AIA - Minnesota

Jeff Pearson on The Nabataean Achievement at Petra

2012-01-24T14:40:00.000-08:00

Thursday, February 2, 2011 at 6pm in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College

Lecture Summary: After languishing for centuries in obscurity, the archaeological ruins of Petra have become much better known in recent years, thanks to popularization by the movies, UNESCO World Heritage Site designation, and (relatively) favorable political conditions in Jordan. Nevertheless, the Nabataean people, who were responsible for building the spectacular monuments we see today at Petra, remain under-examined and little understood, although their remarkable civilization flourished in the Near East for over four hundred years. Long in control of the routes by which incense and spices were moved to Mediterranean markets and persistently defying the efforts of other great empires to subdue them, they engineered a capital whose monuments captured much of the best of international fashions yet remained uniquely Nabataean in both spirit and function. This lecture will provide an introduction to this enduring legacy at Petra, while also setting the enigmatic Nabataeans and their cultural achievements within a broader historical context.

About the speaker: Dr. Pearson is a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Classics for the 2011-2012 academic year. His current research focuses on the civilization of the Nabataeans, best known for the remains of their capital city at Petra in Jordan. As an archaeologist, he has worked as a supervisor at sites in Egypt, Israel, and Jordan. While at Macalester, Pearson will be teaching Latin I and II, the Roman World, Introduction to Archaeology, and a research seminar on Greco-Roman Egypt.

No-host dinner with the speaker will follow the lecture at Pad Thai Grand Restaurant, 1681 Grand Ave.**

*The John B Davis Lecture Hall, is in the basement of the Ruth Dayton Campus center at Macalester (#25 on the map in the link below):
http://www.macalester.edu/about/maps/campusmap-large.html

**Here is the map for Pad Thai Grand:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Saint+Paul&state=MN&address=1681+Grand+Ave&zipcode=55105-1805&country=US&latitude=44.940091&longitude=-93.171534&geocode=ADDRESS

Gilbert Tostevin on The Archaeology of the Origins of Modern Humans

2011-11-28T08:52:00.000-08:00

Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 6pm in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College*

Lecture Summary: Why anatomically modern humans survived the Pleistocene Epoch, whereas our evolutionary relatives, the Neanderthals and other archaic Homo species did not, is a fundamental question for anthropological archaeology. The origins of modern humans as a research subject engages of the fields of genetics, biological anthropology, demographic modeling, geology, and Paleolithic archaeology. Prof. Tostevin will present the archaeological conclusions concerning both the consensus view of our species’ origins as well as recent cutting edge research on the adaptations that allowed our proliferation at the end of the last Ice Age. Regardless of which of these adaptations (long- range weaponry, diet breadth, social behavior, and others) were most critical, each potential explanation has a significant message for our species’ immediate present and future.

About the Speaker:
Gilbert Tostevin is a professor of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota. Professor Tostevin is a Paleolithic archaeologist who has excavated in the Near East (Israel), Central Europe (the Czech Republic), and Central Asia (Uzbekistan). He received his PhD from Harvard University in 2000, taught for two years at Williams College in Massachusetts, before coming to the University of Minnesota in 2001. His main area of research is the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition in western Eurasia, with a focus on how the analysis of the stone tool technologies employed by Late Pleistocene hominins can tell us about cultural transmission and cultural and biological contact between these hominin types, particularly anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals. Recent excavations include the Early Upper Paleolithic site of Tvarožna X and several other localities around Moravia in the Czech Republic, in collaboration with Dr. Petr Škrdla of the Institute of Archaeology, Brno, 2008 - 2011. Their re-excavation of the type-site for the Bohunician Industrial Type in 2001 produced a number of publications that have pushed the envelope on both chronometric and lithic analysis approaches to the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition.

Prof. Tostevin has numerous publications, including a book appearing through Oxbow Books and the American School of Prehistoric Research, Peabody Museum, at Harvard, entitled "Seeing Lithics: A Middle-Range Theory for Testing for Cultural Transmission in the Pleistocene" which will appear in mid-2012. He also edited a collection of papers from a diversity of international lithic analysts, entitled "Reduction Sequence, Chaîne Opératoire, and Other Methods: The Epistemologies of Different Approaches to Lithic Analysis", that will appear this month in a special issue of the on-line journal PaleoAnthropology.

No-host dinner with the speaker will follow the lecture at Pad Thai Grand Restaurant, 1681 Grand Ave.**

*The John B Davis Lecture Hall, is in the basement of the Ruth Dayton Campus center at Macalester (#25 on the map in the link below):
http://www.macalester.edu/about/maps/campusmap-large.html

**Here is the map for Pad Thai Grand:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Saint+Paul&state=MN&address=1681+Grand+Ave&zipcode=55105-1805&country=US&latitude=44.940091&longitude=-93.171534&geocode=ADDRESS

A Complete Cosmos: The Tomb of an Egyptian Governor and Its Secrets

2011-10-31T11:58:00.000-07:00

Saturday, November 12, 2011 at 11am in the Pillsbury Auditorium at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Lecture summary:
In April 1915 the Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition discovered the tomb of Governor Djehutynakht and his wife, also called Djehutynakht, at Deir el-Bersha in Middle Egypt, about 175 miles south of Cairo. The contents of this early Twelfth Dynasty tomb were awarded to the Museum in their entirety by the Egyptian Government and were recently the focus of a special exhibition, “Secrets of Tomb 10A: Egypt 2000 BC,” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. They include well known masterpieces of Egyptian art like the outer coffin of Governor Djehutynakht—widely regarded as the finest Middle Kingdom coffin in existence—and the group of offering bearers known as the Bersha Procession, as well as the largest collection of wooden models ever found in one tomb—57 boats and 33 models of daily life, newly conserved and restored especially for this exhibition.

The coffins from tomb 10A—two for Governor Djehutynakht, and two for his wife, Lady Djehutynakht—comprise a wonderfully complete and self-contained set. Made of imported cedar, decorated inside and out, and amply furnished with texts, these coffins were the best that wealth and position could buy. While the Governor’s outer coffin stands out as a masterpiece of Middle Egyptian painting, its beautiful paintings were never intended to be admired purely as works of art. To appreciate the coffins properly, we have to consider the famous coffin along with the others, and the texts along with the pictures. Together, they tell us not so much about the day-to-day world of the Djehutynakhts and their peers, but about their cosmos and how they perceived their place in it. They reveal their hopes and fears, from not having one’s magic taken away by demons to sublime visions of an eternity spent in the company of Osiris, king of the dead, or sailing across the sky with the sun god.

About the Speaker:
Lawrence Berman is the Norma Jean Calderwood Senior Curator of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern Art with the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and holds his degrees from Yale University (Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A.) and the State University of New York at Binghamton (B.A.). He has been taking part in excavations in the Valley of the Kings since 2005.

No-host lunch with the speaker will follow the lecture at Christo's Restaurant, 2632 Nicollet Ave., Minneapolis

Archaeology Day Student poster session photos!

2011-10-22T13:24:00.001-07:00

Thank you to everyone who made this event a really nice celebration of National Archaeology Day. And thanks especially to the student presenters who shared their experiences!

Celebrate National Archaeology Day with Students in Archaeology: Poster Presentation of Recent Fieldwork

2011-10-17T12:40:00.000-07:00

Please join us in celebrating National Archaeology Day by visiting with students from a variety of Minnesota institutions as they present posters about their experiences with archaeological fieldwork. This is a great opportunity for anyone interested in archaeology and the preservation of cultural heritage to learn more about the global work of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and the thrill of archaeological discovery. We are reaching out to our community by presenting the vibrant student involvement with archaeological fieldwork and projects nationally and internationally and hope to inspire students and the general public and encourage life-long interest in preservation of archaeological heritage.

This poster session has been made possible by an AIA Outreach Grant intended to bring together the public and students and professionals from different institutions encourage membership in the AIA and its Minnesota Society. Thanks to the Outreach Grant, we are able to serve refreshments at this event and offer $5 rebates to anyone who joins the AIA during the event.

National Archaeology Day

11:00 am, Saturday, October 22, 2011

Weyerhaueser Boardroom, Weyerhaeuser Hall, Macalester College

**Parking is free in campus lots - Weyerhaeuser in on Macalester street just south of Grand Avenue and parking is available just past the construction area - also see the link below for a map created for another event:

http://www.macalester.edu/mcaa/images/campusmap2011forparkingandregistration.jpg

Call for Posters: Students in Archaeology: Poster Presentation of Recent Fieldwork

2011-09-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

Saturday, October 22, 2011, 11 am – 1 pm

** abstracts are due October 3 **

Weyerhaeuser Board Room, Weyerhaeuser Hall, Macalester College

October 22 is National Archaeology Day

The Minnesota Society of the AIA has proudly received one of the AIA Society Outreach Grants for this project to organize a poster session for students to present their experiences with archaeological fieldwork carried on during the summer. We are reaching out to our community by presenting the vibrant student involvement with archaeological fieldwork and projects nationally and internationally. We hope to inspire students and the general public and encourage life-long interest in preservation of archaeological heritage. The poster session should also bring together students and professionals from different institutions, and encourage membership in the AIA and its MN Society. We expect that students presenting posters of their work will introduce their classmates, families and friends to the AIA and to its global work.

