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[/vc_column_text][mk_image src=”http://www.asortest.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/social-fb-icon4.jpg” image_width=”42″ image_height=”42″ hover=”false” custom_url=”https://www.facebook.com/ASOResearch/” margin_bottom=”0″][mk_image src=”http://www.asortest.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/social-tw-icon4.jpg” image_width=”42″ image_height=”42″ hover=”false” custom_url=”https://twitter.com/ASOResearch?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor” margin_bottom=”0″][mk_image src=”http://www.asortest.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/social-in-icon4.jpg” image_width=”42″ image_height=”42″ hover=”false” custom_url=”https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-schools-of-oriental-research” margin_bottom=”0″][mk_image src=”http://www.asortest.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/social-ml-icon_7.jpg” image_width=”42″ image_height=”42″ hover=”false” custom_url=”mailto:info@asor.org” margin_bottom=”0″][mk_image src=”http://www.asortest.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/blog-icon3.jpg” image_width=”42″ image_height=”42″ hover=”false” custom_url=”http://asor.org/blog” margin_bottom=”0″][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(255,255,255,0.01)” width=”1/6″ css=”.vc_custom_1490365673198{margin-right: 20px !important;border-left-width: 2px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;border-left-color: #99422f !important;}” el_class=”sticky-sidenav”][mk_divider divider_color=”rgba(255,255,255,0.01)” thickness=”1″ margin_top=”3″ margin_bottom=”3″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”ca-sidebar-37292″ el_class=”.widget { overflow: hidden; margin-bottom: 0; }”][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(170,170,170,0.01)” width=”1/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1490225606852{margin-right: 10px !important;margin-bottom: 30px !important;border-right-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 30px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;border-right-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;border-bottom-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;}”][vc_column_text responsive_align=”left”]2025 CULTURAL HERITAGE COMMITTEE
Archived webpage for the 2025 Cultural Heritage Committee. This page has been replaced.
The Cultural Heritage Committee advises the President, the Executive Director, the Board, and other 17吃瓜leaders regarding initiatives 17吃瓜might undertake, either individually or jointly with other bodies in the field of cultural heritage,听to help protect and preserve the cultural heritage of the Near East. Pre-eminently, the Cultural Heritage Committee听advises the President, the Executive Director, the Board, and other 17吃瓜leaders regarding the 17吃瓜Cultural Heritage Initiatives program (17吃瓜CHI), regarding both current and prospective 17吃瓜CHI projects. The听Cultural Heritage Committee also advises the President,听and ASOR鈥檚 leadership more generally, regarding ways 17吃瓜might听interact with bodies such as the AIA Cultural Heritage Policy Committee and the SAA International Government Affairs Committee in formulating proposed policy positions or responses to various cultural heritage issues that the ASOR, the AIA, the SAA, and the AAA may jointly wish to champion and by helping draft statements or suggesting ASOR鈥檚 participation in actions initiated by others that work to safeguard cultural heritage. This committee reserves one line of membership for an Early Career Scholar and three lines of membership for 17吃瓜members from outside of North America, in countries where 17吃瓜promotes Cultural Heritage Initiatives.
Frederick Winter, Chair
Sharon Herbert, 17吃瓜President (ex-officio, voting)
Andy Vaughn, 17吃瓜Executive Director (ex-officio, non-voting)
Darren Ashby, 17吃瓜CHI Programs Manager (ex-officio, non-voting)
Class of 2025
Stephen Epstein (replacement term)
Yaroub al-Obaidi (1st term)
Ann Sahlman (replacement term)
Class of 2026
Barbara Anglisz (2nd term)
Andrew Cohen (2nd term)
Veronica Costarelli (1st term)
Michele Stopera Freyhauf (2nd term)
Sarah Graff (2nd term)
Nancy Serwint (1st term)
Class of 2027
Mohammed Faroug Ali (1st term)
Brian Facemire (1st term)
Patty Gerstenblith (1st term)
Edward M. Luby (1st term)
Elizabeth Molacek (1st term)
Jessica Robkin (1st term)[/vc_column_text][mk_divider][vc_column_text]
Archaeologists are moving away from the colonial past of the discipline and are increasingly finding ways of engaging and collaborating with the communities where we work. Since 2016, the University of Michigan archaeological project in northern Sudan that Dr. Emberling co-directs has been conducting research at important sites of the ancient empire of Kush, first at the royal pyramid cemetery of Kushite kings and queens at El-Kurru (ca. 850-350 BCE) and more recently at the major urban center at Jebel Barkal (ancient Napata). Their work has come to be highly collaborative and engages extensively with local communities.
This talk is not primarily about those excavations. Rather, it will discuss what has happened in Sudan since the outbreak of war in the country in April 2023 with a particular focus on heritage. It will provide an overview of the conflict, discuss real (and imagined) threats to museums, sites, and monuments, and discuss the wide range of responses by the Sudanese government, Sudanese scholars, international institutions, and foreign-based archaeologists. It will also focus on the work done with communities and colleagues at El-Kurru and Jebel Barkal.
Collaborative relationships developed by the teams and others working in Sudan have made it possible in some cases to continue to work together on on-site management and protection and community engagement, even at a time of unimaginable struggle and hardship in the country. This work has raised the question of whether it is unethical to be focusing on heritage when people are suffering. However, Dr. Emberling and his team have found that through collaborative work (and flexible and generous funding), they are able to provide direct support to a large number of people to continue their archaeological work. This provides meaning and purpose for their archaeological colleagues, while their community engagement activities offer opportunities for local residents and refugees to relax, connect, and even have some fun in the midst of a dire situation. It turns out that heritage is always about people.
Geoff Emberling is an archaeologist and museum curator at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan whose work has focused on the ancient Middle East and Northeast Africa. He is also a longtime 17吃瓜member. He directed excavations at Tell Brak in northeastern Syria until 2004 and then took a position as Museum Director and Chief Curator at what is now the Institute for the Study of Ancient Civilizations (ISAC) at the University of Chicago. While there, he supervised an exhibit on the looting of museums and sites in Iraq around the 2003 US-led invasion.
The land of ancient Thrace comprised present-day Bulgaria, much of Romania, and parts of Greece and Turkey, and the tribal peoples who inhabited these territories of the North Aegean region were the Thracians. They were renowned for their skill as warriors and horsemen, as well as for their wealth in precious metals, but they left few written records, and knowledge of their history and customs has long been dependent on brief accounts from ancient Greek authors, particularly Herodotus and Thucydides. Thracians appeared in Greek myth as formidable adversaries in the Trojan War, cruel kings, and followers of the god of spiritual ecstasy, Dionysos. Spectacular archaeological discoveries made in Thracian lands during modern times, however, have provided firsthand evidence of this remarkable culture, illuminating Thrace鈥檚 interactions with Greece, Persia, and Rome.
Dr. Sara E. Cole holds a PhD in Ancient History from Yale University and is an associate curator of antiquities at the Getty Villa Museum in Los Angeles, CA. Before joining the Getty in 2016, she served as the graduate curatorial intern in the antiquities department of the Yale University Art Gallery, where she worked with the YUAG鈥檚 collection of ancient glass and curated the 2017 exhibition 鈥淒rink That You May Live鈥�: Ancient Glass from the Yale University Art Gallery.