UE Announces Co-Sponsorship of the Jezreel Expedition

The University of Evansville has officially announced its co-sponsorship of the Jezreel Expedition, Israel, with the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa.  Project directors are Jennie Ebeling, chair of UE's Department of Archaeology and Art History, and Norma Franklin of the Zinman Institute.  Eight UE archaeology students will travel to Israel June 1-22 to participate in a two-week survey season at Jezreel and one week of excavations at nearby Megiddo.  Stay tuned, as we're planning to bring many more students to Jezreel to excavation in summer 2013!  For more information, see the Jezreel Expedition's website.

Student Brianna M. to present at Evansville's Willard Library

On Thursday April 19 at 2:00 pm, sophomore archaeology and history major Brianna McLaughlin will give a presentation entitled "Evansville's 'Home of the Friendless:' The Early Years of the Vanderburgh Christian Home.  Brianna is an intern at the Willard Library this semester, and one of her projects has been to transcribe records from the Vanderburgh Christian Home.  The Home opened in 1870 as a 'maternity home' and was one of the first of its kind in the Midwest.  The program is free and open to the public; please see the Willard website for information on how to reserve a place.

Food and Drink in Antiquity End-of-Semester Banquet

Students in ARCH 492: Food and Drink in Antiquity celebrated the end of the semester with a banquet of food prepared using ancient recipes. Highlights included stew, various dishes cooked in fish sauce, and a number of delicious desserts.  After students talked about the dishes they had researched and prepared, we watched the incredible banquet scene in Fellini's Satyricon.  Two students also gave their semester project presentations; Abigail D., who made a limestone mortar, is featured below.



Nate and his stew.

Lizzie and kebabs.

Hilda and Nate at the dessert table.



A toast to archaeology!



Abigail and her labor-intensive mortar.



Curiosities Exhibit in the Krannert Gallery

Senior archaeology major Emma D. is showing a small exhibit called "Curiosities" in the Krannert Gallery of Fine Arts Lobby on the UE campus April 9-27, 2012.  This exhibit, which is based on an assignment Emma completed for the course "Museum Studies" last fall, compares portraits of average people and circus performers taken in the late 19th century and tells the stories of the individuals in the photographs.

Late 19th century photographs on display in the "Curiosities" exhibit.

Theresa H. ('02) Receives Etruscan Foundation Research Fellowship and the Bothmer Predoctoral Fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

This spring I was recipient of both the Etruscan Foundation Research Fellowship, intended to fund the work of advanced PhD students and junior faculty in Etruscan art and archaeology, as well as the Bothmer Predoctoral Fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an academic year in-residence fellowship where I will be working with Dr. Carlos Picon, Curator of Greek and Roman Art, to study the objects relating to my dissertation in their collection, as well as their other Etruscan holdings.

My dissertation is entitled "Eternal Personae: Chiusine Cinerary Urns and the Construction of Etruscan Identity." My project is a cross-collection study of Hellenistic period Etruscan cinerary urns produced at the site of Chiusi. The urns are made of terracotta or stone and are composed of a cask, usually decorated with mythological relief scenes, as well as the name of the deceased, and the lid which bears a three-dimensional effigy of the deceased either in a banqueting posture or a fully recumbent pose. There has yet to be a systematic study of the sculpted, figural lids, and I also seek to redefine the Etruscan conception of portraiture and identity as it has been discussed in previous scholarship. Rather than a simple reflection of physical appearance, I argue that the Etruscan mortuary “portrait” was performative, a collection of mutually affirming social indicators that reflected familial relationships, prestige derived from participation in elite banqueting customs, and the need for the deceased to maintain agency in the afterlife through the lid figure, an animated funerary effigy.

An urn at the British Museum.

Two UE Archaeology Majors Present at NCUR

We are very pleased that two of the eight UE students who presented at the 2012 National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) held at Weber State University in Ogden, UT March 29-31 were archaeology majors!  Elizabeth B. presented a poster entitled "University of Evansville Veterans: Civil War to Afghanistan and Iraq" and Rachel L. presented a paper entitled "Castles, Confusion, and the Count: Vlad the Impaler's Impact on Tourism in Romania."  Both presentations were very well received and Rachel has been invited to publish hers in the NCUR 2012 Proceedings!  Elizabeth and Rachel had a great time and recommend that other students take advantage of this opportunity to present their original research.

History major Ashley M., Rachel and Elizabeth at Weber State.

Elizabeth with her poster.