Cotsen Institute of Archaeology

The Vishap: From Fairy Tale to Reality
2022-05-15 14:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
You are cordially invited to The Vishap: From Fairy Tale to Reality (click on link for schedule)Sunday May 15th, 2022 at 2:00 – 6:00pm PDTThe Narekatsi Chair in Armenian Studies presents “The Vishap: From Fairy Tale to Reality,” by Dr. Arsen Bobokhyan. This event is co-sponsored by the Promise Armenian Institute, the Ararat-Eskijian Museum, and the National Association for Armenian Studies & Research with the participation of the Research Program in Armenian Archaeology and Ethnography at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and the Institute for Archaeology and Ethnography of the Armenian Academy of Sciences.2:00 – 3:30 PM Royce Hall 314Illustrated Lecture on documenting and preserving the dragon-stones of Armenia from the 2nd millennium BCE by Dr. Arsen Bobokhyan (PI of this project and Director of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in Yerevan), followed by a documentary of the dragon-stones and the initial phase of their investigation and restoration.3:30 – 6:00 PM Powell RotundaPresentation of Dr. Bobokhyan’s latest monograph Atrpet’s “Scientific Adventures” and Discovery of the Vishap Stelae (in Armenian), followed by a guided tour of an exhibit of thirty high-resolution images of the dragon-stones by Dr. Bobokhyan and recital by the UCLA Armenian Ensemble. The event will conclude with a Wine and Cheese Reception.The event will livestream on the Ararat-Eskijian Museum’s Facebook and YouTube pages. Arsen Bobokhyan is Directory of the Institute for Archaeology and Ethnography of the Armenian Academy of Sciences. He received his Ph.D. from the Institute of Prehistory at the University of Tuebingen (2008) and has since been an Asst. Professor of History at Yerevan State University and Lecturer at the American University of Armenia. The author of three books and over a hundred articles, he has served as editor of a number of scholarly journals and has been invited as visiting professor at several universities in the German-speaking world. His research interests include the early Archaeology of the Armenian Plateau and the Caucasus, the Near East and Asia Minor, Cultural Relations, Ancient Barter and Weight Systems and Religion and Cult.Vishapakar (Photo: Sonashen via Wikimedia Commons, 2013; cropped. CC BY-SA 3.0)

The conservation and restoration of the church of Kuñotambo by its community
2022-05-20 11:00 - 12:00
Claudio CancinoArchitect, Architectural Conservator | MBA | MS Senior Project Specialist, Building and Sites department, Getty Conservation InstituteRegister hereThe community of Kuñotambo, a small village near Cusco, Peru has been a crucial and significant stakeholder for the conservation of its church of Santiago Apóstol. Thanks to them, their church was seismically retrofitted and is now maintained as a case study for similar sites in the region.The church is one of the four case studies of the Seismic Retrofitting Project, a collaborative project between the Getty Conservation Institute and the Ministry of Culture of Peru. The SRP aims to design, test and model seismic retrofitting techniques suitable to earthen buildings using low-tech materials and local expertise.The construction documents for the seismic retrofitting of the church were developed by the GCI and the Ministry of Culture of Cusco; where the SRP designed retrofitting techniques were implemented. The construction phase started in 2016 and the church was inaugurated in 2019.This contribution will explain the importance of the involvement of local communities for the conservation and maintenance of their heritage. Claudia Cancino is a licensed architect from Peru and manages the Getty Conservation Institute Earthen Architecture Initiative which has three components: The Seismic Retrofitting Project in Peru, the Earthen Architecture Course in Al-Ain, Abu Dhabi and the Terra 2021 Congress in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She also manages the Retrofitting and Repair Component of the Bagan Conservation Project. She earned a certificate in conservation at ICCROM in Rome, followed by graduate diploma in business administration at ESAN in Lima. She practiced preservation architecture and has taught Earthen Conservation at several universities. She earned a Master of Science in Historic Preservation and an advanced certificate in conservation from the University of Pennsylvania.

