2023-2024 Public
Lecture Program
for the
the local chapter
of the
ARCHAEOLOGICAL
All lectures are co-sponsored by the Toledo Museum of Art.
[last updated 20 October 2023]
1. 6:30 pm, October 13 (Friday), 2023
* * * National AIA Lecturer * * *
Speaker: Bonnie
Pitblado, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology at the
University of Oklahoma (Norman, OK)
Lecture:"Let's
Talk about Ancient Apocalypse: the Real Story of
Ice Age Peopling of the Americas”
Venue: the Little Theater at the Toledo Museum of Art
2.
6:30 pm, November 17 (Friday), 2023
* * * 2nd
Annual Mohamed El-Shafie
Memorial Lecture on Ancient
Egypt * * *
Speaker: Donald Ryan,
Ph.D., Faculty Fellow at Pacific Lutheran University
(Tacoma, WA)
Lecture: “In the Footsteps of Howard Carter in Egypt's Valley of Kings”
Synopsis: The
archaeological exploration of ancient Egypt's royal
New Kingdom cemetery, the Valley of the
Kings, offers a rich history of fascinating
discoveries made by determined and often eccentric
individuals, including Howard Carter, who was
well involved in the Valley decades before he
encountered the tomb of
Tutankhamun in 1922. In this
lecture, Don Ryan will describe some of his own
work in the Valley of the Kings during which
he literally
followed in the footsteps of Carter,
including the re-excavation of three tombs discovered by
the famed archaeologist early in his
career. One tomb is especially controversial
with its occupant identified by some as the female
ruler, Hatshepsut, after its rediscovery by Ryan.
Venue: the GlasSalon at the Toledo Museum of Art
* * * 10th Annual Dorothy M. Price Memorial Lecture on Ancient Art * * *
Speaker: Emilia Oddo, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Classical Studies at Tulane University (New Orleans, LA)
Venue: the Little Theater at the Toledo Museum of Art
4. 6:30 pm, January 12 (Friday), 2024
Speaker: Petra
Creamer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of
Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Emory University
(Atlanta, GA)
Lecture:
“
Excavating
the Assyrian Empire: An Archaeological
Project in Iraqi Kurdistan”
Synopsis: The Assyrian Empire (900-612 BCE) of ancient Mesopotamia and beyond was the largest territorial empire the world had yet seen – covering over half a million square miles in area stretching from Iran in the east to Egypt in the west. Through a regime of tremendous military might and resource extraction, the impact Assyria left changed the trajectory of ancient empires to come. This talk introduces the Assyrian Empire and its effects on those under its hegemony that are usually left out of historical records. While many studying the ancient world approach empires from the grand remains of palaces, temples, and cities, archaeologists are now turning to the countryside to study the “other half”. A new excavation project in modern-day Iraqi Kurdistan began in 2022, targeting the rural Assyrian site of Qach Rresh to understand Assyrian administration, agriculture, and power. This talk presents how current archaeological investigations at this small rural site are contributing to how we see imperial power… and imperial collapse.
Venue: the Little Theater at the Toledo Museum of Art
* * * 26th Annual Kurt T. Luckner Memorial Lecture on Ancient Art and Archaeology in Museums * * *
Speaker: Bettina
Arnold, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology at
the University of Wisconsin (Milwaukee, WI)
Lecture: “The Past on Tap: Archaeological Evidence for Ancient Alcohol in Iron Age Celtic Europe”
Synopsis: Recent archaeological discoveries in Germany and France as well as advances in organic residue analysis (ORA) have yielded important new evidence for Iron Age Celtic feasting activity. Decades of analysis of visible, well-preserved residues in bronze cauldrons, cups and pitchers has produced paleoethnobotanical evidence mainly for malt and honey-based beverages but emerging technologies in organic and inorganic chemical analysis have made it possible to analyze the contents of ceramic vessels as well as those made of metal. These novel approaches have already begun to impact our understanding of feasting and drinking in early European societies in important ways, leading to a revision of ideas of who was drinking and what was being produced locally or imported from other areas, including the Mediterranean. This lecture will review the new evidence as well as the contributions of experimental archaeology and collaborations with craft brewers interested in so-called “extreme brewing” in this area of research. Archaeologists, paleoethnobotanists, chemists and microbiologists at museums and universities working with microbreweries have replicated some of these beverages, providing us with a better sense of the intriguingly varied flavor-scapes associated with power drinking in the west-central European Iron Age and other areas of the ancient world.
