AIA May Updates

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Mike Zajac from your local AIA chapter here. I’m e-mailing you with several updates and bits of news from the Central Arizona Society.

Firstly, our local chapter has been selected as a finalist for the Best Local AIA Society Programs. For the next four days, visitors to the AIA website can vote once per day for their favorite program, and the winner will be announced mid-May. We are currently in second place, just a mere 25 votes behind Milwaukee’s program. If everyone logs on and votes, we can win this! The link to the website is here: http://www.archaeological.org/outreach/contest/societyentries2013. Please jump on and click for the next few days, and we can show the whole nation that we’re number one!

Second, your officers are hard at work recruiting speakers and coordinating the next round of lectures for the 2013-2014 season. The topics, dates, and times will be forthcoming, so stay tuned for that information.
Third, I wanted to take a moment and personally thank our two departing officers, Dr. Thomas Morton and Dr. Rachel Scott, for their dedication and extraordinary efforts in making the Central Arizona Society what it is today. Although these two brilliant scholars will be leaving us as officers, they will continue to be actively engaged in the AIA and will doubtlessly be visiting us again in the future. We welcome our new officers, Dr. Nancy Serwint and Chelsea Walter, who will transition into the new roles shortly.

Have a safe summer, and I’ll be in touch soon.

Mike Zajac

Upcoming Lecture: Assessing the Historicity of the Trojan War

Assessing the Historicity of the Trojan War: Excavations at Troy 1988-2010
Speaker: C. Brian Rose, University of Pennsylvania, Past President of the AIA
March 21, 2013, 6pm
Business Administration Building, C Wing, Room 316

In l988 archaeologists from the University of Cincinnati and the University of Tübingen, Germany, began new excavations at Troy with the intent of examining all phases of habitation- from the Bronze Age through the Byzantine period. This lecture presents the results of the Bronze Age, Greek, and Roman excavations at the site during the last 24 years. Work has concentrated primarily on the theater, temple of Athena, the Bouleuterion or Council House, and the Sanctuary of the Samothracian Gods. The Bronze Age fortifications and Roman houses in the Lower City have also been extensively investigated. Excavation thus far has clarified the nature of habitation at the site during the late Bronze Age (15-12th centuries B.C.), as well as the rise in the city’s fortunes during the reign of Augustus and his Julio-Claudian successors. The relationship between the recent discoveries at the site and the Homeric tradition are also considered.

Professor Brian Rose is the James B. Pritchard Professor of Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania, and is Past President of the AIA. He holds his degrees from Columbia University (Ph.D.) and Haverford College, and his specialties include Roman art and archaeology, and the archaeology of Anatolia. He has conducted field work at Aphrodisias, is Co-Director of the excavations at Gordion in Turkey, and is head of the post-Bronze Age excavations at Troy. Professor Rose is the AIA’s 2012/2013 Joukowsky Lecturer, and has previously held the Norton Lectureship.

Sponsored by Project Humanities and the ASU School of International Letters and Cultures

For a printable PDF flyer for this lecture, click here: Rose Flyer

Ancient Technology Day at Pueblo Grande

Greetings, everyone! We at the Central Arizona Society are proud to announce that we have partnered with Pueblo Grande Museum for their third annual Ancient Technology Day on Saturday, March 9th from 10 AM to 3 PM. This event, which is free to the public, explores the traditions and techniques that were practiced here in the Southwest. There will be hands-on demonstrations, food, and entertainment throughout the day. A flyer for this excellent event is below. We hope to see you there!

Anceint Technology Day Flyer

Upcoming Lecture: Oratorical Performance Space in Ancient Greece

Oratorical Performance Space in Ancient Greece: Digital Reconstruction and Interpretive Visualization
Speaker: Richard Graff, University of Minnesota
February 21, 2013, 6pm, ASU Tempe Campus
Business Administration Building, C Wing, Room 316

This talk will present findings from a long-term collaborative and interdisciplinary study of the physical settings of ancient Greek oratorical performance. The structures considered are found throughout the Greek world and date from the late-Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods (ca. 500-100 BCE) — principally, buildings constructed to house meetings of city councils (bouleuteria), theatral spaces utilized for larger citizen assemblies, and various structures fitted for use as law courts. In addition to providing a sorely needed synthesis of the archaeological and literary evidence for these structures, the study employs both traditional and emergent research methods to elucidate the ways their design organized the communicative (inter)actions that took place within them. 3D digital modeling and several forms of advanced visualization have been utilized to identify salient architectural-spatial and acoustical variables in a selection of Greek civic structures, and to assess their suitability as venues for speaking, seeing, and hearing. The talk will summarize the inventory of speaking sites considered in the study and outline the methods being used to reconstruct the staging of ancient oratorical performance. It will then illustrate these methods through an examination of a few significant but neglected structures, as well as a single well known but especially enigmatic one — the meeting place of the Athenian assembly called the Pnyx.

Richard Graff (BA, UC-Berkeley; MA and PhD, Northwestern U.) is an Associate Professor of Writing Studies at the University of Minnesota. His scholarship considers technical and cultural aspects of Greco-Roman rhetoric, focusing especially on early theories of prose style and the relationship between oratorical text and speech-performance. He has also published on the reception and adaptation of classical-traditional rhetorical and stylistic precepts in the “new rhetorics” of Kenneth Burke and Chaïm Perelman. His articles on these subjects have appeared in Philosophy & Rhetoric, Rhetorica, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, and other venues. He is co-editor of The Viability of the Rhetorical Tradition (SUNY Press, 2005). Professor Graff has served as president of the American Society for the History of Rhetoric and, at Minnesota, is a member of the graduate faculties in Classics and Communication Studies and director of the interdisciplinary graduate minor in Literacy & Rhetorical Studies.

Sponsored by Project Humanities, the ASU School of International Letters and Cultures, and the ASU English Department

For a printable PDF flyer for this lecture, click here: Graff Flyer

Upcoming Lecture: Prehistoric Salt Procurement, Use, and Ritual in the American Southwest

Prehistoric Salt Procurement, Use, and Ritual in the American Southwest
Speaker: Dr. Todd W. Bostwick, RPA
Senior Research Archaeologist, PaleoWest Archaeology
November 29, 2012, 6pm, ASU Tempe Campus
Business Administration Building, C Wing, Room 316

Salt is necessary for human survival and has been a valuable trade item throughout human history. For the Maya, salt was considered white gold. In the American Southwest, salt procurement involved dangerous journeys and was closely associated with ritual activities and sacred landscapes. Salt was obtained from Gulf of California beaches, from the shores of natural lakes, and from mining buried deposits. This presentation discusses several examples of Native American salt procurement sites in Arizona, New Mexico, and southern Nevada. The tools used for mining are examined, and possible rituals associated with the salt deposits are discussed.

Todd Bostwick has conducted archaeological research in the Southwest for 34 years. From 1990 to 2010, he served as the City Archaeologist for the City of Phoenix. Dr. Bostwick is currently the Senior Research Archaeologist for PaleoWest Archaeology in Phoenix. He has an M.A. in Anthropology and a Ph.D. in History from Arizona State University, and has taught history and anthropology classes at Arizona State University and at Northern Arizona University for seven years. Dr. Bostwick has published a variety of articles and books on Southwest history and prehistory, was the General Editor for more than two dozen volumes of the Pueblo Grande Anthropology Papers and Occasional Papers. In 2005, he was given the Governor’s Award in Public Archaeology.

For a printable PDF flyer for this lecture, click here: Bostwick Flyer