Archaeological Institute of America

WINTER BREAK
2022-12-27 10:00 - 17:00, 2022-12-28 10:00 - 17:00, 2022-12-29 10:00 - 17:00, 2022-12-30 10:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
This winter, recharge with more in-person family time at the Penn Museum!
Globetrot in a day
With over a million world wonders, it only takes a day to bring your loved ones on a tour across the globe. Get the kids to say hello to the largest Egyptian sphinx in the Americas! Unearth the first cities of the Middle East. Explore the vibrant cultures of Africa, Asia, Mexico and Central America, and so much more!
Explore a new gallery and exhibition
Plus, experience our newly opened Eastern Mediterranean Gallery: Crossroads of Cultures. Don’t miss this multi-sensory gallery highlighting an ancient crossroads that brought us the world’s first alphabet and three of today’s major religions. Also new, and on view in the Lower Level, is U-2 Spy Planes and Aerial Archaeology, an exhibition that invites you to decode the past through declassified top-secret images from the world’s most famous spy plane.
All-day art making, games, story time & more
In between world adventures, pop in to make art and play games throughout the day in our Asia Galleries. At 11 am, head to the Egypt Galleries to hear exciting tales about the principles of Kwanzaa with Paul D. Best, “Our Sun Paul.” Want a close-up of an ancient artifact with a mini talk? Check out the Deep Dig. A trip to the Museum is the perfect getaway for families home or visiting during winter break!

Second Sunday Culture Films: At the Edge of the Bazaar
2023-01-08 14:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
The 2022-2023 culture film series Folklife, a joyful celebration of local folkways: writing, storytelling, visual arts, handcrafts, cuisine, and other forms of expression which make places and people distinctive and create bridges to connect them with other cultures around the world.
At the Edge of the Bazaar
Dir. Abdukadir Upur and Dilmurat Tohti (2015)
Two rural Uyghur craftsmen work on their traditional handcrafts before the repression of their culture by the Chinese government deepens.The film, made by two young Uyghur filmmakers while still at university, gives a window into centuries-old material culture, as well as a glimpse of the bazaar where these goods were once sold, before government repression caused the bazaars and its craftspeople to disappear.
Speakers: Darren Byler, University of British Columbia, in conversation with David Dettman, Center for East Asian Studies, with new subtitles by Dr. Byler & Qanat Wolf.

Great Lecture: World Heritage in South Africa's Cradle of Humankind
2023-01-11 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind has long been a hotbed of discovery for human ancestor fossils. Just 45 minutes north of Johannesburg, this protected region must balance multiple interests in research, development, and human rights. This talk will discuss on-going research and the efforts to continue to educate and engage the public, while emphasizing the need for continued protection.
Speaker: George Leader, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania; Consulting Scholar, Mutter Research Institute, College of Physicians of Philadelphia; Honorary Research Associate, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Egypt Revisited
2023-01-13 - 2023-01-29 | FL
You are invited to return to Egypt to experience this 17-day, custom-designed itinerary in the engaging company of Egyptologist Stephen Harvey plus an expert local Egyptology guide and a professional tour manager. This trio has been receiving accolades for many years.
Highlights are many and varied:
Spend two full days visiting museums in Cairo (the new National Museum of Egyptian Civilization and the historic Egyptian Museum) or two full days exploring Giza’s Grand Egyptian Museum if it is open.
Gain inside access to the Red Pyramid at Dahshur, enter the burial chamber of the collapsed pyramid at Meidum, and visit two mud-brick pyramids at the Fayoum Oasis.
Go behind-the-scenes at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara to see some of the new and remarkable excavations that are not open to the public, including (pending final confirmation) special access to the newly-discovered, 5th-dynasty Tomb of Wah Ti.
Explore the necropoli of Beni Hasan, known for its 39 rock-cut tombs with well-preserved paintings of dancing, acrobatics, juggling, fishing, hunting, and weaving; and Tuna el-Gebel, with huge catacombs for thousands of mummified ibises and baboons, and much more.
Visit Tell el-Amarna, which replaced Thebes (modern Luxor) as capital of Egypt under the heretic, 18th-dynasty Pharaoh Akhenaton and was significant for its monotheism and distinctive artistic style.
Enjoy two in-depth visits to Abydos, where Stephen Harvey has worked since 1993, including visits to the spectacular Temple of Seti I, with its invaluable “Abydos King List” and chapels with exquisite reliefs; and special access to the subterranean Osireion (symbolic tomb of Osiris), centered around a burial chamber that was once surrounded by water.
Discover two interesting and lesser-visited sites near Luxor: the Temple of Montu (the falcon-headed god of war) at El-Tod, and the tomb of Ankhtifi, a provincial governor and warlord, at El-Mo’alla.
Enjoy luxurious or best available accommodations throughout, with two or three nights at each property.
Enhance your adventure with a nine-day, pre-tour extension in Sudan (January 6-14, 2023) land of the Nubian pharaohs, replete with ancient pyramids and temples.

