Join us on Thursday, November 12 at 6 pm for a webinar presentation of this year’s Nancy Wilkie Lecture in Archaeological Heritage:

Dr. Patty Gerstenblith, Director for the Center for Art, Museum and Cultural Heritage Law at DePaul University, will present “Preserving the Past: Archaeological Heritage, the Art Market and Conflict in the Middle East”

Register here for the Zoom webinar

Abstract:
Archaeological sites are looted for the value of artifacts that are sold onto the international art market. The acceptance of undocumented, possibly looted, artifacts by the market and, in particular, by museums, means that we lose the contextual evidence needed to understand and reconstruct the past and knowledge of whether an object is authentic or a forgery. As we now know, the looting of archaeological sites in the Middle East and elsewhere may also help to fund armed conflict and terrorism. This lecture will explore the intersection of these issues and the legal and ethical responses that are intended to reduce the incentives to traffic in looted archaeological materials and thereby promote preservation of the archaeological heritage.

Click here for free registration on Zoom. Co-sponsored by the University of Richmond Department of Classical Studies.

Join us on Sunday, October 25 at 2:30 pm for a webinar lecture hosted by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in connection with the Treasures of Ancient Egypt: Sunken Cities exhibition.

Dr. Robert Ritner, Professor of Egyptology at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, will present “Re-Membering Osiris: Overcoming Death in Ancient Egypt.”

Register here for the Zoom webinar.

UPDATE ON 3/11/20: THIS LECTURE HAS BEEN CANCELLED.

Our next lecture will be presented by Dr. Hilary Becker, Assistant Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Studies at Binghamton University, on Thursday, March 19 at 6 pm in Jepson Hall 118 at the University of Richmond:

“The Iconography of a Life in Arms: The Etruscan Soldier at War, at Home, and at the Tomb.”

Dr. Becker is co-editor of Votives, Places and Rituals in Etruscan Religion (2009) and the AIA’s Ferdinando And Sarah Cinelli Lecturer In Etruscan And Italic Archaeology for 2019/2020.

Co-sponsored by the Richmond Society of the Archaeological Institute of America and the UR Department of Classical Studies, the lecture will be free and open to the public.

On Thursday, February 13 at 6 pm in Jepson Hall room 103 at the University of Richmond, Dr. Dylan Rogers (visiting professor of archaeology at the University of Virginia) will present “Water and Sensory Experience: Reconstructing the Procession of the Eleusinian Mysteries.” Rogers served as Assistant Director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens from 2015-2019 and is the author of Water Culture in Roman Society (Brill, 2018) and co-editor of What’s New in Roman Greece? (National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2018).

Co-sponsored by the Richmond Society of the Archaeological Institute of America and the UR Department of Classical Studies, the lecture will be free and open to the public.

There has been a change of speaker and topic for our November lecture, though the date, time, and location remain the same. On Thursday, Nov. 14 at 6 pm in Jepson Hall 103 at the University of Richmond, Dr. Antonio Curet (Curator, National Museum of the American Indian) will present “Death and Remembering: A New Interpretation of the Ceremonial Center of Tibes, Ponce, Puerto Rico”

Abstract:
The site of Tibes, located in southern Puerto Rico, is the oldest known ceremonial center in the Caribbean. The structures, changes in mortuary practices, and settlement pattern documented at Tibes have been interpreted to represent one of the earliest stratified societies in the region, the focus of administrative, residential, and/or ritual activities. However, a combination of new and previous information is forming a different, more complex and intricate view of the social and political history of the site. This presentation includes a brief review of Puerto Rican archaeology, a summary of the finds of the Archaeological Project of the Ceremonial Center of Tibes, and a new perspective in understanding the processes involved in the ancient history of the site

Directions and parking:
Jepson Hall is #221 on the UR campus map. Visitor parking is available after 5 pm in all lots. For Google Map or GPS directions, use 221 Richmond Way, Richmond, VA 23173.

Our first lecture of the academic year will be presented by Dr. Ömür Harmanşah, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and director of the Yalburt Yaylası Archaeological Landscape Research Project.

What does it mean to practice archaeology in the new age of the Anthropocene? In “Ruined Gardens of Babylon: Dark Ecology and Heritage Politics in the Middle East,” Dr. Harmanşah will discuss his current research on the politics, ethics, and methodologies of doing archaeological fieldwork in the Middle East today, at the very critical moment of global ecological crisis, climate change, military conflict, mass immigration, and heritage violence. Recent military violence in the Middle East has led to unprecedented destruction of cultural heritage along with local settlements and habitats, and the displacement of their communities. The ecological-military crisis has a direct impact on how archaeology is practiced as a field science. The destruction of heritage sites, landscapes, and institutions demands archaeologists either work remotely or perform salvage work, as opposed to more conventional methods of working with scientific research questions.

The lecture will be held on Thursday, October 3 at 6 pm in Jepson Hall, room 103, at the University of Richmond (please note the change from our usual room). The building is #221 on and campus map; for GPS directions, use the following address: 221 Richmond Way, Richmond, VA, 23173. The lecture is co-sponsored by the University of Richmond Department of Classical Studies and will be free and open to the public.