Past Events
Interested in Cotsen events? Sign up for our mailing list.A conversation between Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz and José Bedia,
Moderated by Manuel Jordán
May 18th, 10am - 11am PST
This program follows an exciting interdisciplinary seminar on African Objects in Museums, where students examined a series of objects including painted Yoruba drums and Kongo minkisi. To continue discussions, the Fowler Museum, the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, the UCLA/Getty Conservation Program, UCLA Information Studies, and the UCLA Africa Studies Center are hosting a program where we will engage three specialists who are artists, scholars, and/or practitioners. The two speakers are members of the Afro-Cuban and Cuban diaspora, respectively.
Contact Ellen Pearlstein
Email epearl@ucla.edu
Phone
Nathan Acebo, MA, PhD
University of California, Chancellor's Postdoctoral Scholar and Critical Mission Studies Postdoctoral Scholar
Anthropology & Heritage Studies
University of California, Merced
The study of the written history of Indigenous communities continues to evolve following new contributions from collaboration-based research partnerships committed to practicing Indigenous Archaeology. As a form of archaeology practiced with, by, and for Indigenous peoples, Indigenous Archaeology is reshaping our understanding of North American colonization by providing new perspectives on the vibrancy of Indigenous cultures and enduring political traditions. This talk showcases how Indigenous Archaeology was practiced in partnership with Tongva, Acjachemen and Payómkawichum communities in southern California to illuminate forms of political and economic autonomy beyond the reach of Spanish and Californio colonial authorities in the southern Los Angeles Basin hinterlands (1770-1848 CE). I present how the Black Star Canyon Archaeology Project’s (BSCAP: 2013-2021) analyses of orphan collections were specifically guided by Indigenous collaborators’ concept of “thrivance”—a condition of existence focused on political and economic dimensions of Indigenous autonomy—to yield said history and use archaeology as a tool for Indigenous storytelling on said peoples’ terms.
Dr. Nathan Acebo is the University of California Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in Critical Mission Studies for the 2020–2021 year at the University California, Merced and holds the position of Assistant Professor of Anthropology-Native American and Indigenous Studies at University of Connecticut beginning in August 2021. Dr. Acebo received his Ph.D. at Stanford University and was a fellow in the Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education Doctoral Program (EDGE: 2013-2020), Institute for Research in the Social Sciences (IRiSS: 2019-2020), and Mellon Humanities Program (2019-2020). His research in southern California and Hawaii focuses on Indigenous networks, subaltern resistance, and decolonizing practices.
Contact Michelle Jacobson
Email mjacobson@ioa.ucla.edu
Phone
Bryan Kraemer
Egyptologist at the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art
California State University, San Bernardino
Since 2014, the Wadi el-Hudi Expedition has been surveying archaeological sites in Egypt’s Eastern Desert connected with ancient amethyst and gold mines. The ancient activity was concentrated in two periods, Egypt’s Middle Kingdom (circa 2000 -1700 BCE), and the Early Roman Period (late 1st century BCE to 2nd century CE). During the first period, the ancient miners, guardians, and administrators left an abundant epigraphic record of their activities. To date, 270 separate inscriptions have been recorded at Wadi el-Hudi. These show a wide range of formality in inscriptional technique between carefully crafted monumental stelae with long hieroglyphic texts on one hand to rock-pecked petroglyphs on the other. Partially published by Ahmed Fakhry in 1952 and Ahmed Sadek in 1980-85, the inscriptions of Wadi el-Hudi have contributed significantly to our understanding of how ancient Egyptian desert mining expeditions operated. The Wadi el-Hudi Expedition has now for the first time recorded these inscriptions within their archaeological context using a photogrammetry-based epigraphic methodology. This record is fully integrated into the 3-dimensional survey of the entire Wadi el-Hudi topography and archaeological remains. It therefore allows us not only to record but also to present the inscriptions in a digital reproduction of their original context. This detailed 3D record is especially important since modern gold mining threatens the existence of archaeological sites in this remote area of the desert.