Venue: the Little Theater at the Toledo Museum of
Art
6. 6:30 pm, March 15 (Friday), 2024
Lecture: “Burials, Demons, and the Etruscan Afterlife”
Synopsis: Starting
in the 7th century BCE, several Etruscan
communities in ancient Italy began decorating their
tombs and burial sites with painting and sculpture.
Within about 300 years, the imagery began to exhibit a
strong interest in afterlife themes. The tomb
paintings and sculpted sarcophagi attest to an
afterlife well-populated by protective divinities and
also demonic figures. This funerary art also expresses
a sense that the deceased reunited with their families
and friends following an underworld journey. Etruscan
inscriptions refer to an unidentified religious event
or rite of sacralization that occurred at some tombs
prior to the burial which in some way rendered the
space suitable for a person’s tomb. As such, the tomb
served as a ritual space, a location for the
articulation of hopes for the hereafter, and a spot
for underworld deities and the dead to engage with one
another. This presentation will highlight some of the
speaker’s observations about these tombs after
visiting several during her recent field season.
7. 6:30 pm, April 26 (Friday), 2024
Speaker: Kathleen
Sterling, Ph.D., Associate Professor of
Anthropology at Binghamton University (Binghamton, NY)
Lecture: “Life in Ice Age Europe: beyond Cavemen and Man the Hunter”
Synopsis: Recent
research has been rapidly upending assumptions about our
Stone Age ancestors. Conventional wisdom has seen their
lives as consisting of constant struggle, defined by
strict, “natural” gender roles and simple technologies.
Modern excavation and analytical techniques have
expanded the picture, including through ancient DNA
studies, evidence of perishable objects, signs of mutual
care, and the discovery of unexpected sites. One such
site is Peyre Blanque, an open-air site in the Central
French Pyrénées that dates to about 17,000 years ago,
where people chose not to live in a cave despite being
in a region of abundant caves and rock shelters. This
presentation will discuss ongoing work at Peyre Blanque
in the context of the new directions in
hunter-gatherer-forager archaeology that create a
fuller, more complete picture of human pasts.
8.
6:30 pm, May 17 (Friday), 2024
Lecture: “Pipedreams and Paradise: the Water System of Petra, an Ancient Desert Oasis”
Synopsis: Visitors to Petra are typically amazed by its immense scale, imposing monuments, and dramatic sheer cliffs of variegated hues. The many hydraulic features—channels, aqueducts, cisterns, dams, and pipelines—that are visible throughout the ancient city are recognized as essential for an urban population to thrive in the desert. What is often not imagined is that the highly developed water system was designed not only to serve the basic needs of the people, their animals, and crops, but to produce a surplus of water used for display and recreation, an exhibition of conspicuous consumption that signifies abundance, wealth, and power. The city’s most striking example of the use of water for display and leisure is the pleasure garden (paradeisos), located at heart of the city center. Unknown to surveyors and archaeologists working in Petra for nearly a century of exploration, the Petra Garden and Pool Complex was first identified in 1998 and, since then, has been undergoing archeological excavation, under the direction of Dr. Leigh-Ann Bedal. It is the only known example of a Nabataean garden and one of only a few examples of garden archaeology in the region. This lecture will illustrate elements of the water system of Petra and its monumental garden and pool that have been uncovered through archaeological excavation and what they reveal about the role of water in a desert city.
************************************************************************************************
(phone: 419-530-2193; e-mail:
james.harrell@utoledo.edu)