Kuskalla Abya Yala in the context of Quechua Revitalization
2022-05-24 15:00
Dr. Zoila MendozaDepartment of Native American Studies, UC DavisTuesday May 24th, 3pm PTRegister here

DIVINE CONSUMPTION: SACRIFICE, ALLIANCE BUILDING, AND MAKING ANCESTORS IN WEST AFRICA
2022-05-24 18:00
The Cotsen Institute of Archeology Press invites you to the latest Author Spotlight withStephen DueppenAssociate Professor, Department of AnthropologyUniversity of OregonRegister hereMounded sites (tells) are common throughout West Africa, including in western Burkina Faso where clusters of mounds dating to the past three millennia are common. Extensive fieldwork at the long inhabited and well-preserved site of Kirikongo (ca. 100—1650 AD), has established that the community started as a small farming settlement, grew to a large community centered on the village’s founders, rejected inequalities in an egalitarian revolution, and survived the Black Death pandemic. This talk explores patterns in architecture, material culture and organic remains (animal bones and botanical remains) to argue that the mounds at Kirikongo are not only residential, but also stratified ancestor shrines whose ritual deposits inform on the divine associations of different houses in a ritual landscape.

Fowler Museum Tour
2022-05-27 13:00 - 15:30
In person followed by pizzaDr. Matthew Robb (chief curator of the Fowler) gave a private tour consisting of in-depth responses to student questions.

Phidias Unbound: How Robot-Generated Replicas Could Solve the Parthenon Marbles Quandary
2022-10-14 11:00 - 12:00
Phidias Unbound: How Robot-Generated Replicas Could Solve the Parthenon Marbles QuandaryRoger Michel Executive Director, The Institute for Digital ArchaeologyCLICK to RSVPPlease submit your questions in advance of the webinar via email to: hnadworny@support.ucla.edu by Wednesday, October 12 at 12:00 p.m.Instructions to join the webinar will be provided once your registration has been confirmed.About the program: The Parthenon Marbles, commonly known as the Elgin Marbles, were removed from the ancient Acropolis of Athens in 1801 by Lord Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Carved by the sculptor Phidias, they were eventually sold to the British government in 1817 and are housed in the British Museum. Public debate about repatriating the marbles is heated and ongoing.Can the creation of exact copies of the originals resolve the repatriation quandary? Roger Michel, executive director of the Institute of Digital Archaeology, at the University of Oxford, believes the repatriation issue can be resolved with the help of 3-D machining. His research team has developed a robot with the ability to create faithful copies of large historical objects. Michel will explore humanity’s connection to culturally significant objects and the emphasis we place on physical possession. Is possession an inherently colonial concept? Are heritage assets particularly susceptible to being exploited for the purposes of historical revisionism? Under what circumstances can copies provide satisfactory substitutes for original material? These questions will be examined against the backdrop of the IDA’s ongoing Elgin repatriation efforts.About the speaker:Roger Michel is the founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA). The IDA operates globally, undertaking a huge variety of heritage projects, many of which are aimed at advancing social justice goals. Its principal partners are the UN, UNESCO and local and national governments. Mr Michel has published and lectured frequently on various heritage conservation topics. He was a member of the faculty at BU Law School for 25 years, is an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College (Oxford), and is co-publisher of Arion Magazine. Mr Michel is a graduate of Harvard and Oxford Universities.https://conservation.ucla.edu/event/phidias-unbound-how-robot-generated-…

Weds Talks:Understanding Pigment Composition in Kerala Temple Murals using non-invasive Imaging Techniques
2022-10-19 11:30 - 12:30
Speaker: Moupi MukhopadhyayPh.D. StudentUCLA Conservation of Material Culture IDPAbstract: The wall paintings in the Indian state of Kerala belonging to the Kerala mural tradition (7th – 17th century CE) provide important cross-cultural links that contextualize local historical religious practices, trade, and social interactions. The complex color scheme of the paintings is traditionally attributed to the skillful use of only five colors (panchavarna) – black, red, yellow, green and white. However, the available literature on the technical study of the murals does not consistently assign the same material (coloring agent or pigment) to the composition of a single color. For example, while black is generally accepted as lamp black across different publications, the green has been ascribed to green earth, powdered leaves, or combinations of yellow ochre, gamboge, indigo, and even lapis lazuli. Understanding the materials used in specific temple murals, and their possible sources, can help better understand the nature and movements of the agents involved in the creation of these paintings. Advances in material characterization methods have significantly increased the scope of identifying the composition of the colors in murals non-invasively, ideal for the preliminary research required to build a case for a more intensive technical study. Non-invasive fieldwork was conducted on selected temples in Kerala, using a digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR) for photography as well as Infrared (IR) imaging, and a SPECIM IQ hyperspectral camera for hyperspectral imaging (HSI). Permissions to access the temples allowed for the use of only sunlight as the illumination source, adding to the complexity of the interpretation of the data obtained. The use of Infrared False Color Imaging (IRFC) in conjunction with the analysis of HSI data reveals photophysical characteristics of the pigments which are useful for their identification, and for determining optimal characterization methods for further scientific investigation.Bio: Moupi Mukhopadhyay is a PhD Candidate in the Conservation of Material Culture Program IDP at UCLA. She is interested in investigating the photophysical and chemical properties of pigments in cultural heritage materials using scientific techniques, to better inform their conservation. Through her research, she aims to develop a better understanding of the materials and technology of the creation of temple wall paintings in Kerala, India.

