Greek pots and classicists
Sep. 24th, 2023 07:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anefThis weekend it's Cambridge Alumni Weekend. The university puts on a weekend of talks and reunion sessions for alumni. There's a tent on the Sidgwick site with refreshments and free tote bags. I signed up for a few talks and spent yesterday pedalling to and from the Sidgwick site.
Mindfulness for better sleep
I was late for this (due to oversleeping!) and arrived during a guided meditation. In the silence my footsteps were embarrassingly loud on the wooden stairs of the lecture theatre. Unfortunately I felt that I had missed the best bit.
The Trumpington Bed burial
At Newnham Dr Sam Lucy talked about the dig and finds from the archaeological site, which is close to Waitrose on the south of Cambridge. The deceased was an older teenager buried in a wooden bed frame, dressed in her best clothes and jewels ready (as one of the audience pointed out) for the resurrection of her body on the last day. Her bones had signs of ill-health, and DNA testing showed that she had been born in Germany, so would have been an actual Saxon. This was completely fascinating.
Handling session
This was a small group at the Museum of Classical Archaeology, which I had never visited since it moved from its old site in Mill Lane to the Sidgwick site in (ahem!) 1982. A young and enthusiastic academic (whose name I have shamefully forgotten) passed round a selection of Greek pots and sherds to fondle. I had never actally held an ancient Greek pot in my hands, and this made me so happy!
They included some small perfume oil pots (Corinthian ware, black figures on a cream background)), a kylix (black figure) which was a shallow drinking cup of the kind that they used in symposia, and a fragment from the rim of a krater (large wine mixing vessel).
The kylix had been broken and mended many times, the first time in antiquity with small bronze rivets. As these were designed for drinking parties there were often funny or trick pictures which were revealed as the cup was emptied. The design in the centre of the inside might be a humorous or grotesque picture for the drinker to look at, and the outside was painted so that as it was tipped up the other drinkers could see it. There might be a pair of eyes so that as the holder drank he seemed to be looking out through it. These were the cups they used for drinking games and the presenter demostrated the flick of the wrist needed to send the lees flying across the room.
...and party!
After this we went into the cast gallery next door where there was a small reception with wine (classicists, what can you do!) and we had a lovely natter with some of the faculty members. I didn't happen to know anyone but the academics were very happy to talk about their specialisms and it was good to chat with the other attendees about what they were doing now. (A surprising number turned out to be in finance, so I wasn't the odd one out.)
Mindfulness for better sleep
I was late for this (due to oversleeping!) and arrived during a guided meditation. In the silence my footsteps were embarrassingly loud on the wooden stairs of the lecture theatre. Unfortunately I felt that I had missed the best bit.
The Trumpington Bed burial
At Newnham Dr Sam Lucy talked about the dig and finds from the archaeological site, which is close to Waitrose on the south of Cambridge. The deceased was an older teenager buried in a wooden bed frame, dressed in her best clothes and jewels ready (as one of the audience pointed out) for the resurrection of her body on the last day. Her bones had signs of ill-health, and DNA testing showed that she had been born in Germany, so would have been an actual Saxon. This was completely fascinating.
Handling session
This was a small group at the Museum of Classical Archaeology, which I had never visited since it moved from its old site in Mill Lane to the Sidgwick site in (ahem!) 1982. A young and enthusiastic academic (whose name I have shamefully forgotten) passed round a selection of Greek pots and sherds to fondle. I had never actally held an ancient Greek pot in my hands, and this made me so happy!
They included some small perfume oil pots (Corinthian ware, black figures on a cream background)), a kylix (black figure) which was a shallow drinking cup of the kind that they used in symposia, and a fragment from the rim of a krater (large wine mixing vessel).
The kylix had been broken and mended many times, the first time in antiquity with small bronze rivets. As these were designed for drinking parties there were often funny or trick pictures which were revealed as the cup was emptied. The design in the centre of the inside might be a humorous or grotesque picture for the drinker to look at, and the outside was painted so that as it was tipped up the other drinkers could see it. There might be a pair of eyes so that as the holder drank he seemed to be looking out through it. These were the cups they used for drinking games and the presenter demostrated the flick of the wrist needed to send the lees flying across the room.
...and party!
After this we went into the cast gallery next door where there was a small reception with wine (classicists, what can you do!) and we had a lovely natter with some of the faculty members. I didn't happen to know anyone but the academics were very happy to talk about their specialisms and it was good to chat with the other attendees about what they were doing now. (A surprising number turned out to be in finance, so I wasn't the odd one out.)
no subject
Date: 2023-09-24 05:13 pm (UTC)https://www.tpt.org/minnesota-experience/video/bound-by-earth-archaeology-in-minnesota-37229/
It's not the pot sherds and drinking vessels that animate local conversations about archaeology, but stone tool making, flint knapping, and chert. Did you see that the Hopewell site in Ohio was added to the Unesco World Heritage list last week? That is an older culture than the native ones we in MN have remnants of. Mostly, our pre-history cultures in MN left little to be discovered today.
Finding a Saxon burial IS truly fascinating.
K.