AIA News

January 8, 2013

AIA Awards Presented at 2013 Annual Meeting


Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement:  Jeremy B. Rutter

Jeremy Rutter received his B.A. in Classics from Haverford College in 1967 and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1974. After a year’s tenure of the AIA’s Olivia James Travelling Fellowship (1974-75) and one-year as  visiting Assistant Professor in Classics at UCLA (1975-76), he moved with his family to New Hampshire to teach at Dartmouth College, where he served as an Assistant Professor (1976-81), Associate Professor (1981-87), and Professor (1987-2012), chairing the Department of Classics (1992-98, 2003-06) and holding the Sherman Fairchild Professorship in the Humanities (2001-10). His principal field of expertise is Aegean prehistory, especially the ceramics of all phases of the mainland Greek Bronze Age and of the Late Bronze Age on Crete. Having participated in excavations at the sites of Ayios Stephanos (Laconia), Corinth, Tsoungiza (Corinthia), Kommos (Crete), Mitrou (Locris), and Aigeira (Achaïa), he has authored three books, co-edited one, and published more than 60 articles and as well as more than 50 reviews since 1967.

Outstanding Public Service Award:  David W. Packard

David Packard was recognized for his work as president at The Packard Humanities Institute (PHI), a non-profit foundation dedicated to archaeology, music, film preservation, historic conservation, and early education. It is especially noted for its generous funding of ancient Mediterranean research, excavation, rescue and preservation (Athenian Agora, Butrint, Herculaneum, Zeugma,) support of the creation of museum facilities (Butrint site in southern Albania), online research tools, digital archaeology projects, aerial photographic archive for archaeology in the Middle East, and more. Zeugma 2000, an archaeological rescue project dedicated to documenting the Roman frontier city of Zeugma on the Euphrates River was supported by the Turkish Ministry of Culture, the South-eastern Anatolia Project (GAP) and the PHI organized an ambitious international emergency rescue project at Zeugma during the summer of 2000. As of 2012, PHI will have been active for 25 years, during which it has worked hard to bring substantial long-term resources to bear on archaeological subjects and sites of major public import. Image: Work at Zeugma 2000, the archaeological rescue project dedicated to documenting the Roman frontier city of Zeugma on the Euphrates River, supported by The Packard Humanities Institute.

Martha and Artemis Joukowsky Distinguished Service Award:  Claire Lyons

Claire Lyons earned an A.B. in Classics at Bowdoin College and a Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology at Bryn Mawr College in 1983. Following her tenure as Curator of the History of Archaeology and Ancient Art at the Getty Research Institute, in 2008 she joined the Antiquities Department at the Getty Villa as Curator, and was appointed Acting Senior Curator in 2011. At the Villa, Claire organized exhibitions on Grecian Taste and Roman Spirit: The Society of Dilettanti (2008), The Chimaera of Arezzo (2009), and The Aztec Pantheon and the Art of Empire (2010). Currently she is preparing an exhibition on Sicily in the Classical and Hellenistic periods. A specialist in the archaeology of pre-Roman Italy, she has excavated at Murlo, Corinth, Metaponto, and Morgantina. Claire is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, and has held fellowships at Brown University, Oxford University, and the Liguria Study Center for the Arts and the Humanities. She is an editorial board member of the International Journal of Cultural Property, Journal of the History of Collections, and the American Journal of Archaeology.  Claire Lyons is the author of Morgantina: The Archaic Cemeteries (1996), and co-edited The Archaeology of Colonialism (2002), Antiquity & Photography: Early Views of Ancient Mediterranean Sites (2005), and Sicily: Art and Invention between Greece and Rome (2013).

Pomerance Award for Scientific Contributions to Archaeology:  Stephen Weiner

Born in Pretoria, South Africa, Steve Weiner obtained a B.Sc. degree in chemistry and geology at the University of Cape Town, the M.Sc. in geochemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena in 1977 in the field of mineral formation in biology. In the same year, he joined the faculty of the Weizmann Institute.  Steve Weiner carries out research in two fields: biomineralization and archaeological science. In 1989, he published a book entitled On Biomineralization with the late H.A. Lowenstam, and in 2010 he published Microarchaeology: Beyond the Visible Archaeological Record. He is the recipient of the 2010 prize of the Israel Chemical Society, and the 2011 Aminoff Prize for Crystallography from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award:  Elise A. Friedland

Elise A. Friedland is Assistant Professor of Classics and of Art History in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at The George Washington University.  She holds a B.A. in Classics from Williams College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Classical Art and Archaeology from the University of Michigan. Before joining the faculty at GW, she taught at Rollins College (Winter Park, Florida) for ten years. A specialist in Roman art and archaeology, Roman sculpture, the Roman Near East, and museum studies, she serves as the sculpture specialist for the Excavations at the Sanctuary of Pan at Caesarea Philippi/Banias in Israel and for the site of Jerash in Jordan.  Friedland has also worked as a museum educator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and as a curator at the University of Michigan’s Kelsey Museum of Archaeology and for two archaeological site museums in Lamta (ancient Lepti Minus), Tunisia and at Zippori National Park (ancient Sepphoris), Israel.  She has published two books: a co-edited volume, entitled The Sculptural Environment of the Roman Near East: Reflections on Culture, Ideology, and Power (2008, Peeters Press) and a monograph, The Roman Marble Sculptures from the Sanctuary of Pan at Caesarea Philippi/Panias (Israel) (ASOR’s Archaeological Report Series 2012). She is currently at work on a second monograph, Seeing the Gods: Sculptures, Sanctuaries, and the Roman Near East, and is co-editor of the in-progress Oxford Handbook of Roman Sculpture. For the AIA, Friedland has served as President of the Central Florida Society, a member of Lecture Program Committee and the Societies and Membership Committee, a national lecturer, and is currently president of AIA’s Washington, D.C. Society.

