Great Archaeologists | Saturday Seminar Series

10am: Leonard Woolley: Digging up the Past at Carchemish, Ur and Alalakh | Dr Jamie Fraser | British Museum
If you could re-live the life of any Middle Eastern archaeologist, then Sir Leonard Woolley would be top of the list. He cut his archaeological teeth working with T E Lawrence at the Hittite city of Carchemish; he led the Expedition to Ur and excavated the Royal Tombs, considered one of the most significant discoveries of all time; and he campaigned at al-Mina and Alalakh on the Turko-Syrian coast.

His book, Digging Up the Past, inspired countless students to embark on archaeological careers, myself included. In this lecture, we journey across the Middle East as we trace Sir Leonard Woolley’s extraordinary life and examine some of his most spectacular archaeology finds. In this talk, we examine his excavations at the Neo-Hittite capital of Carchemish, the Sumerian Royal Tombs at Ur, and the Amorite city of Alalakh.

11am: Sir Robert Mathew Flinders Petrie: ‘The Father of Pots’ and Champion of Small Finds | Mrs Maree Browne | Sydney
Also known as the Father of Modern Egyptology, Flinders Petrie with his wife Hilda and the backing of Amelia Edwards and the Egyptian Exploration Society, explored and excavated an extraordinary number of sites in Egypt and Palestine from 1881 to 1942. Giza, Amarna, Naucratis, Tanis and Tell el’Ajjul (Gaza) were among the more than fifty sites with which he is associated.

While fellow archaeologists worked on the great monuments, often discarding the broken and less valuable remains found there, Flinders Petrie set about building a complete picture of the sites he excavated by recording and dating these supposedly unimportant remains. Using these finds and a system of dating – sequence dating – a system he introduced to the discipline, he was able to give a much more complete picture of the cultures that were being studied. The disciplines he introduced are the basis of modern archaeology. This lecture will cover both these techniques and some of the sites he excavated.

About the series

The history of archaeology is marked by significant figures, some for their discoveries that changed the discipline forever, others for the new perspectives gained from their seminal writings, and still others through the sheer force of their personalities.

This Series will examine the lives and times of nine major figures in archaeology, some famous for discovery (Woolley, Petrie, Caton-Thompson, Bass, Mellaart), some for new perspectives on the field (Childe, Brothwell) and some for intrepid early explorations (Stark, Bell). All, through their research, writings and discovery changed the field of archaeology forever.

This fully illustrated lecture series will explore the life and works of a selection of great archaeologists and explorers, discuss their significance to their contemporaries, and how their work is considered today.

You can register for the whole series at a discount, or book for specific Saturdays.

• 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

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Hosted by the Near Eastern Archaeology Foundation (NEAF)

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