Date: January 25
Time: 2:00
Location: Scarsdale Public Library, Scarsdale, NY

Hatshepsut, the women who became king, is a figure known to people outside the field of Egyptology. She regularly appears in public school textbooks and remains a figure of fascination millennia after her reign as Pharaoh. She recently was the subject of a traveling exhibit "Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh" which included many items from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum. The speaker was the curator of the exhibit. Her talk covers the queens of the late 17th and early 18th Dynasties at Thebes and covers Hatshepsut as both Queen Regent and as Pharaoh.

Catharine H. Roehrig is a Curator, Department of Egyptian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. This lecture is offered through the Westchester Society, Archaeological Institute of America

Date: January 26
Time: 7:00
Location: Jewish Community Center, 334 Amsterdam Ave (7th Floor), New York, NY

In II Kings 8:7-15, we find the only Biblical narrative to describe the anointing of a non-Israelite king. Ought we to see this narrative as historical?  New information from archaeology and epigraphy allows us to see this narrative not as a reportage of history, but as a historical critique of the king's royal propaganda. Biblical narratives do not report history, but present a perspective on history, and this particular narrative has implications for political thought.

Shawn Zelig Aster has taught Bible and Biblical History at Bar-Ilan and Hebrew Universities in Israel, and was a Kreitman Foundation Fellow at Ben-Gurion University. He is Assistant Professor of Bible at Yeshiva University, and writes on Bible, Assyriology, and the Ancient Near East.

Non-members should register at www.jccmanhattan.org at $15

Date: February 8
Time: 2:00 PM
Location: Alice Desmond and Hamilton Fish Library, Route 9D, Garrison

Drawing on the material in her recently-published book The Hudson: America's River, Dunwell recounts how the Hudson powered the growth of the country’s greatest industrial and financial empire and also produced leading American artists, writers, engineers and environmentalists. Her dramatic tales bring to life the stories of visionary people who change the direction of our national history even today, inspired by their deep relationship with the river. Using slides of Hudson River School paintings and period engravings, she captures the spirit of the river through the eyes of its many admirers. She makes the case for conserving the Hudson as a source of creative inspiration and as a crucial link in the web of life that supports the human and natural community.

Copies of The Hudson: America’s River will be available for purchase. All royalties from sale of the book are being donated to conservation of the river.

Fran Dunwell is the author of The Hudson River Highlands (1991) and The Hudson: America’s River (2008) and has spent the over thirty years in a number of nonprofit and governmental positions dedicated to conserving the natural and historic heritage of the Hudson River.

Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the New York Council for the Humanities or National Endowment for the Humanities.

Dates: February 10 and 11
Time: 7:00
Location: Jewish Community Center, 334 Amsterdam Avenue (7th Floor), New York, NY

1. While the Book of Deuteronomy (18:10) ruled against the practice of magic and philosophers have stressed the rational side of Judaism, recent research has recovered the “dark side” of Judaism, highlighting the key role of magic and demonic powers in Jewish religion.

2. The story of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2-3) deals with the meaning of life and the origin of death and features that most intriguing of characters—the serpent of death. This talk traces the history of interpretation of this fascinating character to show how it became a cornerstone of Western self-understanding.

Adolfo Roitman, curator of the Shrine of the Book, which houses the Dead Sea Scrolls at Jerusalem’s Israel Museum, returns to the JCC for back-to back lectures. Ordained as a rabbi by the Latin-American Rabbinical Seminar in his native Argentina, he received his PhD in ancient Jewish thought from Jerusalem’s Hebrew University. Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Non-members should register at www.jccmanhattan.org at $20 per lecture.

Date: February 22
Time: 2:00
Location: Manhattanville College, 2900 Purchase Street, Purchase, NY

The ruined castles of the Knights Templar are scattered across the Middle East and they provide insights into this order of Crusading knights. Professor Fuller has visited several of these archaeological sites and examined the ruins. He examines a panel from a Templar church in France where the resurrected knights are shown as ghostly riders coming from the battlefield of the Horns of Hattim and the bloody hand paintings on the walls of the Castle of the Assassins in Syria.. Find out the perspective of a field archaeologist (with an interest in the Crusades) on the bestselling murder mystery. The talk discusses the architecture and art of the templar castles in the Middle East including Cyprus, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and Israel as a reflection of their role in the Crusades. Finally, it will contrast how the Templars are treated in the DaVinci code versus the archaeological record.

