Past Events
Interested in Cotsen events? Sign up for our mailing list.Speaker: Dr. Ioanna Kakoulli, Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA
Fayum portraits are paintings mainly on wooden support reflecting Greek painting traditions and Egyptian funerary practices. These paintings are naturalistic portraits of the deceased and provide a snapshot of Greek civic life and customs in Egypt during the Ptolemaic and Roman rule. Non-invasive and non-destructive evaluation (NDE) of these portraits from the macro to the molecular length scale using combined imaging and spectroscopic techniques supported label-free fingerprint identification of pigments and binding media revealing raw materials selection, production technology and the operational sequences (chaîne opératoire) of the processes associated with the making of the painting. Results from the analyses integrating hyperspectral cubes in reflectance luminescence and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and forensic imaging investigations combined with fiber-optic reflectance spectroscopy (FORS) and portable XRF, indicated the use of a variety of natural and synthetic organic, inorganic and composite pigments mixed with melted beeswax in ‘encaustic’ [εγκαυστική] painting technique. The significance of this research is twofold: 1) research has been conducted without the need to take any samples and 2) results from the analyses revealed key information on the fashion and practices in Egypt during the Greek and Roman period. For example, the production of the green pigment, a synthetic organic-inorganic complex, giving the green color to the ‘gemstones’ of the necklaces in women’s portraits, is similar to the processes in alchemical manuals of the third century AD, describing a method how to color rock-crystals green, in imitation of precious stones. Similarly, the pigment madder lake used to paint the red-purple garments in the portraits replicates technology employed for the production of mordanted dyes to tint yarns for the textile ‘industry’. These results further illustrate the close affinities and interconnections between the various ‘chemical arts’, such as mining, metallurgy, corrosion and dyeing, to the art of painting and how the cultural and socio-political milieu in Egypt during the Greek and Roman period, with philosophies driving experimentation, influenced material choices and processes involved for the production and use of pigments in art.
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Speaker: Dr. Doug Bailey, Professor, Department of Anthropology, San Francisco State University
What happens when people attempt to discard and destroy a museum archive that contains many thousands of visual and material objects? In this workshop, we discuss the politics, potential, and violence of archive objects (specifically a cache of over 1200, 35-mm transparencies from the mid-late 20th century. What lives do they live? Are they passive and neutral objects resting peacefully in an institution's collection? Are they active material things? If the latter, then what affect do they have, what energies and essences do they constitute, what is their present and their future, where should they go, and what should they do?
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Speaker: Dr. Olivia Navarro-Farr, College of Wooster
Recent investigations in Waka’s primary civic-ceremonial structure discovered a royal tomb including the remains of Queen K’abel. These excavations also revealed the name of an earlier, previously unknown Kaanul queen, Ikoom Sak Wayis, likely pertaining to the interment of a royal female excavated at the site’s palace complex in 2004. This discussion focuses on the wide-ranging evidence that underscores the place of these queens in the collective social memory of ancient Wakeños, their diplomatic capabilities, and their political importance. This examination also serves to initiate conversations about increasing theoretical considerations of how women acted deliberately and meaningfully as agents of ancient statecraft.
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Speaker: Dr. Christine Lee, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Cal State LA
My research focuses on ethnic identity and how it is expressed in the human skeleton and its burial context. The populations I study were seldom represented in contemporary historical texts. These people included nomadic pastoralists, migrants and merchants, and finally women and children. The first population sample represents the Uighur dynasty in Mongolia. This cemetery dates to the end of the dynasty which was plagued by epidemics and famine before its collapse. Bioarchaeological analysis of Manichaean temple burials show a high mortality rate among infants and periods of high stress among the surviving adults. A second rare archaeological sample dates to Ming-Qing dynasty China. This is the only archaeological site known to have women with bound feet. A complete analysis was done on the occurrence and prevalence of footbinding from the Song –Qing dynasty burials. Next,four archaeological sites from the Western Regions (China and Mongolia) will be discussed regarding trauma patterns along the Silk Road. These are frontier sites from non-Asian Sogdian (Persian) and Pazyryk (Scythian) populations. Finally, current field excavations of several sites which date to the Period of Disunion (Dark Ages), after the collapse of the Han and Xiongnu empires. Little is known about this time other than there was widespread unrest and migration in Mongolia and Northern China. Preliminary findings suggest a change in burial patterns and ethnic identities.
