Public Lectures

One of the great things about being at UCL, located in central London, is the opportunity to attend free public lectures.  I have been able to do this both of the last Thursday evenings and also this afternoon…

The first Thursday found me at the British Museum attending a lecture presented by the Palestinian Exploration Society on J. L. Starkey.  Starkey, as some of you might know, was the one who discovered the Lachish Letters, important for studies in the Old Testament.  Starkey worked with Petrie in Egypt for a number of years and then moved with him to Palestine, after Egypt became an unsatisfactory working environment (read, “Petrie couldn’t keep as much of the stuff he uncovered as he needed to keep his patrons happy”).  After a season or so in Palestine, Starkey (who was Petrie’s right-hand man) left his mentor and started a dig of his own at Lachish.  He was later murdered in Palestine during the upheaval of the Jewish-Palestinian conflict (that still rages today) when he was mistaken for a Jew.  The lecture was given by his son, John, who is now in his 80’s.  John was able to relate personal memories of Petrie, his father, and that horrible day when his father didn’t come home.  It was a delightful and moving lecture.  John was very funny and his openness made this hour very enjoyable for the listeners.

The second Thursday found me at the Institute of Archaeology at UCL where I attended three lectures (back-to-back-to-back).

At four pm, Mitch Hendrickson of the University of Sydney gave a lecture on the research he is doing at Angkor in Cambodia.  All I knew of the place was Angkor Wat so it was interesting to hear how dominate the Khmer Empire was during the 11^th-13^th centuries AD.  The study was primarily dealing with the production of iron at Preah Khan of Kompong Svay.  I learned a bit about how iron was produced in this part of the world.

At five pm, Jacke Phillips presented her study of a trader’s house at Suakin along the west coast of the Red Sea.  It was a fantastic harbor village during the time when the Turks ruled the trade.  Lord Kitchener later moved the base north which essentially made Suakin a ghost town.  Over time, the houses collapsed.  The lecture was about the work that is being done to discover the evolution of one of these houses and to report on the reconstruction that is being done to make this a better tourist site for the Islamic pilgrims that visit the site each year in the thousands.  I took away a new understanding of the power of observation and the ability to reconstruct a building and what goes into that process.

At six pm, Lindy Crewe from the University of Manchester presented her excavations at the Early-Middle Bronze Age site of Skalia in the south-west corner of Cyprus.  There were a number of discoveries that her team has found over the past few seasons that are mysterious.  It was her hope that some in the audience might have an idea of these.  I found her report to be much closer to the work I have done at Tall Jalul in Jordan with Andrews University (although a bit earlier than I was involved with; still, a lot of similarities).  I found the methodology used to dig very interesting.

This afternoon, I attended a lecture by Mary Stiner of the University of Arizona, an expert in the Paleolithic period.  Her report was directly regarding the use of fire and meat-eating process found in Qesem Cave near Tel Aviv in Israel during
the Lower Paleolithic period.  Her team discovered that in the Lower Paleolithic, hominims brought only the choicest (meatiest) parts of the animals (mostly Fallow Deer) back to the cave where it was processed around a hearth.  Although no hominim skeletons have been found at the site she was surprised at the sophistication of people during this period.  At the end of her lecture (during the question and answer time) she admitted that Evolutionary Theory has, to some extent, blinded the scientists in regard to the intelligence of these people.  She also said that they were as smart as we are, and in some cases even smarter (with regard to their brain size).  I was shocked to hear her say that but not surprised, as I have read more and more recently that scientists are starting to come to the realization that early man was not as “dumb” as has been previously thought.  A very interesting lecture.

I enjoyed all of the lectures even though they have very little to do directly with Egyptian Archaeology.   However, I believe that this sort of exposure is what will make me more well rounded.  I’m looking forward to attending more.