Dr. Michael Fuller was a Geology major in college, but turned to Anthropology for his MA and PhD, both received from Washington University in St. Louis. He served as a contract archaeologist for Missouri State University in the 1970s before joining the faculty of St. Louis Community College during 1982. Dr. Fuller is a specialist of Near Eastern Archaeology, essentially of the countries of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. He co-directed rescue excavations at the site of Tell Tuneinir from 1987 until 2001. His latest work has focused on the Medieval archaeological remains of the Slavic populations on the border of Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

This lecture is offered through the Westchester Society, Archaeological Institute of America

Date: March 16
Time: 7:00
Location: Jewish Community Center, 334 Amsterdam Avenue (7th Floor), New York, NY

How did peoples across the Hellenistic east react to the spread of Greek culture? In this lecture we look in detail at one corner of this vast region - the southern Levant - to see where and when material manifestations of the Hellenistic koinê show up as well as the “after effect” they inspired. Examining the evidence of material remains, locally produced and deployed, provides a view of individual cultural appropriation - Hellenism rather than Hellenization. We focus on three native ethnoi: the Phoenicians, Idumeans, and Judeans.

For the first two of these, the Phoenicians and Idumeans, while occasional Hellenistic-period material and epigraphic remains do indicate ethnic self-identification, many more reveal these peoples’ embrace of aesthetics and lifestyles common to the cosmopolitan world of the eastern Mediterranean. The third group, the Judeans, were more complicated. In the second century BCE, Judean elites clearly did buy in to some aspects of the cultural koinê. In the first centuries BCE and CE, elite acceptance of that world continued. But the majority of Judeans soon opted out. The evidence: common place material remains that were newly conceived, unusual, and specific - an apparent attempt to fashion a living environment distinct from the cosmopolitan culture celebrated by Meleager. The result is a singular material and cultural identity, crafted as a deliberate backlash to the koinê.

Dr. Andrea Berlin is the Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Archaeology in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Minnesota. She specializes in the archaeology of the Hellenistic and Roman Near East. She received her PhD from the University of Michigan in Classical Art and Archaeology, and taught at Georgetown University, George Washington University, and the University of Virginia before going to Minnesota in 1997. Her work has taken her to Turkey (Troy), Cyprus (Nicosia), Egypt (Coptos), and Israel, where she is currently co-director of the excavations at Tel Kedesh. She is the author of numerous books and articles, with many more in progress.

Non-members should register at www.jccmanhattan.org at $15

Date: March 22
Time: 2:00
Location: Scarsdale Public Library, Scarsdale, NY

Since 1997, the Universities of Michigan and Minnesota have conducted excavations at Tel Kedesh, the largest tel site in Israel's Upper Galilee. Literary sources identify the inhabitants as Phoenician, and suggest that the site was a simple farming town. Two third century BCE papyri record an Egyptian official's visit to purchase flour and take a bath. I Maccabees cite a battle between Jonathan the Hasmonean and Demetrius II in 145 BCE that ended at Kedesh, on account of which the town's Phoenician inhabitants fled. Josephus identifies Kedesh as an outpost of the Phoenician city of Tyre in 66 CE, when the Jewish Revolt against Rome began and also notes that the site served as an encampment for the Roman general Titus.

The Michigan-Minnesota project was conceived in order to investigate rural Phoenician life in the Hellenistic period, and especially the inhabitants’ interactions with neighboring Jewish towns. In the first season, we excavated a house with intact pots, weights, mortars, and other domestic objects on the floor. The house appeared to have been hastily abandoned, and preliminary dating suggested that this occurred close to the time of the battle between Jonathan and Demetrius. A subsequent magnetometric survey revealed the outlines of a single enormous building at the far southern end. Excavation in the summer of 1999 confirmed that this was a single construction, which served as an administrative supply depot and international archive. We found a storeroom with 14 large jars for grain. In the room next to this we found a deposit of about 20 oil flasks and—most amazing—almost 2000 stamped clay bullae. The bullae carry images of Seleucid kings, Greek deities and mythological figures, and Phoenician officials.

The entire complex was damaged and abandoned in the middle of the second century BCE. confirming the preliminary dating suggested by the abandonment of the house. The discovery of this large complex undermines our initial characterization of the site as a simple farming town, and provides new evidence concerning political and social interactions between Jews, Phoenicians, and Greeks in second century BCE Palestine.