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Speaker: Dr. Thomas Garrison, Ithaca College
In 2016, the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM) acquired over 2100 square km of data over the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala, representing the largest single LiDAR acquisition for archaeological research. Sponsored by PACUNAM, a consortium of scholars representing different archaeological projects and nationalities have come together to analyze broad trends across the ten individual polygons covered by the data. Notable among the findings are patterns of settlement density and vacancy, an uneven distribution of intensive agricultural systems, and variations in regional connectivity and disconnectivity. A final aspect of the data, seen prominently around the ancient Maya kingdom of El Zotz, is the presence of elaborate systems of site defense. This talk will highlight some basic findings by members of the PACUNAM LiDAR Initiative (PLI) before focusing on what these data tell us about Maya warfare, defense, and politics. Particular attention will be paid to the discovery of a true Maya fortress, dubbed La Cuernavilla, and the implications this site has for understanding Maya politics in the aftermath of Teotihuacan's entrada into the lowlands in the 4th century A.D.
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Speaker: Tao Shi, PhD Candidate, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA
The rise of Erlitou not only declares the end of the Longshan Age, but also open a new era of the Luoyang-centric social network. However, how the political landscape was formed and what the knowledge root of Erlitou was have not been discussed. In this paper, I will discuss the Longshan Network as the process of knowledge preparation for the rise of Erlitou. Moreover, I will introduce my survey in the Qinling Mountain Range, and see the Dan River in the Qinling Mountain Range as an expressway of knowledge transmission for the Erlitou state.
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Speaker: Dr. Marcos Llobera, University of Washington
This talk centers on the on-going Landscape, Encounters and Identity project (http://leiap.weebly.com/) and various initiatives by members of the DigAR lab (Digital Archaeology Research Lab -www.digarlab.uw.edu/) at the University of Washington surrounding this project. Broadly speaking, the LEIA project is a landscape archaeology study that seeks to understand landscape and societal changes that played out from Pre-(Late Bronze Age) to medieval times in the Son Servera landscape (NE Mallorca, Spain). In addition to representing the first intensive and systematic surface survey in the island of Mallorca, the project has set out to meet several theoretical, methodological and public goals. Amongst the methodological goals, the project is developing new digital and computational tools for collecting, describing and analyzing survey and landscape data.
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Speaker: Dr. Yanjun Weng, Assistant Professor, Jingdezhen University
Dr. Weng will speak about his current archaeological excavation project at the Luomaqiao Kiln site in Jingdezhen, a city with more than 1,000 years of continuous ceramic industry history. This lecture will explore the changing configuration of porcelain production along the long timeline as well as the corresponding distribution of products to royal needs, government divisions, and civilian markets of both domestic China and overseas.
Yanjun Weng obtained his PhD in archaeology in 2017 from Peking University and has been active on field works of Chinese ceramic archaeology since 2010. Before that, he received master's and undergraduate's degrees in economics and international trade.
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Over the last hundred years or so, a number of theories have been proposed to explain the origins of ancient Israel. All these have been informed to some degree by the biblical text and all have considered the role of New Kingdom Egypt and the collapse of empires throughout the Near East circa 1200-1100 BCE. The lecture will present a radical new proposal: that Egypt itself instigated “Israelite” settlement.
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Speaker: Dafna Langgut
Cores obtained from the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee were used to reconstruct past climate conditions in the Levantine region during the Bronze and Iron Ages. The records were studied in high resolution for their lithological and palynological patterns. Their chronological framework is based on radiocarbon dating of short-lived organic material. The detailed paleoclimate reconstruction points to a dramatic dry event in the later phase of the Late Bronze Age, around the middle of the 13th century BCE. This pronounced dry phase lasted about 120 to 150 years, and was followed by much wetter climate conditions during the Iron Age I. The increasing humidity enabled the expanding of agricultural activities in the area (e.g., cereals, olive). The Iron Age II was characterized by a slight decrease in humidity. This new high resolution paleoclimate reconstruction helps to better understand the so-called “Crisis Years” in the eastern Mediterranean, as well as quick recovery in the Iron I, including the emergence of new entities in the highlands regions of the Levant. It also shed light on the economic strategies of the region’s ancient settlers (e.g., agriculture, grazing).
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