In this talk, I will present a selection of the current results of the Wadi el-Hudi Expedition’s epigraphic and archaeological survey. Taking from interpretive theories of Geosemiotics, I will present case studies from the results of the epigraphic working understanding how the inscriptions at Wadi el-Hudi were embedded in a nexus of social and linguistic actions that contributed to their meaning and defined the local versions of what one might call an epigraphic habit. Additionally, I will outline how we have incorporated 3D capture into every aspect of recording at Wadi el-Hudi and show the results and challenges of using this methodology.
The Wadi el-Hudi Expedition works under the auspices of California State University, San Bernardino and in compliance with the Ministry of Antiquities in Egypt. The expedition has conducted fiveseasons since 2014from which Iwill draw these results.
Bryan Kraemer is an Egyptologist at the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art (California State University, San Bernardino -CSUSB),where he is in charge of developing content related to the museum’s collections of artifact’s from Ancient Egypt. He is also a lecturer in the History Department at CSUSB. Bryanhas a Masters in Egyptology from the University of Chicago and a Masters in Archaeological Computing from Southampton University. He is also working on finishing his Ph.D. in Egyptology at the University of Chicago. Bryan’s research interests are in Ancient Egyptian religion and ritual, Ancient Egypt and the Classical World, Ancient Egyptian language, art, and archaeology, digital humanities, GIS, and digital frontiers in museums. He has worked and studied in Egypt over the last twenty years and taught Ancient Egyptian language and archaeology at University of Chicago, Princeton University, and California State University, San Bernardino. Bryan is currently working on a monograph on his work with the festival of Osiris at Abydos and a 3D archaeological atlas of maps from his work as co-director of the Wadi el-Hudi Expedition (www.wadielhudi.com).
Contact Michelle Jacobson
Email mjacobson@ioa.ucla.edu
Phone
David A. Scott
Distinguished Professor Emeritus
UCLA Department of Art History
Chinese Art presents especially challenging problems in terms of authenticity of monuments, sites, and artefacts of all kinds. Professor Emeritus David A. Scott will examine the conceptual framework of authenticity, a metonymy, where the vagaries of the word can be replaced with intangible authenticity, material authenticity and historic authenticity. Authenticity can also be regarded as contested, debated and performative, particularly in terms of its social and political signification. At the same time, it is important to remember that authentication is a necessary attribute of material authenticity. Scott examines how different conceptions of authenticity can be applied to a discussion of hanging scrolls on paper and silk, bronze artefacts, and monuments and sites. The works of the most famous Chinese artist, copyist and forger, Zhang Daquian, will be briefly discussed. The nature and extent of copies in Chinese art and how they are perceived or valorized is an important issue and one of philosophical interest. Philosophical debates concerning how instances of copies are regarded, and how the intention of the original artist impinges on the reception and appreciation of copies will be discussed.
Contact Michelle Jacobson
Email mjacobson@ioa.ucla.edu
Phone
Severin Fowles
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the American Studies Department
Barnard College, Columbia University
The European invasion of the Americas unleashed a period of heightened global exchange as technologies, religions, political structures, foodways, languages, diseases, mineral resources, labor and more began to circulate with unprecedented velocity and scale. For the colonized, many of these cultural movements happened forcibly, at the tip of a spear, but there were also moments of Indigenous appropriation and creative reinvention of European traditions. This was particularly true with respect to image production and modes of graphic representation, as Indigenous communities sought out new visual cultures to assist them in understanding and intervening in colonial worlds. In this presentation, I consider what might be called the mestizo aesthetics that arose within colonial New Mexico following the arrival of Spanish settlers in 1598. Theoretically, my focus is on the power of images as technologies of action and intercession, no less than of representation. Historically, I pay special attention to image production among the Indigenous communities referred to by the Spanish as “barbarians”—groups like the Apache and Comanche who were themselves the fast-moving, intercultural choreographers of social life at the edge of empire.
