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The Archaeological Institute of America
Western Illinois Society
CALENDAR OF EVENTS 2014-2015
Click on titles for more details.
Thursday, September 18th
“The Invention of a Bathing Tradition: Purity, Politics, and the
Archaeology of the Miqveh”
Monday, October 6, 2014
“The Arms of Achilles: The Marine
Thiasos as Vehicle for Early Hellenistic Royal Ideology” Kristian Lorenzo, Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics, University of Richmond
Thursday, October 16, 2014
“The Archaeology of Spain”
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Monday, November 3, 2014
“Hammers, Axes, Bulls, and
Blood: Practical Aspects of Roman Animal Sacrifice” Gregory S. Aldrete, Frankenthal Professor of History and Humanistic Studies, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
“Reconstructing and Testing Ancient Linen Body Armor: The Linothorax
Project”
Gregory S. Aldrete,
Frankenthal Professor of History and Humanistic Studies, University of
Wisconsin-Green Bay
Monday February 3, 2015
Monday, April 13, 2015 Victoria S. Reed, Sadler Curator for Provenance, Department of Curatorial Planning and Project Management, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (vreed@mfa.org)
7:30 P.M., Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois
Tuesday, April 14, 2015 Victoria S. Reed, Sadler Curator for Provenance, Department of Curatorial Planning and ProjectManagement, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (vreed@mfa.org) 7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois
Thursday, April 30, 2015 Víctor M. Martínez, Adjunct Professor of Archaeology, Monmouth College (vmmartinez@gmail.com) 7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois
Detailed Descriptions
Thursday, September 18th
“The Invention of a Bathing Tradition: Purity, Politics, and the
Archaeology of the Miqveh”
7:30 P.M., Hanson Hall of Science 102, Augustana College, Rock Island,
Illinois
Monday, October 6, 2014
“The Arms of Achilles: The Marine
Thiasos as Vehicle for Early Hellenistic Royal Ideology”
Kristian Lorenzo,
Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics,
University of Richmond (kristianllorenzo@gmail.com)
7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business,, Monmouth
College, Monmouth, Illinois
In Greek mythology the most important
thiasos, or procession of
individuals dancing and singing in honor of a god, was that of Dionysios
and his followers or just his followers. Its aquatic counterpart, the
marine thiasos, included
Poseidon (sometimes), nereids and tritons accompanied by both mythical
and real marine creatures. Demetrios Poliorketes built the
neorion on Delos to house a
dedicated warship and decorated it with a monumental (c. 90.0 x 1.6 m)
marine thiasos celebrating
his naval victory at Cypriot Salamis (ca. 306 B.C.). Scholars have
mostly concentrated on the physical placement of the
neorion’s
thiasos, while noting that
its fragmentary condition makes its meaning largely lost. In this talk I
argue that the meaning of neorion’s
thiasos can be reconstructed
as an Arms of Achilles variant based on the archaeological remains, the
textual evidence, and historical context. In this 5th-century variant
Thetis and Nereids riding see creatures carry a new divinely forged
panoply to Achilles (Hom. Il. 19.1-8). Given its placement on a naval
victory monument this thiasos
was powerful Antigonid propaganda providing a visual link between
Demetrios Poliorketes and not only Achilles, but also by extension
Alexander the Great, who claimed the son of Peleus as an ancestor on his
maternal Molossian side.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
“The Archaeology of Spain”
7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business, Monmouth
College, Monmouth, Illinois
Some of the most important Roman archaeological sites and museums are
located in Spain This lecture will provide an overview of some of the
major Greco-Roman archaeological sites in Spain, including Barcino
(Barcelona), Tarracino (Tarragona), Corduba (Cordoba), and Merita
Augusta (Merida).
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Members of the Western Illinois Society are invited to a special tour of
the Dickson Mounds Museum.
Monday, November 3, 2014
“Hammers, Axes, Bulls, and
Blood: Practical Aspects of Roman Animal Sacrifice”
Gregory S. Aldrete,
Frankenthal Professor of History and Humanistic Studies, University of
Wisconsin-Green Bay (aldreteg@uwgb.edu)
7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business, Monmouth
College, Monmouth, Illinois
Animal sacrifice was a central component of ancient Roman religion, but
scholars have tended to focus almost entirely on the symbolic aspects of
these rituals, while glossing over the actual moment of death and the
practical challenges involved in killing large, potentially unruly
creatures, such as bulls. The traditional explanation is that the
animal was struck on the head with a hammer or an axe in order to stun
it, then had its throat cut and bled to death. Precisely how the
axes, hammers, and knives were employed, and in what circumstances one
was preferred over the other, remains unexplained. This talk draws
upon a range of evidence derived from ancient sculpture, comparative
historical sources, and animal physiology in order to offer a new
interpretation of this procedure, including a detailed analysis of
exactly how the killing and bleeding of large sacrificial animals was
accomplished and the distinct purposes of hammers and axes within these
rituals.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
“Reconstructing and Testing Ancient Linen Body Armor: The Linothorax
Project”
Gregory S. Aldrete,
Frankenthal Professor of History and Humanistic Studies, University of
Wisconsin-Green Bay (aldreteg@uwgb.edu)
7:30 P.M., Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois
For nearly 1,000 years, one of the most common forms of protection used
by ancient Mediterranean warriors, including the armies of the Greeks
and Alexander the Great, was the linothorax, a type of body armor
apparently made out of linen.
Due to the perishable nature of its components, however, no
examples have survived.
