Archaeological Institute of America

Drawing on History: Creating the Graphic Adaptation of 1177 BC
2024-11-14 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | George Washington University, Funger Hall 103, 2201 G St NW, Washington, 20052, United States
How does a cartoonist adapt a scholarly work of history, specifically Eric H. Cline’s 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed? Prof. Eric H. Cline and award-winning illustrator Glynnis Fawkes describe the process of interpreting Eric’s text in comics. This meant making historical figures (such as Ramses III) speak, as well as imagining characters for whom we have no record offering commentary and opinions. Join the co-authors as they discuss the creation of 1177 B.C.: A Graphic History of the Year Civilization Collapsed (Princeton University Press).

Afghanistan's Heritage: Target in War and Engine of Peace, Dr. Laura Tedesco
2024-11-14 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | College of Charleston, Robert Scott Small Building, Room 235, College Way, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
This presentation will reflect on efforts to preserve and protect Afghanistan’s cultural heritage. Utilzing the tools of diplomacy through the US Department of State and the practical steps involved in restoration of neglected and destroyed heritage, Dr. Laura Tedesco will discuss a little-known aspect of United States’ engagement in Afghanistan from 2001-2021, with insights on what is occurring now to Afghanistan’s cultural patrimony with the Taliban’s renewed authority.
See our society’s website https://aiasouthcarolina.wordpress.com/ for details of parking and accessibility.

Children in Context: How Mortuary Contexts Inform our Understanding of the Past
2024-11-16 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Chicago) | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3615010853?pwd=[REDACTED]
Lecture by Dr. Erin Bornemann, Director of Information Management for the Colorado Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation. The mortuary record affords archaeologists a unique snapshot in time and space, providing further information surrounding the larger social context of death and burial in archaeological contexts that are often not discernible from other non-burial settings. Studies of such contexts provide material evidence for objects the deceased may have used in life, but more certainly for objects that the living found significant to include with the deceased in their final resting place. This lecture will present archaeological case studies based on the author’s research in Coastal California and Sudan that demonstrate cross-cultural differences in the expression of death and burial, with a specific focus on an underrepresented portion of most burial populations: children. Using lenses of materiality, personhood, and childhood, this lecture will discuss how these two cultural spheres—vastly different in time, space, and material culture—took great care in the burials of children in their communities, and how these burial contexts can inform our knowledge regarding the ascription of personhood in these societies.

Archives in the Crocodile: The Tebtunis Crocodile Papyri As the Missing Link between Ptolemaic and Roman Notarial Practices
2024-11-17 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | IL
The American Research Center in Egypt, Northern California chapter, and the UC Berkeley Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures invite you to attend a lecture by Leah Packard-Grams, UC Berkeley:
Archives in the Crocodile: The Tebtunis Crocodile Papyri
As the Missing Link between Ptolemaic and Roman Notarial Practices
Sunday November 17, 2024, 3 PM Pacific Standard Time
Room 56 Social Sciences Building, UC Berkeley
This in-person lecture will not be virtual or recorded.
No registration is required for the lecture.
About the Lecture:
One of the most important finds of Egyptian papyri was discovered entirely by accident. An Egyptian workman (whose name the excavators do not report) broke open a crocodile mummy he had found while digging, and beneath the linen mummy bandages were hidden papyrus archives that reveal the history of the “lost century” of ancient Egypt. The documents found stashed inside the 36 votive crocodile mummies at the site of Tebtunis are everyday papers, but their value and uniqueness is hard to overstate: The texts are from the 1st century BCE, a time when Egypt’s documentary record plummets. In this century, Egypt was in its last decades of native rule under Cleopatra’s father Ptolemy XII, and the Roman Republic was peering at the bounty of Egypt with an eye toward conquest. The archives in the Tebtunis crocodiles show a glimpse of everyday life in this period of uncertainty, offering insights into the economic conditions and state-mandated notary practices of the lost century of Egypt’s history.
These crocodile papyri have never been examined in a holistic way that considers their archaeological assemblage of votive artifacts, the full extent of the subarchives, or the importance of the crocodile temples to the documents themselves. This is precisely what this project proposes to remedy.
About the Speaker:
Leah Packard-Grams an interdisciplinary ancient historian, papyrologist, and archaeologist in UC Berkeley’s interdisciplinary program (AHMA) currently writing her dissertation on the topic of today’s lecture. Her primary interests include Greek and Demotic papyrology, the archaeology of Greco-Roman Egypt, and the materiality of ancient textual artifacts. She is part of two excavations in Egypt (El Hibeh with UC Berkeley + Amheida with NYU). She is passionate about diversifying the field of ancient history to include those accounts of people who have been historically marginalized, and strives to bridge the disciplinary divides that artificially separate archaeology, papyrology, and Egyptology.
Parking is available in UC lots all day on weekends, for a fee. Ticket dispensing machines accept debit or credit cards. Parking is available in lots around the Social Sciences Building, and in lots along Bancroft. A map of the campus is available online at http://www.berkeley.edu/map/ .
About ARCE-NC:
For more information, please visit https://www.youtube.com/@NorthernCaliforniaARCE, https://facebook.com/NorthernCaliforniaARCE/, https://twitter.com/ARCENCPostings, and https://khentiamentiu.org. To join the chapter or renew your membership, please go to https://arce.org/join-arce/ and select “Berkeley, CA” as your chapter when you sign up.

