Great Cities of the Ancient Near East | Saturday Seminar Series

Jericho and Teleilat Ghassul: The Beginnings of Settled Life
Dr Peta Seaton AM | University of Sydney

Abstract: Jericho (Tel es Sultan) has long been called one of the oldest cities in the world. For more than two centuries scholars have been drawn to it – initially because it was thought to be the city who the Biblical Joshua caused the ‘walls to come tumbling down’. In the 1950’s Dame Kathleen Kenyon, using rigorous stratigraphic methods, brought to light prehistoric Jericho – with breathtaking plastered skull burials, and an enormous ‘defensive’ stone tower. This lecture will cover the history of excavation of this great site in the Southern Jordan Valley, and it’s Early and Middle Bronze Age, occupation, palaces and tombs.

Jericho has deep connections with the University of Sydney, as Basil Hennessy was a young archaeologist on Kenyon’s field team. We will take the opportunity to overview nearby Chalcolithic Teleilat Ghassul, where excavations were directed by Hennessy and Stephen Bourke, and which fills out some of the story of pre-urban settlement in the Southern Levant.

Sydney: Saturday 7 August 10am-12pm

______

These online lectures will be delivered via Zoom and will start at 10am and last for approximately two hours for each individual study day. A short 5-minute introduction will start each Saturday series, followed by a two-hour lecture by a single speaker, all except for Saturday 17 and 24 July, which will have two presentations broken into two 45-minute lectures. There will be a ten-minute coffee-break between the two sessions and there will be time for questions at the end of the presentations.

• The lectures will be held remotely via Zoom.
• The lecture will start at 10am with a break at 10.45, then the second lecture will begin at 11 am and finish at 11.45.
• The lecturer will be available to answer questions at the end of each session.
• The cost of the series is:
  • NEAF Members: $20 per session All 4 sessions: $60
  • Non-Members $30 per session All 4 sessions: $90
  • All students are free
  • A minimum of 20 is required for each lecture for this series to run – our upper limit is 300 per lecture.
• Once payment is received a receipt and Meeting ID and password will be sent to you.
• To avoid this being passed onto anyone who has not paid, participants will be matched against a list by their screen name to ensure they are a financial participant. Please ensure your zoom screen name correctly identifies you or telephone number if you are connecting via telephone and add this in the area provided when you book.

Booking

Please click here to book for this seminar

………

Hosted by the Near Eastern Archaeology Foundation (NEAF)

Enquiries and RSVP:
Click here to register
P | +61 2 9351 4151
F | +61 9114 0921
Click here to email