Featured Archives - Page 5 of 9

Movie: A Documentary about Sir Flinders Petrie

Posted in 2015 - 2016, Event, Featured, Movie

Date: 7:30 – 9:00 pm, 04-Dec-2015

Cost: Meetings are Free to members, Guests $5 – Students with ID $2

2015 Calgary Holiday Meeting presents a Documentary about Sir Flinders Petrie

Description:

With the holiday season fast approaching, we thought it would be best to present a short (1 hour) documentary about Sir Flinders Petrie. Join us to follow the film’s investigators as they trace the long career of Petrie and his relationship with the foundations of archaeology. Also feel free to stick around and partake in some food and drink as we share our love of all things Egyptology-related. Most of all, even if you do not come to the film’s showing, we want to extend the warmest wishes to our membership on this holiday season.

Location:

Room EDC 287 in the Education Block at the University of Calgary.

Lecture: The Most Recent Destruction of the Assyrian Empire in the Wake of the Syrian Conflict

Posted in 2015 - 2016, Featured, Guest Speaker, Lecture

Date: 7:30 – 9:00 pm, 06-Nov-2015

Cost: Meetings are Free to members, Guests $5 – Students with ID $2

‘Nineveh has been ravaged! Who will console her?’: The Most Recent Destruction of the Assyrian Empire in the Wake of the Syrian Conflict

Description:

With the rise of ISIL in the midst of a destabilized Syria, archaeological sites and materials have increasingly become the target of hostile actions and their destruction has come to be part of the larger discourse surrounding the political situation. This talk will look in particular at the site of Nimrud, which was recently destroyed by ISIL. Excavated by Austen Henry Layard in the 19^th century, the city was initially misidentified as Nineveh and the unearthing of its fabulous palace spurred interest in Mesopotamian archaeology. The excavation of the site will be recounted and the some of the major finds shall be surveyed. The talk shall explore some of the public discourse that emerged around the site and how the archaeological findings became part of the larger public imagination of ancient times. The destruction of the site by ISIL shall be documented and larger issues surrounding the plight of archaeological materials in unstable political environments shall be discussed.

About the speaker:

Kevin McGeough is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Lethbridge. He is the author of numerous books including a three-volume series called The Ancient Near East in the Nineteenth Century, published by Sheffield Phoenix Press. He was the editor of ASOR’s Archaeological Report Series for six years and is currently the editor of The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research.

Location:

Room EDC 287 in the Education Block at the University of Calgary.

Lecture: Herodotus and the Technologies of the Egyptians

Posted in 2014 - 2015, Event, Featured, Guest Speaker, Lecture

Date: 7:30 – 9:00 pm, 06-Mar-2015

Cost: Meetings are Free to members, Guests $5 – Students with ID $2

Description:

The Greek historian Herodotus is said to have visited Egypt in the mid-fifth century BCE to research background for his study of the two great wars between the Greeks and the Persians. Book Two of his Histories gives a long and detailed account of Egypt’s political and military exploits from the Bronze Age to the Classical period, and contains the world’s first ethnographic account of a foreign people, their society, and their technologies. The last of these is the focus of this evening’s presentation, which will explore the evidence that Herodotus has left us about Egyptian agriculture, language, and construction. His account of the building of Khufu’s pyramid, for one famous example, is the only ancient written source on the topic, but was hardly contemporary: Herodotus was as far removed from the Fourth Dynasty pharaohs as we are from the Roman conquest of Provence. We’ll try to sort out what was factual from uninformed hearsay.

About the speaker:

John Humphrey recently retired after 41 years of teaching and research in the Department of Greek and Roman Studies at the University of Calgary. Originally a Roman imperial historian, his interests wandered first into archaeology (he spent three decades on excavations in Greece and Turkey) and then to the history of ancient technology (the subject of his two books). He has led dozens of UofC travel study tours to all but four of the Mediterranean countries, including Egypt, Libya, Syria, Greece, and Turkey.

Location:

Room EDC 287 in the Education Block at the University of Calgary.

Lecture: Medicine, Health and Disease in Ancient Egypt

Posted in 2014 - 2015, Event, Featured, Lecture

Date: 7:30 – 9:00 pm, 06-Feb-2015

Cost: Meetings are Free to members, Guests $5 – Students with ID $2

Description:

Ancient Egyptians endured a wide variety of threats to health and life, including trauma, acute and chronic infections, parasites and tumors. Their treatments for these were amulets and magic, prayers and numerous medical prescriptions, none very effective. This lecture will illustrate diseases and treatments from Egyptian tombs, mummies and papyri.

About the speaker:

Julius Szekrenyes is the Calgary Chapter’s SSEA president. He has had a life-long interest in Ancient Egypt and has taught Ancient Egyptian history at U. of C. Continuing Education for 16 years.

Location:

Room EDC 287 in the Education Block at the University of Calgary.

Lecture: Discussions about Verdi’s Aida

Posted in 2014 - 2015, Featured, Guest Speaker, Lecture

Date: 7:30 – 9:00 pm, 07-Nov-2014

Cost: Meetings are Free to members, Guests $5 – Students with ID $2

Description:

This talk will introduce Verdi’s Aida in the historical and political context in which it was composed. The talk with discuss the concept of “oriental” music as it was understood in Europe during the nineteenth century and the way in which the opera is given a distinctive sound that was intended to be understood as “Egyptian.” The talk will also treat the controversy that has surrounded this opera in recent years concerning its status as a “political” work.

About the speaker:

Kenneth DeLong was born in Nova Scotia and raised in India, where he received his initial training in music at a missionary boarding school. His undergraduate work was completed at Acadia University, with concentrations in music and European history. Following a year teaching music in Newfoundland, he attended the University of Manitoba, where he took his B.Mus. (Hons). In 1969 he moved to California to attend Stanford University, where he completed a Ph.D. in musicology. In 1974 he joined the Music Department of The University of Calgary and is currently a professor of music history.

Outside his university activities, Kenneth DeLong is the Calgary correspondent for Opera Canada, the classical music reviewer for The Calgary Herald, and for 25 years years taught a course called Opera, Anyone? for the Calgary School in conjunction with Calgary Opera.

His interest in opera is of long duration, beginning initially with his involvement in Gilbert and Sullivan productions in India, and continuing during his years as a university student in Winnipeg and California, where he participated in the preparation of productions of The Magic Flute, Dido and Aeneas, Rusalka, Hansel and Gretel, H.M.S. Pinafore, and La Bohéme. At the University of Calgary, he regularly teaches courses on the history of opera and on the Broadway musical.

Location:

Room EDC 287 in the Education Block at the University of Calgary.

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