Lecture: Zuni Region in the Post-Chacoan Era.
2024-11-19 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Denver) | Pecos Trail Café, 2239 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe, NM, 87505, United States
Lecture by Keith Kintigh (Arizona State University). The Chaco Era has received a tremendous amount of archaeological consideration over the last 45 years. Far less attention has been paid to understanding the organization of northern Southwestern societies following the collapse of Chaco–a time was once viewed as a dark age, a time of cultural backsliding. However, imposing sites with Chaco-inspired public architecture provide evidence of large communities, dating between A.D. 1200 and 1275, that laid the organizational foundations of well-known Pueblo IV towns. We excavated portions of two such Zuni-area settlements and did extensive systematic survey around those two sites and a third, Spier 81. The Hinkson Site has 32 residential room blocks surrounding a great house complex that includes an unroofed, oversize great kiva, a nazha, and roads. The Hinkson site appears to be the center of a 250 square kilometer community with 70 room blocks and nearly 900 rooms. The Los Gigantes Site in the El Morro Valley has similar expressions of public architecture but many fewer roomblocks in the immediate vicinity. Recognition of these multi-room block communities with public architecture permits a rethinking of post-Chacoan, Ancestral Pueblo social organization south of Chaco and provides a more plausible bridge between the Chacoan and Pueblo IV periods in the Zuni region.

Beyond the stone giants: an isotopic perspective on life and death of the people buried at Mont’e Prama
2024-11-19 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Davidson College, 315 North Main Street, Semans Auditorium, Belk Visual Arts Center, Davidson, NC, 28036, United States
November 19, 2024
7:30 p.m. ET
Davidson College
Belk Visual Arts Center 117
Free and open to the public
Luca Lai, “Beyond the stone giants: an isotopic perspective on life and death of the people buried at Mont’e Prama”
About the lecture:
The accidental 1974 discovery of tens of fragmentary statues at Mont’e Prama, in central-western Sardinia, led to one of the most unexpected discoveries in recent Mediterranean archaeology: A unique necropolis with thousands of fragments of stone warriors and athletes representing one of the earliest examples of life-sized 3D figures west of the Aegean.
After a brief summary of the monumental aspects and the main interpretations of the site’s meaning, the talk will explore the less-publicized insights into the chronology, burial ritual, health, diet, and mobility as they begin to take shape from mortuary archaeology, osteology, and especially the isotopic analyses of their bones. This will also provide an opportunity to discuss the site’s role in today’s public debates surrounding the archaeology of the Nuragic culture and its special place in shaping modern Sardinian identity.
About the speaker:
Luca Lai, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UNC Charlotte, specializes in stable isotopes, Western Mediterranean prehistory and particularly Sardinia, and human-environment interactions. He has conducted research on paleodiet and paleoclimate in prehistoric Sardinia from the fifth through the first millennium BCE, focusing on long-term continuity and change, and on differential access to resources based on social status and gender. He grew up in Sardinia and has also lived in Ireland, the US, England, and Lesotho. He has worked on favoring the dissemination of archaeology, culture and current events awareness with special attention to the perspectives of minorities.

Serpent Mound - An Icon of Ancient Ohio
2024-11-23 10:30 - 12:00 (America/New_York) | Science Center Auditorium (SC 114) at The University of Dayton., 450 East Stewart St, Dayton, OH, 45409, United States
The second presentation in the Archaeological Institute of America Dayton Society’s 2024-2025 Lecture Series presented by Dr. Brad Lepper, Senior Archaeologist World Heritage Program, Ohio History Connection
Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio is one of the largest and most spectacular earthen sculptures in the world. The age of the serpent is a subject of much current debate with some archaeologists arguing that it was built by the Adena culture at around 300 B.C.E. and others favoring the Fort Ancient culture at around 1100 C.E. Although much about Serpent Mound still is shrouded in mystery, ancient cave paintings in Missouri may provide a key to unlocking some of its secrets.
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 its Dayton Society members this lecture is free and open to the public.