The grant will allow us to contribute toward the expense of printing posters. The amount of assistance to each student will depend on the number of presenters. We plan to put together an electronic booklet of abstracts, which will be available to all presenters and to anybody else upon request. It will also be posted on the AIA-MN Society’s web site http://aiamn.blogspot.com/

Light refreshments will be served at the event.

Undergraduate and graduate students at MN institutions who participated in an archaeological project during the summer of 2011 are invited to present a poster about their field experience. They must get permission from the project director to speak about the site and to use any photos.

To be included in the poster session, students must submit an abstract with the following information via e-mail to Dr. V. Schrunk at idschrunk@stthomas.edu by Monday, October 3:

1. Name of student presenter(s) and academic institution   

2. Title of poster/research project, including site’s name and the country of its location     

3. Abstract of maximum 300 words

Please direct questions to Vanca Schrunk at idschrunk@stthomas.edu or 651-962-5740.

Yannis Lolos on The archaeological exploration of Sikyon: a comprehensive approach to the study of a Greek city-state

2011-09-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September 17, 2011 at 11am, in the Pillsbury Auditorium at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Sikyon, an ancient Greek city in the northern Peloponnese, was famous for its artistic excellence, particularly in sculpture and painting. The earliest excavations carried out on Sikyonian soil aimed precisely towards recovering works of art. More systematic excavations in the late 19th century and during the first half of the 20th century focused on the center of the city and the discovery of major architectural monuments, namely the theater and the palaestra complex by the agora, and a temple, a bouleuterion and a long stoa within the agora. However, viewed in isolation, these monuments tell us little about the structure and evolution of the city (asty) and its territory (chora). The extensive regional survey and the intensive urban survey conducted under my directorship over the last 15 years came to address these central issues by mapping and examining a large body of material remains. Thanks to this work, we are now in a position to document the human presence and activity in the city-state from the earliest times to the modern era.

Within the city, intensive surface and geophysical survey over approximately half of the intramural area of some 250 hectares yielded rich information on the urban plan, the habitation pattern, the sacred areas, the industrial sectors of the city, the contacts of the Sikyonians with their neighbors and the outside world, and the evolution of the city from the early Hellenistic to the Ottoman era. Beyond the city, the survey documented the existence of major roads that connected Sikyon to its neighboring states and the rest of the Peloponnese, as well as various defensive works that dotted the territory and protected its borders and settlements. A large number of settlements, their overwhelming majority previously unknown, was mapped. They range from simple farmsteads to towns, and span some seven millennia from the middle Neolithic to the early modern period. In addition, ample traces of agricultural and various industrial activities were found across the countryside. Finally, the parallel examination of the archaeological evidence produced from surveying the city and its countryside allows us to investigate many aspects of the center - periphery relationship across the centuries.

About the speaker:

Yannis Lolos is with the Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology at the University of Thessaly, and he holds his degrees from the University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D.) and the University of Paris, Sorbonne (M.A. and B.A.). His areas of specialization are landscape archaeology, the archaeology of the Hellenistic city, and Greek and Roman architecture and topography; his recent field work has been at Sikyon in the northern Peloponnese. Professor Lolos is the AIA’s Kress Lecturer for 2011/2012.

Lunch at Christo's restaurant will follow the lecture.

2011-12 event schedule

2011-07-20T12:05:00.000-07:00

We have eight events scheduled for the coming AIA-MN season and the event schedule is listed below. Please check the website for updates look for more info in the newsletter in early September, as well as a call for student posters in late August. And, as always, please spread the word about these great events!

Saturday, September 17, 2011 at 11am: Yannis Lolos, “The archaeological exploration of Sikyon: a comprehensive approach to the study of a Greek city-state,” in the Pillsbury Auditorium at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Saturday, October 22, 2011 at 11am (National Archaeology Day): Students in Archaeology: Poster Presentation of Recent Fieldwork, in the Weyerhaeuser Board Room, Weyerhaeuser Hall, at Macalester College

Saturday, November 12, 2011 at 11am: Lawrence Berman, “A Complete Cosmos: The Tomb of an Egyptian Governor and Its Secrets,” in the Pillsbury Auditorium at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 6pm: Gilbert Tostevin, “The Archaeology of the Origins of Modern Humans,” in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College

Thursday, February 2, 2011 at 6pm: Jeff Pearson, title TBA, in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College

Thursday, March 1 at 6pm: Caroline Sauvage, title TBA in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College

Saturday, March 31, 2012 at 11am: Maria Liston, “Murder in the Agora: Violent Death and Illicit Burial in Ancient Athens,” in the Pillsbury Auditorium at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Saturday, April 28, 2012 at 11am: Amy McNair, "The Intrusive Gift: the Marble Guardsmen in the Tomb of a Tang-dynasty Court Eunuch," in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College

AIA-MN update

2011-05-14T05:51:00.000-07:00

We would like to thank all of our loyal AIA members for supporting another year of excellent lectures on a wide range of archaeological topics! We would also like to let you know that the Minnesota society has received some recognition from the national AIA office this year. In January, Vanessa Rousseau received a Lifesaver Award for pulling together a last-minute presentation when our scheduled speaker was unable to be here, and Vanessa was also appointed to the national AIA's Societies Committee. In addition, we just won an Outreach Award from the national AIA to fund a poster session entitled "Students in Archaeology: Poster Presentation of Recent Fieldwork" to be held October 22, 2011 (the call for student poster submissions will go out in August/September). Many thanks to Vanca Schrunk for initiating and writing this proposal and we look forward to hearing about students' excavation experiences.

Our 2011-2012 lecture series is taking form and will be posted on the website as soon as it is finalized, but please also note these other events coming up in the meantime:

Minnesota Archaeology Week events will be held across the state May 14-22 (apologies for the short notice!) - for more info, see:
http://www.osa.admin.state.mn.us/resource.html?Id=32004

A series of lectures related to the King Tut exhibit at the Science Museum:
http://www.smm.org/tut/lectures/

As always, check the website for postings and we'll see you in the fall -

Hell Hath No Fury: Archaeology and the Looting of the Iraq Museum

2011-04-10T19:52:00.000-07:00

A lecture by Cori Wegener, Associate Curator, Decorative Arts, Textiles and Sculpture, Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Tuesday, April 12, 7pm at 125 Nolte Center for Continuing Education at the University of Minnesota, free and open to the public

This lecture is part of the “Donny George Candlelight Vigil for Global Heritage” in memory of Donny George Youkhanna, former director of the Iraq National Museum, sponsored by Saving Antiquities for Everyone (SAFE). Donny George, who ardently supported protection of the world’s shared cultural heritage, was a valued colleague and a man of integrity. His sudden passing due to a heart attack on March 11, 2011 leaves a void in the soul of Iraqi archaeology.

Many AIA members were fortunate to hear Donny George speak here last year and we all mourn his loss. Please join Cori Wegener in honoring his legacy and remembering the looting of the Iraq museum and continued efforts to preserve cultural heritage.

https://events.umn.edu/012811

Hell Hath No Fury: Archaeology and the Looting of the Iraq Museum

2011-04-10T18:06:00.001-07:00

A lecture by Cori Wegener, Associate Curator, Decorative Arts, Textiles and Sculpture, Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Tuesday, April 12, 7pm at 125 Nolte Center for Continuing Education at the University of Minnesota, free and open to the public

https://events.umn.edu/012811

John Papadopoulos on The Origins of Money: Coinage, Art and the Construction of Value in the Ancient Mediterranean

2011-04-09T01:51:00.000-07:00

Saturday, April 9, 2011 at 11am, in the Pillsbury Auditorium at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts:

One of the most critical developments in the course of Mediterranean history was the invention of coinage. The quest for metals – the very commodities that define our periodization of Greece (Copper Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age) – is not simply an issue of technological innovations or the vicissitudes of supply or the mechanics of regional networks, but a real search for structuring commodities of value that ultimately leads to an economic system of exchange not limited to elites. The culmination is the invention of coinage, which first occurs in western Anatolia and east Greece in the cultural milieu of the later seventh and sixth centuries BC, an innovation with global consequences. By focusing on the early coinage of several Greek centers, more particularly on the emblems that certain city-states chose for their coinage, images that hark back to prehistoric measures of value – cattle, bronze tripods, grain – this paper challenges long-held assumptions as to the economic underpinnings of coinage. Struck by the state – the polis – these emblems sought to represent a collective identity. By boldly minting their identity on silver coinage, the Greek city-states chose money, the very vehicle of value, in order to create relations of dominance and to produce social orders that had not existed before.

