Speakers: Morgan Burgess and Marci Burton, M.A. Students, Conservation of Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials, UCLAThis 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 […]

Speaker: Dr. Nerissa Russell, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Cornell UniversityEthnography shows us that every society has some form of food taboos, often focused on the meat of particular animals. While the pig taboo, in particular, has received considerable archaeological attention in the eastern Mediterranean, there is little discussion of taboo in prehistory. The obvious reason is that, lacking textual […]

Speaker: Jeremy Williams, Ph.D. Candidate, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLAThe 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 […]

NOTE: This Friday Seminar has been cancelled. Speaker: Dr. Jeremy Mumford, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Brown UniversityIn 1558, in Spanish Peru, the Inka princess Cusi Huarcay married her brother, Sayri Thupa, with the blessing of the Catholic bishop of Cuzco, carrying the Inka tradition of sibling marriage into the colonial era. In 1570, King Philip V of […]

Speaker: Dr. Patrick Hajovsky, Associate Professor, Art History, Southwestern UniversityTaking a critical perspective, I argue that Aztec "luxury" objects worn or held on the body linked valor and value to tonalli, the heat-life energy that manifests personality and fate, and yollotl, the heart, source of blood and center of human life. The Aztecs explored the […]

Speaker: Dr. Sonali Gupta-Agarwal, UCLA Traditions are transmitted through teaching and learning. The manner in which knowledge relating to craft production gets transmitted can help us in understanding the causes behind cultural continuity and change. By using an anthropological approach to find teaching and learning patterns, I investigate the role of potters inmodern day pottery workshops of Egypt […]

Speaker: Kristine Martirosyan-Olshansky, Ph.D. Candidate, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLAThis talk is a summary of field research conducted by Cotsen/UCLA doctoral student Kristine Martirosyan-Olshansky at Masis Blur, Armenia, over the course of three seasons from 2012-2014. Excavations at Masis Blur have unearthed Neolithic habitation layers (ca. 6200 – 5400 cal.BC) belonging to the Shulaveri-Shomutepe culture, […]

June 20 - July 1, 2017On this trip, Director's Council members saw behind the scenes of the Museo Egizio in Turin, Itlay—the second largest collection of Egyptian antiquities (after Cairo)—and explored Rome with the experts!Download the brochure here.