Archeology in Pajamas: Virtual Lecture Series #2
2024-12-10 18:30 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom/Virtual
The Arkansas Archeological Survey and Arkansas Archeological Society are co-hosting a new Virtual Lecture Series, called “Archeology in Pajamas,” from Fall 2024 through Spring 2025. Have you been interested in attending a talk but weren’t wanting to travel far distances, battle inclement weather, or leave the house because you aren’t feeling up to coming to an in-person talk? Then, this virtual Zoom lecture series is for you! We have a wide range of topics presented by speakers from varied parts of the country, so there is sure to be something for everyone. To attend, please register using the QR code on the attached flyer, or by clicking the link below. These lectures are free and open to the public; anyone is welcome to (virtually) attend. You will need to individually register for each talk, and more information about each will be released as the dates approach.
December Presentation:
Dr. Julie Zimmermann, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
“Storytelling in the Creation of Cahokia, a Native American Theater State”
Talk Abstract: Cahokia might be understood as the capital of a Native American theater state which drew people to it and spread its influence by attracting followers through theatrical rituals. Of those rituals, storytelling was primary, because stories create worldview and give meaning to all other rituals. Cahokian stories were embodied in artworks made at and disseminated from Cahokia. Primary among these stories was that of a hero who wore human head earrings. Cosmological and goddess stories were also told by Cahokians, but the stories of heroes are those most commonly depicted in Braden-style artworks found far from Cahokia. The dissemination of hero stories might support the notion that Cahokia was a theater state, and the heroic epic was a tool of statecraft central to the growth of that state. Cahokians created their world through stories, but it was through hero stories that they grew their authority in far-flung societies.
REGISTER HERE: https://uark.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_FoGFl_bwTcKNwQFfFVpPCw#/registration

Homer and Archaeology - Excavations at the Bronze Age capital of Iklaina
2024-12-14 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Chicago) | Carnegie Room at the St. Louis Public Library, Olive Street, St. Louis, MO, 63101, United States
Lecture presented by Dr. Michael Cosmopoulos, Professor of Greek History and Archaeology at the University of Missouri – St. Louis, and director of the Ilklaina Archaeological Project in Greece.

Researching in the arc-“hives”: Ancient Egyptian honey and beekeeping
2024-12-14 15:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Penn Museum, 3260 South St, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
In-person lecture
Saturday, December 14, 3:30 pm EST
Penn Museum, Classroom 2
A holiday party will follow the lecture
Speaker: Dr. Shelby Justl
Title: Researching in the arc-“hives”: Ancient Egyptian honey and beekeeping
Abstract:
With no sugarcane until 710 AD, honey was the major sweetener for ancient Egyptian food and wines, an important ingredient in medicine, and a valuable tribute commodity. Illustrations of apiculture are surprisingly rare and a lack of representation may indicate honey was a royal prerogative at least in the Old and Middle Kingdoms. However, honey production appears to be a more expansive industry from the New Kingdom onwards.
This talk assesses the extent of royal and temple control over beekeeping from the New Kingdom to the Ptolemaic Period through beekeeping titles, New Kingdom letters, the Wilbour Papyrus, Abydos Stela of Sheshonq, and Zenon archives. Location and size of beekeepers’ land-holdings and hives, productivity levels, and evidence of honey grading, transport, and the taxation of beekeepers may suggest honey production as a larger scale industry than previously thought. A snapshot of the archaeological site of Abydos and excavated honey pots may also indicate the extent of state level production facilities and the industrial scale of honey gathering, storage, and use.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Shelby Justl is a lecturer in the Critical Writing Program here at UPenn. Her courses focus on archaeology and the ancient Egyptian world including such topics as Egyptomania, pseudo-archaeology, and world mythology. She has a PhD in NELC from UPenn and a MA with distinction in Egyptology from the University of Liverpool. After researching and publishing an ostracon from Penn excavations in Abydos that discussed trade of semiprecious stones, her PhD dissertation concentrated on the administration and control of the ancient Egyptian semiprecious stone industry; in acquisition, quarrying, processing, and distribution. She is currently editing this to be published as a book. Dr. Justl also is deeply interested in another “luxury” product for the ancient Egyptians, honey! Still in the research stages, she intends to publish a book on Egyptian honey, beekeeping, and the administration/operation of the industry.
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Lectures are FREE to ARCE Members, $7 for University of Pennsylvania Museum Members and UPenn Staff and Faculty, $5 for Students with ID, and $10 for the general public.
Light refreshments served starting at 3pm.
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The American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1948 by a consortium of educational and cultural institutions to support research on all aspects of Egyptian history and culture, foster broader knowledge among the general public, and strengthen American-Egyptian cultural ties. The ARCE Pennsylvania Chapter (ARCE-PA) is the local branch of the national institution. We host monthly events including scholarly lectures, Egyptian-themed workshops, social events, and guided tours of the Penn Museum’s Egyptian galleries. For more information or to learn about the perks of membership, please send an e-mail to info@arce-pa.org, or visit our website at www.arce-pa.org.