Short bibliography and/or website on lecture topic (for lay reader):

Williams, J. (ed.), Money: A History. London, British Museum Press: 1997

About the Speaker:

John K. Papadopoulos is Professor of Archaeology & Classics with the Cotsen Institute, University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Papadopoulos received his PhD from the University of Sydney, and remained there as a professor until 1994, when he took a curator position at the J. Paul Getty Museum. He has been at UCLA since 2001. His areas of specialization are the archaeology of Greece (especially Late Bronze Age, Early Iron Age, Archaic and Classical periods), the archaeology of colonization, and the integration of archaeological and literary evidence in the study of the past. He has excavated widely in Australia at Aboriginal and historic sites, as well as in Greece, Albania and Italy. He is currently the co-director at excavations of a prehistoric burial tumulus at Lofkënd, Albania. Professor Papadopoulos has authored, co-authored or edited 9 books and over 75 articles. He has held both the AIA’s Norton and Joukowksy Fellowships, and in 2010/2011 is the AIA’s Thompson Lecturer.

Nancy Wilkie discusses Archaeology in Sri Lanka: Challenges and Prospects for the Future, Thursday, March 3, 2011 at 6pm

2011-02-27T10:21:00.000-08:00

The island of Sri Lanka has been known by many names throughout its history: Ratnadipa, or the 'land of gems' in Buddhist Sanskrit literature, Taprobane among Greeks and Romans, Serendib to the Arabs, and Ceylon under the British Empire. This small island, only 25,000 square miles in size, lies off the southern tip of India. Early Iron Age culture was introduced to the island, presumably from South India, at the beginning of the First Millennium B.C., but few sites of this period are known, except for cemeteries with megalithic graves. Archaeological work in Sri Lanka has concentrated instead on large monastic settlements which were established in the Early Historic Period, ca. 300 B.C. - 300 A.D. and mark the spread of Buddhist influence over the island. Little attention has been paid to secular sites, nor have the lower levels of most monastic sites been probed to determine the nature of earlier occupation. Also neglected have been the remains of Hindu, Islamic and Christian sites and structures. The challenge that lies ahead for the next generation of Sri Lankan archaeologists is the investigation of sites and regions that will provide a broader and more balanced picture of the island’s past.

Thursday, March 3, 2011 at 6pm in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College.

About the speaker: Nancy C. Wilkie is the William H. Laird Professor of Classics, Anthropology and the Liberal Arts at Carleton College. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Greek from the University of Minnesota, and her B.A. in Classics from Stanford University. Her areas of specialization are prehistoric Greece, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, and cultural property issues. Since 2003 she has served as a member of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee with the U.S. Department of State. Her main publications include “Governmental Agencies and the Protection of Cultural Property in Times of War” (in Antiquities Under Siege. Cultural Heritage Protection After the Iraq War, L. Rothfield ed., 2008). Professor Wilkie is Past-President of the AIA, and was an AIA Norton Lecturer in 2009/2010.

More on Gordion!

2011-02-20T14:49:00.000-08:00

For anyone interested in more on Gordion, see:
http://sites.museum.upenn.edu/gordion/
http://www.conlab.org/acl/gordion/

and for some great footage from the 1950s excavations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VFVyiiOzwc

Two Lectures on Gordion (Turkey): "Roman Hobnail Burials" and "In Search of King Midas: New Discoveries and Reinterpretations at Gordion"

2011-02-14T11:03:00.000-08:00

Andrew L. Goldman of Gonzaga University will present his AIA lecture, "In Search of King Midas: New Discoveries and Reinterpretations at Gordion (Turkey)," on Saturday, February 19, 2011 at 11am in in the Pillsbury Auditorium at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Professor Goldman is presenting an additional lecture, “They Died With Their Boots On: The Roman Hobnail Burials at Gordion (Turkey),” (also free and open to the public) on Friday, February 18 at 4pm in 155 Nicholson Hall at the University of Minnesota

In Search of King Midas: New Discoveries and Reinterpretations at Gordion (Turkey)
Saturday, February 19, 2011 at 11am in in the Pillsbury Auditorium at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Synopsis: For over half of a century, the University of Pennsylvania Museum has conducted excavations at the ancient site of Gordion in central Turkey. The site is best known as the capital of the Iron Age kingdom of Phrygia and the home of the semi-legendary King Midas, who ruled around 725 BC and whose enormous wealth and power helped to spawn enduring legends of his “golden touch”. Who was this semi-legendary figure, and what is the current state of our evidence concerning his actual life and accomplishments? The on-going excavations at Gordion have helped to answer some of these questions, unveiling a society of enormous complexity and shedding much needed light on the history of this elusive ruler and the enigmatic Phrygian people. Recent research at the site has substantially improved our understanding of Phrygian culture, as well as clarifying other important aspects of the site’s three millennia of occupation. The application of new archaeological techniques and a fresh study of previous finds have combined to produce dramatic and significant new interpretations about the site’s history, its multicultural heritage and the unheralded preeminence of Phrygian culture in ancient Anatolia.

They Died With Their Boots On: The Roman Hobnail Burials at Gordion (Turkey)
Friday, February 18 at 4pm in 155 Nicholson Hall at the University of Minnesota.

Lecture Summary:Burial practices tend to vary widely between disparate cultures, and this is perhaps nowhere more evident than at the site of Gordion, located in central Turkey approximately 95 km. southwest of modern Ankara. Situated at the confluence of two rivers and at the nexus of several ancient trade routes, Gordion was occupied almost continuously from the Early Bronze Age to Medieval times. Among the wide variety of burial types are Hittite pithos burials, the great tumuli of the Phrygian kings and nobles, simple Lydian and Persian inhumations, Hellenistic chamber tombs, wooden coffins of the Roman period, and Byzantine cist graves. Three Roman cemeteries were excavated at the site between 1950 and 1994, and the objects and skeletal remains recovered from these necropoleis have helped to shape our understanding of Roman life at this rural town. Perhaps the most enigmatic of all the burial types are those containing the remains of hobnail boots, found in nearly a third of the total Roman period graves currently known. This burial type, dating from the 1st to 3rd century A.D. and common to sites along the Rhine and Danube frontiers, are unattested elsewhere in Anatolia. Their appearance at Gordion, in the graves of men, women and children, represents an intriguing phenomenon. Such boots have often been found at military sites, a fact which led the original excavators to hypothesize that either veterans or soldiers lived at Gordion during the Roman Empire. New excavations at the site in 2004 and 2005 have now settled this issue: the discovery of Roman weapons, armor and a barracks building have provided conclusive evidence that soldiers inhabited this small settlement. Indeed, as the chance discovery in 1997 of a Roman auxiliary soldier’s tombstone has shown, at least some of these men never made it home alive from their post on the Anatolian plateau, dying with their boots on.
Suggested Bibliography/Websites
“Roman Military Occupation at Yass?höyük (Gordion), Ankara Province, Turkey”. With J. Bennett. Antiquity 81, Issue 314 (forthcoming December 2007). “The Roman-period Cemeteries at Gordion in Galatia”. Journal of Roman Archaeology 20 (2007) 299-320. “From Phrygian Capital to Rural Fort: New Evidence for the Roman Military at Gordion, Turkey”. Expedition 49.3 (Winter 2007) 6-12. “Reconstructing the Roman-period Town at Gordion,” Chap. 5 in Lisa. K. Kealhofer (ed.), The Archaeology of Midas and the Phrygians: Recent Work at Gordion (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum Press, 2005).

About the speaker:Dr. Andrew L. Goldman has been a member of the Gonzaga History Department since the fall semester of 2002, and Chair of the Classical Civilizations Department since 2007. His fields of special interest are ancient history (Roman and Greek), classical archaeology, and the classical languages (Latin and Greek). He received his BA from Wesleyan University in 1988, and his MA and PhD from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1993 and 2000, respectively. He has spent several years living and teaching abroad: he lived in Ankara, Turkey, as a Fulbright Fellow and instructor at Bilkent University (1995-97), and in Rome as a teacher at Duke University's Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies (1999-2000). Since 1992, he has been an active member of the excavation team at the ancient site of Gordion (central Turkey), where he has been studying the economic and social history of the small Roman-period settlement that flourished there between the 1st and 5th centuries AD. He has recently published several Latin inscriptions and the funerary finds from the Roman cemeteries at Gordion. During the summer of 2004 and 2005, with the aid of a Loeb Foundation Grant from Harvard University, he directed a team of archaeologists and assistants in what was the first systematic excavations of the Roman town on the site. In the course of this fieldwork, Roman weapons and armor were unearthed, providing the first concrete evidence for the hypothesis that the town was a minor Roman military site. The material, dating from the first and second centuries AD, is some of the earliest Roman military equipment excavated in the Roman East, and the site is the only Roman military base of its period to ever have been explored in Turkey.

Technologies of Memory in Early Sasanian Iran: Achaemenid Sites and Sasanian Identity

2011-01-21T12:45:00.000-08:00

Synopsis
This talk analyzes the techniques by which the kings of the early Sasanian dynasty engaged the past. I concentrate on the innovations and legacy of the first two kings of kings of the dynasty, Ardaxshīr I (r. 224-242 C.E.) and his son Shābuhr I (240-270 C.E.). In concert with their military activities, these sovereigns fashioned a new and politically useful vision of the past to establish their dynasty’s primacy in Persia and the wider Iranian world, eclipsing their Hellenistic, Fratarakid and Arsacid predecessors. I identify and examine the artistic, architectural and ritual means by which the early Sasanians conformed the built and natural environment of their homeland to their grand new vision of the past. I argue that the Achaemenid patrimony of the province of Pārs played an especially important role in these efforts, serving both as inspirations and anchors for the Sasanians’ new creations.