Stolen Legacy: A Conversation with the Artist and Curator
2023-01-13 15:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Adult Events
In partnership with internationally-renowned artist, composer, and educator Hannibal Lokumbe, the Penn Museum presents Stolen Legacy, a libretto and musical commentary on the removal of art from the African continent. This provocative piece responds to how, in Lokumbe’s own words, “the exchange of money for art created expressly for the spiritual maintenance of a tribe and/or nation can create a lasting physiological wound to the culture from which it was removed.” He adds that “nowhere is this more evident than in the case of African art.” This program is part of the Museum’s own reflective process about our institutional history, which is tied to colonialist and racist narratives, and our work to reconcile our past with restorative practices.
Be a part of this ongoing conversation about the history of museums and about ethical stewardship of the legacy of the past.
As part of a multi-tiered experience that includes classroom visits and a free public performance, join Hannibal Lokumbe, composer/author of Stolen Legacy, for a conversation about the the intersections of art, the cultural legacy of colonialism, and monetary exchange, open to both University of Pennsylvania students and the general public at the Penn Museum on January 13 at 3 pm. Dr. Tukufu Zuberi, Curator of our Africa Galleries and Lasry Family Professor of Race Relations in Penn’s Sociology Department, will facilitate the discussion between the artist and the audience.
About Hannibal Lokumbe
Classic composer and jazz trumpeter Hannibal Lokumbe (né Marvin Peterson) has been celebrating and commemorating the African-American experience through music and words for over four decades. Lokumbe’s work has been commissioned and performed by symphonies and orchestras across the country, including the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra , and the Philadelphia Orchestra. His oratorio “African Portraits” has been performed over two hundred times by orchestras across America since its Carnegie Hall debut in 1990, and was recorded with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Daniel Barenboim. He has received numerous fellowships and awards, including from the NEA, and is a Lifetime Inductee to the Harlem Jazz Hall of Fame.

Jungle Kingdoms of the Ancient Maya
2023-01-14 - 2023-01-27 | FL
This tropical adventure provides the best-paced itinerary available to thoroughly explore ancient Maya sites in the lush jungles of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. Maya art and architecture will “come alive” as you encounter enormous stelae (carved monoliths), painted frescoes, stucco friezes, carved lintels, and huge temple-pyramids that soar above the rainforest. Explore, in-depth, the sites of Palenque, Bonampak, Yaxchilán, Tikal, Yaxhá, Copán, and Quiriguá (four are UNESCO World Heritage Sites);
with free time to go bird watching or simply relax, reflect, and enjoy our comfortable hotels and remote jungle lodges. Maximum of just 12 guests.

Chemical Analysis and Dating of Ancient Rock Art
2023-01-14 13:00 (America/Chicago) | TBA (St. Louis), St. Louis, MO
Face-to-Face lecture: “Chemical Analysis and Dating of Ancient Rock Art” by Dr. Karen Steelman, director of Shumla’s new C-14 plasma oxidation laboratory and a key member of the Shumla Research Leadership Team. [Location to be scheduled, soon]
More events are listed here on the St. Louis Society webpage.

When Jordanian Ancient Stones Talk
2023-01-15 14:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | FL
This lecture looks at the archaeology of Jordan

Egypt Through The Ages
2023-01-17 - 2023-02-02 | FL
This unique trip combines the very best of the ancient pharaonic sites with later Coptic (early Christian) and medieval Islamic sites. This is a luxurious, in-depth, small-group, all-inclusive, well-paced, 17-day trip.
Learn with a distinguished and engaging Egyptian scholar plus one of Egypt’s most experienced tour manager/guides.
Travel with a maximum of just 16 guests plus your two leaders. Enjoy the best accommodations, including 10 nights at luxurious, 5-star hotels in Giza, Cairo, Luxor, and Aswan; a three-night Nile cruise aboard a comfortable, eight-cabin dahabiya (traditional Nile sailboat); and two nights in the center of Medieval Cairo at a boutique, 17-suite hotel.
Highlights include:
Touring the amazing Giza pyramids and Sphinx as well as Saqqara’s Step Pyramid of Djoser and newly-discovered, closed-to-the-public, Tomb of Wah Ti.
Exploring spectacular museum collections in Cairo: the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, the Museum of Islamic Art, and either the historic Egyptian Museum OR, if it is open, the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza.
Discovering with your experts one of the world’s greatest cities—Cairo, the “City of 1,000 Minarets.” See magnificent Islamic architecture spanning the Fatimid, Mameluke, Circassian, Ayyubid, and Ottoman periods.
Exploring the astounding temple complex of Karnak as well as Luxor Temple, plus spectacular royal mortuary temples and tombs in the Valleys of the Kings and Queens, such as those of Seti I and Nefertari.
Cruising the Nile from Esna to Aswan aboard an eight-cabin sail boat, away from the convoys of large riverboats, so that we visit remarkable temples without the typical crowds. From the spacious top deck, observe timeless pastoral scenes of feluccas, farmers, herders, and village life during a visit to a farming community.
Flying to Abu Simbel to visit the stunning and enormous rock-cut temples of Ramesses II and Nefertari.
The option to extend your trip with the seven-day, post-tour extension to the Siwa Oasis and Alexandria.