Rediscovering Egypt's Lost Dinosaurs
2024-12-15 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Social Sciences Building, UC Berkeley, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States
The American Research Center in Egypt, Northern California chapter, and the UC Berkeley Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures invite you to attend a lecture by Dr. Matt Lamanna, Carnegie Museum of Natural History:
Rediscovering Egypt’s Lost Dinosaurs
Sunday December 15, 2024, 3 PM Pacific Standard Time
Rm 56 Social Sciences Building, UC Berkeley
This is an in-person lecture and is not virtual.
The lecture will not be recorded. No registration is required
About the Lecture:
Egypt’s vast archaeological record and engaging material culture have long excited people around the world, but did you know that this region’s history stretches back well into the Mesozoic Era, or Age of Dinosaurs? In the early 20th century, a series of German expeditions recovered fossils of several new and extraordinary ~95-million-year-old dinosaur species from the Bahariya Oasis in Egypt’s Western Desert, most famously the enormous sail-backed semi-aquatic predator Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. Tragically, however, all these fossils were destroyed during a British Royal Air Force bombing of Munich in late April 1944. In 2000, a collaborative Egyptian-American research team became the first scientists to discover dinosaur fossils in the Bahariya Oasis in nearly a century; among these were a partial skeleton of a new and gigantic sauropod (long-necked plant-eating dinosaur) that was later named Paralititan stromeri. More recently, researchers from the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center in Mansoura, Egypt have collected additional, important dinosaur fossils from Bahariya, and moreover have expanded their paleontological efforts to include geologically younger (~75-million-year-old) sites in the Kharga and Dakhla oases. Foremost among their finds from the latter is another new sauropod, Mansourasaurus shahinae, which constitutes one of the best-preserved late Mesozoic-aged land-living backboned animals known from the entire African continent. Collectively, these discoveries have cast unprecedented light on Egypt’s remarkable dinosaurs, helping to restore a scientific legacy that was lost during the Second World War.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Matt Lamanna is the Mary R. Dawson Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology and the senior dinosaur researcher at Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Originally from the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, he received his B.Sc. from Hobart College in 1997 and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999 and 2004. Within the past 26 years, he has directed or co-directed field expeditions to Antarctica, Argentina, Australia, China, Croatia, Egypt, Greenland, and the western United States that have resulted in the discovery of more than 20 new species of dinosaurs and other fossil animals from the Cretaceous Period, the third and final time period of the Age of Dinosaurs; indeed, he is one of only a handful of people to have found dinosaur fossils on all seven continents. Lamanna served as chief scientific advisor to Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s $36M “Dinosaurs in Their Time” exhibition and has appeared on television programs for PBS (NOVA), the Discovery Channel, the National Geographic Channel, the History Channel, A&E, the Science Channel, and many more.
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Parking is available in UC lots all day on weekends, for a fee. Ticket dispensing machines accept debit or credit cards. Parking is available in lots around the Social Sciences Building, and in lots along Bancroft. A map of the campus is available online at http://www.berkeley.edu/map/ .
About Northern California ARCE:
For more information, please visit https://www.youtube.com/@NorthernCaliforniaARCE, https://facebook.com/NorthernCaliforniaARCE/, https://twitter.com/ARCENCPostings, and https://khentiamentiu.org. To join the chapter or renew your membership, please go to https://arce.org/membership/ and select “Berkeley, CA” as your chapter when you sign up.

Prehistoric and Natural Wonders of Eastern Missouri and Southern Illinois
2025-01-11 14:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | Auditorium at the St. Louis Public Library, 1301 Olive Street, St. Louis, 63103, United States
Lecture by Mike Chervinko, Citizen Archaeologist and Independent Researcher in Carbondale, Illinois. A discussion of many truly remarkable Pre-Contact (before AD 1500) pictograph and petroglyph archaeological sites in the Mississippi and Missouri River Valleys. Includes a discussion of C-14 dates going back 2000 years for several pictographs.

“Training on Archaeological Practice: How we find archaeology, and why we do so” with Dr Brian Buchanan, Eastern Washington University
2025-01-16 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W 1st Ave, Spokane, WA, 99201, United States
Dr. Buchanan will share current methods relating to practical archaeological fieldwork.

Beneath an Ancient Neighborhood: Archaeology and History in the Barrio de Analco, Santa Fe
2025-01-21 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Denver) | Pecos Trail Café, 2239 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe, NM, 87505, United States
Lecture. Stephen Post (Museum of New Mexico, Office of Archaeological Studies). For more than 900 years, humans have left their mark on the neighborhood on the south side of the Santa Fe River known as Barrio de Analco. Within the Barrio de Analco, conclusive physical evidence of its past residents often has been difficult to uncover. The vague traces left by Ancestral Puebloan, Hispano, Mestizo, Indio, Genízaro, and Anglo peoples offer fleeting glimpses of the past. The physical context of these traces can be compared to mixing a layer cake in a blender and then spreading the result across the land. While well intended, studies of this jumbled landscape, most of them mandated by City ordinances, have been insufficient in scope to yield substantive new information. This talk will highlight a few exceptional studies, including recent research at the Boyle House located at 327 E. De Vargas St. These studies shed light on the customs, relationships, and identities of those who once lived in the ancient location known to modern Pueblo people as O’gha Po’oghe and Santa Fe’s non-Indigenous residents as El Barrio de Analco.

AIA Archaeology Hour with Uzma Rizvi: Caring for MohenjoDaro
2025-01-22 20:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | IL
Join us at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific as the AIA-Walla Walla Society hosts the next installment of the 2024-2025 AIA Archaeology Hour series!
Register now!

