The Archaeological Institute of America

Western Illinois Society

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

2012-2013

 

Click on titles for more details.

 

Monday, September 17, 2012

“Neo-Assyrian Palaces: Prestige, Power and Propaganda”

Amy E. Barron, University of Toronto

 

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

“Agatha Christie, Archaeology and Alzheimer’s”

Amy E. Barron, University of Toronto

 

Monday, October 1, 2012

Life in Provincia Arabia: Perspectives from the 2012 Season in Dhiban, Jordan

Danielle Steen Fatkin, Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Knox College

 

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

East defeats West: Naval War and Cross-Cultural Adaptation in Classical Cyprus

Kristian Lorenzo, Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Archaeology at Monmouth College

 

Monday, November 12, 2012
“The Archaeology of Christmas”

Michael Laughy, Assistant Professor of Classics, Washington and Lee University

 

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

“The Bold and the Beautiful: Polychroming and Gilding in Antiquity”

Benton Kidd, Associate Curator of Ancient Art, Museum of Art and Archaeology,

           University of Missouri

 

Wednesday, February 18, 2013

“Bellerophon, Pegasos, and the Chimaera: Myth and Identity in Ancient Corinth”

Angela Ziskowski, Assistant Professor of History, Coe College

 

Monday, March 4, 2013
“Mapping Vergil: Cartography and Geography in the Aeneid
Georgia Georgia L. Irby,
Professor of Classics, The College of William and Mary

 

Monday, March 25, 2013

“Image and Text: Methodological Preliminaries”

Jason Nethercut, Visiting Assistant Professor in Classics, Knox College

 

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

“Dream Archaeology”

William Caraher, Associate Professor of History at the University of North Dakota      
  

Detailed Descriptions

 

Monday, September 17, 2012

Neo-Assyrian Palaces: Prestige, Power and Propaganda

Amy E. Barron, University of Toronto (red.barron@utoronto.ca)

7:30 P.M. in Room (TBA), Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois

In the first millennium BCE the ancient Assyrians built great palaces in what is now Iraq to serve not just as homes for their kings, but gathering places for their armies and store houses for their tribute. They also used the art in their palaces to send messages of power and prestige to the peoples of their empire and beyond. The images were carved onto large scale wall reliefs which were beautiful, yet also intended to educate the viewer on the dangers of failing to obey the king’s authority.  The earliest palaces bore images of the king as warrior, religious leader and mighty hunter, while later palaces were adorned with scenes of loyal subjects paying tribute, and disloyal ones paying the consequences.  Friend and foe would have been paraded past these illustrations on their way to see the king. This illustrated lecture presents  the wonders of these ancient monuments, the great variety and detail of their decoration, and their use as political propaganda by the Assyrians.

 

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Agatha Christie, Archaeology and Alzheimer’s

Amy E. Barron, University of Toronto (red.barron@utoronto.ca)

7:30 P.M. in the Morgan Room of Poling Hall, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois

Agatha Christie is known as one of the greatest mystery novelist of the 20th century, but few people also know that she was married to renowned Mesopotamian archaeologist Max Mallowan.  Agatha spent much of her life living and working on archaeological excavations and her love of the Middle East and the life she and her husband lived there is reflected in many of her novels including Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and Murder in Mesopotamia.  She herself reflected on how similar the work of an archaeologist and a detective were and was just as suited to unravelling mysteries in the field as upon the page of her books. This lecture will examine some of the archaeological sites that Agatha and Max excavated, as well as how this work and the mystery novelist’s life were revealed within the pages of her books.  Furthermore, her literary corpus is now being used to try to unravel the mysteries of the human mind as a University of Toronto team examine the works for prolific writers for signs of the onset of Alzheimer’s.

 

Monday, October 1, 2012

Life in Provincia Arabia: Perspectives from the 2012 Season in Dhiban, Jordan

Danielle Steen Fatkin, Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Knox College (dfatkin@knox.edu)

7:30 P.M. in the Morgan Room of Poling Hall, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois

While Jordan is rightly famous for its great Classical cities, including Jerash and Petra, less is known about how ordinary people lived. This lecture shows results from the 2012 excavation season at Dhiban, Jordan, where current excavations have uncovered the remains of a large late Roman and Byzantine village (4th-6th century CE). These excavations show a greater than expected depth of economic and social engagement with the larger Roman world despite the site's seemingly marginal location at the far eastern border of the Roman empire.