Severin Fowles is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the American Studies Department at Barnard College, Columbia University. For the past 25 years he has directed excavations and surveys in northern New Mexico, examining the history of Archaic hunter-gatherers through to the hippies of the 1960s. He is the author ofAn Archaeology of Doings: Secularism and the Study of Pueblo Religion(SAR) and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Southwest Archaeology(Oxford University Press). His current research has been designed in collaboration with Picuris Pueblo and is focused on the tribe's ancestral landscapes and farming practices.
Contact Michelle Jacobson
Email mjacobson@ioa.ucla.edu
Phone
Glenn Wharton, Andrea Geyer
Friday April 23rd, 11:00am - 12:00pm (PT)
UCLA/Getty Conservation Program Chair Glenn Wharton will interview artist Andrea Geyer about the conservation and display of 9 Scripts for a Nation at War, a work that was acquired by MoMA when Wharton served as the museum’s Media Conservator. Geyer is a German born multi-disciplinary artist who lives in New York City. Her work focuses on themes of gender, class, and national identity. 9 Scriptsis a ten-channel, co-authored video installation that includes interviews about the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and touches on themes of identity in times of conflict.
Andrea Geyer is a multi-disciplinary artist un-sensing the construction and politics of time. Her works use performance and video to activate the lingering potential of specific events, places, or biographies as lived in woman identified bodies. She materializes the entanglement of presence and absence of such bodies due to ideologically motivated omissions in archives and memories. Exhibitions include: Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York; IMMA in Dublin; TATE Modern in London; Generali Foundation, Secession in Vienna; Witte De White in Rotterdam; Sao Paulo Biennal and documenta12/ Kassel. She is represented by Hales Gallery in London/New York, Galerie Thomas Zander in Cologne. She lives and works in New York. www.andreageyer.info
Contact Jennifer McGough
Email jenmcgough@g.ucla.edu
Phone
Over Zoom
Overview of the graduate school application process including things to consider before applying, M.A. versus Ph.D. programs, application components, and things you can do during undergrad to prepare; followed by Q&A.
Contact
Phone
Jo Anne Van Tilburg
Director, Easter Island Statue Project
Rock Art Archive, UCLA Cotsen Institute
An international, multidisciplinary team directed by Jo Anne Van Tilburg conducted a major archeological survey of monolithic sculpture on Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Beginning in 2002, the team mapped the inner basin of Rano Raraku, the island's famed statue quarry. This was followed in 2010 by excavations of four statues in the inner basin. This presentation summarizes highlights of the excavations and their resulting insights into the past. It examines the role of sanctity as expressed in ritualized stone and describes the interactive forces key to the actualization of community expressed as megalithic public art.
Dr. Jo Anne Van Tilburg is an archaeologist and the Director of the Easter Island Statue Project, an archaeological inventory and database project that has produced a stylistic analysis of nearly 900 monolithic statues (moai). Her research interest addresses the integration of symbolism and structure and the complex ways in which humans employ cultural resources, social practices, and ancient aesthetics to relate to and alter, shape, and impact the natural landscape. Social processes and the interactive roles of art, history, and ecology are explored in on-going field and museum studies. Her most recent field project is the digital mapping of the interior of Rano Raraku Statue Quarry, Easter Island. Van Tilburg is an appointed member of the National Landmarks Committee, US National Park Service Advisory Board; a Research Associate of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, where she directs the UCLA Rock Art Archive; recipient of the 2001 California Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation, and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Contact Michelle Jacobson
Email mjacobson@ioa.ucla.edu
Phone
Ashley Sharpe
Staff scientist and archaeologist
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama
In recent years, multi-isotope analyses have become an increasingly popular method for examining the lives of past humans. Isotope studies can examine questions regarding the diets, health, and movements of people in the past. In combination with osteological, genetic, and archaeological data, we can begin to reconstruct the histories of both individuals and entire communities. This study presents results of an ongoing multi-isotope investigation of pre-Colombian humans in Panama, and compares these results with other isotope studies elsewhere in the Americas. The results illustrate the complex nature of human activities, and the value of incorporating multiple lines of social and ecological evidence to draw interpretations. New and developing methods in isotope research are also explored.
