assyrian empire as illustrated at Khorsabad.

7.         7:30 pm, March 27 (Friday), 2009   ***********************************************

Margaret Cool Root, Ph.D., Professor of Near Eastern and Classical Art and Archaeology, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI

                  Co-sponsored by the Toledo Museum of Art as part of the “It’s Friday” series and in association with the Encounter
                  exhibit: “TMA Excavation at Seleucia-on-the-Tigris”

          Lecture Ancient Seleucia on the Tigris

          Venue Toledo Museum of Art, Little Theatre [2445 Monroe St. in Toledo]. From I-75, take exit 202B at Collingwood
          Blvd (if southbound) or exit 203A at Bancroft St (if northbound). Follow the signs to Monroe St. and the Toledo Museum
          of Art. Park behind the Museum in its Visitors' Lot.

          Lecture Synopsis Seleucia-on-the-Tigris (between modern Baghdad and ancient Babylon) became the capital of a powerful
          Hellenistic kingdom in 312 BC, following the death of Alexander the Great. It was a key player on the world stage for 500
          years, through much of the Roman empire. American excavations in the 1920’s and ‘30s revealed marvelous vestiges of the
          site, from its glorious heyday to its decline. This lecture highlights finds from those excavations, which (outside Baghdad
          itself) are held in Toledo, Cleveland, and Ann Arbor. It offers fresh perspectives on life, cult, commerce, and cultural
          fusion along the Silk Road of antiquity. Seleucia emerges as a city deeply resonant with age-old local Mesopotamian
          traditions, while also fostering the Classical civilization of Western colonists and embracing contacts with the Far East.

8.         7:30 pm, April 24 (Friday), 2009   ***********************************************

Lynne Lancaster, Ph.D., Professor of Classics, Ohio University in Athens, OH

        Co-sponsored by the Toledo Museum of Art as part of the “It’s Friday” series

            * * * National AIA Lecturer * * *

           Lecture Olive Oil and Architecture in Ancient Roman North Africa

           Venue Toledo Museum of Art, Little Theatre [2445 Monroe St. in Toledo]. From I-75, take exit 202B at Collingwood
           Blvd (if southbound) or exit 203A at Bancroft St (if northbound). Follow the signs to Monroe St. and the Toledo Museum
           of Art. Park behind the Museum in its Visitors' Lot.

           Lecture Synopsis This lecture examines a building technique used in Roman North Africa for constructing vaults by
           means of small hollow terracotta tubes that are inserted one into another and “glued” together with mortar. By examining
           this unique building technique, it became evident that the building industry in North Africa was intimately connected with
           the production of olive oil destined for Rome and its use of these tubes ultimately resulted in the creation of new forms of
           vaulting not found elsewhere in the Empire. Recent field surveys have produced a wealth of new information regarding
           ancient agricultural technology for olive production, ceramic production for the amphoras containing the olive oil, and also
           fine ware production. The proliferation of the vaulting tubes was also part of this period of economic growth related to
           increased agricultural production. This unique construction technique eventually was adopted elsewhere in the western
           Mediterranean, including Rome and Ravenna, where it was used to construct the dome of the famous Byzantine church of
           San Vitale. Through a series of interconnected technologies, the necessity to provide food for Rome ultimately resulted in
           a vaulting technique that created spectacular new architectural achievements.

9.         7:00 pm, May 21 (Thursday), 2009   ***********************************************

David Stothers, Ph.D. (Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toledo, Director of the Western Lake Erie Archaeological Research Program, and Archaeological Director of the Firelands Archaeological Research Center) and Glen Boatman (Research Assistant for the Western Lake Erie Archaeological Research Program and Trustee of the Firelands Archaeological Research Center, Amherst, OH)

Lecture Seaman Fort Defensive Earthworks: Archaeology of the Early Woodland in the Huron River Valley of
          Northcentral Ohio

          Venue Maumee Branch of the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library at 501 River Road in Maumee. From Anthony
          Wayne Trail (Routes US 24 & Ohio 25) exit toward the Maumee River on Key Street. At River Road turn right (west) and
           proceed a short distance. The library will be on the right with parking behind it.

           Lecture Synopsis This lecture describes the Seaman Fort site, which is the largest example of an Early Woodland
           settlement in northern Ohio. It was protected by a defensive earthwork, which indicates that warfare was a way of life
           at times during the Early Woodland period (1000 BC - 1 AD) prior to the establishment of permanent villages and
           agriculture. A display of artifacts recovered from excavations of the site will be available for viewing.

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 For more information on the Toledo Society's lecture program contact:

James A. Harrell, AIA-Toledo Society President 
(
phone: 419-530-2193; e-mail: james.harrell@utoledo.edu)

And for more information about the Toledo Society's parent organization, the Archaeological Institute of America, go to the following web site:

http:///www.archaeological.org