 

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

East defeats West: Naval War and Cross-Cultural Adaptation in Classical Cyprus

Kristian Lorenzo, Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Archaeology at Monmouth College            (kllorenzo@monmouthcollege.edu)

7:30 P.M. in the Morgan Room of Poling Hall, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois

In 391 B.C. political and territorial tensions between Greeks, Phoenicians and the Achaemenid empire exploded into combat off the south coast of Cyprus near the Cypro-Phoenician kingdom of Kition. To commemorate their naval victory King Milkyaton and the people of Kition erected a victory monument which I call Milkyaton’s Trophy. Scholars have suggested five possible forms including a bronze tripod for this trophy. This talk not only assesses the feasibility of these five forms, but also examines the textual and physical evidence as well as the relevant iconography and mythology which allows for a new sixth form, a bronze statue depicting an armed marine god, Melqart or Ba’al-‘Oz, riding a hippocampus. Much like the Macdonough memorial, an American naval victory monument comprised of an obelisk crowned by an eagle, Milkyaton’s Trophy celebrates both success in battle and reflects heterogeneous cultural influences.

 

Monday, November 12, 2012
The Archaeology of Christmas

Michael Laughy, Assistant Professor of Classics, Washington and Lee University (laughym@wlu.edu)  

7:30 P.M. in the Morgan Room of Poling Hall, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois

Christmas! For many, the very word inspires feelings of joy and fond childhood memories. For others, to quote Mark Twain, “the approach of Christmas brings harassment and dread to many excellent people” who “give thanks that Christmas comes once a year.” What cannot be argued, however, is the ubiquity of Christmas: ninety-five percent of Americans celebrate this holiday, nearly all of whom are familiar with the origin of Christmas as a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. The story of this holiday, however, begins well before Christianity; societies have been celebrating light and birth in the darkest days of winter since the Stone Age. In this talk, we explore the history of Christmas as told from the archaeological record. We begin by examining the multiple origins of Christmas traditions, from the winter solstice celebrations of the Greeks, Romans, and Norse to the first Christmas celebrations of early Christians. We then turn to the evolution of our own Christmas celebrations and traditions, beginning with an examination of the origins and evolution of Santa Claus. Throughout the lecture, we will highlight the ways in which archaeology not only enriches our understanding of the history of Christmas, but also reveals surprising elements of continuity between ancient and modern traditions.

 

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

The Bold and the Beautiful: Polychroming and Gilding in Antiquity

Benton Kidd, Associate Curator of Ancient Art,  Museum of Art and Archaeology,

           University of Missouri (kiddjb@missouri.edu)

7:30 P.M. Science 102, at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois

Though Winckelmann and his contemporaries were aware of ancient polychromy, most eighteenth and nineteenth aesthetes elevated form in sculpture and thus overlooked the surface appearance that had been so important to the ancient aesthetic. Ancient sculptors relied on color to bring their forms to life, but this characteristic was long neglected in art historical scholarship and is often still deemed unattractive to the modern eye. A number of exhibitions and other studies in recent years have furthered our understanding of polychromy and gilding on ancient sculpture.  This lecture examines literary evidence (including color and gilding terminology used by the ancients) and compares examples (some little known) of ancient sculpture and painting with sufficient pigment remaining to suggest reconstructions. Additionally, recent evidence for the various uses of gilded surfaces, whether on hair, clothing, flesh, or as an embellishment to architecture, is also included. Polychromy in the form of colored marbles, both for sculpture and architecture, provides insight into the taste for colored surfaces beyond the paintbrush. Finally, further evidence is provided by pigment and gilding analyses from the collections of the Museum of Art and Archaeology.