Office of State Archaeology Year-in-Review with Dr. Sarah Sportman
2025-01-25 14:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | Buchanan Auditorium, Mansfield Public Library, 54 Warrenville Rd, Mansfield Center, CT, 06250, United States
Join the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History (CSMNH) and State Archaeologist Dr. Sarah Sportman for a public lecture about the Office of State Archaeology’s past year of work and what the next year will bring. Dr. Sportman’s talk will highlight the fieldwork, research, and other activities undertaken by the Office of State Archaeology (OSA) over the last year. Artifacts and recent finds by Dr. Sportman’s team will be on display before and after the talk. Remarks begin at 2:30 and will be followed by a Q&A and an informal reception.
If you require an accommodation to participate in this event, please contact the CSMNH at 860-486-4460 or CSMNHinfo@uconn.edu by Monday January 20.
The event is free and open to the public! If you plan on attending, please RSVP for reception planning. Visit https://csmnh.uconn.edu/programs/ to RSVP and for more information.

Ancient Sims: Using AI-driven play to identify ancient board games
2025-01-26 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Toronto) | IL
Professor Crist will demonstrate how AI-driven play, when combined with traditional archaeological methods, can provide new insights about ancient games.
Contact AIA Ottawa for Zoom code at aiaottawachapter@gmail.com.

Aethiopia Abroad: The Role of Kush in a Network of Cultural Exchange in the Greater Mediterranean
2025-01-26 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | https://www.archaeological.org/event/aethiopia-abroad-the-role-of-kush-in-a-network-of-cultural-exchange-in-the-greater-mediterranean/
Image caption:
Décoration du mobilier, 539-330 BCE (Achéménide)
Place of discovery : Suse ville royale donjon
SB 3723
Département des Antiquités orientales, Musée du Louvre
(© 2008 Musée du Louvre, Dist. GrandPalaisRmn / Thierry Ollivier)
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The American Research Center in Egypt, Northern California chapter, and the UC Berkeley Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures invite you to attend a lecture by Peter Moore Johnson, The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU:
“Aethiopia Abroad: The Role of Kush in a Network of Cultural Exchange in the Greater Mediterranean”
Sunday January 26, 2025, 3 PM Pacific Standard Time
This is a virtual lecture. To register, please click on or go to this Zoom link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMvdeGtqjorE9zCOtCkXeTPs4513tOivdCm
The lecture will not be recorded.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the lecture.
There are a few things you should know before you join the lecture:
* Advance registration is required. When you click on the link to “Register in advance for this lecture” you will receive instructions by email on how and when to join, along with a link on which you will click to join the meeting. Save the email, as you will need the link it contains to join the meeting. Please do not share the join link with anyone, it is unique to your email address. Try to join at least 10 minutes before the meeting. When you do join the meeting, be prepared to be put in the waiting room until the lecture starts at 3 pm. This is a security measure.
* If you haven’t already installed Zoom, I recommend that you download and install the Zoom program (app) well before you try to join the meeting. There IS an option to use your web browser to join the meeting instead of the Zoom program, but the browser interface is limited and depends greatly on what browser and what operating system you’re using.
* For tutorials on how to use Zoom, go to https://learn-zoom.us/show-me. In particular, “Joining a Zoom Meeting” should show you what you need to do to join our lecture.
* All meeting attendees can communicate with everyone, or with individual participants, using the chat window, which can be opened by clicking on the chat button and which you can probably find at the bottom middle of your Zoom viewing screen. Participants will be encouraged to hold their questions for the speaker until after the lecture, and will also be encouraged to address their questions for the speaker to “everyone” in the chat window, not just to the speaker, so that all can see them. “Everyone” is the default chat option.
If you have any questions, please email me at arcencZoom@gmail.com.
Glenn Meyer
Northern California ARCE ePublicity Director
About the Lecture:
The history of Nubia during the seventh to fifth centuries BCE has been written with an over-reliance on the veracity of non-native, primarily Greek, sources. In Herodotus’ Histories the scholar describes the region as an idealized utopia notable for its raw materials and a formidable fighting force. However, Kush’s role extended beyond being just a geographical region to be pillaged for mercenaries and material wealth. It was a crucial trade partner in a period of internationalism and cultural exchange in Northeast Africa and the greater Mediterranean. A perceived dearth of representational evidence from Nubia abroad during this period reinforces the notion that Kush’s only influence was as a place to be exploited. When artistic evidence is marshaled to consider Kush’s influence, analysis has tended to rely solely on stereotypical depictions of Nubians identifiable through stylistic ethnic markers such as physiognomic features and bodily adornment. While this approach has been used to identify Nubian presence abroad, it hasn’t accounted for the significance these depictions hold in their local contexts and for their widespread prevalence. This lecture argues that Kushite representational conventions established in the seventh century circulate beyond the borders of Nubia and become integrated into a larger international koine. This process will be presented through a corpus of objects which span both time and place, charting the development of Kushite influence through the Nile River Valley north to Egypt, where it then spreads to the Near East and the Aegean. Iron Age networks of cultural exchange have traditionally only considered the bordering civilizations of the Mediterranean; this talk aims to show the influence of this peripheral sub-Saharan African kingdom. By integrating Africa into these networks of exchange, this analysis will urge for new ways of looking at objects and materials which have traditionally been overlooked by conventional approaches to Western art history.
About the Speaker:
Peter Moore Johnson is a PhD Candidate at The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. He is currently the Marcia and Jan Vilcek Curatorial Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His research focuses on Kushite-era material culture and self-presentation in ancient Egypt and Nubia. His dissertation, Aethiopia Abroad, is a collections-based project that charts the influence and spread of Kushite material culture across the greater Mediterranean in the second half of the 1st millennium BCE. His previous field experience includes the Innsbruck-Leiden Excavations at Satu Qala, Iraq, the NYUIFA Excavations at Sanam Temple, Sudan, and the NYUIFA Excavations at Abydos, Egypt. He has several years’ experience in museum and curatorial work, including internships at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Oriental Institute Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, RISD Museum, and the Delaware Museum of Natural History, in addition to curating shows in New York, Chicago, and Providence. He holds an MA from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU and a BA (Hons.) in Egyptology from Brown University.
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Parking is available in UC lots all day on weekends, for a fee. Ticket dispensing machines accept debit or credit cards. Parking is available in lots around the Social Sciences Building, and in lots along Bancroft. A map of the campus is available online at http://www.berkeley.edu/map/ .
About Northern California ARCE:
For more information, please visit https://www.youtube.com/@NorthernCaliforniaARCE, https://facebook.com/NorthernCaliforniaARCE/, https://twitter.com/ARCENCPostings, and https://khentiamentiu.org. To join the chapter or renew your membership, please go to https://arce.org/membership/ and select “Berkeley, CA” as your chapter when you sign up.