Ashley Sharpe is a staff scientist and archaeologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, where she has worked since 2017. Her research examines human and environmental (particularly animal) interactions in the past, including how humans adapted to different environments over time, and what effects they had on the landscape. She has worked as an archaeologist and faunal analyst on projects throughout Central America, including Ceibal, San Bartolo-Xultun, and Kaminaljuyu in Guatemala, Aguada Fénix in Mexico, Selin Farm in Honduras, and most recently projects in Panama. She obtained a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Florida in 2016.
Contact Michelle Jacobson
Email mjacobson@ioa.ucla.edu
Phone
Stephen Koob
Chief Conservator Emeritus of The Corning Museum of Glass
Friday March 12th, 11:00am - 12:00pm (PT)
Archaeological glass encompasses glass that has been buried, either in the ground or in fresh or salt water. In some cases glass was intentionally buried as grave gifts and can be found in archaeological cemeteries or tombs. Most glasses in museum and private collections do not have provenances and their place of manufacture or origin is unknown, or only known by comparison with actual excavated sources. Archaeological glasses can be preserved in many various states. In some cases the glass has not changed at all, or very little since manufacture, in other cases the glass may be heavily deteriorated and extremely fragile. Archaeologists, excavation personnel, volunteers and conservators who will be responsible for handling glass should be familiar with the proper procedures, materials and techniques that are used in the lifting, handling, packing, transportation and storage of glass vessels and fragments. Severely deteriorated or “weathered” layers on archaeological glasses are extremely sensitive to touch, and should be handled as little as possible.In general, excavated archaeological glasses should be kept dry if found dry; wet, if found wet (underwater retrieval); or damp, if found damp; until careful examination is possible and time is available for treatment.Safe retrieval is a priority.Treatment can involve simple cleaning, or not; consolidation of fragile or lifting surfaces, and possible reassembly using the adhesive Paraloid B-72. The eventual disposition of an object, or group of objects, should be considered before any intervention is carried outwhether the object is to be housed in storage, studied, published, or placed on display. Assembled objects also often require a significantly larger storage space (shelving or cabinets) than individual fragments, which can be bagged or placed in drawers. Restoration beyond this is rarely done in the field, but may be done in a museum.
Stephen Koob is Chief Conservator Emeritus of The Corning Museum of Glass, having recently retired from the Museum.
Koob holds an MA in Classical Archaeology from Indiana University, and a B.Sc. in Archaeological Conservation and Materials Science from the Institute of Archaeology, University of London. Before joining the Corning Museum staff in 1998, Koob worked for 11 years as conservator, specializing in ceramics and glass, at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
A member of numerous professional organizations, including the Archaeological Institute of America, Koob is also a Fellow of the International Institute of Conservation and the American Institute for Conservation. He recently replaced Dr. Robert Brill as Chairman of Technical Committee 17, which studies the Archaeometry and Conservation of Glass, as part of the International Commission on Glass. He is the author of the book, Conservation and Care of Glass Objects (2006). He is an expert in dealing with “crizzling,” a condition that affects unstable glass.
In 2014 Koob received the Sheldon and Caroline Keck Award from the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC). The award is given to an individual who has “a sustained record of excellence in the education and training of conservation professionals.” For decades he has devoted time to training conservation interns at The Corning Museum of Glass, and he has taught conservation courses around the world. [https://blog.cmog.org/2014/07/30/conservator-stephen-koob-wins-award-for-dedication-to-training-and-mentoring/]. He has worked, taught and supervised on numerous archaeological sites, including the Agora in Athens, Gordion, Turkey, and Samothrace, Greece.
Contact Jennifer McGough
Email jenmcgough@g.ucla.edu
Phone
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