Date:
Location:
It is my pleasure to invite you to the twenty-eighth and last meeting of the season for the Harvard History and Archaeology of Ancient Near Eastern Societies Workshop.
Our speaker is Melissa Cradic of the University of California, Berkeley, with a brief introduction by Robert Homsher, who will speak to us about exciting new discoveries made at the site of Megiddo.
The meeting takes place on Wednesday, April 26th at 5:15 pm in HSM 201.
As always, a reception will follow the event.
Kind regards,
Gojko Barjamovic
barjamovic @ fas.harvard.edu
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Melissa Cradic
Ph.D. Candidate, University of California, Berkeley
Educational & Cultural Affairs Research Fellow
W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research
“DOCUMENTING THE DEAD AT MIDDLE BRONZE AGE MEGIDDO”
(with a brief introduction by Robert Homsher)
Wednesday, April 26th, 2017, at 5:15 p.m.
Semitic Museum, Room 201 ~~ 6 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA
Recent seasons of excavation at Tel Megiddo have brought to light several aspects of Middle Bronze Age mortuary practices, and have been instrumental in contextualizing finds from previous expeditions at the site. In particular, work from the 2016 excavation season uncovered Tomb 50, which is a constructed chamber tomb that contained at least nine individuals buried alongside a rich assemblage of ceramic vessels, precious metals, and incised bone objects. The context exhibits clear evidence of re-use and provides detailed insights into life and death of an elite population at the end of the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 17th century BCE). The excavation of Tomb 50 was documented in unparalleled spatial resolution using 3D photogrammetry, and the finds are under comprehensive study by an interdisciplinary team of collaborators. The talk presents a preliminary summary of this exceptional burial context and the new excavation and research methods used to document and analyze the finds. From burial taphonomy to material sciences, our set of analyses will contribute to on-going research about funerary activities at Megiddo during this period. The high-resolution data from in and around this tomb provide an excellent case study to answer questions about the relationships between the deceased individuals in life and after death.
SPEAKERS IN 2016/17
Andrew George (SOAS) Sep 27
Michael Kozuh (Auburn) Oct 5
Andrew McCarthy (Edinburgh) Nov 9
Piotr Steinkeller (Harvard) Jan 25
Haider Almamori (Iraq SBAH) Feb 8
Kurt Raaflaub (Brown) Mar 1 Postponed for the Fall of 2017
Hakan Erol (Ankara) Mar 8
Laura Hawkins (Brown) Apr 12
Melissa Cradic & Robert Homsher (Berkeley and Albright Inst.) Apr 26