Pizza Talk

Pizza Talk: "Rediscovering Masis Blur: A Neolithic Settlement in the Ararat Plain, Armenia"

Speaker: Kristine Martirosyan-Olshansky, Ph.D. Candidate, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA

This talk is a summary of field research conducted by Cotsen/UCLA doctoral student Kristine Martirosyan-Olshansky at Masis Blur, Armenia, over the course of three seasons from 2012-2014. Excavations at Masis Blur have unearthed Neolithic habitation layers (ca. 6200 – 5400 cal.BC) belonging to the Shulaveri-Shomutepe culture, with a rich material culture and several important new discoveries.

Pizza Talk: "An American Icon in Plastic: The Technical Analysis, Study, and Treatment of a First Edition 1959 Barbie"

Speakers: Morgan Burgess and Marci Burton, M.A. Students, Conservation of Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials, UCLA

This study focuses on a privately owned, autographed, first edition (c. 1959) BarbieTM doll made from poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) plastic. Contrary to “sticky-leg syndrome”, where plasticizer migrates from the PVC and deposits to the surface as a tacky liquid, this doll exhibits a bloom of a fugitive, waxy, white solid on the legs from the mid-thighs to the ankles.

Pizza Talk: "The Shimmer of Bodies: Aztec Luxury in Context"

Speaker: Dr. Patrick Hajovsky, Associate Professor, Art History, Southwestern University

Taking a critical perspective, I argue that Aztec "luxury" objects worn or held on the body linked valor and value to tonalli, the heat-life energy that manifests personality and fate, and yollotl, the heart, source of blood and center of human life. The Aztecs explored the equivalences and differences between luxury materials--lapidary, gold, feather--through synesthetic metaphors that tied visual art to Nahuatl poetry.

Pizza Talk: "Trying to Do the Right Things to Protect the World's Archaeological Heritage: A Committee Member's Tale"

Speaker: Dr. Lothar von Falkenhausen, Professor of Art History, UCLA

The Presidential Cultural Property Advisory Committee is charged with implementing the 1970 UNESCO convention in order to curb the illegal inflow of cultural property into the United States.  Lothar von Falkenhausen has served on this Committee since 2012.  He will report on the legal framework under which the Committee does its work, as well as on his experiences so far.

Pizza Talk: "Building Futures, Saving Pasts: An Examination of the Approach of the Sustainable Preservation Initiative"

Speaker: Dr. Paul Burtenshaw, Director, Projects, Sustainable Preservation Initiative

The Sustainable Preservation  Initiative (SPI) attempts to "Build Futures and Save Pasts"-simultaneously protecting tangible cultural heritage and enhancing the lives of the people who live around it.