Dr. Andrea Berlin is the Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Archaeology in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Minnesota. She specializes in the archaeology of the Hellenistic and Roman Near East. She received her PhD from the University of Michigan in Classical Art and Archaeology, and taught at Georgetown University, George Washington University, and the University of Virginia before going to Minnesota in 1997. Her work has taken her to Turkey (Troy), Cyprus (Nicosia), Egypt (Coptos), and Israel, where she is currently co-director of the excavations at Tel Kedesh. She is the author of numerous books and articles, with many more in progress.

This lecture is offered through the Westchester Society, Archaeological Institute of America

Date: April 13 Six Mondays
Time: 1-2:30 PM
Location: Scarsdale Library, Scarsdale, NY

Examine evidence from the Bible, archaeology, and the ancient civilizations to reveal what really happened.  How was the written record produced?  Our focus will be on specific case studies from the archaeological record involving child sacrifice, a double-murder mystery, and power politics in ancient Israel.

This class is offered through the Scarsdale Adult School.

Dates: April 18
Location: Peabody Museum, Yale University, New Haven
Cost: free with museum admission

Spend a day immersed in the joy of learning about ancient Egypt. See the objects, hear from the scholars, experience mummification [well, not quite]. Participants will learn the core values of the ancient Egyptian cultural construct, its interactions with the surrounding world especially Nubia, and how it communicated.

Saturday (10:45-5:15)
Auditorium
10:45 The Origin of the Egyptian State, Marc Leblanc, Yale University
11:15 Hieroglyphs: the Words of the Gods, Julia Hsieh, Yale University Classroom
12:00 Lunch by Yale Catering service: reservations required

Auditorium
1:00 The Mummy Road Show, Ron Beckett and Jerry Conlogue, Quinnipiac University, a former National Geographic Channel show
2:00 Women in Ancient Egypt, Colleen Manassa, Yale University
3:00 break
3:15 Ancient Egyptian Temples, Lauren Lippiello, Yale University
3:45 Egypt and Nubia in Ancient Times, Tasha Dobbin, Yale University
4:15 Egypt and Nubia in the Age of Cleopatra, Alicia Cunningham-Bryant, Yale University
4:45 Flesh of the Gods: Gold in Ancient Egypt, Marina Brown, Yale University
5:15 Campus Tour (optional)

To make a reservation for the lunch and or the campus tour, contact IHARE at info@ihare.org or 914-933-0440

Date: April 20
Time: 7:00
Location: Jewish Community Center, 334 Amsterdam Avenue (7th Floor), New York, NY

Tell en-Nasbeh, ancient biblical Mizpah of Benjamin, was excavated in the 1920s-1930s by William F. Bade of the Pacific School of Religion. The authors of the original site publication seriously misunderstood the site's remains and under reported them, making it impossible for others to re-evaluate them. In the 1990s Dr. Zorn undertook a complete reexamination of the site's architectural features and some of its other material cultural remains. These studies demonstrated that Tell en-Nasbeh contained material remains directly associated with Mizpah's role as the capital of Judah after Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem in 586 B.C. shedding the first real light on the otherwise obscure period of the Babylonian Exile in Judah.

Jeffrey R. Zorn received his Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley in 1993. Currently he is Adjunct Associate Professor of Biblical Archaeology at Cornell University. He has excavated for many years in Israel, primarily the site of Tel Dor, on the coast north of Caesarea. Excavations supervised by him there are contributing greatly to understanding the role of the Canaanites, Phoenicians and Israelites in that region. His work on Tell en-Nasbeh has provided fundamental new insights into the 6th century B.C. in ancient Judah. He is the author of over 50 publications and review on various aspects of the culture of ancient Israel.

Non-members should register at www.jccmanhattan.org at $15

Date: April 30
Time: 7:00
Location: Rye Free Reading Room, Purchase Street and Boston Post Road, Rye, NY

Our recently completed digital mapping of Rano Raraku quarry, the place of origin of nearly 95% of over 1000 monolithic stone statues, has yielded new insights into quarrying techniques and raised new questions about transport methods.  This paper describes field goals and methods and describes the interplay of research and conservation.

I am an archaeologist, a Research Associate of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA and the Director of the Easter Island Statue Project.