Weds Talks: Working with Collections from Crete and Central Africa: My Third Year Journey Thus Far
2022-10-19 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Celine WachsmuthM.A. StudentUCLA/Getty Conservation of Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials MAAbstract: One of the requirements for the MA Conservation degree is a nine month (minimum) internship in one or more conservation labs. By the end of my internship year, I will have worked in three different places; the Institute for Aegean Prehistory Study Center for East Crete (INSTAP), the AfricaMuseum, and the Denver Art Museum (and a very exciting one month at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science). In this talk I will give a brief description of the different things I’ve been up to since starting my third year. This summer I spent six weeks in Crete working on archaeological ceramic, metal, and glass objects from various sites around East Crete. After a break in August to travel and see family, I started my second internship in Belgium. Here I’ve shifted gears and been heavily involved in the installation process for a contemporary exhibition and treating a wood object going out on a loan. Bio: Céline is a third year student in the UCLA/Getty MA program in conservation. She has had the chance to work in many great conservation labs including at the Penn Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, a private objects lab in Seattle, a private automaton and horological lab in Seattle, the Anchorage Museum, Fowler Museum, INSTAP, and now the AfricaMuseum.

Weds Talks: Social History of Food in Predynastic Egyptian: Between Humanities and Life Sciences
2022-10-26 12:00 - 13:00
Speaker: Amr ShahatPostdoctoral ScholarCotsen Institute of ArchaeologyAbstract: Preservation of organic food remains from Ancient Egypt is an exceptional aspect of the archaeology in this region. The level of preservation of these materials has contributed to the early development of archaeobotany and radiocarbon dating. In this talk I will present unpublished food remains from Nag ed Deir, a necropolis situated on the eastern bank of the Nile, and Deir el Ballas, a royal palace complex in Upper Egypt, research that continues this link between the humanities and life sciences. The materials were excavated in the early 1900s by George A. Reisner and Albert Lythgoe and are currently housed at the Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. I will discuss the results of interdisciplinary analyses applying archaeobotanical and isotopic methods to plant foods from these two sites to understand the anthropogenic impact of climate changes on the foodways and social structures of predynastic Egypt.A new non-destructive nano-archaeology method was developed to analyze beer mash to reconstruct early beer composition from Nag ed-Deir, revealing a beer recipe specific to the region. I employed a long stable isotope experiment to identify the source region of specific foods to differentiate between local versus imported species, the latter group being represented by the earliest evidence of pomegranate and domesticated watermelon. These interdisciplinary approaches enable us to reconstruct the social history of none-elite Egyptian foodways as related to regional identities and cross-cultural interactions. The methods I will present expand our theoretical perspectives from the humanities side, while serving the field of life sciences through the isotopic data which highlights the anthropogenic impact of climate changes on foodways and social structure.Bio: Amr Khalaf Shahat, is a postdoctoral researcher at the Cotsen Institute. He earned his PhD in Egyptian Archaeology and Paleoethnobotany from the Cotsen, and his masters in Egyptology from the University of Memphis. He is interested in the study of Egyptian foodways from tombs and settlements to answer questions related to cultural identities and cross-cultural interaction.

The Surface Below: 9th-15th Century Angkor and the Khmer World
2022-10-27 18:00 - 19:00
Register here: https://ucla.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEtf-iqrjMiE9GbpWrFQZUs-gaEOVNF2zKGFew of the world’s premodern polities outside of China achieved the scale or density of urbanismfound in the 9th-15th century Angkor empire, which governed a substantial swath of mainlandSoutheast Asia. Angkorian rulers built cities, water reservoirs, stone monuments, and roads thatcrisscrossed the empire. Carved images glorify their gods, rulers, and ancestors; inscribed stelaecelebrate political accessions and conquests, and narrate religious merits, economic properties,and status of the populations. Heng will introduce the ancient metropolis of Angkor and its Khmerworld through recent archaeological findings using historical sources, excavation and remotelysensed ground survey (LIDAR) data. Heng is the 2022-24 postdoctoral scholar at the Cotsen Instituteand the Program for Early Modern Southeast Asia (PEMSEA). His research interests include religiouschange, urbanism, political economy, public archaeology, and heritage management. He was a featuredcommentator in “Angkor 3D: The Lost Empire of Cambodia,” at the California Science Center IMAXtheater.

