Past Events
Interested in Cotsen events? Sign up for our mailing list.Speaker: Dr. Ioanna Kakoulli, Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA
Fayum portraits are paintings mainly on wooden support reflecting Greek painting traditions and Egyptian funerary practices. These paintings are naturalistic portraits of the deceased and provide a snapshot of Greek civic life and customs in Egypt during the Ptolemaic and Roman rule. Non-invasive and non-destructive evaluation (NDE) of these portraits from the macro to the molecular length scale using combined imaging and spectroscopic techniques supported label-free fingerprint identification of pigments and binding media revealing raw materials selection, production technology and the operational sequences (chaîne opératoire) of the processes associated with the making of the painting. Results from the analyses integrating hyperspectral cubes in reflectance luminescence and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and forensic imaging investigations combined with fiber-optic reflectance spectroscopy (FORS) and portable XRF, indicated the use of a variety of natural and synthetic organic, inorganic and composite pigments mixed with melted beeswax in ‘encaustic’ [εγκαυστική] painting technique. The significance of this research is twofold: 1) research has been conducted without the need to take any samples and 2) results from the analyses revealed key information on the fashion and practices in Egypt during the Greek and Roman period. For example, the production of the green pigment, a synthetic organic-inorganic complex, giving the green color to the ‘gemstones’ of the necklaces in women’s portraits, is similar to the processes in alchemical manuals of the third century AD, describing a method how to color rock-crystals green, in imitation of precious stones. Similarly, the pigment madder lake used to paint the red-purple garments in the portraits replicates technology employed for the production of mordanted dyes to tint yarns for the textile ‘industry’. These results further illustrate the close affinities and interconnections between the various ‘chemical arts’, such as mining, metallurgy, corrosion and dyeing, to the art of painting and how the cultural and socio-political milieu in Egypt during the Greek and Roman period, with philosophies driving experimentation, influenced material choices and processes involved for the production and use of pigments in art.
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Speaker: Dr. Christine Lee, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Cal State LA
My research focuses on ethnic identity and how it is expressed in the human skeleton and its burial context. The populations I study were seldom represented in contemporary historical texts. These people included nomadic pastoralists, migrants and merchants, and finally women and children. The first population sample represents the Uighur dynasty in Mongolia. This cemetery dates to the end of the dynasty which was plagued by epidemics and famine before its collapse. Bioarchaeological analysis of Manichaean temple burials show a high mortality rate among infants and periods of high stress among the surviving adults. A second rare archaeological sample dates to Ming-Qing dynasty China. This is the only archaeological site known to have women with bound feet. A complete analysis was done on the occurrence and prevalence of footbinding from the Song –Qing dynasty burials. Next,four archaeological sites from the Western Regions (China and Mongolia) will be discussed regarding trauma patterns along the Silk Road. These are frontier sites from non-Asian Sogdian (Persian) and Pazyryk (Scythian) populations. Finally, current field excavations of several sites which date to the Period of Disunion (Dark Ages), after the collapse of the Han and Xiongnu empires. Little is known about this time other than there was widespread unrest and migration in Mongolia and Northern China. Preliminary findings suggest a change in burial patterns and ethnic identities.
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Speaker: Tao Shi, PhD Candidate, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA
The rise of Erlitou not only declares the end of the Longshan Age, but also open a new era of the Luoyang-centric social network. However, how the political landscape was formed and what the knowledge root of Erlitou was have not been discussed. In this paper, I will discuss the Longshan Network as the process of knowledge preparation for the rise of Erlitou. Moreover, I will introduce my survey in the Qinling Mountain Range, and see the Dan River in the Qinling Mountain Range as an expressway of knowledge transmission for the Erlitou state.
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Speaker: Dr. Yanjun Weng, Assistant Professor, Jingdezhen University
Dr. Weng will speak about his current archaeological excavation project at the Luomaqiao Kiln site in Jingdezhen, a city with more than 1,000 years of continuous ceramic industry history. This lecture will explore the changing configuration of porcelain production along the long timeline as well as the corresponding distribution of products to royal needs, government divisions, and civilian markets of both domestic China and overseas.
Yanjun Weng obtained his PhD in archaeology in 2017 from Peking University and has been active on field works of Chinese ceramic archaeology since 2010. Before that, he received master's and undergraduate's degrees in economics and international trade.