Today it is poorly understood and is known only through fragmentary
descriptions in literature and images on pottery and in sculpture.
Employing materials and techniques that would have been available
to the ancient Greeks, the members of the UWGB Linothorax Project have
investigated this mysterious armor by reconstructing and wearing
full-scale examples, as well as subjecting test samples to attack with
ancient weapons, in order to determine their characteristics and
protective qualities. This presentation will not only describe the
project’s findings, but will also display a reconstructed linothorax and
test samples for the audience’s examination.
Monday February 3, 2015 Virginia E. Miller, Associate Professor in Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago (vem@uic.edu) The Aztecs considered the bones of slain captives to be powerful, a belief probably shared by the earlier Maya: one Maya hieroglyph for “captive” translates as “bone”. Nevertheless, at southern Maya sites like Tikal and Yaxchilán during the Classic period (A.D. 300-900), war-related art focuses more on the capture and humiliation of enemies rather than on their sacrificial deaths or their post-mortem remains. In contrast, at northern Maya sites in Yucatán and at Chichén Itzá in particular, battle scenes, sacrifice, skulls, and bones are frequent themes in reliefs, murals, and other media such as jade and gold. The skullrack, a new architectural form decorated with sculpted impaled skulls, was prominently placed right next to the massive ballcourt. This may have served as a grim reminder of the potential power of Chichén’s rulers, even when no human heads were on display. Why this upsurge in graphic sacrificial and death imagery between c. A.D. 800 and 1000? Were the Itzá militarily more successful than their predecessors? Why are both victors and defeated presented in groups and anonymously, in contrast to the southern Maya practice of naming individual captors and captives? Did the northern Maya practice human sacrifice on a more massive scale, foreshadowing later Aztec practices?
Monday, April 13, 2015 “Lost and Found: Research on Nazi-Era Looting and Restitution at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston” Victoria S. Reed, Sadler Curator for Provenance, Department of Curatorial Planning and Project Management, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (vreed@mfa.org) 7:30 P.M., Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois Nazi-looted art and masterpieces brought back as the spoils of war frequently make headlines, even featuring in popular culture—from Indiana Jones and his quest for the Lost Ark to the recent feature film The Monuments Men. But what is the reality of tracking down lost, stolen, or smuggled masterpieces? During World War II, artwork was displaced on an unprecedented scale; it was both destroyed during conflict, and looted by soldiers and civilians alike. Jewish residents of Europe lost their property as the result of racial persecution during the Holocaust, through plunder by Nazi forces; sales conducted under duress; and being forced by the circumstances of the time to part with their belongings. In these ways paintings, sculptures, and works of decorative art of all kinds changed hands during the 1930s and 1940s. Many made their way onto the art market, and from there, into private homes and onto the walls of art museums around the world. Through in-depth case studies, this lecture will illustrate how the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) has conducted research on the Nazi-era provenance, or ownership history, of its encyclopedic collection. The lecture will provide a behind-the-scenes look at the process of research and documentation of seizures, thefts, and losses in Europe between 1933 and 1945. It will also explore issues of the restitution of artwork, both in the immediate postwar period and in the present. Finally, the lecture will consider art museum policy and practice today, and how a museum must take steps to ensure that it conducts sufficient research to avoid acquiring a work of art lost or stolen during this critical period in history.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015 Victoria S. Reed, Sadler Curator for Provenance, Department of Curatorial Planning and ProjectManagement, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (vreed@mfa.org) 7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois For much of the twentieth century, those involved in the art trade did not ask many questions about provenance (history of ownership). As long as the origins of works of art were kept confidential, there was no way for museums, collectors, or dealers themselves to find out whether the masterpieces that they were acquiring had been freshly looted, smuggled, stolen, or forcibly sold; or whether, on the contrary, these works of art were legally on the market. By turning a blind eye to questions of provenance, both the legitimate market and non-profit institutions like art museums have found themselves in possession of works of art to which they do not have good title. As a result, in recent years, American art museums have had to deaccession works of art, removing them from their collections for return to their rightful owners, including indigenous groups and source nations. For legal and ethical reasons, no one participating in the art trade today can ignore issues of provenance. This lecture will discuss provenance research at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), an encyclopedic museum of over 450,000 objects. It will examine case studies of works of art from the MFA that have been subject to restitution, repatriation, and financial settlements—for example, the Roman Imperial sculpture of Weary Herakles that was returned to the Republic of Turkey in 2011. The lecture will explore how, as the MFA continues to build its collection, we seek to avoid repeating the mistakes of our past. Emphasizing the importance of due diligence as part of the acquisition process, particularly when considering antiquities and archaeological material, this lecture will address the issue of increased responsibility and transparency in museum collecting.
Thursday, April 30, 2015 “The Past, Present and Future of the Monmouth College Archaeology Research Laboratory” Víctor M. Martínez, Adjunct Professor of Archaeology, Monmouth College (vmmartinez@gmail.com) 7:30 P.M., Pattee Auditorium, Center for Science and Business, Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois In 2010, Monmouth College received an anonymous donation of thousands of prehistoric Native American artifacts, including spear points, pottery sherds, axe heads, and arrow heads. The collection represents human activity in Western Illinois for the last 12,000 years. The Monmouth College Archaeology Research Laboratory now houses this collection which is one of the largest locally available for study. Students have been accessing and cataloguing artifacts from this collection under the direction of three different lab directors. This talk sets the collection within the chronological sweep of Western Illinois prehistory, provides an overview--complete with videos--of current student lab work and previews future avenues of student collection management including website development, database management and community outreach programs.
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