This lecture will be held at the John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College, with dinner to follow at Pad Thai Grand (1681 Grand Ave.)

About the Speaker: Matthew Canepa is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus

Professor Canepa (Ph.D. University of Chicago) is intrigued by topics of cross-cultural interaction in pre-modern visual cultures. His research tends to focus on the intersection of art, ritual and power in the Mediterranean and ancient Iran. His first book, entitled The Two Eyes of the Earth (University of California Press, 2009), is the first to analyze the artistic, ritual and ideological interactions between the Roman and Sasanian empires in a comprehensive and theoretically rigorous manner. Recent publications include an edited volume that studies the phenomena of cross-cultural interaction between the Mediterranean, Iran, and China, a study of the art and ritual of late antique diplomatic exchange, an article on the recreation of Persian monuments and identity in the Sasanian period, and an examination of the impact of Achaemenid and Seleukid practices on Middle Iranian royal funerary monuments and associated rituals. He is writing a book exploring the transformation of Iranian art and kingship between the invasions of Alexander and Islam and is currently serving as an area advisor/editor for the planned Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity.

Professor Canepa is a Fellow the Society of Antiquaries of London, and has been the recipient of numerous research grants including the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (2002-2003), the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (2007), the Archaeological Institute of America (2008) and a Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies (2009-2010). In fall 2009 he was invited to be the Michaelmas Term Visiting Research Fellow at Merton College, University of Oxford. Before joining the Department of Art History at UMN in 2010, Prof. Canepa taught at the College of Charleston for five years.

Lecture change for tonight

2010-11-04T08:36:00.000-07:00

Dr. Peter Schultz has had to cancel tonight's lecture due to an unavoidable emergency. In his place, Vanessa Rousseau will speak about Late Roman Wall Painting at Sardis in Turkey. The paintings, from both tombs and houses, are related to the wider corpus of Roman wall painting and also Late Antique trends in decoration in many different media.

The lecture will still be held at 6pm, Thursday, Nov. 4, in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College.

Thursday, November 4, 2010: Sculptors, Agencies and the Economies of Style in Late Classical Greece

2010-10-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

Did ancient Greek sculptors and their styles exist within or create a hierarchy of value in ancient Greek society? In other words, did the ancient Greeks really think Praxiteles was a better sculptor than Dolon? If so, how -- and how can we know? If not, why not? How might answers to this question effect the notion of stylistic “evolution” (or “revolution”) in ancient Greek art, specifically the radical transformation of form that took place in the fifth century B.C.E.? And perhaps, most importantly, how can we ask these questions in a way that might be meaningful for us and for the Classical period Greeks? After 2500 years, is such a thing even possible? In this illustrated lecture, Dr. Peter Schultz tackles these questions . . . and more!

John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College, dinner to follow at Pad Thai Grand (1681 Grand Ave.)

About the Speaker:
Peter Schultz is the Olin J. Storvick Chair of Classical Studies, Chair of the Department of Art, at Concordia College, Moorhead. Dr. Schultz' research interests include Ancient Greek history and art history; Classical and Hellenistic archaeology; the social history of art; archaeological theory; the Classical tradition; the topography of early Greece; the archaeology of death, ritual and cult; early, medieval and contemporary Greek dance, music, poetry and landscape. Dr. Schultz has received numerous awards and honors. He has published numerous articles, co-edited a number of books and is currently preparing his book The Temple of Athena Nike. Art, Politics and Agency in Classical Athens for publication.

Building Trajan's Column: October 7, 6pm

2010-10-05T10:33:00.000-07:00

Trajan's Column is best known for its sculpted spiral frieze depicting Trajan's victories in the Dacian Wars (101-106 AD), but it was also a great technological achievement requiring a great deal of site organization. The blocks making up the Column of Trajan are among the heaviest to have been lifted during the Roman Imperial period (the largest of which weighed as much as 77 tons). In this talk I examine the evidence for how the blocks were quarried, transported to the site, and then lifted into place. I also propose a hypothetical reconstruction of the lifting tower used to raise the blocks. The proposal is based on archaeological evidence from the site itself and from other Roman sites, on literary evidence from technical writers such as Vitruvius and Hero of Alexandria, and lastly on a comparative analysis of the way in which Domenico Fontana lifted the Vatican obelisk in 1586.

6:00 PM, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2010
PILLSBURY AUDITORIUM,
MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS
Dinner to follow at Christo's

About the speaker:
Professor Lynne Lancaster is Associate Professor with the Department of Classics and World Religions at Ohio University, Athens. She holds her degrees from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (B.A. in architecture), Lincoln College (M.A. in Classical Archaeology), and Wolfson College, Oxford University (Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology). Her interests include Roman architecture, construction and technology and she has worked on many of the standing structures in Rome including Trajan’s Markets and the Colosseum, and as architectural consultant at various locations in Italy. She has published extensively, and her Concrete Vaulted Construction in Imperial Rome: Innovation in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2005) received the AIA’s 2007 James R. Wiseman Book Award. Professor Lancaster is AIA Joukowsky Lecturer for 2010/2011

2010-2011 Lecture Series begins September 23! Ron Schirmer will discuss "Researching Red Wing: From "Mississippian Center" to "Interaction Hub"

2010-09-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

When professional archeologists first began studying large villages in Red Wing, Minnesota, they immediately focused on what they perceived to be connections with Middle Mississippian cultures to the south. An entire literature proceeded from this focus, with surprisingly little critical assessment of its accuracy. Such critical assessment has finally been levelled at the area through further study in the field and the lab, indicating that the area is both temporally and culturally much more complicated than previously believed.

Dr. Schirmer is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Minnesota State University, Mankato. He completed his Ph.D. in Archaeology in 2002 at the University of Minnesota, with a doctoral minor in Quaternary Paleoecology.
Ron’s research focuses on examining the interrelationships between people and the environment, especially as those relationships become characteristic in specific cultures and then are used as markers of identity when different groups of people interact with each other. He researches throughout the southern half of Minnesota, with foci in the Mississippi and Blue Earth valleys. In addition, he works with several Native American groups in Minnesota and Wisconsin on archaeological site preservation and community outreach to give descendent communities greater voices in research and preservation.

Fall 2010: Newsletter and more!

2010-09-18T02:01:00.001-07:00

Hoping everyone on the academic calendar is getting back into the swing of things this season! I briefly introduced myself earlier this year and am now happy to take responsibilities of Membership & Publicity for the AIA/MN Society for the 2010 academic year. The official AIA/MN Society Newsletter has been sent out, so check your mailboxes and inboxes for the latest from your local society.

Also, we might have had a minor glitch in our bookkeeping (nothing serious) but make sure to be extra assertive when reminding your friends and colleagues about our upcoming events! E-mails, snail mail, and blog posts only go so far, but word of mouth is always best. So Vanessa's post (below) for the schedule of lectures this semester, and contact any board members if you have ideas, suggestions, inquiries, or would like to get more involved with the society.

Oh, and e-mails will be coming from "aiamnsociety(at)gmail(dot)com" from now on, so keep your eyes peeled.

-Andrew

(My image, shot in Croatia, where I was fortunate enough to intern under Minnesota's own Dr. Vanca Schrunkand the St. Clement Archaeological Society )

2010-2011 Lecture Series

2010-08-25T09:53:00.000-07:00

The 2010-2011 lecture season is still a work in progress, but here is a sneak review of the schedule:

Thursday, September 23, 2010 at 6pm: Ron Schirmer, "Researching Red Wing: From "Mississippian Center" to "Interaction Hub," in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College.

Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 6pm: Lynne Lancaster, “Building Trajan's Column,” in the Pillsbury Auditorium at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 6pm: Peter Schultz, "Sculptors, Agencies and the Economies of Style in Late Classical Greece," in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College.

Thursday, March 3, 2011 at 6pm: Nancy Wilkie, "Archaeology in Sri Lanka: Challenges and Prospects for the Future," in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College.

Saturday, February 19, 2011 at 11am, Andrew Goldman, “In Search of King Midas: New Discoveries and Reinterpretations at Gordion (Turkey),” in the Pillsbury Auditorium at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Saturday, April 9, 2011 at 11am, John Papadopoulos, “The Origins of Money,” in the Pillsbury Auditorium at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

AIA - Minnesota, Now on Facebook!

2010-05-03T21:12:00.000-07:00

Hope the season's change is treating all of our members and Blog Readers well! Just writing a quick invitation to encourage our readership to keep us in mind next time they are browsing facebook. Here's a direct link to our entity website, or 'Fan Page'.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=114405855260499&ref=ts

OR just search for: AIA/MN: Minnesota Chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America

The page allows membership by request/approval ONLY. But don't worry - if you're reading this you are in! Just submit your request and a page admin such as myself, Andrew Herkert, or Society President Vanessa Rousseau, will approve your request.

