UNCG Archaeology Program
UNCG ARCHAEOLOGY LECTURES SPRING 2010
Faculty Research Tea Talks
Tea talks are sponsored by the Archaeology Club and the Archaeology Program; they take place in the Archaeology Lab, 52 McIver Building, at 4 PM on Thursday.
January 28 : Dr. Asa Eger, Assistant Professor, Department of History, UNC-Greensboro
Was the Islamic-Byzantine Frontier a War Zone? New Evidence from the Frontier-Fortress of Hisn al-Tinat
February 18: Dr. Lidewijde de Jong, Assistant Professor, Department of Classics, UNC-Chapel Hill
Funerary practices in Hellenistic Syria: ancient tombs and modern paradigms
April 15: Dr. Joanne Murphy, Assistant Professor, Classical Studies Department, UNC-Greensboro (Co-sponsored by the Anthropology Club)
Imports and the creation and maintenance of Pylian society: A view from the tombs
Archaeological Institute of America Lectures
All AIA lectures are sponsored by the Archaeology Program and the AIA Greensboro Society; they take place in 101 Sullivan Science Building at 8 PM.
March 17 : Professor Jitse Dijkstra, Department of Classics and Religious Studies, University of Ottawa
Scratched in Stone: The Isis Temple Graffiti Project
In Antiquity it was common practice for visitors to leave graffiti on the walls of Egyptian temples during festivals or on other occasions. Like modern graffiti, graffiti from Egyptian temples often consist of informal writings, but unlike today these ancient graffiti have usually been incised with religious intentions. They are therefore a treasure trove for the study of the personal piety of the ordinary visitors of temples in Ancient Egypt. The case of the temple of Isis at Aswan, a less well-known temple than the famous temple of Isis at nearby Philae but completely preserved, illustrates this: the temple contains more than 300 graffiti, both texts and figures, which give a detailed insight into the more than a thousand years the temple functioned as a religious building and how ordinary Egyptians experienced their religion – we cannot get closer to them than that!