A Day in the Life of an Etruscan Sanctuary: Gender, Community and Ritual at the Etruscan Site of Poggio Colla
2025-01-29 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Jones Hall 108, Uptown Campus of Tulane University, 6801 Freet St, New Orleans, LA, 70118, United States
George M.A. Hanfmann Memorial Lecture

Colonial Transitions in Ancient Perú: How Osteoimmunology is Reconstructing Hidden Life Histories
2025-01-30 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | University of Louisville Center for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (CACHe), 1606 Rowan Street, Louisville, KY, 40203, United States
How can bioarchaeology be used to illuminate colonial encounters? Dr. Fabian Crespo (UofL Anthropology) addresses this question in his talk, “Colonial Transitions in Ancient Perú: How Osteoimmunology is Reconstructing Hidden Life Histories.” This presentation will discuss the complex biosocial transition in northwest Peru during the colonial process and how new theoretical and methodological approaches can help reconstruct the immune system in past populations. We explore how different immunological profiles recovered from bones and molecules can help show how complex and heterogeneous the biosocial landscapes were before and after colonial transitions, challenging and disputing simplistic and unilinear trajectories of life history changes during colonial encounters.
Dr. Fabian Crespo is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Louisville.
“Colonial Transitions in Ancient Perú” is presented by the Kentucky Society of the Archaeological Institute of America and the UofL Department of Anthropology.

Normalizing Loot: A Case Study of a Plundered Imperial Shrine
2025-02-02 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | IU Indianapolis, Campus Center INCE 002, 420 University Blvd., Indianapolis, IN, 46202, United States
Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureships

Jon Frey's The Origins of Roman Bathing at the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia
2025-02-04 16:30 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College, 1 Quinlan St, Lynchburg, VA, 24503, United States
Oscar Broneer Memorial Lecture
In addition to being one of the most recognizable monuments at the site, the Roman Bath at Isthmia in Greece continues to yield surprising discoveries. Excavations in the
1960s through the 1980s revealed not only the 2nd c. CE structure but also parts of an earlier Greek-period pool of impressive dimensions—a fitting monument at a
Sanctuary of Poseidon. Most recently, a re-investigation of the excavated material and associated documentation has revealed the presence of a third structure that fits in time between the other two. This presentation discusses these buildings by focusing on the discovery in this location of tegula mammata—a peculiar type of tile used in heating systems in Roman-style baths prior to the adoption of the more common tubulus. These artifacts provide evidence for changes both to Roman building practices of the 1st century CE and to the athletic sanctuary as Romans from the re-founded colony of Corinth returned to Isthmia with their own unique needs and expectations.

