Archaeological Institute of America

Vietnam & Cambodia: Cruising the Mekong River
2025-02-03 - 2025-02-16
I invite you to join Archaeological Institute of America lecturer and host Joyce C. White on a captivating journey through the rich history and vibrant culture of tropical Indochina with our luxurious tour of Vietnam and Cambodia along the majestic Mekong River. Spend two nights in the bustling metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City (still known as Saigon), a dynamic hub that exudes energy, before embarking the exquisite Mekong Princess, an exclusive riverboat with only 14 suites, elegant French colonial appointments, and all modern comforts. Her ultra-shallow draft allows access to the remote corners of the river, offering a unique perspective. Cruise for seven nights from Ho Chi Minh City to Siem Reap, immersing yourself in the beauty of Buddhist and Hindu temples, vibrant floating markets, and everyday life along the Mekong River. AIA lecturer Joyce White, who has decades of experience in Southeast Asian archaeology, will be joined onboard by Grace Gary, an architectural historian aboard with National Trust, and together they will provide a series of enriching presentations and discussions. Concluding the cruise, spend three nights in Siem Reap, where you can immerse yourself in the world-famous Khmer temples of Angkor, designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Marvel at the remains of different capitals of the Khmer Empire, including the iconic Angkor Wat and the Bayon Temple at Angkor Thom. For those seeking an extended experience, an optional pre-tour extension to Hanoi and exquisite Ha Long Bay is available. This exclusive adventure is shared with another organization, and with a limited guest capacity of only 24 I encourage you to secure your preferred suite today by contacting AIA Tours at (800) 748-6262 or aia@studytours.org. Don’t miss this opportunity to cruise aboard a modern, elegant riverboat and experience the wonders of two remarkable Southeast Asian countries connected by the mighty Mekong River.

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

Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East Tours Led by Harvard Students
2025-02-02 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, 6 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Available during the Harvard academic year Sundays at 1:00 pm, October 6, 2024–April 27, 2025. See blackout dates.*
*Blackout dates: December 1, 2024–January 26, 2025; and March 16–23, 2025.
This free tour, led by Harvard students, explores the Mediterranean Marketplaces: Connecting the Ancient World exhibition and how the movement of goods, peoples, and ideas around the ancient Mediterranean transformed the lives and livelihoods of people at all levels of society. Touch replicas and smell “ancient” scents as the students bring the past alive.
Visitors may drop in at the scheduled times. No reservation is required. Tours meet in the lobby and last approximately 45 minutes.
Tours for groups of ten or more may be scheduled at other times. Tours may be available by advance request in these languages: Hindi, Bengali, and Mandarin.

“the way we lived was shaped by objects”: Contemporary Reflections on Black Materiality
2025-01-31 17:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | D.H. Hill Library Auditorium, 2 Broughton Dr., Raleigh, NC, 27695, United States
Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship

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.

Decolonizing Museums and the Case of the 'Elgin Marbles': Exceptionalism vs Solidarity
2025-01-30 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Newberry Hall, Room 125, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, 434 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, United States

A Late Bronze Age “Naval Station” at Kalamianos (Saronic Gulf), Greece? presented by Dr. Daniel Pullen
2025-01-29 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Denver) | Eaton Humanities Room 250, Pleasant Street 1610, Boulder, CO, 80302, United States
The Saronic Harbors Archaeological Research Project has documented the Late Bronze Age (14th-13th cent. BCE) harbor town at Kalamianos on the Saronic Gulf coast of the Corinthia, Greece. We suggest this site might be the Homeric town of “Eïones” which later Strabo identified as a “naval station.” The implications of this identification of Kalamianos as a naval station are evaluated in light of our current understanding of the archaeology of maritime culture, both commercial and military, of the Mycenaeans and other Late Bronze Age peoples of the Aegean. The lack of identifiable maritime infrastructure – let alone that for specialized military activity – outside of Crete, including at Kalamianos, suggests that such installations were not essential for LBA maritime activities elsewhere in the Aegean.

