Penn Museum Events: The Land of Cypriot Aphrodite and the Kingdom of Ancient Paphos
Last night's lecture at the Penn Museum was excellent. Maria Iacovou (ya-CO-voo), a visiting scholar from Cyprus, gave the lecture and it was fantastic. Well structured, well delivered (much better than the last lecturer, and Dr. Iacovou clearly isn't a native English speaker), with really interesting content. She told us about the ancient city of Palaepaphos (which sounds much cooler when she says it) on the island of Cyprus, and how it was the mythological birthplace of Aphrodite, making it a holy site for pilgrimages. The kings of Palaepaphos were both kings and priests of the goddess. Dr. Iacovou's presentation not only included interesting historical details but also described how she and her team have struggled to excavate and explore the monuments of Cyprus while also protecting them from developers. In order to work faster and thwart the people who want to develop the land (thus destroying the artifacts), she's turned to GIS and other high-tech forms of mapping to know better where to dig and what she's likely to find there. Once they have confirmed a site's importance, it's protected by Cyprus's government and she goes on to try to save another site, in the process learning about the land's history. For example, the people in this part of Cyprus today have been growing cane sugar for generations, but they have no idea that their ancestors were mining copper. Also, due to silt carried by the rivers, the ports keep getting blocked in, which is what led to Palaepaphos being abandoned and a new Paphos being built farther north on the coast.
This was a really interesting talk with an engaging speaker. People had lots of questions and she answered them beautifully. K and I were wishing that we could go to her other lectures this week. Her lecture today is on the ancient Cypriot syllabic script, which you know is right up my alley, but I don't think I can really get away from work for three hours this afternoon.
After the lecture, K and I had some time to wander, so we checked out a small gallery on the Lenape that neither of us had seen before. Really neat stuff--I hadn't known that the local Lenape had intermarried with German farmers in the 1800s (which the German farmers welcomed, thinking, hey, hard-working women!) and hid their native culture for generations. Only in recent decades have the local Lenape been able to open up and meet with Lenape from other regions. Interesting stuff.
Yesterday was the last day of the mummies in the Silk Road exhibit, so we avoided that end of the museum entirely. Very crowded. Where we were, though, was nice.
This was a really interesting talk with an engaging speaker. People had lots of questions and she answered them beautifully. K and I were wishing that we could go to her other lectures this week. Her lecture today is on the ancient Cypriot syllabic script, which you know is right up my alley, but I don't think I can really get away from work for three hours this afternoon.
After the lecture, K and I had some time to wander, so we checked out a small gallery on the Lenape that neither of us had seen before. Really neat stuff--I hadn't known that the local Lenape had intermarried with German farmers in the 1800s (which the German farmers welcomed, thinking, hey, hard-working women!) and hid their native culture for generations. Only in recent decades have the local Lenape been able to open up and meet with Lenape from other regions. Interesting stuff.
Yesterday was the last day of the mummies in the Silk Road exhibit, so we avoided that end of the museum entirely. Very crowded. Where we were, though, was nice.