The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World
2023-01-17 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles), 2023-01-18 19:00 (America/New_York) | FL
Virtual lecture which is part of the AIA Archaeology Hour series.

Archaeology & Ale: Making Sense of Marbles
2023-01-18 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Chicago) | Hopleaf, 5148 North Clark Street, Chicago, IL, 60640, United States
The current OI Museum exhibition, Making Sense of Marbles: Roman Sculpture at the OI (through March 12, 2023), presents to the public for the first time the OI’s full collection of Roman sculpture. Assembled in the 1950s—through acquisitions from both the OI’s excavations at Ptolemais in Libya and the international art market, this group exemplifies the importance of revisiting artifact and archival collections, with new questions, perspectives, technology, and scrutiny. Museums do not require new artifacts, new acquisitions in order to tell new stories. In this talk, Kiersten Neumann, exhibition co-curator and curator of the OI Museum, will walk through the latest considerations of the identities and significance of these individual sculptures while delving into timely discussions related to collecting practices, provenience and provenance, archaeology and the art market, and display practices that seek greater transparency and public engagement.

Dr. Brian Buchanan: “More than just a mead-hall, a world’s wonder, eighth of seven: Reassessing the archaeology and landscape of Yeavering, Northumberland”
2023-01-19 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Vancouver) | Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture (MAC), 2316 West 1st Avenue, Spokane, Washington, 99201, United States
The iconic early medieval royal palace of Yeavering is located at the base of the Cheviot Hills along the modern-day Anglo-Scottish border in a quiet bucolic valley. In the 6th century AD, it was one of the key royal settlements and assembly sites of the early medieval kingdom of Northumbria, linked to the site noted in Bede’s histories as King Edwin’s royal villa of Ad Gefrin. The initial investigations of the site, led by Dr. Brian Hope-Taylor, revealed a multi-faceted complex containing large timber-framed Halles, cemeteries, and evidences of reuse and reinterpretation of prehistoric features. Archaeologists from Durham University, Eastern Washington University, and the Gefrin Trust have restarted investigations of the site and its environs using remote sensing, landscape archaeology, and excavations. This presentation discusses the historic and archaeological background of the site, its importance for the development of early medieval Britain, and how new findings are re-shaping our understanding of this important site.
Dr. Brian Buchanan, Eastern Washington University.

A Foot in Both Camps: The Extraordinary Assemblage of Archaeological Shoes from Vindolanda Roman Fort
2023-01-20 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | FL

Stolen Legacy: A Conversation with the Artist and Curator
2023-01-21 10:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | FL

Ancient engineering of fish captured and storage in southwest Florida in the 16th century by Calusa Native Americans
2023-01-22 11:30 (America/New_York) | FL
A lecture hosted by the Long Island Society of the AIA.
Dr. Victor Thompson, of the University of Georgia, will present on “Ancient engineering of fish captured and storage in southwest Florida in the 16th century by Calusa Native Americans.”

Reconceiving the nomad: tropes, archaeological reality, and why it matters
2023-01-23 18:00 (America/New_York) | WEBINAR (New York City), New York, NY

In the Footsteps of Roman Soldiers: Excavations at Vindolanda and the Archaeological Landscape of Hadrian’s Wall
2023-01-23 19:30 (America/New_York) | UBC Vancouver Campus, 2329 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada

The Phoenician City of La Fonteta, Guardamar, Spain
2023-01-25 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | FL
The Phoenician city of La Fonteta, Guardamar, Spain
Dr. Alberto J. Lorrio, Dr. Mariano Torres, and Ester López Rosendo
La Fonteta is a site of urban character dated in the Early Iron Age (8th-6th centuries BC). It is placed on a coastal promontory next to the mouth of the river Segura. Archaeological excavations carried out from 1996-2002 and then from 2018-2019 have provided a settlement sequence from the late 8th to the third quarter of the 6th century BC. The earliest phases of the site show heavy craft and metallurgy activity, besides houses of several rooms built with clay and mudbrick walls organized in an urban layout. A strong defensive system was built c. 600 BC and a new urban layout. The houses of this new phase show one or two rooms, although some of them are more complex. There were open areas between these buildings with worship areas, communal bread ovens, and garbage dumps. La Fonteta also was an important port which funneled a heavy trading activity, as evidenced by the rich material culture attested, with a varied assemblage of pottery with several types and origins, a heavy manufacturing of metallic items, as well as prestige goods, some of the very exotic such as ostrich eggs, ivory items, necklace beads, or scarabs.