Stay tuned for more news about the upcoming season, and from the board of the AIA-MN, hope you all have a great summer wherever the four winds take you.

Best,

Andrew J. Herkert

Publicity and Membership Chair (Nominee), 2010-11 Academic Year

ajherkert@stthomas.edu

p.s. Feel free to search for me and add me if you want to be in the loop for other/miscellaneous local archaeology content

Thanks for a great 2009-2010 season!

2010-04-26T12:35:00.000-07:00

The Minnesota chapter of the AIA would like to thank all of our speakers for a wonderful range of talks during this past season - our total attendance was over 800 people! The diverse lectures taught us so much about ways to interpret art and archaeology as well as contemporary issues of preservation and the protection of our shared cultural heritage in Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East and even underwater. We would also like to thank the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Weisman Art Museum and Macalester College for donating lecture space and the University of St Thomas for covering newsletter printing costs. In addition, we thank the Art History departments of the University of St Thomas and Macalester College for collaborating to bring Lothar von Falkenhausen here and for supporting additional lectures for Prof. von Falkenhausen and Donny George. And finally, many, many thanks to the continued support of our members!
Next year we hope to post more photos from our events, and here are a few highlights from this spring’s lectures: Some members with Clash of the Titans swag donated by Warner Bros. for John Hale’s lecture, and scenes from Donny George’s lectures at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and at the University of St. Thomas.

Donny George Youkhanna lectures April 9 and 10!!

2010-04-05T09:37:00.000-07:00

We are privileged to to have the former Director General of Baghdad’s National Museum here for the anniversary of the 2003 looting of the Baghdad museum. He will speak at the University of St Thomas on Friday April 9th and at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts on Saturday April 10th. Details are in the postings below and please also note that due to the speaker's early return flight on Saturday, we will *not* be able to have the usual AIA lunch after his lecture.

Bonus lecture with Donny George!

2010-03-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

The Looting of the Iraq Museum

6 p.m. Friday, April 9 John Roach Center for the Arts, Room 126
University of St. Thomas, 2115 Summit Ave., St. Paul

Dr. Donny George, the Iraq Museum's former director-general, will present a lecture at the University of St. Thomas at 6 p.m. Friday, April 9. His lecture will give a complete account of the cultural losses suffered by the Iraq Museum and 12,500 archaeological sites after the invasion of Iraq.

Sponsored by the Department of Art History at the University of St. Thomas
www.stthomas.edu/arthistory

A Lecture on the Exquisite Nimrud Treasures, April 10

2010-03-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

The Discovery of the Nimrud Treasures

Dr. Donny George Youkhanna,

SUNY Stony Brook,

Former Director General of the Iraqi Museums

11:00 am, Saturday, April 10, 2010

Pillsbury Auditorium, Minneapolis Institute of Arts

A short commemoration of the looting of the Baghdad Museum will follow the talk.
The ancient site of Nimrud (modern Kalkhu) lies 35 km to the southeast of the city of Mosul in northern Iraq. While Assyrian kings were buried beneath the palace at Assur, Assyrian queens were buried beneath the palace here. This lecture discusses the 1989 discovery by Iraqi archaeologists of four grave chambers in the family area of the Southwestern Palace of the Assyrian king Ashurnaserpal II (883-859 B.C.). The extraordinary finds from the tombs, which included over 65 kilograms of gold jewelry and a large number of precious stones, shed great light upon Assyrian royal burial practice and elite artistic production.

Take the Plunge on March 27

2010-03-22T11:56:00.000-07:00

In Poseidon’s Realm: Underwater Archaeology in the Mediterranean

Dr. John Hale, University of Louisville

More than two thousand years ago, Greek and Roman professional divers, including both men and women, were diving to depths of more than 100 feet to recover art objects and other treasures from shipwreck sites. Their modern successors have continued to explore the floor of the Mediterranean Sea for sunken ships, cargoes, harbors and other submerged structures. Helmeted sponge divers made the most extraordinary discovery of all in 1900 at Antikythera, where they recovered the remains of an astronomical computer of bronze gears dating to the first century BC. The world’s first scientific underwater excavation was conducted on the Mediterranean site of Cape Gelidonya in 1960, where George Bass led an archaeological expedition to a Bronze Age wreck. Marine archaeologists now use scuba-gear, robotic devices such as ROVs (remote operated vehicles), bathyscaphs, sidescan sonar, magnetometers and other equipment, but many classical underwater sites still remain to be located, mapped, and excavated. This lecture provides an overview of this important field, illustrates many of the most important art works recovered from the sea (including the famous bronze god from Artemision), and shows current technology in use during the Persian Wars Shipwreck Survey, in which the speaker participated as an archaeologist.

11:00 am, Saturday, March 27, 2010

Pillsbury Auditorium,

Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Lunch to follow at Christo's

Upcoming lecture March 4th at the Weisman

2010-03-01T07:10:00.000-08:00

Who Owns the Past? Competing Claims for Antiquities from the Holy Land
Dr. Morag Kersel, Joukowsky Institute at Brown University
Synopsis:
As artifacts travel from the ground to the consumer in the marketplace, recent research has shown that there are multiple stakeholders with competing claims in the legal trade in antiquities. In Israel it is legal to buy and sell artifacts from legally sanctioned dealers, if the collections pre-date the 1978 national ownership law. Not all aspects of this trade are legal, however, and not all participants have an equal voice. The market in Israel is comprised of archaeologists, collectors, customs officials, dealers, government employees, looters, middlemen, museum professionals, and tourists, all expressing a degree of entitlement in the acquisition and disposition of artifacts. Adding to the complexity of the situation is the porous nature of the borders between Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority as artifacts in the market come from those areas and go out to Europe, the Far East, and the United States. The journey of a Roman coin from the Palestinian countryside to the Upper West side of New York City allows the examination of the various positions in the debate over who owns the past.

Reception and sneak preview of the exhibit "Everyday Life at the Crossroads of the Ancient Mediterranean" to follow lecture.

Dr. Morag Kersel is a post-doctoral fellow with the Joukowksy Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University, and is also conducting field projects with The Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. She holds her degrees from Queens University, the University of Toronto (M.A.), the University of Georgia (M.A. in Historic Preservation), and the University of Cambridge (Ph.D. in Archaeology). Her areas of specialization are Cultural Heritage Protection, East Mediterranean and Levantine Prehistory, legal issues in Anthropology and Anthropological ethics, Heritage Tourism, and Museum Practice. Dr. Kersel is currently Associate Director of REGAL (Regional Exploration into the Galilean Archaeological Landscape, Israel), Co-Director of Following the Pots Project, Jordan, and Field School Director of the Keros Archaeological Project, Cyclades, Greece.

Spring lecture season begins February 4th!

2010-01-22T17:20:00.000-08:00

Meanings in Early Celtic Art
At 6:00 PM on February 4th, Professor Peter S. Wells of the University of Minnesota will speak at the John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College:
Celtic art, developed around 500 BC, is dominated by striking images of human and animal faces and figures, with elements often combined to form strange imaginary creatures. This style became the basis not only for the later Celtic art of the British Isles, but also for the art styles of much of medieval Europe. A new approach to this art, and especially to the decorative details that cover many of the ornate objects, focuses on understanding how early Europeans responded to Celtic art and what the different images and designs meant to them.
There will be an informal dinner afterward at Pad Thai Grand Café.

Professor Peter S. Wells is with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota. He received his degrees from the University of Tübingen and Harvard (Ph.D.), and specializes in European archaeology, especially of the Bronze & Iron Ages, the Roman Period, and the early medieval period. Dr. Wells has done extensive fieldwork in Germany and his recent main publications include “Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered” (W.W. Norton, 2008) and “Image and Response in Early Europe” (2008, Duckworth). He is an active member of the AIA, and past-president of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Society.

Upcoming Lecture on December 10

2009-12-03T17:46:00.000-08:00

Aztec Calendrical Thought: Visual Form, Imperial Significance

At 6:00 PM on December 10^th, Dr. William L. Barnes of the University of St. Thomas will will speak at the John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College on the topic of the Aztec calendar and its relation to the Aztec empire with its imperial center at Tenochtitlan. There will be an informal dinner afterward at Pad Thai Grand Café.

Dr. Barnes's primary area of research is the art of ancient Mexico, with a focus on Central Mexican sculpture and Mesoamerican manuscript painting. His current research focuses on discursive strategies used in Aztec (Tenochca Mexica) imperial art and the extend to which the Mesoamerican calendar was used in royal monuments. William's other areas of interest include Early Colonial Latin American and Pre-Columbian Andean art and architecture.