Women’s Rights in Marriage and Divorce in Ancient Egypt
2025-02-09 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | ARCE Egyptology Lectures Room 56 Social Sciences Building, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States
The American Research Center in Egypt, Northern California chapter, and the UC Berkeley Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures invite you to attend a lecture by Alison Wilkinson, Johns Hopkins University:
“Women’s Rights in Marriage and Divorce in Ancient Egypt”
Sunday February 9, 2025, 3 PM Pacific Standard Time
Room 56 Social Sciences Building, UC Berkeley
This is an in-person lecture and is not virtual. No registration is required.
The lecture will be recorded.
About the Lecture:
This talk presents a deep dive into the textual evidence for marriage and marital separation with a focus on the question: What rights did women have in these processes? New Kingdom and Demotic legal records together with New Kingdom letter correspondences are examined for the answers. The talk incorporates a recently reanalyzed Ostracon Deir el-Medina 439 for insights on a woman’s rights in divorce during the New Kingdom. The focus on textual sources aims to extrapolate the contemporary perspectives of marriage and divorce. The lexical and grammatical analysis presents insights into the process, social implications, and consequences of these social acts. Subtle differences arise in the role of men versus women, most especially within the context of divorce. This “marriage” of gender studies and linguistic analyses uncovers subtle nuances concerning marital unions and separations within the culture of ancient Egypt.
About the Speaker:
Alison Wilkinson is a PhD Candidate at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. She graduated with a Bachelors of Art with First Class Honors in Egyptology at the University of Liverpool, Liverpool, England in July 2018. She obtained her Masters of Art with Distinction in Egyptology at the University of Liverpool in November 2019. Her Master’s Thesis, “The Language of ‘Divorce’ in New Kingdom Egypt,” presents textual analyses into the cultural perceptions of marital separation. This research inspired Alison’s current Doctoral work on Hieratic and Demotic correspondences written by and to women. The aim of this research is to analyze gender dynamics through linguistic methodologies.
In April 2024, Alison presented her paper “A Case of Adultery, or a Woman’s Choice to Leave? A New Interpretation for O. DeM 439” at ARCE National, Pittsburg. This paper re-examined the transcription, translation, and interpretation of Ostracon DeM 439 in order to argue the case of a woman leaving a marital union. For this paper, she was awarded First Place in the Best Student Paper Competition.
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Parking is available in UC lots all day on weekends, for a fee. Ticket dispensing machines accept debit or credit cards. Parking is available in lots around the Social Sciences Building, and in lots along Bancroft. A map of the campus is available online at http://www.berkeley.edu/map/ .
About Northern California ARCE:
For more information, please visit https://www.youtube.com/@NorthernCaliforniaARCE, https://facebook.com/NorthernCaliforniaARCE/, and https://khentiamentiu.org. To join the chapter or renew your membership, please go to https://arce.org/membership/ and select “Berkeley, CA” as your chapter when you sign up.

Samarra - the Abbasid Capital, recording one of the world's largest archaeological sites
2025-02-15 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Chicago)
Lecture by Dr. Alastair Northedge, Professor Emeritus at Universite de Paris I. He will discuss the archaeological of the famous Medieval city in modern Iraq.

Recent Research at the Abó and Quaraí Units of Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument
2025-02-18 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Denver) | Pecos Trail Café, 2239 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe, NM, 87505, United States
Lecture. Emily Brown (Aspen CRM Solutions). Aspen CRM Solutions recently completed archaeological surveys of the monument units surrounding the Tompiro pueblo of Abó and the Tiwa pueblo of Quaraí at Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument near Mountainair, New Mexico, both of which contain the remains of a large pueblo and a Spanish Colonial mission. The occupation sequences for both are now much better understood, and detailed ceramic analyses have allowed us to identify the general construction sequences for the various roomblocks at both pueblos. We also have a much better understanding of the use of the surrounding landscape by different groups over time. The presentation summarizes the findings of the surveys and discusses the results of the associated research.

Emily Egan, “20,000 Leagues Under the Wine-Dark Sea”
2025-02-18 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Davidson College, 315 North Main Street, Semans Auditorium, Belk Visual Arts Center, Davidson, NC, 28036, United States
“20,000 Leagues Under the Wine-Dark Sea”
Dr. Emily C. Egan, Assistant Professor of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Art and Archaeology, Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland
February 18, 2025
7:30 p.m. ET
Davidson College
Belk Visual Arts Center 117
Davidson, NC
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
About the lecture:
This lecture takes a deep “dive” into depictions of marine life in the art of Late Bronze Age Greece (ca. 1600–1100 BCE). Amid a survey of sea creatures including octopods, dolphins, and fish, special attention is given to the enigmatic argonaut motif and its appearance in the wall paintings of the Mycenaean ‘Palace of Nestor’ at Pylos. At the time of their discovery, painted argonauts – pelagic cephalopods that grow their own shells – were classed among the site’s purely decorative designs on account of their fanciful coloration and stiff presentation in single-file lines like elements in a modern wallpaper border. New research at the Palace of Nestor, however, suggests that argonauts were not simple ornaments but powerful royal symbols, on par with more fearsome Aegean “totems” like lions and griffins. This lecture presents this new theory and the evidence that underpins it, and also demonstrates how the painted forms of the creatures, when viewed closely, offer rare insight into the thought processes and working methods of Greek Bronze Age artists.
About the speaker:
Dr. Emily C. Egan (Assistant Professor of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Art and Archaeology, Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland) is an Aegean prehistorian and field archaeologist. She holds a dual B.A. in Classics and Old World Archaeology and Art from Brown University, an M.Phil. in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Cincinnati. Her research focuses on artistic practice in the Bronze Age Aegean, and particularly on the production, consumption, and iconography of Mycenaean painted surface decoration. She has undertaken archaeological fieldwork in Italy, Turkey, Jordan, Armenia, Cyprus, and most recently in Greece, where she is currently studying wall and floor painting assemblages from the Palace of Nestor at Pylos, and the Petsas House, Mycenae.