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Speaker: Dr. Li Min, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, UCLA
In this lecture Dr. Li Min will discuss the current trends of Chinese archaeology based on his observations of the conference "In Search of Early China through Archaeology: Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of Chinese Archaeology at UCLA" co-sponsored by the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. This review of current state of research is followed by a re-visit to the highly contentious topic of the Xia (ca. 2100-1600 BCE), the first dynasty in Chinese historiography and the fountainhead of many important political institutions in Bronze Age China. Instead of debating on the historicity of this legendary regime and the stages of evolutionary typology, Dr. Li Min will approach this topic from the perspective of political experimentation and social memory by asking these questions: What made the late third millennium BCE an important watershed in sociopolitical history of China as seen through the archeological lens? What were the contributions of the Longshan and Erlitou legacy of the early second millennium BCE to the emergence of the Shang civilization during the late second millennium BCE? How was the social memory of the pre-Shang legacy transmitted to the Zhou society at the end of the second millennium BCE? How did the Zhou narratives about the Xia civilization correlate to the archaeological landscape of the second millennium BCE? Against the backdrop of societal collapse in lowland Neolithic centers and intensified interactions with Eurasian exchange networks among the highland communities, I argue that the emergence of major Longshan centers in highland basins during the late third millennium BCE and the subsequent rise of the first Bronze Age city at Erlitou in the Luoyang Basin during the early second millennium BCE had critical contribution to the formation of the Xia legacy in Zhou storytelling about the past. Far from a myth invented by the Zhou to justify its conquest of Shang, the pre-Shang legacy served as major source of political knowledge for the Zhou state-building enterprise and the Xia corresponded to a culturally constructed constellation of political concepts, institutions, and social memories of different episodes of state building from the Longshan and Erlitou periods.
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Speaker: Professor James McHugh, Associate Professor, School of Religion, USC
Professor James McHugh explores the complex world of drinks and drinking in pre-modern India. From rice wine to palm toddy, a huge variety of drinks were made. In the early centuries of the common era, another drug—betel—joined the mix too, though cannabis and opium appeared much later. How and where were these drinks and drugs consumed? Were they forbidden or permitted? How did medical scholars think they worked? And how are they related to religion and mythology?
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Speaker: Dr. Timothy Murray, Charles La Trobe Professor of Archaeology, La Trobe University
In this talk, Dr. Murray will briefly outline the essence of a new interdisciplinary research project exploring the historical archaeology of extensive pastoralism in Australia, with a particular focus on the Western Division of New South Wales. Core elements of the project span conventional ecological history (especially the impact of sheep and cattle grazing on the rangelands of the region), as well as the history of wool as a global commodity, the impact of the dispossession of indigenous people by European settlers, and the impact of new technologies such as fencing, railways, but particularly drilling for artesian water. The research project thus considers many elements of a more general inquiry into the ecological and economic impacts of the creation of both national and imperial entities (and identities) during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries around the globe.
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Speaker: Dr. Matthew Robb, Chief Curator, Fowler Museum, UCLA
In 1963, the chance discovery at the Teotihuacan compound known today as La Ventilla of a four-part composite sculpture marked with interlaced-scrolls more typically associated with sites like El Tajín firmly established connections between ancient Teotihuacan and its contemporaries on the Gulf Coast. The discovery of a smaller, intact object of similar form in 1987 in Tikal’s Mundo Perdido provided new evidence for Teotihuacan’s involvement with Tikal and the Maya. Other studies focused on similar objects appearing in the visual culture of Classic period Veracruz have identified them as stone versions of feathered banners, and drawn connections with the appearance at Teotihuacan of interlaced-scrolls on murals at other buildings at La Ventilla and early structures at the Edificios Superpuestos. This lecture will document the chronological and cultural discrepancies between framing an object as a marker of Teotihuacan influence at 4th century Tikal, but as a marker of 6th century Gulf Coast connections at Teotihuacan. It will explore the archaeological, aesthetic, and social contexts of these objects and suggest new avenues for their interpretation based on recent discoveries at the site.
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Speaker: Dr. Di Luo, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Global Asia, New York University Shanghai
Buddhist architecture in China since the 11th century has often featured miniature pagodas and pavilions in the interior. These downsized "buildings," appearing in ceiling domes and murals and sometimes functioning as altars, bookcases, and reliquaries, assumed the role of the "holy of holies" of the space. My study of these miniatures focuses on the scaling principles they adhered to, the woodworking tradition they epitomized, and the religious significance of the phenomenon of miniature-making. The downscaling procedure, I argue, was not a purely technological problem, but deeply rooted in the Buddhist view of the composition and formation of our world. This Buddhist ideal was best demonstrated by a hierarchical set of numerals found in miniature architecture. With the assistance of digital tools, we are able to expose and scrutinize the fascinating numerical relationships existed in Buddhist architecture.
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Speaker: Debby Sneed, PhD Candidate, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA
In this talk, Debby will use literary and archaeological evidence to argue that ancient Greeks not
only tolerated the birth of deformed and disabled infants, but also expressed optimism about their futures and actively attempted to accommodate their needs. Modern studies tend to resolve this issue quickly, relying heavily on references by Plutarch, Aristotle, and Plato. These authors’ statements about the fate of deformed infants, however, bear no easy or straightforward relationship with the reality of the ancient world. If we situate these authors and their works within their appropriate contexts, we recognize that their presentations of infant exposure and infanticide are prescriptive, not descriptive. By expanding our analysis to the Hippocratic physicians, as well as to other works within the Aristotelian corpus, we find a wide range of evaluations of infants born with congenital deformities. What is more, the production of feeding bottles from the Late Bronze Age through the Roman period also demonstrates active efforts to accommodate infants (and sometimes children and adults) who were premature, weak, ill, or presented severe orofacial deformities such as cleft palate. Finally, an argument from absence: bioarchaeologists have produced no positive proof for the killing of deformed infants from any population in Greece. Taken together, the evidence demonstrates that the exposure of deformed and disabled infants was far from the rule in ancient Greece
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