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA SELECTS EASTER ISLAND AS ITS SECOND SITE PRESERVATION PROGRAM PROJECT 
Conservation Project Will Protect and Preserve Easter Island’s Rapa Nui Famous Monolithic Moai Statues

The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) www.archaeological.org
North America’s oldest and largest organization devoted to the world of archaeology, has selected Easter Island’s Rapa Nui sculptures in Chile as its second site preservation project.  With a $94,000 grant from the organization’s AIA Site Preservation Task Force, the Easter Island Statue Project will develop stone preservation techniques to arrest the rapid deterioration of these statues as a result of the fragile nature of their volcanic stone, climate change and tourism.  The Easter Island Statue Project is directed by UCLA archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburg and co-directed by Cristián Arévalo Pakarati.
 
“The grant will jumpstart our efforts to preserve this remarkable cultural resource for future Rapanui generations and the world at large,” said Van Tilburg. “The fragility of the stone, coupled with the fact that Rano Raraku is a major tourist destination, creates an urgent conservation imperative.  We thank the AIA for its assistance in this monumental task.”
 
The project will initially focus upon the conservation of the Rano Raraku interior quarry, which Van Tilburg and her team have recently mapped in a model documentation project using the latest in digital technology.  The source of nearly all of the island’s 1000 statues, Rano Raraku is a striking landmark filled with more than 400 statues in all stages of completion.  The knowledge gained in the Rano Raraku conservation study will then be employed to preserve the other numerous statues located throughout the island.
 
“Our selection of the Easter Island Statue Project and our first preservation project, restoring and preserving the magnificent Temple of Athena in Turkey, which is well underway, exemplify the model of preservation the AIA seeks to promote,” said University of Pennsylvania archaeologist and AIA Task Force Co-chairman Larry Coben. “Not only will this initiative preserve these cultural icons using the highest technical standards, but it will also demonstrate the parallels between good field archaeology, successful preservation and the empowerment of, and economic development for, local communities.”
 
Both the Easter Island and Temple of Athena projects are part of the AIA’s long-term conservation strategy to combat the loss of the world’s priceless cultural heritage.  The AIA Site Preservation Task Force, a group of volunteers consisting of archaeologists and business, economic, development and international relations experts, was formed in 2008 in response to the rapidly accelerating destruction of ancient monuments and sites due to war, looting, extreme weather, alternative economic uses and neglect.  In addition to sustainable preservation, the Task Force provides resources and education to empower and encourage economic development in local communities.

This lecture is offered through the Westchester Society, Archaeological Institute of America

Dates: May 2-3
Location:Thomas Cole House (Catskill), Olana (Hudson), Woodstock Day School (Woodstock)
Cost: $175 (includes two lunches and one dinner)
Cutoff Date: April 2, 2009

Celebrate the Quadricentennial with an immersion into the art which helped define a nation in the Jacksonian and Antebellum periods. Participants will experience the art, ecology, geology, and history of the sublime Hudson River Valley by standing where the artists stood [and having the opportunity to paint as they did.] The art forms live on in Woodstock which became and icon for a decade in American history over a century later and nearly half a century ago. Experience the wonder.

In What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, the awarding winning book by Daniel Walker Howe, there is no mention of Hudson River Art. In response to an on-line critique about the book, Howe wrote: “Were I myself to criticize What Hath God Wrought, it would be for the neglect of art history...what fun it would have been to have included the Hudson River School of artists and link them to the Transcendentalist writers.” By contrast in Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson, David Reynolds does include Hudson River. The role of geology as a foundation for the art still tends to suffer in omission. If the only painting shown in class is American Progress, then the narrative paintings that helped define America of the Jacksonian Age, Panic of 1837, and manifest destiny are being excluded. Here is a chance to put the pieces together.

Saturday (9:00-7:30)
Olana
9:00 Welcome and Program overview
9:30 Olana: grounds walk and house tour
12:00 Lunch and painting
Thomas Cole House
1:00 Hudson River Art Exhibition
2:00 Hudson River Art, John Howat, Metropolitan Museum
3:30 Bus tour including painting at Catskill Mountain House and Mountain Top Historical Society
7:30 Return to Thomas Cole House

Sunday (9:00-4:00)
Woodstock Day School, Woodstock
9:00 The Torch Has Been Passed to a New Generation: The Birth of Hudson River Art, Peter Feinman
10:00 The Hudson River School: The Painting and Drawing Methods: James McElhinney
12:15 lunch
Woodstock
1:30 Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild Tour
2:45 Woodstock School of Art
4:00 End

For additional information about the program, contact IHARE at info@ihare.org or 914-933-0440.

