Wednesday, April 29, 2009

New York, New Yorke

After Mo's recent visit to DU, Mo & Yo re-grouped at LGA to visit NYC (how's that for a lot of abbreviations!?). After H. and B. bailed at the last minute, we luckily found room in a Manhattan hotel near the theater district. Mo was there for work this week; Yo was there to distract her and make a weekend of it.



Luckily the weather was perfect, if a bit warm by Sunday, and so we wandered all over the place. Although we wanted to get tickets for a play, we were too impatient to stand in long lines when there was so much to explore on such a nice day. We wandered through the Flatiron district, stopped at Washington Park, through the NYU campus and down to Tribeca; on the way we visited a farmer's market and enjoyed visiting various parks with trees in full blossom.


Mo at the Flatiron building.



Although there was a jazz band playing in one park, there was a much larger crowd on the other side. Wandering over, it seems there was a dachsund convention -- there were hundreds of them, long hairs, short hairs, miniatures (?) and ones with fat bellies dragging on the ground.




Many hot dachsunds


We stopped in Chinatown for lunch, and later we met JoGo and Pri in a coffee shop. On the way back up town, we stopped in a SoHo restaurant for martinis, a wonderful meal and ignored our blistering feet.


The next day, after buying new flip flops for Mo so that she wouldn't have to spend another day walking around in tall winter leather boots, we headed out to Brooklyn to visit S, B, and their two boys. Yet another beautiful sunny (and increasing hot!) day was spent catching up.

Mo is still in Manhattan, talking to new contacts and friends. She might post separately on that. Last night was the gala event at the Archaeological Institute of America, a pricey affair that Mo wangled an invite to...honoring Harrison Ford. This was to include a "Greco-Roman cocktail reception and silent auction"...followed by a "traditional Maya feast" with awards presentation and live auction, closing with live music, dancing, with "international desserts and drinks". (Watch out for those dates!).

Unfortunately, Harrison was a no-show. Perhaps he was worried that Mo would want to discuss portrayals of ethical archaeologists in his next I. J. movie. Apparently a good time was had by all anyway, and Harrison sent a video to accept his award.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Archaeology, Politics and the Media

Many an archaeologist would like to claim, and may even believe, that archaeology has little to do with politics. But you don't have to look far to find archaeology that serves, or is used by, those with an agenda, whether it is for profit, land claims, nationalism or even to support (or disprove) religious beliefs - to name a few possibilities.

Mo is on her way to a symposium planned by Professor Eric Meyers at Duke University entitled Archaeology, Politics and the Media,
http://jewishstudies.aas.duke.edu/center/announcements.php for Thursday and Friday to address the ways in which archaeology is promoted, used, or misrepresented; it is free and open to the public. Her paper will be on "The Power of the Press Release and Popular Magazines on the Antiquities Trade".

Other interesting stuff includes discussions by other luminaries such as Eric Cline “Fabulous Finds and Fantastic Forgeries: The Distortion of Archaeology by the Media (Pseudoarchaeology)", Jodi Magness "Confessions of an Archaeologist: Lessons I Learned from the Talpiyot Tomb Fiasco and Other Media Encounters” and Eric Meyers “The Quest for the Temple Mount: the Settler Movement and National Parks in Israel”, to name but a few.

You can follow along on the blogosphere through Prof. Mark Goodacre (Duke), who will be posting on twitter at:
http://twitter.com/goodacre

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Yeah for Yo!

Coming soon to a library near you - the latest issue of the Journal of World Prehistory, with the feature article - The Chalcolithic Period of the Southern Levant: A Synthetic Review by Y.M. Rowan and J. Golden. Yeah! This article has been a long time coming and it is great that it is finally out. At the moment it is only available online, but the hard copy will be out soon. Contact Yo for a pdf if you want to learn all there is know about the Chalcolithic of the Southern Levant!