Up and Outreach

Fall/Winter 2014-5 News from the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World Up and Outreach One of the happier aspects of the design of Rhode Island variety of non-concentrators who sometimes end up adding Hall is its possession of two front doors. To the east, one ‘Archaeology and the Ancient World’ to their diploma. As enters from Brown University’s Main Green, and this is always, the class was in action on the Quiet Green during the principal route of traffic into the building today. But Family Weekend, answering questions and encouraging the original ‘front door’ of the 1840 construction lies to participation; as always, the west; monumentalized by a set of steps, it looks out to young children proved Providence. The architects who renovated Rhode Island Hall the most enthusiastic acknowledged this Janus-faced quality by the use of glass excavators. doors: one can literally look through the building from the Brown’s Family campus to the city, and back again. Weekend coincides with If (as we always teach our students) architecture and architectural space shape human behavior, this transparency might help explain the Joukowsky Institute’s evolving range of activities International Archaeology that reach out from the campus Day so, in addition to to the world beyond. This has the College Hill dig, the taken place online through the Institute held a Saturday highly successful Coursera MOOC, open house for campus Archaeology’s Dirty Little Secrets with visitors and the Providence its global ambit, and in person with community. Faculty and our field projects in multiple countries. graduate students were present to show and chat At the local level, we are in the fifth about different types of archaeological material year of ‘Think Like an Archaeologist’ (pottery, coins, bones). Explaining the concept of (co-sponsored with the Haffenreffer stratigraphy through the medium of different levels Museum of Anthropology and the of candy worked especially well, until the deposit Rhode Island School of was looted and eaten. We were also very pleased Design Museum of Art), to welcome Legion III Cyrenaica, a Roman living- bringing archaeological history group based in the New England area that portrays concepts and approaches legionary dress and weaponry as it may have been in directly to sixth-grade Egypt in the 1st Century AD/CE. classrooms in Providence. If all of these various activities have previously formed part To expand the range of of the Institute’s calendar, Fall 2014 saw the culmination players in the program, of an entirely new initiative (see page two of this issue). doctoral student Archaeology for the People was conceived out of frustration Katherine Harrington with both the nature and the quality of the majority of taught ARCH 1170 popular archaeology writing. How can such a fascinating Community Archaeology discipline so often come across as dust-dry? Why are the in Providence and Beyond. stories normally told still all about the ‘oldest’, ‘biggest’, Undergraduates in this course studied the dynamic world of ‘gold-est’? The Archaeology for the People competition, ‘public’ archaeology and joined with graduate students and which announced its winners in November, is – we argue – museum staff for hands-on classroom visits in Fall 2014. another move in the right direction, and will be on its way Another long-running Institute feature is ARCH 1900 The soon as Joukowsky Institute Publication #7! Archaeology of College Hill; the class dug for a third year Sue Alcock on the Quiet Green in the supposed area of the President’s Director, Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World House (see the story on this issue’s back cover). This course Joukowsky Family Professor of Archaeology performs a more internal kind of outreach, engaging a Professor of Classics; Professor of Anthropology (by courtesy) Professor of the History of Art and Architecture (by courtesy) The (Archaeology for the) People Have Spoken Turning Water into Stone Core Faculty Susan E. Alcock As its mission statement declares, the Joukowsky Institute Eventually our discussions led, at the end of 2013, to the Labraunda is a spectacular mountain sanctuary in SW Turkey. Several Director, Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology “promotes the investigation, understanding, and enjoyment of launch of a global competition for new archaeological writing, monumental structures, including two marble gates, a temple (that may have Joukowsky Family Professor of Archaeology Professor of Classics; Professor of Anthropology; archaeology... through active fieldwork projects, graduate and entitled Archaeology for the People. John Cherry and Felipe been designed by the great ancient Professor of History of Art and Architecture undergraduate programs, and Rojas invited anyone (except those at the Institute itself) to architect Pytheos of Priene), and several Laurel Bestock public outreach activities.” We submit a text of 5,000-6,000 words showcasing any aspect of astonishingly well-preserved dining halls Vartan Gregorian Assistant Professor of take outreach seriously, because archaeology of potential