The Forgotten Canopy: Ecology, Ephemeral Architecture, and Imperialism in the Caribbean, South American, and Transatlantic Worlds Conference 1: Ecology [Day 1]
2022-11-04 10:00 - 16:30
Conference 1 Ecology_flyer.pdfLink to register for Conference Day 1, Friday November 4, at the UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library: http://www.1718.ucla.edu/events/forgotten-canopy-c1d1/*Registration for in-person attendance closes on Monday, October 31, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. PST. The conference portion of the event will be also livestreamed on the Center’s YouTube Channel. No registration is needed to watch the livestream.Link to the conference website: https://theforgottencanopy.create.fsu.edu/Image Credit: View of a hut, and a dance of the Yuracares Indians, Bolivia. Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale, vol. 3. Paris, 1835–1847This project is made possible through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art, and is co-sponsored by the UCLA American Indian Studies Center and UCLA Latin American Institute.

The Forgotten Canopy: Ecology, Ephemeral Architecture, and Imperialism in the Caribbean, South American, and Transatlantic Worlds Conference 1: Ecology [Day 2]
2022-11-05 10:00 - 12:45
Conference 1 Ecology_flyer.pdfLink to register for Conference Day 2, Saturday November 5 (morning) at the UCLA Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden: http://www.1718.ucla.edu/events/forgotten-canopy-c1d2/*Registration for in-person attendance closes on Monday, October 31, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. PST. The conference portion of the event will be also livestreamed on the Center’s YouTube Channel. No registration is needed to watch the livestream.Link to the conference website: https://theforgottencanopy.create.fsu.edu/Image Credit: View of a hut, and a dance of the Yuracares Indians, Bolivia. Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale, vol. 3. Paris, 1835–1847This project is made possible through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art, and is co-sponsored by the UCLA American Indian Studies Center and UCLA Latin American Institute.

The Forgotten Canopy: Ecology, Ephemeral Architecture, and Imperialism in the Caribbean, South American, and Transatlantic Worlds Conference 1: Ecology Workshop [Day 2]
2022-11-05 13:45 - 17:45
Conference 1 Workshop_flyer.pdfLink to register for Workshop, Saturday November 5 (afternoon) at the UCLA Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden: https://theforgottencanopy.create.fsu.edu/workshop-i/*Registration for in-person attendance closes on Monday, October 31, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. PST. The conference portion of the event will be also livestreamed on the Center’s YouTube Channel. No registration is needed to watch the livestream.Link to the conference website: https://theforgottencanopy.create.fsu.edu/Image Credit: View of a hut, and a dance of the Yuracares Indians, Bolivia. Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale, vol. 3. Paris, 1835–1847This project is made possible through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art, and is co-sponsored by the UCLA American Indian Studies Center and UCLA Latin American Institute.

Weds Talks: Tracking Neanderthals: Looking for evidence of the Middle Paleolithic inhabitants of the Central Balkans
2022-11-09 12:00 - 13:00
Abstract and Bio: Dr. Sarah A Lacy is a paleoanthropologist and associate professor at California State University Dominguez Hills. Her work on Neanderthals and early modern humans has explored differential oral and respiratory health to understand why we’re the only living taxonomic group of humans on the planet today. She is now working with a team in North Macedonia to excavate the site of Uzun Mera, a newly discovered Middle Paleolithic stone tool manufacturing workshop, as well as look for additional sites across the country. This project is also a field school, so that archaeologists in training of all types can participate in a wide variety of excavation and survey methods in a country whose Paleolithic history has only recently begun to be explored.

Wednesday Talks: Collaborative Forensic Archaeology in the Battle of the Bulge; Recent Fieldwork in Eastern Belgium
2023-01-11 12:00 - 13:00
Abstract: During August of 2022 a collaborative archaeological team led by Stephen Acabado (UCLA) and Kevin DiModica (University of Namur) conducted forensic archaeological investigations at a US WW2 aircraft crash site in eastern Belgium. The purpose of the project was to recover material evidence pertaining to a still missing member of the US aircrew. We discuss the organization of the project, collaboration with our Belgian counterparts and the DPAA, the field methods employed and the results of our field work.

