Penn Museum lunchtime lecture: Conservation of El Peru Figurine Group
Yesterday K and I took a long lunch to go to a lecture at the Penn Museum! The lunchtime lectures are 12:30-1:30 this year, as opposed to 12-1 like it was last year. K and I planned ahead and left the office by 11:45 and arrived at the Museum around 12:20--unlike at the two events last spring, we were so not late, we were actually early! We got good seats and were there for the beginning of the talk and everything. Score.
The lecture was titled "Scribes and Dwarves and a Toad, Oh, My!: Conservation of El Peru Figurine Group". Lynn Grant was a really engaging speaker, and her topic was fascinating. She's not an archaeologist but a conservator of ancient objects, and she's often consulted about how to conserve various items properly. In this case, a group of really neat Mayan figurines was discovered at a site in northern Guatemala, and Lynn was brought in first of all to conserve them and secondly to teach a young Guatemalan conservator how to do it. So her mission was doubly cool (working with unique objects, and educating the local talent). She talked about how she was recruited into doing this, how it was done, her experience in Guatemala, and all kinds of information about the figurines themselves. She was funny and smart and we totally loved her talk. And K and I were both all grumpy about work yesterday and considered not going, but then we were so glad we did.
Note for next time: pick up some lunch for K on the way over, even if she doesn't feel hungry, or otherwise her stomach may rumble dramatically halfway through the lecture.
The lecture was titled "Scribes and Dwarves and a Toad, Oh, My!: Conservation of El Peru Figurine Group". Lynn Grant was a really engaging speaker, and her topic was fascinating. She's not an archaeologist but a conservator of ancient objects, and she's often consulted about how to conserve various items properly. In this case, a group of really neat Mayan figurines was discovered at a site in northern Guatemala, and Lynn was brought in first of all to conserve them and secondly to teach a young Guatemalan conservator how to do it. So her mission was doubly cool (working with unique objects, and educating the local talent). She talked about how she was recruited into doing this, how it was done, her experience in Guatemala, and all kinds of information about the figurines themselves. She was funny and smart and we totally loved her talk. And K and I were both all grumpy about work yesterday and considered not going, but then we were so glad we did.
Note for next time: pick up some lunch for K on the way over, even if she doesn't feel hungry, or otherwise her stomach may rumble dramatically halfway through the lecture.