interest to a wide readership. As an adorn the site today and attract the Archaeology and Egyptology & Assyriology the results of archaeological incentive, we offered a prize of $5,000 to the winner. occasional discerning tourist. But what Sheila Bonde discovery and research are both made Labraunda special in antiquity Chair, History of Art and Architecture The competition closed in September, and the response was Professor of History of Art and Architecture important and exciting, and gratifying: around 130 entries from more than two dozen was water. Dozens of springs still dot the Professor of Archaeology they deserve the widest possible Latmos Mountains immediately around countries on a dizzying array of topics. The competition Anne Hunnell Chen audience. Yet archaeologists Labraunda and local people continue Visiting Assistant Professor of History of Art and organizers were assisted by a panel of 12 Brown judges in Architecture tend to write only choosing the winning submission. to drink from simple stone spring-houses, for each other, some of which date from the Hellenistic period. (In fact, bottled water sold in John F. Cherry using language that makes sense mainly to fellow We are pleased to announce that this is an the province of Mugla proudly bears the name of the sanctuary.) Joukowsky Family Professor of Archaeology essay by Chantel White, Aleksandar Sopov, and Professor of Classics; Professor of Anthropology members of the profession. Water was a key part of religious life in the region. Many stone spring-houses Marta Ostovich entitled “The Urban Gardens Claudia Glatz were built along the sacred way that led from the Visiting Scholar in Archaeology Last year, some of us began conversations of Istanbul: An Archaeology of Sustenance,” a city of Mylasa (modern Milas) to the sanctuary, about why (with a few honorable exceptions) beautifully written and poignant account of the Stephen D. Houston and in Labraunda itself water was conspicuously Dupee Family Professor of Social Science there has been so little archaeological writing ongoing destruction of the Yedikule bostans displayed in a variety of ways. In the Hellenistic Professor of Archaeology that is accessible (gardens), next to the Theodosian fortification and Roman period, for example, massive gutters Brett Kaufman and intellectually walls, and the centuries-long intangible heritage Postdoctoral Fellow in Archaeology were centered over windows or made to spurt from engaging for non- they represent. Five other entries were selected monumental terrace walls. The sights and sounds of Miriam Müller specialists, and that as runners-up: “Digging Deep: A Hauntology of Cape Postdoctoral Fellow in Archaeology the crystalline liquid flowing through the architecture is not simply about Town” (Nick Shepherd), “Loot and the Biography of Pots” are easier to imagine now in the winter and spring James Osborne lucky discoveries, the (Vernon Silver), “Remembering Slack Farm” (A. Gwynn Postdoctoral Fellow in Archaeology thrill and romance than in the dry Turkish summer. But in antiquity, Henderson), “The Decline and Fall of the Classic Maya Matthew Reilly Labraunda would have offered a hydraulic spectacle of fieldwork, or City-State” (Keith Eppich), and “Origins: The Elusive Postdoctoral Fellow in Archaeology even in the summer, for there were at least three supposed mysteries Search for the First Native Americans” (Chip Colwell). Felipe Rojas that archaeology has fountain-houses with massive pools at the site. Two Assistant Professor of Archaeology not yet solved. It takes an imaginative and intelligent author All six essays will be published in the next volume of the of these fountains were located at opposite ends of the sanctuary to greet and Egyptology & Assyriology to turn archaeological ideas into clear and compelling prose – Joukowsky Institute Publication series, which will be devoted to pilgrims making their way from the cities of Milas and Alinda. Krysta Ryzewski Visiting Scholar in Archaeology and such an author need not necessarily be an archaeologist. this and other recent initiatives at the Institute that bring the The Brown University Labraunda Project (BULP), led by Brown University understanding and enjoyment of archaeology to the people. Andrew Scherer Assistant Professor Felipe Rojas, is excavating the grandest of these Assistant Professor of Anthropology and The Archaeology of North Africa: State of the Field 2014 monumental fountains. Previous scholars have associated the hypostyle Archaeology Since 2011, the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and by a discussion of the fountain with ornamental pools for sacred eels said by Pliny and Aelian to Peter van Dommelen have existed in the sanctuary. Although the project team has found absolutely Joukowsky Family Professor of Archaeology the Ancient World at Brown University has hosted an annual mobility of peoples and Professor of Anthropology workshop focused on the state of archaeological research in a materials across this no trace of the eels, BULP’s work has revealed a wealth of new information given region.

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