King Richard III lecture by Dr. Turi King - Monday, April 8 at 6:15 pm at Penn Museum

Please join us on Monday, April 8 at 6:15 pm for a lecture:

King Richard III: the resolution of a 500 year-old cold case

by Dr. Turi King from the University of Leicester

The lecture will take place at the Penn Museum and is free and open to the public. Reception to follow.

Dr. King will be giving a Joukowsky Lecture, named for Martha Sharp Joukowsky, past President of the Archaeological Institute of America and Professor of Old World Archaeology at Brown University. The Joukowsky Lectureship is part of the AIA’s National Lecture Program.

When the University of Leicester Archaeology Service in England undertook the Grey Friars project, it was thought that the chances of finding the remains of Richard III were slim to none. Nevertheless, Dr. Turi King, with her background in both archaeology and genetics, was approached by the lead archaeologist to oversee the DNA analysis in case skeletal remains that were a “good candidate” to be former monarch were found. In her lecture, Dr. King will speak about the Grey Friars project, from the early stages of planning the dig, through to the excavation and the results of various strands of analysis, particularly the genetics, carried out on the remains.

Dr. Turi King is Professor of Public Engagement, as well as Reader in Genetics and Archaeology at the University of Leicester, and Director of the Forensic and Ancient Biomolecules (FAB) Group.  She holds her degrees from the University of Cambridge and the University of Leicester (M.Sc. and Ph.D.), and her fields of specialization are genetics and its implications for archaeology, history and geography, and genetic genealogy and forensics.  Dr. King led the international research team involved in the DNA identification of the remains of Richard III, and she is also leading the project carrying out the whole genome sequencing of Richard III.  She is also currently leading a project examining the genetic legacy of the Vikings in the north of England.

The lecture will be held at the Penn Museum, 3260 South St., Philadelphia, PA.  Please use the Kress Entrance on the east side of the Museum when entering.

International Archaeology Day - Saturday, October 20, 2018

Visit the Penn Museum to help celebrate 

International Archaeology Day! 

Saturday, Oct. 20, 11 am – 4 pm

We’re celebrating International Archaeology Day with activities for aspiring explorers of all ages. Join Museum archaeologists, conservators, curators, and collections staff for a behind-the-scenes look into our excavation sites and current research at this special day, co-sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America Philadelphia Chapter. Come and meet experts working in North America, Egypt, the Near East, and right here in Philadelphia. Dr. George Leader, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, offers the day’s keynote lecture, speaking about the 2017 excavations which uncovered early African American burials at the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia's cemetery, located on Arch Street.

Free with Museum admission.

See the Penn Museum website for further details.

Digital Restoration Initiative - lecture by Prof. Brent Seales, Sunday 9/23

The Digital Restoration Initiative:  Reading the Invisible Library

Prof. Brent Seales, University of Kentucky
W. Coulson Memorial Lecture

AIA - Philadelphia Society Fall Lecture
Sunday, September 23rd at 2 pm
Penn Museum

Damaged artifacts that contain text make up an “invisible library” of written material that is incredibly difficult to read. But progress over the past decade using new computer techniques for the digitization and analysis of text found in cultural objects (inscriptions, manuscripts, scrolls) has led to workable, non-invasive methods for reading this invisible library. This talk shows results over the past two decades from digital restoration projects on Homeric manuscripts, Herculaneum material, and Dead Sea scrolls, culminating in the reading of the text from within a damaged scroll unearthed at En-Gedi, which has been hailed as one of the most significant discoveries in biblical archaeology of the past decade.  The talk concludes by unveiling a new approach - Reference-Amplified Computed Tomography (RACT) – where machine learning becomes a crucial part of the digital restoration pipeline. 

Admission to the lecture is free.

For more information, please consult the Penn Museum website.

Chariot and Horse in the Ancient World - lecture by John Hale, Monday, February 12, 6 pm at Penn Museum

Please join us for on Monday, February 12 at 6 pm for:

CHARIOT AND HORSE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

An illustrated lecture by Dr. John R. Hale, University of Louisville

AIA Joukowsky Lecturer, Spring 2018

The lecture will be held at the Penn Museum, 3260 South St., Philadelphia, PA

Admission to the lecture is free.