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

Absolute Egypt
2025-01-28 - 2025-02-14
This itinerary is carefully crafted to provide discerning travelers with the finest Egypt tour available. Our 18-day program is the most in-depth exploration of ancient Egypt’s greatest sites, combining all the best attributes of a small-group, all-inclusive, well-paced, luxury trip.
Highlights:
1. Learn with a distinguished and engaging American scholar plus a wonderful local Egyptologist and an excellent tour manager. This trio has been receiving accolades for many years. Travel with a maximum of just 16 guests plus your trio of leaders.
2. Enjoy the best accommodations, including 13 nights at luxurious, 5-star hotels in Giza, Cairo, Luxor, and Aswan; and a three-night Nile cruise aboard a comfortable, eight-cabin dahabiya (traditional Nile sail boat).
3. Meet with excavators and conservators, including behind-the-scenes visits, when possible.
4. Discover the preeminent sites of the pharaohs from Cairo to Luxor, Aswan, and Abu Simbel:
-If it is open, spend two full days exploring the Grand Egyptian Museum that is scheduled to open in 2024.
-See the amazing Giza pyramids and Sphinx as well as Saqqara’s Step Pyramid of Djoser and recently discovered, closed-to-the-public, Tomb of Wah Ti.
-Explore 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.
-Visit the remarkable Temple of Hathor at Dendara as well as Abydos, one of the oldest and most important cities in ancient Egypt, where Steve Harvey, your AIA lecturer, has been working since 1993.
-Cruise 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.
-Fly to Abu Simbel to visit the stunning and enormous rock-cut temples of Ramesses II and Nefertari.
In short, this is the most exclusive, enjoyable, and fascinating introduction to Egypt available. It is limited to just 16 guests

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.

Ancient Sims: Using AI-driven play to identify ancient board games
2025-01-26 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Toronto)
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.

The Deep Prehistory of the Human Presence in the World’s High Mountains and Plateaus
2025-01-26 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Concordia University, Grimm Hall, 1530 Concordia, Irvine, CA, 92612, United States

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.

AIA Archaeology Hour with Uzma Rizvi: Caring for MohenjoDaro
2025-01-22 20:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York)
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!

Archaeology-Hour Livestream: Uzma Rizvi. “Caring for MohenjoDaro”
2025-01-22 17:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Walla Walla University, Admin Bldg 117, 204 S College Ave, College Place, WA, 99324, United States
How do we understand care in the ancient world? This talk will focus on current archaeological research conducted in the city of MohenjoDaro (a World Heritage Site) located in contemporary Pakistan (Sindh Province). Archaeological excavations at Mohenjo-Daro document hundreds of dwelling-houses and large buildings built along streets and lanes oriented towards cardinal points, which index an architectural sophistication of a well-planned city. This talk will focus on the neighborhood of DK-G South, and look for indicators of care in the many ways the ancient inhabitants maintained their lived environment over generations. Please join us in-person to watch this live-streamed Zoom event.

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.

Advocate for Italy—Your Fieldwork Experience Can Help Protect Italian Cultural Heritage
2025-01-21 17:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York)
Have you ever participated in archaeological fieldwork in Italy? Join us on Tuesday, January 21 at 5pm EST / 2pm PST for a working zoom session on creating advocacy letters. In this session, AIA Vice President for Cultural Heritage, Ömür Harmanşah will walk you through how you can be an important part of protecting Italy’s cultural heritage! Learn the importance of speaking up during CPAC deliberations and take part in a discussion to help you craft your own letter based on your experiences in Italy. Letters are due to the U.S. Department of State by January 27.
Read more information about the CPAC meeting about Chile, Italy, Morocco, and Vietnam and find out how to submit your letter.

Maya Pyramids & Temples Of Yucatan
2025-01-18 - 2025-01-26
This exciting, nine-day holiday provides the best-paced itinerary available to see the sun-drenched Yucatan peninsula’s ancient sites, traditional Maya villages, and colonial architecture. Maya art and architecture abound, with visits to Chichén Itzá, Ek Balam, Uxmal, Dzibilchaltun, and more: iconic as well as off-the-beaten-path sites with soaring pyramids, distinctive temple complexes, and wonderful sculpture. There is free time to bird watch, shop for crafts, or relax, reflect, and enjoy our excellent accommodations. Enjoy two luxurious nights at the Mayaland Hotel (next to Chichén Itzá) and three at the Hacienda Uxmal (next to Uxmal). Maximum of just 12 guests.

“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.

Teotihuacan: A Social History of the Early Mexican Metropolis
2025-01-12 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York)
Teotihuacan: A Social History of the Early Mexican Metropolis
By David Carballo
In this presentation I approach Teotihuacan through a lens of social history, by which I mean an emphasis on social institutions and the interactions of different social groups who inhabited the city or interacted with it within a broader sphere of influence. I focus on issues of urban daily life among diverse groups of Teotihuacanos, including neighborhood organization, craft production, governing institutions, and the city’s contemporary relevance as an example of a multiethnic, economically robust, and prestigious place that was the largest city in the Americas for centuries. Since 2012, investigations at the Tlajinga district, located in Teotihuacan’s southern periphery, have amassed a large database of architecture, artifacts, and other materials from which to compare non-elite domestic residences (apartment compounds) to those of local elites and public spaces of its neighborhood center.
Long island Society and the AIA inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Teotihuacan: A Social History of the Early Mexican Metropolis
Time: Jan 12, 2025 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83800648826?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 838 0064 8826
Passcode: [REDACTED]

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.

