Developing and Supporting Cultural Heritage Initiatives

Penn Museum

University of Pennsylvania

SPRING 2013 Schedule of Events

Thursday, January 10

Saint Helena– A Lost Island?

LECTURE and DISCUSSION

Ben Jeffs

Blackfreighter Archaeology and Conservation

TIME: 12:30 pm

LOCATION: Classroom 2, Penn Museum

TOPIC: Saint Helena is, conceptually and physically, in the middle of a triangle, with points in the Americas, England and India. Once a global crossroads, its cliffs are now hung with 17th century fortifications, sliding into the crashing South Atlantic; plantation houses litter its valleys, decayed and choked by jungle; and a unique cemetery of thousands of slaves, freed from the clutches of the later trade, is threatened by development. This is a tale of fragile potential on one of the most remote inhabited places on earth and a four year project to explore and save it.

Thursday, February 21

Ancient Artifacts In Court: How the Case of Rubin v. Iran Could Affect Museums

TOPIC: Ms. Laina Lopez, Berliner Corcoran & Rowe LLP, is one of the attorneys representing Iran in a fascinating lawsuit captioned Rubin v. Iran. Ms. Lopez will explain the history and impact of this lawsuit, which involves ancient artifact collections housed at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, the Field Museum in Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and Harvard University. Ms. Lopez will explore the allegations of the plaintiffs, a group of persons who were injured in a terrorist bombing in Israel, as well as the defenses of the museums and Iran. She also will discuss the concerns of the museum community vis a vis this important piece of litigation.

LECTURE and DISCUSSION

Laina Lopez

Berliner, Corcoran & Rowe, LLP

TIME: 12:30 pm

LOCATION: Nevil Classroom, Penn Museum

Wednesday, March 13

Syrian Cultural Heritage in the Crossfire: Past, Present and Continuity

TOPIC: Syria’s cultural heritage has fallen prey to conflict between regime militias and armed rebels taking place across the country. Damage to cultural heritage sites, including WHS, museums and cultural landscape has been documented by several associations/organizations. Both the regime army and the Free Syrian Army have exchanged accusations of the destruction of Syria’s heritage sites and used it for propaganda purposes. The regime blames the “terrorists” of the FSA for the looting, while the opposition emphasizes the military’s indiscriminate use of heavy artillery against historic sites where rebels are hiding. Despite the vocal condemnation for the destruction in the media, yet, a main concern for cultural heritage at this tragic time is considered by many ordinary Syrians as indifference to the losses of thousands of lives.

While the destruction of the ancient past may seem insignificant compared with present-day atrocities, the irrecoverable damage to cultural heritage might have a severe impact on the cultural identity of the Syrians who survive this war. In this presentation I demonstrate how the damage to the Syrian cultural heritage is not merely the loss of magnificent historical monuments but rather an acute disruption of a dynamic past with its living historical places and traditions. With the end of the active combat and the start of recovery, there will be a psychological need to restore cultural heritage and re-establish the fundamental identity ties of the Syrian people to this heritage.

LECTURE and DISCUSSION

Salam al-Kuntar

University of Pennsylvania

TIME: 12:30 pm

LOCATION: Nevil Classroom, Penn Museum

Soldier near the Al-Hosn Crusaders Citadel

Aramaic Persepolis Tablet

Drawing of Ships off the Coast of St. Helena

Thursday, February 7

Contested Heritage: Archaeology Museums in Turkey

LECTURE and DISCUSSION

Laurent Dissard

University of Pennsylvania

TIME: 12:30 pm

LOCATION: Nevil Classroom, Penn Museum

TOPIC: Turkey will soon be home to a series of new, state-of-the-art, archaeology museums. Such buildings are being planned, constructed, remodeled, or expanded in Istanbul, Ankara, Gaziantep, and other places. What kind of cultural heritage will these new museums display? These secular temples of the Turkish Republic have generally emphasized the country's “10,000-year-old” past. In this historical narrative, different Turkish cities usually trace their roots back to the Neolithic. But, what other stories are left out of this narrative? How have these new museums attempted to display these silenced stories? In this talk I take Turkey as a specific case-study to argue that contested heritage seldom feels at home in archaeological museums.

SPEAKER BIO: Laurent is currently an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Penn Humanities Forum. He teaches a seminar entitled “Turkey Past & Present” in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Penn. Laurent received his PhD in 2011 in Near Eastern Studies from the University of California, Berkeley with a dissertation on the history of the Keban Dam Rescue Project in Eastern Turkey. He is currently writing a book manuscript entitled "Submerged Stories in Eastern Turkey," which deals with the Politics of Archaeology in Eastern Turkey.

Interior, Old Museum

SPEAKER BIO: Ms. Lopez is an attorney with Berliner, Corcoran & Rowe, LLP, a law firm in Washington, D.C. Ms. Lopez represents a variety of international and domestic clients in federal and state courts at both the trial and appellate levels. She focuses on complex civil and criminal litigation involving the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, the Alien Tort Statute, and other federal statutes. She has guest lectured on foreign sovereign immunity and in particular on the case of Rubin v. Iran at Columbia University and Tulsa University, and has served as a speaker on several panels addressing international law and cultural heritage issues. She is also a Co-Vice Chair for the American Bar Association’s Art and Cultural Heritage Law Committee.

SPEAKER BIO: Salam Al Kuntar is a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2009. Her research interests centre upon the archaeology of the Near East exploring a wide variety of themes such as ancient economy and urbanism, human mobility and cultural boundaries, forced migration, archaeology and cultural heritage. She has long worked for the Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums in Syria and participated in numerous archaeological projects. She is the co-director of the Tell Hamoukar Project in northeast Syria.

Tuesday, March 19

Antiquities and Museum Acquisitions: Penn Museum

Leading the Way

TOPIC: In 1970, the Penn Museum stopped acquiring antiquities that had been looted from their archaeological context and illegally exported from their country of origin. The Pennsylvania Declaration, signed in April of 1970, made this museum a leader in the fight to stop the destruction of the world’s ancient heritage. This presentation presents the context for this important decision.

LECTURE and DISCUSSION

Richard M. Leventhal

University of Pennsylvania

C. Brian Rose

University of Pennsylvania

TIME: 6:00 pm

LOCATION: Rainey Auditorium, Penn Museum

Troy gold

SPEAKER BIO: Dr. Leventhal is a Professor in the University of Pennsylvania Department of Anthropology and Curator in the American Section of the Penn Museum. He is also the former Director of the Penn Museum, President and CEO of the School of American Research in Santa Fe, Director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at UCLA, and Director of the Institute for Mesoamerican Studies at SUNY-Albany. He has done extensive archaeological field research in Belize, Mexico, and other parts of Central America for over thirty years, which has resulted in several monographs and books about the ancient Maya. Dr. Leventhal lectures and writes extensively on the preservation of cultural properties and cultural sites, on the need to prevent the looting of global heritage resources, and on the acquisition policies of museums.

Elizabeth Watts and Howard C. Petersen

Memorial Lecture