Lecture hosted by Friends of AIA-New York.
For more information and free publications about the site of La Fonteta, visit: https://ovc.gva.es/es/estudis-i-publicacions/estudis-i-publicacions.

Imagining a Greek Home for an Egyptian Goddess: Time, Landscape, and Architecture in Greek Sanctuaries to Isis presented by Dr. Lindsey Mazurek
2023-01-25 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Denver) | Hale Science Building, Rm. 270, 1350 Pleasant Street, Boulder, CO, 80302, United States
When Isis first arrived on Greek shores in the 3rd century BCE, her new followers had to build sanctuaries appropriate to an Egyptian goddess. In the process of imagining a place for their Greek Isis to dwell, devotees came up with a wide range of eclectic solutions that intertwined local needs, imperialist fantasy, and fantastical chronology. These sanctuaries do not draw from contemporaneous Egyptian art and architecture, but rather from Greek stereotypes about Egypt and the Nile River. Isis’ Greek temples, I argue, allowed Greek devotees to imagine Egypt in a way that responded to their own experiences as provincial subjects of the Roman Empire.
I begin with a brief overview of Isis’ and Sarapis cults’ arrival in Greece in the early Hellenistic period. Then, I turn to literary evidence, in which Greco-Roman authors from Herodotus to Pliny the Younger characterize Egypt as a timeless and strange place and highlight its unique flora and fauna. I next trace the popularity of these ideas in wall paintings and mosaics, where depictions of the Nile convey ideas of otherness and imperial control. I conclude by discussing the sanctuaries of the Egyptian gods at Marathon and Gortyna. The sanctuary at Marathon combines imaginative architecture that resembles Pharaonic Egyptian temples, archaizing sculpture that evoked a timeless Greco-Egyptian past, and a riverine setting that recalled the Nile Delta. At Gortyna, the sanctuary includes both an underground water crypt that echoed the Nilometers used to measure the river’s annual flood and cattle statuettes that personified the river’s waters. Taken together, this evidence suggests that Greek devotees used sanctuary spaces to explore Greek conceptions of Egypt as an imagined, far-off, and ancient place that they could control in much the same way that Rome controlled and imagined Greece.

Ramses the Great: Power and Patriarchy
2023-01-26 14:00 (America/New_York) | FL
Virtual lecture which is part of the AIA Archaeology Abridged Series.

Community Engagement in the Archaeology and Heritage of Pakistan: New Work at MohenjoDaro
2023-01-26 18:00 (America/New_York) | John R. Braunstein Hall 300, University of Cincinnati, 2825 Campus Way, Cincinnati, OH, 45221, United States
Joukowsky Lecture

Miners, Martyrs, Shepherds, and Sowers: Shifting Landscapes of Faynan, Southern Jordan over the Last 2,000 Years
2023-01-26 18:00 (America/Phoenix) | Benedictine University at Mesa, 225 E Main Street, Mesa, AZ, 85201, United States
Kershaw Lecture

Communicating with the Ancestors: Archaeology at Oxmoor Plantation, Louisville, Kentucky
2023-01-26 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
Come and learn what Kentucky Archaeological Survey archaeologists have been doing at Oxmoor Farm in Louisville, Kentucky for the last year and a half. Lori Stahlgren, Project Archaeologist with KAS, will be speaking about this ongoing project. In 2021, the Oxmoor Farm Foundation hired KAS to conduct a survey around extant buildings that once served as dwellings for enslaved people in the early 19th century and as dwellings for farm workers post-bellum and into the 20th century. Oxmoor plans to create museum space to commemorate the lives of the enslaved African Americans and to tell their stories, both separate and intertwined with the Bullitt family, who owned the plantation. The survey found intact archaeological deposits around the extant buildings and investigations extended into the interior of the buildings. The work thus far has generated thousands of artifacts and new lines of research involving the enslaved people at Oxmoor. This discussion will describe the work to date and present some of the findings and artifacts discovered, as well as efforts to connect with descendants of the people enslaved at Oxmoor.

Community Engagement in the Archaeology and Heritage of Pakistan: New Work at MohenjoDaro
2023-01-27 18:30 (America/New_York) | Toledo Museum of Art, 2445 Monroe St, Toledo, OH, 43620, United States
