The first presentation in the AIA Dayton 2026-27 Lecture Series presented by Dr. Jeb Card, Associate Teaching Professor in Anthropology at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio sponsored by an AIA R.S. Webster Lectureship grant.

Outside of scientific journals, archaeologists are depicted as searching for lost cities and mystical artifacts in news reports, television, video games, and movies like Indiana Jones or The Mummy. This fantastical image has little to do with day-to-day science, yet it is deeply connected to why people are fascinated by the ancient past. People today continue to find the mystical and archaeology and have a fascination with exotic artifacts and eerie practices. Exploring the development of archaeology helps us understand what archaeology is and why it matters. In this presentation by Jeb J. Card, the audience will follow a trail of clues left by adventurers and professional archaeologists through haunted museums, mysterious hieroglyphic inscriptions, fragments of a lost continent that never existed, and deep into an investigation of magic and murder.

This lecture is scheduled to take place in person in the Science Center Auditorium (SC 114) at The University of Dayton.

For a campus map with building and parking information visit https://udayton.edu/map/

Thanks to the Archaeological Institute of America’s Lecture Program and our Dayton Society members this lecture is free and open to the public.