James R. Wiseman Book Award: Kathleen Lynch

The Symposium in Context: Pottery from a Late Archaic House in the Athenian Agora

Kathleen received a B.A. from Boston University and both an M.A. and Ph.D. from the McIntire Department of Art at the University of Cincinnati. She has excavated in Greece, Turkey, Italy, and Albania, but her “home” excavation is the Athenian Agora, which is the background for her book. Kathleen’s research specialty is Greek pottery, especially Athenian pottery―both figured and plain―of the Archaic and Classical periods. She is an Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Cincinnati where she is also the Director of Graduate Studies for Archaeology. Kathleen has been a national AIA lecturer as well as a guest lecture for AIA tours. She currently serves as Chair of the AIA Fellowships committee and as the Treasurer of AIA’s Cincinnati Society.

Felicia A. Holton Book Award:  Andrew Wallace-Hadrill

 Herculaneum: Past and Future

Born in Oxford, son of a distinguished historian of the early middle ages (John Michael Wallace-Hadrill), he took his first degree in Classics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and his doctorate, on Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars, at St. John’s College in the same University. He moved to Cambridge for his first post, as a Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics at Magdalene College (1976-1983), publishing a book on Suetonius and articles on aspects of Roman imperial ideology. After working in Leicester (1983-1987), where he worked closely with colleagues in sociology and urban history and edited two volumes, he moved to Reading as Professor of Classics (1987-2009). He edited the Journal of Roman Studies, the leading journal of Roman history and culture, from 1991 to 1995. Interest in Roman material culture led to the publication of a study of Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (1994), which won the Archaeological Institute of America’s James R. Wiseman Award. His work in Pompeii led to the development of a joint project with Professor Michael Fulford on a group of houses in Pompeii, and to appointment as Director of the British School at Rome (1995-2009), a post he held simultaneously with the professorship at Reading. Since 2001, he has directed the Herculaneum Conservation Project, a project of the Packard Humanities Institute which aims to protect and study this unique site.

Felicia A. Holton Book Lifetime Achievement Award:  Brian Fagan

Archaeologist Brian Fagan was born in England, educated at Cambridge University (B.A., M.A., and Ph.D.), and worked in Central Africa before coming to the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1967. Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and an independent scholar, Brian is the author of numerous general books on archaeology, ancient climate change, and, most recently, histories of water and ancient seafaring. He is regarded as one of the world’s leading archaeological writers and lectures about archaeology, water, and ancient climate worldwide. His most recent books are Elixir: A History of Water and Humankind and Beyond the Blue Horizon: How the Earliest Mariners Unlocked the Secrets of the Ocean, both by Bloomsbury Press, New York.

Conservation and Heritage Management Award:  Sudharshan Seneviratne

Professor Sudharshan Seneviratne of the University of Peradeniya is being recognized for his tireless efforts to protect and conserve the archaeological heritage of Sri Lanka and, as importantly, to present the shared cultural heritage of the people of Sri Lanka in a manner that respects and celebrates the cultural diversity of the island nation. Seneviratne’s efforts include archaeological conservation, advocacy, education and training, and raising cultural awareness. As Archaeological Director of the Jetavana Project at Anuradhapura, Seneviratne worked on the conservation of the Jetavana stupa, the largest masonry structure in Sri Lanka. Under his direction, the displays in the site museum were reorganized to emphasize the multi-cultural, multi-religious and commercial aspects of the site rather than simply its role as a Buddhist ‘monastic city.’  As Head of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Peradeniya for nearly ten years, Seneviratne is instrumental in training the next generation of South Asian archaeologists. In recent years Seneviratne has served as Senior Cultural Advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as Director General of the Central Cultural Fund.

Best Practices in Site Preservation Award: 

George Bey, Cristina Vidal Lorenzo and Gaspar Muñoz Cosme

The AIA Conservation and Site Preservation Committee is pleased to announce the winners of the 2013 Best Practices in Site Preservation Award. This year’s recipients are George Bey of Millsaps College, for his work at Kaxil Kiuic, Mexico, and Cristina Vidal Lorenzo and Gaspar Muñoz Cosme, of the University of Valencia and Polytechnic University of Valencia, respectively, for their joint work on the La Blanca Project, Guatemala. This award, established by the AIA Conservation and Site Preservation Committee in 2011, identifies and promotes best practices in the interdisciplinary field of site preservation.

Additionally, the following awards were announced at the Annual Meeting:

Golden Trowel Award: Eugene (Oregon) was awarded the Golden Trowel for having the highest percentage increase in its membership.

Best Flyer Award: North Alabama won for the best flyer

Best Website Award: Houston’s website won for its breadth, depth, and ease of navigability

Foot Soldier Award: Meg Morden (Toronto) won for her many years of dedication to the AIA and making sure that archaeology has a place in the schools in the Toronto area.

Society Outreach Grants:

•Central Arizona: “Apples + Archaeology”

•Central Carolinas: “DavidsonLearns – Archaeology Short Course

•Denver: “Archaeology and Historic Preservation Month.”

•Houston: “It’s About Time”

•LA County: “The Production and Analysis of Handmade Ceramics: Why Didn’t the Chumash Make Pottery?”

•Narragansett: “AIA’s Young Archaeologist’s Day”

•New York: “The Next Generation Steps Up”

•Salem (Oregon): National Archaeology Day Celebration

•South Carolina: Archaeology in Film

•Staten Island: Community Outreach Initiative 2013

•Tallahassee: Promotion of AIA lectures

•Tucson: Ancient Snacktacle

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