God's Breath and Nefertiti's Secret: Ancient Perfumes and their Shipwrecked Ingredients
2025-02-19 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | IL
Anna Marguerite McCann and Robert D. Taggart Lectureship in Underwater Archaeology

The Past in the Past: Traditionalism in Archaic Crete
2025-02-20 17:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | Haury Anthropology Building, University of Arizona, Room 215, 1009 E South Campus Dr, Tucson, AZ, 85719, United States
The Barbara Tsakirgis Memorial Lecture

“Roman Libarna, an early colonial city of Rome”, with Dr Katherine Huntley, Boise State University
2025-02-20 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W 1st Ave, Spokane, WA, 99201, United States
TBD

Kushite Royal Priestesses in the House of the God
2025-02-22 15:30 - 16:30 (America/New_York) | https://arce.org/event/arce-pa-kushite-royal-priestesses-in-the-house-of-the-god-by-debora-heard/
ZOOM lecture
Saturday, February 22, 3:30 pm EST
Registration Required: https://arce.org/event/arce-pa-kushite-royal-priestesses-in-the-house-of-the-god-by-debora-heard/
Speaker: Debora Heard
Title: Kushite Royal Priestesses in the House of the God
Abstract:
Following Egypt’s conquest of all of Nubia in the 18th Dynasty, one of the ways these New Kingdom rulers expressed their dominance over the region was through the construction of religious temples at various sites in Upper and Lower Nubia. It is not known whether the Nubians continued to operate these temples after regaining their independence around 1,050 BCE. However, there is evidence that by the time the Kushite king Piankhy left his capital in Upper Nubia to take control of Egypt as the founder of the 25th Dynasty, at least some of the Amun temples in Nubia were operational. The worship of the god Amun and the incorporation of Egyptian culture and ideology of kingship were the bases for the legitimate establishment of Kushite rule over Egypt. Yet, even in apparently “Egyptian-looking” contexts, these Kushite rulers displayed their own cultural particularities. One of these was the prominent role of women in religious contexts.
In the religious temples of the reigning kings and queens of Kush, we see that it was not only the ruler who was responsible for performing rituals for the gods but also other members of the royal family. In particular, royal women as priestesses were depicted performing various roles in temple scenes or recorded in royal texts. This lecture will analyze the iconographic, textual, and archaeological data to explore what their roles and responsibilities were in ensuring the successful fulfillment of the royal responsibilities to the gods.
Speaker Bio:
Debora Heard is a Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology at the University of Chicago specializing in Nubian archaeology and Egyptian history and language. Her dissertation research engages in a comparative analysis of the inscriptions and iconography of Upper Nubian Kushite temples dedicated to the gods Amun and Apedemak.
For more than a decade, she has given lectured and taught courses on Nubia and Egypt at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC), the Kemetic Institute of Chicago, Chicago State University, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and Smithsonian Journeys tours in Egypt. Debora has served as an intern in the Department of Egyptian and Nubian Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and as a curatorial assistant in the initial installation of the Picken Family Nubian Gallery at the ISAC Museum. She has excavated at sites in the Nile 4th-Cataract region in Sudan.
Debora is a member and serves on the DEI Committee for the American Society of Overseas Research. She is also a member of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations, the Sudan Archaeological Research Society, the Society of Black Archaeologists, and the American Sudanese Archaeological Research Center. Finally, she serves as the organizer and a founding member of the William Leo Hansberry Society, an organization dedicated to increasing the number of African-descended people in the disciplines of Egyptology, ancient Nile Valley and Northeast African Studies by promoting access to training, field work, funding, and, mentoring opportunities at all stages of professional development.
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This is a FREE lecture, but registration is required. Register here: https://arce.org/event/arce-pa-kushite-royal-priestesses-in-the-house-of-the-god-by-debora-heard/
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The American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1948 by a consortium of educational and cultural institutions to support research on all aspects of Egyptian history and culture, foster broader knowledge among the general public, and strengthen American-Egyptian cultural ties. The ARCE Pennsylvania Chapter (ARCE-PA) is the local branch of the national institution. We host monthly events including scholarly lectures, Egyptian-themed workshops, social events, and guided tours of the Penn Museum’s Egyptian galleries. For more information or to learn about the perks of membership, please send an e-mail to info@arce-pa.org, or visit our website at www.arce-pa.org.