Upcoming Lecture on November 19

2009-11-11T20:28:00.000-08:00

Rendezvous at Red Wing: Community and Aggregation at the Red Wing Locality, AD 1100 – 1400

Dr. Edward Fleming, Curator of Archaeology of the Science Museum of Minnesota, will speak at the John B. Davis Lecture Hall in the Dayton Campus Center at Macalester College on Thursday, November 19^th, about the importance of the Red Wing Locality as a regional gathering place during the period of about AD 1100 to 1400. The lecture will begin at 6:00 PM and there will be an informal dinner afterward at Pad Thai Grand Café.
As Curator of Archaeology at the Science Museum of Minnesota, Dr. Fleming is responsible for building, caring for, researching, and interpreting the museum’s archaeological collection, as well as collaborating on exhibitions and educational programming. He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Minnesota. Most of his research is focused on material culture of the Late Prehistoric period in the Upper Mississippi River. For the last five years, he has been involved in field work at Red Wing Locality village sites while also working to acquire and document relevant existing archaeological collections from the Upper Midwest.

2009-2010 Lecture Season Begins!

2009-11-05T14:32:00.000-08:00

Our lecture season is off to a rousing start with lectures by eminent scholar of Asian art and archaeology Lothar von Falkenhausen. Professor von Falkenhausen followed his Halloween lecture on Chinese bronzes at the MIA with an impromptu tour of the bronze galleries (pictured here), which was a terrific complement to the lecture and a wonderful opportunity to get an expert tour of part of the MIA’s stellar Asian collection! On Nov. 2, Professor von Falkenhausen delivered two additional lectures – one at the University of Minnesota and another at Macalester College. We would like to thank Professor von Falkenhausen for speaking on a variety of topics and AIA-MN would also like to thank the Art and Art History Departments at Macalester College and the University of St. Thomas for making Professor von Falkenhausen’s visit possible.

New Lecture: The Politics of Archaeology in Modern China

2009-11-02T05:43:00.000-08:00

If you missed Lothar von Falkenhausen's fascinating lecture on Chinese Bronzes - or want to hear more - he will give an additional public lecture on Monday, Nov. 2. Macalester College (4:45 – 6:00, ART 113, Macalester College) on The Politics of Archaeology in Modern China:

The practice of archaeology in China today is inseparable from its sociopolitical conditions. This lecture explores the agenda of archaeologists and their sponsors since the introduction of modern scientific archaeology into China during the 1920s, and the continuing frictions between this modern archaeology and traditional antiquarianism and text-based historiography. The ongoing contention over the interpretation of archaeological artifacts forms part of a passionate debate about cultural self-identification and China’s place in the modern world.

Lecture on Chinese Bronzes

2009-10-08T21:02:00.001-07:00

New Light on the First Archaeological Discovery of Chinese Bronzes

On Saturday, October 31^st, Dr. Lothar von Falkenhausen comes to the Minneapolis Art Museum from the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA to speak about his work on an assemblage of bronzes excavated at Xinzheng, China, in 1923. This lecture is co-sponsored by Macalester College and the University of St. Thomas. The lecture will take place in the Pillsbury Auditorium at 11:00 AM and will be followed an informal lunch with the speaker at Christos Restaurant.

Dr. von Falkenhausen is Professor of Chinese Archaeology and Art History and Associate Director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, where he has taught since 1993. His specialty is East Asian archaeology, with an emphasis on the great Bronze Age of China (ca. 2000-200 BC). He obtained an MA in East Asian Studies (1982) and a PhD in anthropology (1988) from Harvard University; he also attended the University of Bonn (1977-79), Peking University (1979-81), and Kyôto University (1984-86). Before joining the faculty at UCLA, Professor von Falkenhausen taught at Stanford University and the University of California, Riverside. He has, moreover, held visiting professorships at numerous institutions in Europe and Asia. He has published more than one hundred articles, books, reviews, and edited volumes; the two most important being two books, Suspended Music: Chime Bells in the Culture of Bronze Age China (1993) and Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius (1000-250 BC): The Archaeological Evidence (2006). Since 1999, he has served as the American co-Principal Investigator of UCLA's joint field project with Peking University, entitled “Landscape Archaeology and Ancient Salt Production in the Upper Yangzi River Basin” and as co-editor of the bilingual series Salt Archaeology in China (2006-). He is also the founding co-editor of the Journal of East Asian Archaeology (1999-).

2009-05-07T13:57:00.000-07:00

The 2008-09 Minnesota AIA lecture season ended with Cori Wegener's lecture on Cultural Property at War: Lessons from the Iraq Museum, followed by a brief candlelight vigil in remembrance of the looting of the Iraq Museum and the danger that looting presents to cultural heritage worldwide. We were privileged to hear Cori’s first hand account of reconstruction after the looting and the subsequent activities of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield.

We would like to thank all of our wonderful speakers for sharing their time, research and insights with us. We would also like to thank the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Macalester College and Concordia College for donating lecture space and the Classical and Near Eastern Studies department at the University of Minnesota for underwriting printing and postage costs for the newsletter. And finally, we would like to thank all of our members for their continued support of the AIA.

We look forward to more fascinating lectures in 2009-10 - please check back later this summer for next's season's schedule!

Mystery to History

2009-04-03T07:04:00.000-07:00

"From Mystery to History: The Garamantes of the Libyan Sahara"
Dr. David Mattingly
University of Leicester

Wednesday April 8, 6:00
Macalester College
John B. Davis Auditorium

Please note that this lecture will take place on Wednesday, not Thursday!

AIA National Lecturer Professor David Mattingly specializes in Roman archaeology (including Africa and Britain), landscape archaeology, and Saharan archaeology. He has directed excavations in Italy, Tunisia, Jordan and Libya and is currently the director of the Desert Migrations Project, in Libya.

Dr Mattingly will discuss his current research and fieldwork regarding the African and Saharan heritage of Libya. The Garamantes of Libya’s southern desert province have long been a topic of interest, but much about their lifestyle, their culture and their place in history has hitherto been shrouded in mystery. The lecture will review the Greco-Roman literary and historical sources that depict the Garamantes as troublesome nomads and contrast that with dramatic new evidence from my excavations and survey deep in the Sahara to suggest that the ancient reality was both dramatically different and more complex. The Garamantes can now be recognized as a Saharan civilization contemporary with the Greco-Roman era (900 B.C. – A.D. 500). In fact, their kingdom was the first Libyan state, marking the moment when the indigenous people of Libya evolved from tribal organization to the greater complexity of a centralized polity. Their rule over a Saharan ‘empire’ introduced a series of major innovations to desert societies, including irrigated agriculture, writing, the horse and the camel, urbanism, metallurgy and so on.

Dinner at Shish Restaurant on Grand Ave will follow. We look forward to seeing you!

2009 Candlelight Vigil and Lecture

2009-03-22T08:24:00.000-07:00

Friday April 10, 2009
6:00 pm
John B. Davis Lecture Hall
Macalester College
(map)

April 10-12, 2009 marks the sixth anniversary of the tragic ransacking of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. From April 10-12, 2003, countless invaluable works of art and artifacts were systematically stolen from the Museum and many remain missing today. Recently, the Iraq Museum reopened seven of its galleries. While this has been seen by some as a success story, serious concerns remain about the security of the objects and the destruction of archaeological sites in Iraq and all over the world continues. So it is on April 10-12 that we will come together as a worldwide community to acknowledge our stewardship and responsibility in protecting those artifacts and sites that are part of our global cultural heritage.

Cori Wegener, President of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, will provide a slide presentation about her experiences working with the staff at the Iraq National Museum in 2003-2004 and provide an update on the current situation. We will then light candles as part of the Global Candlelight Vigil for the Iraq Museum, co-sponsored by Saving Antiquities for Everyone (SAFE).
---

On April 10- 12, 2007, SAFE organized its first global candlelight vigil to commemorate the tragic events of April 2003 and help raise awareness of the need for action to protect the cultural heritage. Individuals, schools, universities, museums, and groups around the world participated. In April 2008 the vigil became an annual event.

For more information please visit SAFE's website at http://savingantiquities.org/candlelightvigils.php.

Also, be sure to light a virtual candle and add your name to the list of supporters here http://savingantiquities.org/virtualcandle.php.

Please help AIA-MN and SAFE spread the news about this important event by sharing these links and posting flyers (email Vanessa Rousseau or Kate Larson).

We have not forgotten. Light a candle with us.

Tsakirgis Lecture, March 5

2009-02-19T10:56:00.000-08:00

AIA Joukowsky Lecturer Barbara Tsakirgis will speak on Thursday March 5th, at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Her topic will be To Honor the Gods: Greek Domestic Religion. This lecture explores the surviving evidence for reconstructing religious practice in the Greek house, with a special focus on the houses and observances in Athens in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C.E.

Tsakirgis is Professor of Classics and Art History at Vanderbilt University. She is a specialist in Greek architecture and archaeology, and has excavated in Italy, Sicily, and Greece. She has written a number of articles for the American Journal of Archaeology, Hesperia, and Acta Hyperborea and is the author of The Domestic Architecture of Morgantina in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods.

Please plan to join us after the lecture at Christos Restaurant, for dinner and discussion with Professer Tsakirgis.

