Dr. Piphal Heng, ACLS Postdoctoral Fellow, Northern Illinois University
Tuesday, January 19, 2021 10:00 AM (Pacific Time) Zoom Webinar

“Compassion” was an instrumental state’s infrastructure in building, maintaining, and expanding Angkor’s power from the 9th through 15th centuries CE. Angkorian civilization is known for its intricately carved monumental architecture, large water reservoirs, and interconnected road and canal systems. The relative importance of religion in Angkorian state governance has been debated for more than a century: to what extent can we separate Angkorian “church” from Angkorian state?  This lecture provides a background to Angkor and emphasizes two rulers. The first was Yaśovarman I (889-910 CE), who established religious foundations throughout his polity to support his population and nurture religious pluralism.  Attention concentrates on Jayavarman VII (1181-1218 CE), whose embrace of Buddhism and state projects were undergirded by a commitment to compassion. His many religious foundations (temples with reservoirs, etc.) housed religious specialists, hosted universities, and served as community anchors. They also expressed state power, marked its territories, and provided myriad social services to Angkorian Khmers.

Dr. Piphal Heng is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University. He received his PhD degree in Anthropology from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Heng’s archaeological research themes include religious change, urbanism, settlement patterns, political economy, and sociopolitical organizational shift. He is also interested in the intersection between heritage management, collaborative/public archaeology, knowledge production, and urban development. His current project explores the transformation of urban and rural settlements in response to the demographic and political changes that took place with the adoption of Theravada Buddhism in Angkor (14th-18th century Cambodia).

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Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies

Jeanne Marie Teutonico
Associate Director, Strategy and Special Initiatives
Getty Conservation Institute
Friday November 20th, 11:00am - 12:00pm (PT)
Please note, this talk will not be recorded.

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The Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) is best described as a private, international research organization that is part of a larger philanthropic enterprise dedicated to the understanding, conservation and enjoyment of the visual arts. In this, the GCI is somewhat unique in the constellation of not-for-profit organizations operating in the heritage sector. 

The presentation will provide an introduction to the Getty Conservation Institute – its mission, strategic priorities and methodological approach to heritage conservation. Select examples of GCI field work (in Egypt, Peru and the Mediterranean) will be used to illustrate diverse conservation contexts and challenges, and to reflect on the evolution of conservation practice over the last twenty years.

The presentation will conclude with some consideration of future challenges –both global concerns and specific issues facing the heritage conservation field.

Jeanne Marie Teutonico is currently Associate Director, Strategy and Special Initiatives,atthe Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) in Los Angeles where her responsibilities include the development of strategic priorities for the Institute and oversight of GCI publications. An architectural conservator with over thirty years of experiencein the conservation of buildings and sites, she holds an A.B. (Hons) in art history from Princeton University and an M.Sc. in historic preservation from Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Prior to joining the GCI in 1999, Jeanne Marie was a conservator and educator on the staff of the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) in Rome and, later, of English Heritage in Londonwhere she led a large technical research and publications program. She is published widely and maintains research interests in the conservation and sustainable use of traditional building materials. She was an invited Resident at the American Academy in Rome in 2008 and is a Fellow of the Association for Preservation Technology, the Society of Antiquaries, and the International Institute for Conservation.

Figure 1. Conservation of the wall paintings in the burial chamber of the Tomb of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt. The Getty Conservation Institute, in collaboration with Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities, has recently completed a multi-year project that included study and conservation of the tomb’s wall paintings, environmental and infrastructure improvements, and training for future care of the site.

Figure 2. Training regarding the conservation and management of archaeological sites and mosaics at the ancient site of Paphos in Cyprus. Over the last ten years, the Getty Conservation Institute has collaborated with the Getty Foundation, ICCROM and the International Committee fortheConservation of Mosaics(ICCM) in an initiative known as MOSAIKON with the aim of improving the conservation, presentation and maintenance of archaeological mosaics in the Mediterranean region. Activities have included education and capacity building, the development of locally sustainable conservation practices, model field projects, and the dissemination of information in a variety of forms.

Figure 3. The church of Santiago Apóstolin Kuño Tambo, Peru. This seventeenth century earthen building, located in a remote village high in the Andes, is richly decorated with wall paintings and has been in continuous use as a place of worship since its original construction. As part of its Earthen Architecture Initiative, the Getty ConservationInstitute, in collaboration with the School of Science and Engineering at the Catholic University in Lima and the Peruvian Ministry of Culture, has developed and implemented seismic retrofit techniques that will enhance the building’s performance without negatively impacting the significant decorative finishes.

Artur Petrosyan
Archaeologist, Researcher, Department of Early Archaeology
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, National Academy of Sciences Republic of Armenia
November 6th 2020 12:00pm PT (contingent on the developing situation in Armenia)
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Until recently the Early Holocene sites of the Kura and the Araxes river basins were not known and the question of Neolithization in the region were based on the study of Late Neolithic-Chalcolithic settlements grouped into the “Aratashen-Shulaveri-Shomutepe” tradition, located in valleys and plains. Fieldwork activities implemented during last 20 years led to the discovery of series of Old and Early Holocene sites in Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan including a stratified cave and rock-shelter as well as open-air sites and settlements, filling the gap between the 10th and early 6th millennium BC. While excavations and research of the Early and Middle Holocene sites continues, the accumulated information to date allows us to look at the process of Neolithization in the Kura and the Araxes river basins from a new perspective. The data suggests dividing the Early Holocene archaeological sequence into two chronological groups or steps. Group 1/Step 1 with chronometric dates between 10.000 – 7300 Cal BC is described by seasonal hunting and habitation camps on higher elevations organized inside caves and rock-shelters in combination with built structures in front of them as well as short-term open-air activities. Some shifts in the economic lifeways and technological production of tools (so-called “apnagyugh” tools) is obvious even though many similarities can be noticed with the lifestyle of the Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. Group 2/Step 2 span between 7300 – 6200 Cal BC, when the first settlements and sites with ritual function appeared, in parallel with the cave sites. New data indicate that the origin of the early farming culture in the Araxes River valley is local even though there is noticeable influence from the southern cultural centers.

Artur Petrosyan received his PhD at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of NAS RA in 2010, where he has worked since 2007 as an Archaeologist and Researcher. He has participated in a number of archaeological expeditions in Armenia, Italy (Calvatone, Sassofortino) and UAE (Vadi al Hello). Currently he is the co-director of Armenian – Italian, Armenian – Japanese, Armenian – German and Armenian – Chinese expeditions in Kotayk, Vayots Dzor, Ararat and Armavir regions of Armenia.  Petrosyan has published extensively.

Miqayel Badalyan
Director of the “Erebuni” Historical & Archaeological Museum-Reserve, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia.
Friday, October 23, 2020 – 12:00pm PT (contingent on the developing situation in Armenia)
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Based on archaeological data, as well as philological and visual art sources, the presentation focuses on the religious beliefs of the Urartian kingdom. In this regard, the role of religion in Urartian royal ideology, the cultic activities, symbols, and iconography of the gods of the Urartian pantheon will be discussed as well.