Past Events

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April 19, 2017
12:00pm to 1:00pm

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.

Location Fowler A222
Contact Matthew Swanson
Email mswanson@ioa.ucla.edu
Phone
April 14, 2017
4:00pm to 6:00pm

Speaker: Dr. Bernd Mueller-Neuhof, Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology

Location Fowler A222
Contact Matthew Swanson
Email mswanson@ioa.ucla.edu
Phone
April 12, 2017
12:00pm to 1:00pm

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."

Location Fowler A222
Contact Matthew Swanson
Email mswanson@ioa.ucla.edu
Phone
April 6, 2017
10:00am to 12:00pm

This workshop will begin with a demonstration of two handheld 3D scanners, the Artec Eva and Space Spider. Andy Greyson will walk through how to set up the environment, capture the data, and process the scans. He will also provide tips to efficiently utilize the variety of tools included in the software.

The second half of the workshop will focus on 3D printing during an interactive Q&A with Doug Daniels. You will also see two 3D printers from the UCLA Library Lux Lab in actions: the MakerBot 5th Gen (a fused deposition modeling printer) and Form 2 (stereolithographic printer).

Technologists from the Digital Research Consortium will also be available to discuss 3D modeling for research projects.

RSVP at http://bit.ly/2nDpPd0 by Monday, April 3, 2017.

Header image from the Smithsonian X 3D collection: 

Lidded ritual ewer (zun) in the form of an elephant with masks and dragons
Written by Vince Rossi
China, possibly Hunan province
Shang dynasty, ca. 1100-1050 BCE
Bronze, 17.2 x 10.7 x 21.4 cm
Freer Gallery of Art, F1936.6a-b

Location YRL Conference Room
Contact Deidre Whitmore
Email dal@ioa.ucla.edu
Phone
April 5, 2017
12:00pm to 1:00pm

Speaker: Dr. Annelou van Gijn, Professor of Archaeological Material Culture and Artefact Studies, Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University

Location Fowler A222
Contact Matthew Swanson
Email mswanson@ioa.ucla.edu
Phone
March 15, 2017
12:00pm to 1:00pm

Speaker: Dr. Meredith Cohen, UCLA Art History

Location Fowler A222
Contact Matthew Swanson
Email mswanson@ioa.ucla.edu
Phone
March 10, 2017
4:00pm to 6:00pm

Speaker: Dr. Manfred Bietak, Professor Emeritus, University of Vienna Institute of Egyptology

Avaris, capital of the Hyksos, was inhabited, as we may presume, mainly by a western Asiatic population, which migrated to Egypt from the late Middle Kingdom onwards. We may call them for convenience sake Amorites as the little onomastic evidence we have, shows that they had mainly Western-Semitic personal names. We don’t know yet, if this population was homogenous. Most probably they were not, as their osteological remains show a sexual dimorphism. This phenomenon is known when wives are taken from a different gen-pool than the men. This result was attested some time ago by the physical anthropologist Eike M. Winkler from the University of Vienna. Most probably, immigrants from the Levant seem to have married local women who also did not match the Egyptian population type. Therefor they may have originated from an older substratum of immigration from different origin. We are lacking, however, the osteological material of the Egyptians who lived in the oldest settlements of the 12th Dynasty at Tell el-Dab‘a at ‘Ezbet Rushdi. These people were not buried within the town as the Canaanites, but according to the Egyptian mortuary tradition in a separate but still undisclosed cemetery, outside the town. We have various indications that they continued to live within Avaris untill the end of the Hyksos Period. Within the oldest part of the town of Avaris, at the quarter where we have evidence of a planned settlement and a temple of the 12th Dynasty, there are no intramural burials, also not from the Second Intermediate Period. The same applies to a quarter directly south of this Middle Kingdom settlement, where even during the Hyksos Period the usual burials in houses or courtyards – which are ethnical markers - are missing. What is missing in this district are finds of toggle-pins which held together the typical Western Asiatic garment at the left shoulder. Such finds were, however, collected within the immediately adjoining quarters, where obviously the Amorites lived.

Besides Egyptians and people from Western Asia from dierent periods of immigration, Avaris proves more and more to have been a multi-ethnical town. Ceramic remains from dierent parts of Nubia can be taken as evidence that also various ethnicities of Nubians lived here. As their pottery has open forms, not suitable as containers of imports, and as the roughly produced cooking pots are not attractive as imports it is likely that Nubians lived in Avaris over a long period. Some of the cooking pots even seem to have been produced of local clays. This would speak indeed for the physical presence of Nubians.

Besides the above mentioned ethnicities there is even some small evidence that Cypriots may have been
present in Avaris shortly before the Hyksos Period as Cypriot pottery was produced locally in Cypriot handmade technique.

Location Fowler A222
Contact Matthew Swanson
Email mswanson@ioa.ucla.edu
Phone
March 8, 2017
12:00pm to 1:00pm

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.

Location Fowler A222
Contact Matthew Swanson
Email mswanson@ioa.ucla.edu
Phone
March 3, 2017
4:00pm to 6:00pm

Speaker: Dr. Sarah Herr, President, Desert Archaeology Inc.

The cultural affiliation of the pre-contact residents of central Arizona defies easy categorization. These residents of small settlements construct their houses in array of styles, form undecorated ceramic vessels, specialize in projectile point production, and trade other goods rarely but widely, and are not easily encompassed into Hohokam or Puebloan histories. The State Route 260—Payson to Heber project, a cultural
resource management investigation conducted for the Arizona Department of Transportation in advance of highway realignment, provided the opportunity to examine the lifeways of these people who live beyond many boundaries. Trying to understand their experiences provides a starting point for considering the larger issues of how Southwest archaeologists conduct research in areas outside demographic cores.

Location Fowler A222
Contact Matthew Swanson
Email mswanson@ioa.ucla.edu
Phone
March 2, 2017
6:30pm to 9:30pm

Please join us for a screening of the documentary film The Archaeologist by Kimon Tsakiris. The film will be preceded by a panel discussion with Professor John Papadopoulos (UCLA, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology) and Professor Katerina Zacharia (Loyola Marymount University, Classics) and followed by a reception.

A synopsis of the film follows:

In the final "battle" of her career, a determined archaeologist--who has dedicated all her life to protecting the cultural and natural environment of the land--has two months to salvage as much as possible from an archaeological dig which is planned to be flooded during the construction process of a new dam by the Greek National Power Company.

Parking available in UCLA Lot 4, 221 Westwood Plaza at Sunset Blvd. 

Upon entering Lot 4, turn left into the Pay-By-Space area.

Parking is $3/hr, max $12/day.

Automated pay stations accept $1 or $5 bills and credit/debit cards.

Location Fowler A103B
Contact Matthew Swanson
Email mswanson@ioa.ucla.edu
Phone