After wild horses were first domesticated on the grasslands of the Eurasian steppes, troops of nomadic riders began to conquer agricultural communities to the south and east, thus establishing some of the world’s earliest empires.  Although such equids as the donkey and mule (a horse-donkey hybrid) played essential roles in the development of farming, horses were mainly utilized in hunting, in displays of status, and in war, becoming in time the ultimate status symbol of male dominance from Celtic lands in Atlantic Europe to Chinese kingdoms and empires in eastern Asia.  Chariots were first used in raids and battles, as platforms for archers and spearmen.  But their potential for sport and racing ultimately overshadowed their military role, particularly in the Roman Empire.  Lecturer John R. Hale has directed fieldwork at the extensive Roman horse farm of Torre de Palma in Portugal (modern Lusitania), where mosaic artists created portraits of five famous stallions.  In this illustrated lecture, he shows how chariot-racing become the most popular sport in the Roman world, with such hippodromes as the Circus Maximus in Rome becoming the largest of all Roman public structures.

Program sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America Philadelphia Society.

https://www.penn.museum/calendar/eventdetail/774/chariot-and-horse-in-the-ancient-world

Chariot racing mosaic from the Roman villa at Piazza Armerina, Sicily (ca. 4th century AD)

Viking Longship lecture by John Hale - Sunday, Feb. 11 at Penn Museum

Please join us on Sunday, February 11 at 2 pm for a lecture - “Dragons of the North: The World of Viking Longships” - by Dr. John R. Hale, archaeologist and Director of Liberal Studies, University of Louisville.

The lecture will be held at the Penn Museum, 3260 South St., Philadelphia, PA

Admission to the lecture is free.

Viking ships are among the most remarkable artifacts in the entire realm of archaeological discovery, dominating European history for the three centuries between 800 and 1100 AD.  As warships they terrorized coasts from Scotland to the Mediterranean; as trading craft they ventured down the rivers of Russia to Byzantium, and as vessels of exploration and colonization they crossed the open Atlantic to Ireland, Iceland, Greenland and ultimately America.  Yet all these amazing achievements were accomplished by open, undecked ships with a few oars and a single square sail.

The 19^th century witnessed dramatic finds of royal Viking ships in Norwegian burial mounds along Oslo fjord.  More recently, underwater archaeologists have recovered virtually intact Viking ships from harbors in Denmark.  The most ambitious project in the field of experimental archaeology has involved the reconstruction and sea trials of many Viking ship types.  John Hale has traced the ancestry of Viking ships all the way back to sewn-plank canoes of the Scandinavian Bronze Age, and shows the links between these remarkable ships and the watercraft of the Pacific and central Africa.

Program sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America Philadelphia Society.

https://www.penn.museum/calendar/eventdetail/773/dragons-of-the-north-the-world-of-viking-longships

Oseberg Viking Ship (Oslo, Norway)

The Musician's Life - lecture and musical performance by Nikolaos Xanthoulis - November 12

“The Musician’s Life”

by Dr. Nikolaos Xanthoulis

Sunday, November 12 at 2:00 pm at the Penn Museum

Reception to follow

Free and open to the public

In 1935 four wooden votive paintings were discovered inside a deep cave near the village of Pitsa in Greece and are now exhibited in the Greek National Archaeological Museum; they are the earliest surviving examples of Greek panel painting, dated to 540-530 BC.  In his lecture, Dr. Nikolaus Xanthoulis will examine a painting that depicts a sacrificial procession to the nymphs that includes musicians playing the lyre and aulos (a reed pipe).  Dr. Xanthoulis will examine the details of the musicians and their instruments, and the significance of the symbolic naming of the women that participate in the procession.  After the lecture, Dr. Xanthoulis will present a small concert with poems of the 6^th century BC set in music by him to ancient Greek prosody, and accompanied by a seven-chord ancient Greek lyre replica (the same type of lyre as depicted in the painting)

Nikolaus Xanthoulis is with the Greek National Opera, and has served as Music Researcher with the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, and as Artistic Director of the Orchestras and Choir of Greek Public Radio & Television.  He holds his degrees from the Sofia Music Academy (Ph.D.), the Panteion University of Athens, and the Athens and Athenaeum Conservatories.  His fields of research are the music of ancient Greece, the ancient Greek trumpet (Salpinx) and lyre, and the performance of ancient Greek lyric songs; his current project is the revival of the ancient Greek lyre and ancient Greek culture.

The lecture will take place at the Penn Museum on Sunday, November 12, 2017.  It will begin at 2:00 PM, followed by a reception, and is free and open to the public; please use the Kress Entrance on the east side of the Museum when entering.  The lecture is part of the Archaeological Institute of America’s National Lecture Program, and funding for it has been provided by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in New York, which strives to support the work of scholars in the fields of ancient art.