Events for 2021-2022

Sunday September 19 at 3pm             The Dr. George G. Hackman Memorial Lecture

ZOOM ONLY

Dr. Robert B. Koehl, Hunter College, CUNY 

A New Look at Minoan Athletic Competitions

The Minoans, as the people of Bronze Age Crete have been called since the early 20th century C.E., are known to us primarily from the art and architecture, as their language, called Linear A, remains undeciphered. Among the most notable examples of Minoan imagery are the wall paintings that depict young men, and possibly women, leaping over the backs of charging bulls in what was surely a thrilling and dangerous sport. Other images depict young boys and men in boxing matches, perhaps part of the ordeals undertaken during age grade rites of passage. The recent discovery of a magnificently carved seal stone from a tomb at Mycenaean Pylos that depicts a scene of conflict between armed warriors has raised the question of images of conflict in Minoan art involving spear throwing. In this talk, these images will be examined and shown to actually depict another Minoan sport, that of stick-fighting. As will be seen, stick-fighting, which continues to this day as a popular martial art, was invented in Egypt nearly 5,000 years ago, and it is probably from the Egyptians that the Minoans first learned the sport. Furthermore, this talk will demonstrate that both boxing and stick-fighting were practiced in two versions. In one, the athletes wore helmets and probably practiced the sport within the palaces on Crete, perhaps in their central courtyards. In the other version, the athletes were bare-headed and were apparently permitted to use their feet to kick their opponent. This version seems to have taken place outdoors. Finally, a group of images showing men in chariots will be discussed and will be shown to depict chariot races, rather than scenes of hunting or warfare.

Sunday October 24, 2021 at 3pm    Archaeological Society of America – Joukowsky Lecture

ZOOM ONLY

Dr. Michael Chazan, University of Toronto

Wonderwerk Cave: Archaeology at the Edge of the Kalahari

The town of Kuruman or Ga-Sagonyana is at the edge of the Kalahari in the Northern Cape Province.  The archaeology of this region is an extraordinarily rich record of human presence over a period of two million years.  The lecturer will present the experience of working in this fascinating part of the world and the results of research at the site of Wonderwerk Cave where he co-directs a project that has documented the earliest known evidence of cave occupation by human ancestors.  This talk will give a sense of what it is like to do archaeology in a society experiencing dramatic social change, as South Africa experiences the transformation from apartheid.  At the same time the current state of research—what we have learned and what we are still struggling to understand—will be presented for Wonderwerk and also for the neighboring sites of Kathu Pan and Canteen Kopje.

Thursday, November 18, 2021 at 7 PM

IN-PERSON AT JCC

Opening of Dr. Esther Grushkin Center for Arts+Culture 

JCC, Staten Island

Featuring Keynote Speaker, Jodi Rudoren, Editor-in-Chief of The Forward

January: Virtual Archaeological tour TBA

ZOOM ONLY

Sunday, February 27, 2022 at 3pm            The Helen H. Loeffler Memorial Lecture

Virtual Event

Special Event with the Noble Maritime Museum!

Cook’s Endeavour Found: Identifying an iconic shipwreck using a ‘preponderance of evidence’ approach.  

Kieran Hosty, Manager, Maritime Archaeology Program, ANMM

Dr James Hunter, Curator, Navy Archaeology, ANMM

HIS MAJESTY’S BARK ENDEAVOUR is a tremendously significant vessel in world maritime history and one that elicits mixed opinions. For some, the Pacific voyage led by James Cook between 1768 and 1771 embodies the spirit of Europe’s Age of Enlightenment, while for others it symbolises the onset of colonisation and the subjugation of First Nations peoples. Less well understood is Endeavour’s afterlife as a British troop transport and prison ship caught up in the American War of Independence. It was in this capacity – and renamed Lord Sandwich – that the vessel was deliberately sunk in Newport Harbor, Rhode Island, in 1778.

This month, after 22 years of extensive research with its partner the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project, the Australian National Maritime Museum announced that the shipwreck site of Endeavour had been finally identified using a ‘preponderance of evidence’ approach. In this presentation Kieran Hosty and Dr James Hunter detail the historical and archaeological research behind this approach, provide the evidence leading to the museum’s announcement, and discuss what the future might hold for the remnants of Cook’s Endeavour.   Sunday, March 20, 2022 at 3pm

IN-PERSON AT SNUG HARBOR, Special Lecture/Event at Staten Island Museum

Dr. Elaine Ayers – NYU

On Jennifer Angers’ Exhibit Magicicada 

Strawberries from Rossville, aka Sandy Ground

What does the history of collecting, preservation, and display have to do with legacies of violence and inequity? How do shifting categories of race, gender, and sexuality appear throughout natural history museums, even in seemingly innocuous objects like plants and insects? By unraveling the long colonial history of the institutions that we care for and work with, from herbaria to anthropological exhibits, this talk will point to the instabilities of collecting and collections from the eighteenth century to the present while offering hope for new, more inclusive ways forward.

Sunday, April 10, 2022 at 3pm     Archaeological Institute of America; Danyale Z. English Lecture

IN-PERSON ON WAGNER CAMPUS

Dr. Anthony J. Barbieri – University of California, Santa Barbara

Providing for the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt and Early China

This lecture compares mortuary culture and conceptions of the afterlife realm from Middle and New Kingdom Egypt and early imperial China. While there was no historical connection between the two civilizations, parallel developments between the two allow us to understand each culture better and to differentiate between shared structural traits and cultural particularities. It focuses on three areas: scribal culture as reflected in the tombs of scribes, tomb models and figurines, and ritual board games that give access to paradisiacal realms.

SPECIAL TRIP INTO MANHATTAN: Stay posted for news on a potential trip to visit exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and/or the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.  

Some lectures for the 2021-2022 season will be conducted via Zoom, a selection will be in-person.  More specific instructions will be provided as we get closer to each lecture date.