September 24th, 2016
2:00 pm Third session – “Breaking methodological boundaries”: Introduction – Samantha Lash (Brown University)
2:10 pm Pearce Paul Creasman (University of Arizona) – Expanding Methodological Boundaries in Egyptian Archaeology by Land and by Sea (or River!)
As a result of the practice of ritually provisioning the dead for the afterlife and a climate favorable to preservation, ancient Egypt is today one of the most inspiring and alluring cultures in human history. Over the past two centuries, Egypt has been the subject of thousands of archaeological investigations that have added immensely to the collective understanding of its ancient culture and the world around it. While certain fundamental methodological advances in archaeology arose from these excavations (e.g., contextual seriation), archaeology in Egypt has yet to realize the full value of several other prominent and well-established modes of inquiry. This paper discusses the potential of two such disciplines and presents collaborative possibilities for moving forward with them: dendrochronology and maritime/underwater archaeology.
2:30 pm Willeke Wendrich (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA) – Real Data, Virtual Reality: Theories of Visualization
Egyptology has developed in a direction that is increasingly multi-disciplinary. When studying coffin texts, it is no longer sufficient to compare different printed text versions. In addition, the provenance, location of the text on the coffin, name and titles of owner, decorative schema and the materials used, all provide information relevant to the interpretation and the understanding of the religious and social context. Similarly, archaeology deals with sets of information provided by different specialists in various formats ranging from notebooks, spreadsheets, databases, maps and photographs to geophysical data and results of chemical and DNA analysis. To integrate and combine the results of complex research data visualization is an important tool, provided that it is used in a well-theorized way.
2:50 pm Response: N. Parker VanValkenburgh (Brown University)
3:10 pm Discussion
Post time: Jun-13-2017