Investigations of a Roman Villa

2009-01-26T11:37:00.000-08:00

The site of Soline, the archaeological project of St. Thomas professor Vanca Schrunk, is featured in the Spring AIA-MN newsletter (coming soon to your inbox or mailbox!). Below is an article about the site which was originally published in the August 2008 edition of Nautica, a Croatian language periodical. Thanks to Vanca for providing the article and photos.

When a Legionnaire Falls in Love with Hvar
Text by M. Petrić
Photos by T. Schrunk, M. Petrić and N. Colnago
Translated by V. Schrunk

On the island of St. Clement (Sv. Klement), the largest of the Pakleni archipelago, archaeologists investigate the remains of a Roman villa, 1500-2000 years old

In Soline Bay, in the central part of St. Clement and on the edge of a fertile plain (Velo Poje), are located remains of a Roman villa. Croatian and American archaeologists have been exploring the site for two years. The story of this villa could begin in this way: When the Roman officer Lucius Rustius Picens came to Hvar with his army in the middle of the first century A.D. to counter the strife following the rebellion of Scribonianus, the provincial governor of Dalmatia, against Emperor Caligula, he could not have guessed that he would fall in love with Hvar and remain here. For his successful service to the Empire, the emperor rewarded him with a title (evidence on an inscription found in Hvar in 1884) and gave him land in Hvar and on St. Clement. Rustius especially liked his estate on the small island. The fertile field he planted in wheat, the shallow bay was ideal for salt works and fish ponds, and at the head of the bay he built his residence to supervise the work and enjoy the scenery. In his old age he could treat his ailing joints in the medicinal mud in the bay. His descendants continued to keep up the estate until the hard times when the Slavs and the Avars poured over the borders of the Empire. Many Romans from the coastal cities (especially from Salona, by then called Romani) took refuge on the islands. Several families arrived on St. Clement. They built additions and secured the old villa, expanded the salt works, constructed a watch tower. It didn't last long and they had to flee. The newcomers did not care about the villa or about the field; they kept up only the salt works. So the villa deteriorated and sunk into oblivion and thick vegetation ..... for centuries. Sometime in the 13th century, on a hill above the field, an unknown Croatian aristocrat built a chapel to St. Clement (a martyr and a pope), the patron of sailors and shepherds. When the times were more peaceful in the 15th century, a small shepherd village Vloka formed on the slopes below the chapel. Rustius' villa became a mine for building stones. One of the structures with a mosaic floor became a sheep-pen; its entry way was converted to a wheat-threshing space.

Shepherds, farmers and fishermen, beside salt collectors and hunters of small game used the villa ruins until the 20th century. Then in the late 1950's, the devastated ruin attracted a well-known archaeologist from Hvar, Grga Novak, who conducted a small excavation, but left no documentation. There is only one sentence about it in his book "Hvar through centuries" and an oral anecdote about a Roman coin he found and gave to a pretty woman – visitor to his excavation.

This romantic story of the site could be told to tourists who venture into this picturesque bay and stop at the ruins. But, what could really be the history of this site? What could scientific archaeological research tell us by analyzing stratigraphy, pottery and ancient pollen; by conducting magnetometric detection and C 14 dating of organic remains? To find answers to these questions, a Croatian-American team started a project called "Soline". Its director is Branko Kirigin from the Archaeological Museum in Split and the team members are Vlasta Begović from the Institute of Archaeology in Zagreb, Ivančica Schrunk from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul (USA) and Marinko Petrić from the Hvar Heritage Museum, the institution that carries the project. The main financial sponsor of the project is the Archaeo/Community Foundation from San Francisco. The field workers are students and volunteers, mostly from the USA so far, but Croatian participants are expected soon and there are plans for a summer archaeological field school. The field team is housed in Vloka at Tonko Matijević and the family Colnago, some hundred meters from the site in the beautiful surroundings of the bay – indeed an ideal place for active and educational vacation.

The hot summer sun dictates the field work in the early morning and late afternoon hours. In the meantime, the team washes and catalogues ceramic finds, swims, and eats lunch in the restaurant Dionis, owned by the brothers Šimunović, also project sponsors. At night, the host sings and plays guitar – "just two songs before sleeping" .....but that could go on!

The small funds so far allow only short seasons – 10 to 15 days – and the research is exploratory and diagnostic. The objective is to define the site: the villa's area and layout, building phases and concentration of finds. These would indicate the direction of the project and formulate the plan of research, conservation and site presentation.

Last summer, David Monsees from Washington, DC, conducted magnetometric survey of the northwestern area, which showed many structures under the surface. A test trench confirmed architectural remains and there were findings of mosaic stones (tesserae) and of pottery shards ranging in date from the Hellenistc to the Renaissance period. This year, the team researched the late Roman standing structure with thick walls, which could have been a granary. However, when the interior was explored, remains of a mosaic floor were found. The structure had on its north side an apparently later addition of unknown function. The whole complex first had to be cleared of trees and thick brush, what was the most laborious part of the fieldwork. The effort, however, uncovered the building in its full size and location in the landscape.

Next year, the exploration will continue, but in the meantime, the site will be protected as a cultural-historical heritage site and identified as such by a sign posted in the bay. All in all – much more work, hot sun, and songs by Tonko Matijević.

It Was A Villa Maritima
The Roman villa rustica in Soline Bay is located along the southwestern edge of the fertile plain (Velo poje) and along the shore of the bay, what makes it a maritime villa (villa maritima). It covers 2000-2500 square meters, today mainly overgrown with brush and tall grass. The remains of a long wall (A), 16 m in length and 2.5 m high, dominate the site. The wall probably belonged to a two-story building. About 20 m to the south is a relatively well preserved structure (B), 8 m long and 6 m wide, with walls from 1.5 to 2m high. It has a mortar floor base preserved in its interior and there are remains of more walls, enclosing narrow spaces, next to it. Along the shore there are sections of other walls and remains of structures (C), which all seem to belong to an older, residential section of the villa. These were uncovered in the late 1950's by Grga Novak, the well-known archaeologist and historian from Hvar. A Roman retaining wall runs at the head of the bay along the sandy beach. It probably served to prevent erosion of the fields. Large stone blocks, visible scattered in the shallow bay, are the remains of ancient piers. All the standing structures show the late Roman wall construction of the 5th or 6th century, while the entire site is littered with fragments of roof tiles and pottery shards, which could be dated from the 3rd and 2nd century B.C. to the 16th and 17th centuries A.D. The majority of the surface finds belongs to late antiquity, from the 4th to the 6th century, what indicates the period of the largest extent of the villa complex. Roman pottery has been found in the wider area of the bay and the village of Vloka and more Roman structures could be found. Considering the preserved architecture and the chronology of its use, the villa in Soline is the best example of the Roman rural settlement in the Hvar area and the site of exceptional archaeological potential. There are traces of two other Roman villas on the archipelago near Hvar: one in the bay of Ždrilce on the islet of Marinkovac, and the other on the edge of the Momić field, west of Soline.

Soline - Archaeological Park
The Hvar archipelago (Hvarski škoji), better known as the Pakleni Islands, are one of the most scenic Mediterranean areas of Croatia, and thus have the status of protected landscape. Because of their serene atmosphere, quiet and sunny coves, crystal-clear sea for swimming and diving, and some good restaurants, the islands are very popular with tourists. These islands also have a very rich history, from most ancient times to the 20th century. Soline bay and Vloka, with a Roman villa and the chapel of St. Clement in a picturesque village, and also prehistoric Illyrian grave-sites (gomile) on the nearby hills, offer the most interesting story. The guiding idea of the project has been from the very beginning to connect tourism with the cultural-historical heritage of the islands. The best solution would be an archaeological park on the site of a well researched and presented Roman villa (Rustius' villa?). Here the visitors could learn about the history of the archipelago, Roman rural architecture and lifestyle, Roman agricultural practice .... and perhaps taste some Roman delicacies and experience the medicinal mud in the bay. This would show the value of the cultural heritage of the Hvar archipelago and be attractive to tourists. Despite the rich archaeological literature about the city of Hvar, there is not a single archaeological site that is properly presented. The research project in Soline and the plans for the site presentation will require years of work, but the prospects are great because of lots of good will, efforts and support from the local community and from the hotel company Sunčani Hvar, who recognized its potential for the new, refined tourist image of Hvar.

Schuler lecture at Concordia

2009-01-22T10:27:00.000-08:00

AIA-MN is pleased to announce a lecture by local archaeologist Dr. Mark Schuler, Professor of Theology and Greek at Concordia University. Schuler will discuss his excavations at Sussita, the ancient site of Hippos, one of the cities of the Decapolis, located 2 kilometers east of the Sea of Galilee. Founded by the Seleucids, the city continued as a major urban center throughout the Roman and Byzantine periods until being destroyed by an earthquake in 749 CE. Highlights of the city uncovered in excavations include the Decumanus Maximus, public and domestic quarters, and a temple complex.

The lecture will be held at the E.M. Pearson Theater at Concordia University in St. Paul at 6:00 on Thursday, February 5th. Thanks to Concordia for hosting this event!

