Archaeological Institute of America

Peabody Museum Tours Led by Harvard Students
2023-12-10 11:00 - 11:45, 2023-12-17 11:00 - 11:45, 2023-12-24 11:00 - 11:45, 2023-12-31 11:00 - 11:45, 2024-01-07 11:00 - 11:45 (America/New_York) | Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Sundays at 11:00 am October 1, 2023–April 21, 2024. See blackout dates.* Regular museum admission rates apply. Free museum admission for Massachusetts residents every Sunday morning (year-round) from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm. Proof of residency required. Free museum admission is not available to commercial groups.
*Blackout dates: November 24–26, 2023; December 4, 2023–January 21, 2024; and March 9–17, 2024.
Tours by Harvard students connect visitors with the research, teaching, and Indigenous engagement surrounding the cultural heritage in the museum’s care. How do items come to the museum? Who accesses them and how do items return home?
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 these and other times.
Photo: EJSP Visual | Julieta Sarmiento

Peabody Museum Tours Led by Harvard Students
2023-12-10 14:00 - 14:45, 2023-12-15 14:00 - 14:45, 2023-12-16 14:00 - 14:45, 2023-12-17 14:00 - 14:45, 2023-12-22 14:00 - 14:45, 2023-12-23 14:00 - 14:45, 2023-12-24 14:00 - 14:45, 2023-12-29 14:00 - 14:45 (America/New_York) and 7 more dates | Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 2:00 pm October 1, 2023–April 21, 2024. See blackout dates.* Regular museum admission rates apply.
*Blackout dates: November 24–26, 2023; December 4, 2023–January 21, 2024; and March 9–17, 2024.
Tours by Harvard students connect visitors with the research, teaching, and Indigenous engagement surrounding the cultural heritage in the museum’s care. How do items come to the museum? Who accesses them and how do items return home?
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 these and other times, student schedules permitting.
Photo: EJSP Visual | Julieta Sarmiento

Contexts and Circumstances in Designing the Divine in Ancient Egypt
2023-12-10 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | ARCE Egyptology Lectures Room 20 Social Sciences Building, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States
The American Research Center in Egypt, Northern California Chapter, and the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of California, Berkeley, invite you to attend a lecture by Dr. Jennifer Miyuki Babcock, Pratt Institute:
“Contexts and Circumstances in Designing the Divine in Ancient Egypt”
Sunday, December 10, 2023, 3 PM Pacific Standard Time
Room 20 Social Sciences Building (formerly Barrows Hall), UC Berkeley
This lecture will be recorded.
About the Lecture:
How do we decide what a god looks like? Some ancient Egyptian texts describe the gods generally, and others are more precise. Yet a divinity’s true, underlying form is unknown. Nonetheless, depictions of deities on monumental and small-scale artworks are seen throughout ancient Egyptian history.
In this talk, we will look at some basic, common forms that ancient Egyptian gods adopt, and uncover the reasons behind these design choices. We will not only consider how the images illustrate a god’s specific divine power, but also how their representation may be determined by the context and placement of the god’s image.
About the Lecturer:
Dr. Jennifer Miyuki Babcock is Assistant Professor and Coordinator for the History of Art and Design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and at the Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY. Before teaching, Dr. Babcock was a Postdoctoral Curatorial Associate at The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at NYU, and has held research and fellowship positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Brooklyn Museum. She earned her Ph.D. at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU.
Among Dr. Babock’s extensive list of publications is the book Animal Fables in Ancient Egypt: Tree Climbing Hippos and Ennobled Mice (Brill 2022), which examines how drawings of anthropomorphized animals are linked to oral folklore and the religious environment of New Kingdom Thebes. Her interests include the cross-cultural and temporal transmission of artistic iconography in the ancient world, and studying cultural parallels between ancient and modern and contemporary lives.
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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 ARCE-NC:
For more information, please visit https://www.youtube.com/@NorthernCaliforniaARCE, https://facebook.com/NorthernCaliforniaARCE, https://arce-nc.org, https://twitter.com/ARCENCPostings, or http://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. See less