Wednesday Talk: 2022 Fieldwork in Bocas del Toro, Panama
2023-01-18 12:00 - 13:00
Abstract: For at least 2,000 years before Spanish arrival in 1502, the province of Bocas del Toro, Panama, sustained numerous vibrant cultures. However, little archaeological research has been done in this area. For decades, this area has been considered a ‘cultural backwater’ with only simple, small-scale settlements. Dr. Tom Wake’s excavations at Sitio Abuelitas and Sitio Drago on Isla Colon, the largest island in Bocas del Toro, have altered this picture as burials, house mounds, and artifacts from across Central America have been found. Carly Pope’s research focuses on the ceramics from these sites, including locally-made wares as well as foreign imports, and the potential they hold to elucidate both interregional systems of cultural interaction and community-level organization. From July to December 2022, examinations focused on collecting frequency data, selecting samples, and preparing for future research.Bio: Carly Pope was born and raised in Atlanta, GA. She earned her BA in art and archaeology from Princeton University in 2016 and her senior thesis focused on the emergence of early pottery in different parts of Latin America. She continued her education at the University College London, where she obtained a MA in archaeology. For her master’s thesis she analyzed pottery used in salt processing by the Maya of coastal Belize. While her research focuses on Central America, Carly has also excavated at a Roman port in Thrace, Greece; a Basketmaker II site in Cortez, Colorado; a Medieval pilgrims’ cemetery in the Basque area of Spain; a Middle Kingdom amethyst mine near Aswan, Egypt; and a Maya town site in Yucatan, Mexico. She has presented at a variety of academic and professional conferences, including the International Congress on the Anthropology of Salt and the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting.

Wednesday Talk: A New Model for the City of Selinous (Sicily): Stories from a Current Field-Project
2023-01-25 12:00 - 13:00
Abstract: The city of Selinous, on the southern coast of Sicily, was founded by Greek settlers at the end of the 7th century BCE. After being destroyed by the Carthaginians at the end of the fifth century BCE it was used as a fortress and subsequently rebuilt as a civil settlement with distinct material characteristics known from the Punic sphere of influence. During the first Punic war it was abandoned and never extensively reoccupied. For this reason, the city of the Greek period is still largely preserved and well protected in one of the biggest archaeological parks of Europe. Its monumental sacred and public spaces are widely known, yet, many questions remain concerning not only the various transformations of the area after the catastrophic event of 409 BCE, but also the specific development and use of the urban space from the 7th century onwards. Bio: Dr. Melanie Jonasch is a Classical archaeologist and research associate at the German Archaeological Institute in Rome and Berlin. Since 2021 she has coordinated a multidisciplinary field- project in Selinous (Sicily) and is responsible for the archaeological excavations conducted in this framework. She will be a fellow of the AIA at the Cotsen-Institute of Archaeology until April where she will begin work on a new project about population aggregation and the development of secondary settlements in the neighborhood of the emerging Greek colonies.

Wednesday Talks: Evaluating the Role of Maize During Socio-Political Transformations at Formative Tres Zapotes
2023-02-08 12:00 - 13:00
Abstract: Tres Zapotes is an important site in the broader discussion of Olmec cultural continuity and formative period political economy with an archaeological record that spans the two millennia between 1000 B.C. and A.D. 1000. It is a key site for understanding the emergence of Classic period civilization from ancient Olmec roots in Mexico’s southern Gulf Coast lowlands. The occupational history and archaeological record at Tres Zapotes challenges the previous notion that Olmec culture and traditions “collapsed” with the decline of La Venta around 400 B.C. and recent work has argued that a shift from a centralized political structure to a more decentralized/collective one can be attributed to the fluorescence of Tres Zapotes when other polities fell. To expand upon this work, I utilize paleoethnobotanical data from Tres Zapotes to examine what patterns in foodways (practices surrounding food production, consumption, storage and disposal) can reveal regarding sociopolitical transformations over Tres Zapotes’ long culture sequence. Comparative analyses across elite and non-elite contexts through time reveals changes in provisioning and processing strategies providing insight into the role of food, especially maize, throughout Tres Zapotes’ continuous occupation and the changes in political-strategies therein.Bio: Victoria Newhall is a third year archaeology graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at UCLA. Her research explores emergent social inequality and the development of socio-political complexity in Formative Mesoamerica through the lens of foodways utilizing paleoethnobotanical methods. She is also interested in social identity and issues of equity and diversity as they relate to the discipline of archeology. Victoria is a non-traditional student who transferred from Santa Barbara City College to UCSB for her undergraduate degree. She is dedicated to mentoring students who are navigating similar pathways in higher education.