AIA members are invited to join the speaker and local society officers for dinner after the talk. Please RSVP to Kate Larson if you are interested.

Unearthing the Emperor

2008-11-13T10:59:00.000-08:00

Thursday, November 20th, Winston Kyan will offer a lecture titled Unearthing the Emperor: Person, Personality and the Terracotta Army of China's First Sovereign Ruler. The accidental discovery in 1974 of the terracotta army of Qin Shihuangdi, the First Emperor of China, astonished the archaeological world. In the decades since, the international celebrity of these 7000 life-sized warriors, horses, and chariots has only grown while the actual mausoleum of the First Emperor remains untouched. Based on the material from the latest excavations at the site - including bronzes, jades, and figural sculpture - this lecture reconstructs the social, political, and religious context that illuminate the person and personality of this remarkable individual.

Dr Kyan is an Assistant Professor of Art History at Macalester College. He received a PhD in Art History from the University of Chicago. The lecture will begin at 6:00 in the John B. Davis Auditorium, in the basement of the Dayton Campus Center, located on the southwest corner of the Snelling and Grand intersection in St Paul.

Former Director of the Iraq Museum to speak in Minnesota

2008-11-03T13:22:00.000-08:00

Donny George Youkhanna, former director of the Iraq Museum, will deliver two public lectures next Wednesday, November 12th. AIA-MN members and friends are welcome to attend either or both of these free talks.

"Mesopotamia: The Beginning of Civilization" will focus on the archaeology and cultural history of Iraq. This lunchtime lecture at Hamline University begins at 11:30. Please visit the Hamline University website for more information.

Later in the evening, at the Weisman Art Museum at 6:00, Dr Youkhanna will provide the latest news about the Iraq Museum and the restitution of antiquities from other countries, along with information about the ongoing looting of Iraq’s archaeological sites in a lecture titled "Looting of the Iraq Museum: Loss of a Nation's Memory." The talk will be followed by a panel discussion on cultural property and armed conflict, featuring Dr. Youkhanna, Dr. Patty Gerstenblith of DePaul University Law School, and Cori Wegener, Associate Curator at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and President of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield.

The Weisman is not offering advance reservation tickets for the evening lecture, so please arrive early as seating is limited.

Dr Youkhanna's visit to Minnesota is co-sponsored by the Weisman Art Museum; Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, LLP; the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield; and the Maya Society.

Great turnout at the MIA!

2008-10-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

Roughly 220 people attended and enjoyed last night's lecture by Steven Harvey at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. It was wonderful to have such a large turnout for our first event of the year!

A reminder that Professor Harvey will be leading an AIA sponsored tour of Egypt in Winter 2009. This is a great opportunity to see and access archaeological sites normally closed to the public. More information can be found here on the national website.

Steven Harvey to speak at MIA

2008-10-16T13:23:00.000-07:00

At 6:00 on Thursday, October 23rd, AIA National Lecturer Stephen Harvey will speak about his work at the site of Abydos, Egypt. Professor Harvey attended Yale University for his undergraduate degree and the University of Pennsylvania for his PhD in Egyptian Archaeology. He currently works in the Department of Anthropology at Stony Brook University. Professor Harvey specializes in Egyptian archaeology, narrative in ancient art, ancient warfare, pyramid construction, ancient religious institutions, and sacred landscapes. He is currently the director of the Ahmose and Tetisheri Project in Abydos, Egypt.

In "Before the Valley of the Kings: Egypt's Last Royal Pyramids," Professor Harvey addresses how the pyramids at Giza and hidden royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings (ancient Thebes) are among the best-known features of ancient Egyptian civilization. Despite their basic familiarity, however, little is understood about the process by which the pharaohs chose to abandon the earlier pyramidal form in favor of rock-cut burials, a transition that took place at the outset of Egypt’s New Kingdom. Surprisingly, the best evidence for this change in royal tomb concepts may be found not at Thebes but at the sacred site of Abydos in southern Egypt, where the last Egyptian royal pyramids were constructed by King Ahmose (ca 1550-1525 BCE). Near the pyramids that the pharaoh constructed for himself and in honor of his grandmother Tetisheri, Ahmose also carved out a rock-cut tomb of a type best known from later king’s tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Excavations at Abydos since 1993 are beginning to provide a fascinating look into the artistic and architectural innovations of Ahmose’s reign, including unique depictions of King Ahmose’s defeat of the Hyksos, rulers of Syro-Palestinian origin who had dominated northern Egypt for a century. Given that not tomb or temple for King Ahmose has ever been discovered at Thebes (modern Luxor), the Abydos monuments are of great importance, and this lecture will explore the intriguing possibility that the pharaoh was intended to be buried in one of the mortuary structures built by him at that site.

A nice article from the University of Chicago Chronicle discusses Harvey and his work at Abydos.

Lectures are free and open to the public. Please join us for dinner at Christos Restaurant after the lecture. RSVP to Vanessa Rousseau.

Update from Macalester and Carthage Excavations at Omrit, Israel

2008-10-16T13:14:00.000-07:00

We've asked Minnesota-based archaeologists to share updates about their current field projects for the website and newsletter. If you are interested in sharing an update, please contact Kate Larson.

Omrit, Israel: Macalester College Excavations
Excavations at Omrit in 2008 concentrated in the area to the north of the temple temenos. In previous years, specifically in 1999 and 2000, a half dozen squares were opened in this area in an attempt to determine the size and extent of the site. Those squares revealed portions of a colonnaded way and the remains of small structures apparently devoted to industrial activity. In 2008, we continued exploring these areas in addition to opening a few squares farther to the north.

Work in 2008 reinforced many of the conclusions reached in 2000. A Roman-period road running approximately north-south connected the temple temenos with a road leading from the Hula Valley up to Banias. This road was colonnaded, but only, and apparently, on its west side, with a robust and well-built stylobate that supported Ionic columns. The Roman surface of this road does not survive, but presumably it was paved with basalt slabs like the temple temenos. Excavations immediately to the east of the preserved stylobate and about 1.25 meters below the road bed revealed a sophisticated hydraulic system consisting of terracotta pressure pipes encased in gravel and concrete. The water system appears to have carried water from a wadi, running on the north fringes of the site, to the temple temenos over 200 meters to the south.

Further to the north, in the area of the road to Banias, excavations revealed more small structures characteristic of industrial or work areas. One square revealed a large basalt grindstone, similar to many such stones found throughout the northern Galilee. Excavations in another square discovered a small building whose thin walls and floors were covered with thick coats of fine plaster. More work is needed in this area, but at first interpretation this building may have been used for some sort of liquid processing or storage.
-Michael Nelson, Assistant Professor of Art, Queens College and former President, AIA-MN

Donny George Youkhanna Lecture at Hamline

2008-10-14T10:52:00.000-07:00

Dr. Donny George Youkhanna, former director of the Iraq Museum and current professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, will give a second public lecture during his time in Minnesota.

Mesopotamia: The Beginning of Civilization
Wednesday, November 12
11:30am - 12:30pm
Sundin Music Hall, Hamline University
Admission: Free
Limited parking is available in Visitor Lot C, or on the street. Visit the Hamline University website for additional directions and parking information.

Later in the evening, Dr. Youkhanna will be at the Weisman Art Museum to speak about the "Looting of the Iraq Museum," lecture followed by a panel discussion. Both events are sponsored by Weisman Art Museum; Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, LLP; the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield; and the Maya Society.

Mark your calendars!

2008-10-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

Full Schedule for the 2008-09 Archaeology Lecture Series

Fall 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Stephen Harvey, Stony Brook University (AIA National)
Before the Valley of the Kings: Egypt’s Last Royal Pyramids
6:00 PM, Pillsbury Auditorium, Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Donny George, Stony Brook University
Looting of the Iraq Museum: The Loss of a Nation’s Memory
6:00 PM, Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota
Co-sponsored by Weisman Art Museum; Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, LLP; the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield; and the Maya Society

Thursday, November 20, 2008
Winston Kyan, Macalester College
Unearthing the Emperor: Person, Personality and the Terracotta Army of China’s First Sovereign Ruler
6:00 PM, John B. Davis Lecture Hall, Macalester College

Spring 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Mark Schuler, Concordia University
Glory and Decline of a Roman/Byzantine Urban Center:
The 10-year International Excavation at Hippos of the Decapolis, Jordan Valley, Israel
6:00 PM, E.M. Pearson Theatre, Concordia University

Thursday, March 5, 2009
Barbara Tsakirgis, Vanderbilt University (AIA National)
To Honor the Gods: Greek Domestic Religion
6:00 PM, Pillsbury Auditorium, Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Wednesday, April 8, 2009
David Mattingly, University of Leicester (AIA National)
Mystery to History: The Garamantes of the Libyan Sahara
6:00 PM, John B. Davis Lecture Hall, Macalester College

Friday, April 10, 2009
Cori Wegener, U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield
Cultural Property at War: Lessons from the Iraq Museum Looting
Followed by Candlelight Vigil
6:00 PM, John B. Davis Lecture Hall, Macalester College