 

Wednesday, February 18, 2013

“Bellerophon, Pegasos, and the Chimaera: Myth and Identity in Ancient Corinth”

Angela Ziskowski, Assistant Professor of History, Coe College (aziskowski@coe.edu)

7:30 P.M. in the Wells Theatre, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois

The myth of the hero Bellerophon played a significant role in the literary and artistic history of Corinth. Bellerophon, one of the only Corinthians mentioned in Homer, was best known for fighting the hybrid Chimaera with the aid of Pegasos. This lecture explores the early popularity of this myth in local art and textual references and argues for the importance of the story to the development of Corinthian identity. The myth connects the city with both the imagined land of Ephyra referenced in the Iliad and to the fountain of Peirene, a prominent landmark in the city. During the sixth century B.C. and later Herakles, another monster-slaying hero from the Peloponnese, usurped facets of Bellerophon’s character in Corinthian vase-painting.

 

Monday, March 4, 2013
“Mapping Vergil: Cartography and Geography in the Aeneid
Georgia Georgia L. Irby,
Professor of Classics, The College of William and Mary (glirby@wm.edu)

7:30 P.M. in the Morgan Room of Poling Hall, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois

Vergil’s Aeneid is a tale of travel and adventure, and the land- and seascape become just as important as the peoples whom the exiled Trojans encounter. Many cartographical and geographical topoi emerge from reading this great epic within the context of Graeco-Roman scientific geography. The Aeneid, in fact, reflects the best cartographic advances of the day and is presented in the same way as other “maps” from ancient Greece and Rome–not in the modern pictural sense but, rather, verbally. Vergil seamlessly incorporates many of the key aspects of ancient geography (topography, climatology, ethnography) to enhance overarching themes of his masterpiece. In this talk, we explore Vergil’s use of narrative maps and how Vergil’s narrative maps compare with the ambit of Greco-Roman cartography. Describing and mapping the world conveyed powerful symbolic resonance, and Vergil’s Aeneid can thus be interpreted

 

Monday, March 25, 2013

Image and Text: Methodological Preliminaries

Jason Nethercut, Visiting Assistant Professor in Classics, Knox College (nethercut@gmail.com)

7:30 P.M. in the Morgan Room of Poling Hall, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois

This lecture explores some of the pitfalls that attend interdisciplinary approaches to classical antiquity, looking especially at those that present themselves when one examines the aesthetics of literary and visual textual narratives. The current resurgence in scholarly approaches that view antiquity through an interdisciplinary lens is welcome, especially since it reminds us that texts did not—and do not—operate in an artistic vacuum. Many recent studies have underscored the common dynamics inherent in reading images and viewing texts. But in our search for commonalities, we should not obscure the real differences that demarcate the visual from the textual. After briefly surveying some of the complicating factors that are often overlooked in the study of image and text, this lecture will look at a few test cases from the walls of Pompeii and literary descriptions of artworks (ekphraseis) from Latin epic. Through these, the important differences between visual and verbal art become especially focused, even as they encourage us to harmonize our approaches to ancient literature and art.  

 

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Dream Archaeology

William Caraher, Associate Professor of History at the University of North Dakota                                           (billcaraher@gmail.com)

7:30 P.M. in the Morgan Room of Poling Hall, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois

For over 1000 years excavators have relied upon dreams to guide them to hidden treasures, sacred buildings, and lost relics.  St. Helena’s excavations of fragments of the true cross and other stories of invention inspired later Christian archaeologists to follow the inspiration of dream to find sacred relics. The practice was consistent and widespread enough to qualify as a form of Byzantine indigenous archaeology. In more recent times, excavators as revered as Anastasios Orlandos and Manolis Andronikos have recognized the influence of dreams on their own excavations. As Y. Hamilakis and C. Stewart have shown in their recent work that archaeological dreams played a key role in the developing Greek national consciousness. They do not, however, link these modern archaeological dreams explicitly to Byzantine and Early Christian practices.  In this presentation I  will not necessarily establish an irrefutable connection between modern and Byzantine dreams or argue for the presence of some unconscious continuity. Instead, I will sketch the outline of an indigenous archaeology in Byzantine times and consider how such pre-modern practices can influence our ideas of archaeological knowledge in more recent times.