Past Events
Interested in Cotsen events? Sign up for our mailing list.Speaker: Jeremy Williams, Ph.D. Candidate, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLA
The practice of digitally modelling archaeological sites has grown more and more common in recent years. Well-known ancient sites such as the Temple of Karnak, Khirbet Qumran, and the Roman Forum have benefited from such models.The recent digital model of the Late Bronze Egyptian fortress at Jaffa has provided various insights that deepen our understanding of the function and design of this site.This presentation will demonstrate the process of modelling the fortress, focusing on important aspects of the reconstruction and the modelling itself . It will also include some brief demonstrations of the software used to create the digital model in order to show the accessibility and benefits of such models.
Contact Matthew Swanson
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Speakers: Morgan Burgess and Marci Burton, M.A. Students, Conservation of Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials, UCLA
This study focuses on a privately owned, autographed, first edition (c. 1959) BarbieTM doll made from poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) plastic. Contrary to “sticky-leg syndrome”, where plasticizer migrates from the PVC and deposits to the surface as a tacky liquid, this doll exhibits a bloom of a fugitive, waxy, white solid on the legs from the mid-thighs to the ankles. In addition, the doll was autographed by Ruth Handler, the designer of BarbieTM and a cofounder of the Mattel corporation. Her signature and the date are now barely legible as the once sharp lines of ink have migrated within the PVC plastic.
Multi-spectral imaging and x-radiography were performed on the doll in order to non-invasively, non-destructively examine the plastic and gain an understanding of the manufacturing procedures. In addition, with collaboration from the Museum Conservation Institute (MCI) of the Smithsonian, computed tomography, Fourier transform Infrared spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy data were collected on the plastic components of the BarbieTM doll. The results collected from the analysis provided insight into the process of manufacture, material composition and structural integrity of the doll, as well as determined the agents of degradation and identified the waxy bloom compound observed locally on both PVC plastic legs, but absent on other plastic components of the doll. After the removal of the waxy bloom, the (c.1959) BarbieTM, along with her clothing, accessories and case, was housed with archival materials and kept in a monitored environment to slow the degradation process and prevent another waxy bloom outbreak on the PVC plastic.
Contact Matthew Swanson
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Speaker: Dr. Lothar von Falkenhausen, Professor of Art History, UCLA
The Presidential Cultural Property Advisory Committee is charged with implementing the 1970 UNESCO convention in order to curb the illegal inflow of cultural property into the United States. Lothar von Falkenhausen has served on this Committee since 2012. He will report on the legal framework under which the Committee does its work, as well as on his experiences so far.
Contact Matthew Swanson
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Speakers: Dr. Megan O'Neil, Associate Curator, Art of the Ancient Americas, LACMA; Laura Maccarelli, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Conservation Science, LACMA"
This presentation features the Maya Vase Research Project, a collaboration of LACMA's (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) Conservation Center and the Art of the Ancient Americas Program, which is studying Classic-period Maya ceramics in the LACMA collection . Using new technical imaging and a variety of analytical tools, this multidisciplinary research project is examining Maya vessels in new ways, studying materials and manufacturing techniques in relation to art historical, epigraphic, and archaeological analyses.
Contact Matthew Swanson
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Speaker: Dr. Paul Burtenshaw, Director, Projects, Sustainable Preservation Initiative
The Sustainable Preservation Initiative (SPI) attempts to "Build Futures and Save Pasts"-simultaneously protecting tangible cultural heritage and enhancing the lives of the people who live around it. To do this, we develop sustainable local businesses, which are connected to archaeology and provide real and long term incomes to communities .Through this, we hope to create new economic opportunities and allow people to leverage historic sites responsibly .This talk will explore the rationale behind SPI's approach to heritage preservation and sustainable development and reviews our successes, failures, and lessons from our projects in Peru, Guatemala, and Jordan.
Contact Matthew Swanson
Email mswanson@ioa.ucla.edu
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Speakers: Noemi Mafrici and Michela Mezzano, Ph.D. Candidates, Architecture and Landscape Heritage, Politecnico di Torino
This talk will present the first outcomes of the ongoing joint research project between POLITO and UCLA. The project "Cultural Heritage in context: digital technologies for the humanities" concerns the UNESCO campaign of the 1960s for the rescue of the Nubian temples that risked being flooded .The aim of the project is to reconstruct the lost context of the Nubia heritage and to visualize the relocation of the temples involved in the salvage campaign .The case of the temple of Dendur will be presented through its three contexts: the lost original Nubian landscape, the relocated space at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Virtual Reality reconstruction context.
Contact Matthew Swanson
Email mswanson@ioa.ucla.edu
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Speakers: Dr. Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati, Visiting Professor, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology; Giorgio Buccellati, Professor Emeritus, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLA
"These forty years now I've been speaking in prose without knowing it!" Unlike Moliere 's Monsieur Jourdain, we knew we were "speaking prose" ... Our "prose" was community archaeology, which we undertook to implement since the beginning of our excavation projects in Syria. Having embarked on an effort that relied on a common sense type of approach, very much down to earth as it befits an archaeological endeavor, we have come to reflect more and more on its theoretical implications. And the current war in Syria has put to a severe test our presuppositions . We will first review the main aspects of our specific case of "community archaeology" at Tell Mozan, ancient Urkesh, and we will then share our reflections on its theoretical import. This is particularly meaningful now, at a moment when the concept is beginning to gain traction on the one hand, while on the other we find ourselves physically separated from our "community."
Contact Matthew Swanson
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Speaker: Dr. Annelou van Gijn, Professor of Archaeological Material Culture and Artefact Studies, Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University
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Speaker: Dr. Meredith Cohen, UCLA Art History
Contact Matthew Swanson
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Speaker: Dr. Stephanie Pearson, Institut für Archäologie at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
In the later first century BC, Egyptian material sweeps into Roman houses on an unprecedented scale. Its connection to Octavian’s conquest of Egypt has been taken for granted; but what are the actual mechanisms by which a political event could affect material culture? Archaeological and textual evidence in fact sheds light on this process, in part by allowing us to identify precise categories of Egyptian objects that Romans acquired. It also reveals the importance of considering context and artistic adaptations in understanding the variety of meanings for Egyptian material in Roman houses.
Contact Matthew Swanson
Email mswanson@ioa.ucla.edu
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