Egypt Revisited
2025-01-09 - 2025-01-25
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:
1. 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 (GEM) if it is open.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Enjoy luxurious or best-available accommodations throughout, with two or three nights at each property.

Archaeology In The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia
2025-01-07 - 2025-01-23
Join archaeologist Barbara A. Porter and a small group of fellow travelers for this in-depth travel experience in Saudi Arabia. This will be Dr. Porter’s fourth tour of the country, and you will also be accompanied by local guides and a tour manager.
This tour opportunity allows us to see, experience, and learn about Saudi Arabia’s long history and rich culture, and how both were influenced by its dramatic geography; and to become familiar with some of the archaeological research and sites that are being uncovered and shared with the world. Following historic trade and pilgrimage routes, we will cross vast deserts, see irrigated lands teeming with agriculture, and enjoy scenic views with striking mountains and landscapes along the way.
Highlights:
1. Visit four of the country’s six UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the spectacular petroglyphs at Jubbah; the stunning, carved stone, Nabataean tombs at Hegra (Madain Saleh); Al Balad, the historic center of the city of Jeddah; and the Al Turaif
District of Diriyah, whose restored citadel and palaces are now an open-air museum.
2. Marvel at the 6,000-year-old Rajajil Standing Stones; the Sakaka Rock Carvings, which were just discovered in 2018; and the necropolis of Mughair Shuwayb at Madyan, which was built into the hillside by the ancient Nabataeans.
3. Wander the alleys and streets of Ushaiger Heritage Village, with Ushaiger itself being one of the oldest settlements in the region and often considered Saudi Arabia’s most beautiful village.
4. Stroll through Al Ula’s Old Town, whose town walls encircle some 900 mudbrick homes, 400 shops, a restored Friday Mosque, and the 10th-century Musa bin Nusayr Castle.
5. Experience the holy city of Medina, a major Islamic pilgrimage site; and marvel at the capital city of Riyadh, which transformed from a mud-walled town to a metropolis of 7+ million people in the span of a century.
6. Explore bustling markets such as the Unayzah Market; Buraydah’s camel market, perhaps the largest camel market in the world; and Riyadh’s Dira Souq, where we learn about traditional Saudi clothing.

Kenya & Tanzania: Wildlife & Human Origins in East Africa
2025-01-07 - 2025-01-21
Join us on this East African adventure as we drive among the wildlife and landscapes of Kenya and Tanzania. We will make special stops along the way, such as to visit Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge, the site of Louis and Mary Leakey’s famous, mid-20th-century paleoanthropological discoveries that indicated that hominins had evolved in Africa. Journeying through the impressive wildlife, beauty, and diversity of this African terrain highlights the privilege of exploring and learning from the world around us. Throughout our adventure you will enjoy generous comfort and exceptional service at charming resorts and lodges, plus two nights at a memorable safari camp. All of our game drives, led by expert driver-guides, will use 4×4 Land Cruisers with pop-up roofs and have no more than six guests per vehicle. Your tour leader is William Harcourt-Smith a paleoanthropologist based at the American Museum of Natural History and the City University of New York.
Highlights:
1. Explore four national parks: Kenya’s Nairobi National Park, Hells Gate National Park, and Amboseli National Park; and Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
2. Enjoy a combined eight days of safari drives in Kenya and Tanzania, searching for Africa’s big five mammals—lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and buffalo—as well as a variety of other mammals and hundreds of species of birds.
3. Take a scenic boat ride on Lake Naivasha, spotting birds, hippo, and thousands of flamingo.
4. Visit the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Ngorongoro Crater, home to 26,000 big mammals and 500 species of birds.

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.

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.

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.

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

After 1177 BCE: The Survival of Civilizations
2024-12-09 19:30 - 20:30 (Pacific/Honolulu) | University of Hawaii, Manoa Art Building, Art Auditorium, 2535 McCarthy Mall, Honolulu, HI, 96822, United States
Kershaw Lectures in Near East Archaeology

Archaeology in Action: Collaboration to Reclaim Native American Ancestral lands
2024-12-04 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Native American tribes across the U.S. have historically been dispossessed of their traditional homelands lands through legal maneuvering, formal policy, and outright deceit. Working with the Penn Cultural Heritage Center, the Colfax-Todds Valley Consolidated Tribe of California received some of their historic homelands back in 2021. Since then, the Tribe has collaborated with the Placer County Land Trust to return additional homelands to tribal ownership. Dr. Brian Daniels of the PennCHC is joined by Clyde Prout III and Pamela Cubbler of the Colfax-Todds Valley Consolidated Tribe to discuss how this collaboration came to be, and how Native American tribes and university museums can work together to realize tribal goals.
Co-Sponsored by the Penn Cultural Heritage Center.