Wednesday Talks: Migration and burial in Classical Athens
2023-02-15 12:00 - 13:00
ABSTRACT: Migrants are thought to have facilitated the exchange of goods and ideas around the Mediterranean throughout Greek history, yet the lived experiences of these individuals, families, and communities remain relatively under-studied. The cultural identities of migrants are often fixed to their place of origin, perceived by scholars as “others” in the new societies in which they lived. Archaeological approaches to the burials of migrants assume that this “otherness” will be reflected in material culture, with imported grave goods and practices used as the basis for the identification of the grave of a migrant. This talk will challenge these assumptions through the analysis of the burial of a man from Chios in late 5th century BC Athens, not only by comparing the burial practices of Chios and Athens to identify which practices were maintained, abandoned, or altered, but also by contextualizing the burial through the deceased’s age, gender, status, occupation, and possible reasons for leaving home.BIO: Camille Reiko Acosta is a PhD candidate at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. She received her BA from the University of Edinburgh and her MA from the University of Oxford. Her dissertation project focuses on the burial practices of migrants in Classical Athens, and additionally, she is a member of the British Museum’s Naukratis Project (Egypt) and UCLA’s Ancient Methone Archaeological Project (Greece), studying the Archaic and Classical Greek ceramic assemblages.

Urkesh Beyond Urkesh: The Relevance of a Third Millennium BCE Hurrian City
2023-02-16 18:00 - 20:00
A conversation withGiorgio BuccellatiMarilyn Kelly-BuccellatiMaryanne Wolf February 16, 20236:00 PM PTRemote via Zoom Join us in unearthing the secrets of a 5,000-year-old civilization when cities first began to take shape. In northeastern Syria, the Hurrian city of Urkesh had been excavated and studied for twenty-five years before the work was halted by war. Learn how the study of Urkesh has been impacted by plundering and defacing but continues to engage the local community and provide impactful records even beyond archaeology. Archaeologists Giorgio Buccellati and Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati will be joined by neuropsychologist Maryanne Wolf for a conversation where cognitive psychology meets archaeology. Registration Required Register Here Giorgio Buccellati is professor emeritus of the departments of History and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and the founding director of the Institute of Archaeology at UCLA (now the Cotsen Institute). He is also the Director of the Mesopotamian Laboratory. Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati is professor emerita of archaeology and art history, California State University–Los Angeles. Both are researchers affiliated with the Cotsen Institute. Maryanne Wolf is a scholar, a teacher, and an advocate for children and literacy around the world. She is the Director of the newly created Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies

Wednesday Talks: The Dignity of the Fragment Web Based Excavation Reports Between Database and Narrative
2023-02-22 12:00 - 13:00
ABSTRACT: Archaeological publishing rests on two basic pillars: printed reports and digital databases. We propose to use the website as an epistemic system that allows for a better integration of the two. We will first present a concrete implementation of the system as it applies to the excavations at Tell Mozan, ancient Urkesh. The digital record consists of a cluster of websites where narrative and databases are tightly interlaced, allowing for a smooth interconnection between grammar and hermeneutics: the dignity of the fragment rests on the dual aspect of its retaining its individuality while at the same time being seen as part of a meaningful whole. We will then discuss the notion of digital discourse as a theoretical model, according to which multiple planes are structurally interlaced and integrated, having been so conceived, concurrently, by the author(s) so as to be so.BIO: Giorgio Buccellati and Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati are a husband and wife team who have worked together for many years in the Near East, especially in Syria, Iraq and Turkey. They directed excavations at Terqa, Tell Qraya and Tell Ziyada in Syria, and they served on the staff of the excavations at Nippur in Iraq and Korucu Tepe in Turkey. Until 2020, they served as codirectors of the archaeological expedition to Tell Mozan/Urkesh in North-Eastern Syria, and they work closely together both in the field and on the publication reports from their excavations, of which several volumes, plus four audio-visual presentations, have appeared so far.

Seeing Through the Trees: Lidar, Archaeological Visualization, and the Conservation Crisis at Kuelap
2023-03-03 12:00
Parker VanValkenburghAssociate Professor in the Anthropology Department at Brown UniversityFriday, March 3rd 12pm PTRegister at https://tinyurl.com/AWGKuelapOrganized by the Andean Working Group and cosponsored by the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and the UCLA Latin American Institute