“We Are For Egypt”: A Multi-faceted Public Outreach Project On Southern Illinois’ “Egyptian” Past
2023-12-16 15:30 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | FL
Virtual Lecture on Zoom; Registration required
Saturday, December 16 at 3:30pm
For Zoom link, email: vp@arce-pa.org
Speaker: Dr. Stacy Davidson, Adjunct Faculty, History and Continuing Education at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, KS
Lecture Topic: “We Are For Egypt”: A Multi-faceted Public Outreach Project On Southern Illinois’ “Egyptian” Past
Abstract:
It is increasingly apparent that Egyptologists must make a concerted effort to bridge the gap between “traditional” modes of communication and engagement with the general public. In the case of Southern Illinois, an area called “Egypt” or “Little Egypt” for the last 200 years, the legacy of what “Egypt” meant to the inhabitants of the region and who “Egyptian” Illinoisans were has been difficult to understand due to a dearth of concise, easy-to-obtain information and a lack of engagement from the Egyptological community in blending studies in the reception of ancient Egypt with regional American history and culture.
To this end, the project, “We Are For Egypt: The History, Culture, and Legacy of Egyptian Southern Illinois,” was developed. Backed by a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship, the project consists of three components designed with community outreach in mind. First, an educational Handbook collates geographic and historical information from the portion of Illinois known as “Egypt” or “Little Egypt” along with ancient Egyptian material—allowing residents to contextualize Southern Illinois’ Egyptian identity. Secondly, a musical album provides a platform for multi-genre musicians from Southern Illinois to showcase the region’s musical heritage. The album consists of five traditional songs as well as five newly-commissioned songs that express what “Egypt, Illinois” means to the musicians today. Lastly, a virtual exhibition housed at the Special Collections Research Center at Southern Illinois University’s Morris Library, provides an accessible platform for the handbook, album, and regional photographs—as well as additional commentary by Davidson and her producer Jenny Pape for a behind-the-scenes look into the process of developing the project.
In this presentation, Davidson elucidates the outcomes of this project: encouraging community engagement in local history and arts, showcasing the creative and artistic talent of the region, increasing awareness of “Egypt, Illinois” among the Egyptological community, offering pertinent Egyptological resources to the residents of Southern Illinois, stimulating the local economy, and modeling an avenue for scholars to utilize a traditional funding source, a national non-profit grant, in a way beneficial to public history and an underserved community.
Link to the digital exhibition: https://scrcexhibits.omeka.net/exhibits/show/egypt
Link to Davidson’s JAEI article: https://scribespalette.com/publicationsmedia/
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Stacy Davidson, a native of “Egypt/Little Egypt,” Illinois, is the resident Egyptologist and Adjunct Assistant Professor of History at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, KS. She established an Egyptology specialization in the Continuing Education Department at JCCC to further her goal of making Egyptology accessible to any who wish to learn. She is the co-founder and first President of the Missouri Chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE-MO) and the founder and Team Lead of the Egyptology State of the Field Project. Through the International Studies Department at JCCC, she has co-led a student study trip to London, Oxford, and Berlin to examine Egyptian and Mesopotamian artifacts and collections. Davidson’s article, “Untangling the 19th-century Roots of Southern Illinois’ Egyptian Regional Identity,” published in the Journal of Egyptian Interconnections (Dec 2022) is the first scholarly article written by an Egyptologist on the topic of “Egypt/Little Egypt,” Illinois. Professor Davidson is a 2020-2021 Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellow, a 2020-2021 JCCC College Scholar, and a 2021 NI
Lectures are FREE for ARCE members. For non-ARCE members admission is $10
Zoom registration is required, please email vp@arce-pa.org
If you are an ARCE member not on the ARCE-PA Mailing list, please email vp@arce-pa.org. For more information, visit arce-pa.org or email us at info@arce-pa.org

Sketching the Marbles
2023-12-29 14:00 - 16:00 (America/Chicago) | The Parthenon, 2500 West End Ave, Nashville, TN, 37203, United States
Sketching the Marbles
For centuries, artists have drawn the Parthenon’s pediment sculptures. Join us for special art sessions to create your own classical masterpiece. Sketching the Marbles is held on the final Friday afternoon of each month (except Metro Nashville holidays).
–Recommended for ages 12 and older.
–This program takes place in the Treasury.
–All supplies are included— but you are welcome to bring your own.
–Participation is free for Centennial Park Conservancy members, or included with museum admission.
–The most updated times and dates are listed on the Calendar.
Love to draw, but not able to make it to museum soon? Try your hand at creating Parthenon art— from home! Browse our Parthenon Create video playlist on our YouTube channel.
THANK YOU TO JERRY’S ARTARAMA FOR PROVIDING ART SUPPLIES!

"Archaeological Narratives and the First Nations of Australia"
2023-12-30 14:00 (America/Chicago) | WEBINAR (St. Louis), St. Louis, MO
30 December 2023, Saturday at 2 PM (Central Standard Time Zone). ZOOM lecture by Dr. Harry Allen, Fellow at the University of Auckland in New Zealand: “Archaeological Narratives and the First Nations of Australia”. Zoom room opens at 1:45 and lecture promptly starts at 2 PM. Sign in at 1:45, please…

2024 AIA Annual Meeting
2024-01-04 08:00 - 2024-01-07 17:00 (America/New_York) | AIA Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, United States
The submission of organized sessions, papers, or posters that bring the archaeology of the Mediterranean world into conversation with that of the Americas and other regions around a shared thematic, methodological, or theoretical issue.

Archaeology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
2024-01-09 - 2024-01-25 | FL
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.

Preserving the Wonders of Algeria and India
2024-01-10 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | FL
Join the AIA as we learn about the archaeology of two countries, Algeria and India, who have requested bilateral agreements with the US to preserve their cultural heritage. Professors Monica Smith and Elizabeth Fentress will take us on a whirlwind tour of India and Algeria, respectively, and explain how we can make public comment to the Cultural Property Advisory Committee to aid in protecting sites and objects abroad.
For more information, visit https://www.archaeological.org/preserving-algeria-and-india/
This presentation will be given at 12 pm Eastern/11am Central/10am Mountain/9am Pacific.

Connecticut Office of State Archaeology Year-in-Review Lecture
2024-01-11 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | University of Connecticut, 91 North Eagleville Road, Storrs, CT, 06269, United States
Dig into the new year with a lecture hosted by the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History (CSMNH) and the Office of State Archaeology.
The frozen winter ground puts most archaeological excavations on hold… but on Thursday, January 11th, State Archaeologist Dr. Sarah Sportman will be digging into Connecticut archaeology… in the form of a lecture! Dr. Sportman will highlight recent field work, research, and other activities undertaken by the Office of State Archaeology.
The lecture is free and open to the public! We hope to see you there!
If you require an accommodation to participate in this event, please contact the CSMNH at 860-486-4460 or CSMNHinfo@uconn.edu by Friday January 5.

Egypt Revisited
2024-01-12 - 2024-01-28 | 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 (GEM) 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 recently 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.
• Enjoy luxurious or best-available accommodations throughout, with two or three nights at each property.

Art Police, Tomb Robbers, and the Italian Model of Cultural Heritage
2024-01-12 16:30 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room, Rubenstein Library Rm. 153 , Duke University, 411 Chapel Drive, Durham, 27708, United States
Fiona Greenland is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia. She studies the construction of cultural heritage and the uses of antiquities in contemporary politics and markets. Greenland will discuss Italy’s efforts to bring their cultural artifacts home, crystallized in the Art Squad, the highly visible military-police art protection unit. Greenland reveals the contemporary actors in this tale, taking a close look at the Art Squad and state archaeologists on one side and unauthorized excavators, thieves, and smugglers on the other.