To register, make check payable to IHARE and mail to:
IHARE
PO Box 41
Purchase, NY 10577

Date: May 8
Time: 7:00
Location: Kendal-on-Hudson, Sleepy Hollow, NY

Muscarella sees rich collectors and museums as greatly harming "Archeology". By offering such great sums for important artifacts, they create great incentives for people to hastily excavate sites in order to find the most marketable artifacts. Since these people have no incentive to take the care that professional archaeologists would, they may end up destroying a great many of the site's artifacts. Large parts of culture history, it is claimed, have been destroyed in this manner.

Dr. Oscar White Muscarella, received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences in 1965. A specialist in the art and archaeology of the ancient Near East, he has been on staff of the Metropolitan Museum of art since 1964. Among his many scholarly publications are: Ancient Art: The Norbert Schimmel Collection, Bronze & Iron: Ancient Near Eastern Artifacts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Catalogue of Ivories from Hasanlu Iran. An outspoken critic of the antiquities trade and the plunder of artifacts, he is also the author of The Lie Became Great: The Forgery of Near Eastern Cultures and recently, The Veracity of  “Scientific”  Testing by Conservators. A prolific author, he has extensive excavation experience in Turkey and Iran.

This lecture is offered through the Westchester Society, Archaeological Institute of America

Date: May 11
Time: 7:00
Location: Jewish Community Center, 334 Amsterdam Avenue (7th Floor), New York, NY

The synagogue mosaic floors of Upper and Lower Galilee in Ancient Israel have largely been examined in a social and religious context. Yet, scholars have not been able to assess the meaning of the mosaics' exact placement in the synagogue buildings and their connection to liturgical process. Given that the second commandment in Judaism prohibits the depiction of graven images, the nature of patrons' wishes and the artisans raise questions about their reliance on Greco-Roman principles, while adhering to halakhah. Specific scenes of the Akeidah and abstract images of the zodiac and temple structures throughout the Galilee show a break with the past. In this paper I posit through an art historical approach that the mosaics were not simply decorative elements but reminders to the participants within the buildings of their heritage and past cultures, connecting them with the past, present and future.

Rachael Goldman holds degrees from Rutgers University, Sotheby's Institute of Art and City University of New York-Graduate Center in Classics and Art History. She is working on a manuscript dealing with the social and cultural constructions of color in the Rome Republican and Imperial periods. She has studied at the American Academy in Rome in 2007 and has won fellowships from the New York Classical Club, the College Art Association and the Archaeological Institute of American. Prof. Goldman is published in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review and the Journal of Decorative Arts of the Bard Graduate Center.

Rachael Goldman, CUNY

Saturday (9:00-5:00) Westport and Fairfield
Westport Town Hall
9:00 Welcome and Program Overview: Peter Feinman, IHARE
9:15 The British Are Coming: British Strategy to Reconquer the Colonies: Ray Raymond, USMA and SUNY
10:30 Westport Walking Tour, Susan Gold, Westport Historical Society and Allen Raymond, Westport Municipal Historian

Westport Historical Society
11:30 The British Are Coming: A Reader’s Theater Experience, Hilary Gibson, Education Director, Westport Historical Society
12:30 Lunch
1:30 The British Invasion Bus Tour: Allen Raymond
3:00 The British Are Coming: The Fairfield Experience, Walter Matis, Educator, Fairfield Museum and History Center

Sunday (9:00-5:00)
Danbury Historical Society
9:00 The Burning of Danbury, Brigid Guertin, Danbury Historical Society
11:00 The Ride of Sybil Ludington, Vin Dacquino, author of Sybil Ludington: Call to Arms
12:00 General Tryon Danbury to Ridgefield Self Guided Drive

Ridgefield
12:30 Lunch: Dimitri’s Diner
1:30 Museum in the Streets Walking Tour, Kay Ables, Ridgefield Town Historian
2:30 The Battle of Ridgefield: George Hancock, Keeler Tavern Museum Tour
3:30 Tom Castrovinci, Re-enactor Connecticut 5th
4:00 My Brother Sam Is Dead: Teaching the British Invasion of 1777 - Brent Colley, Redding historic tours

Date: May 17
Time: 4:00
Location: Chappaqua Library, 195 South Greely Avenue, Chappaqua

Dr. Richard Freund, Greenberg Professor of Jewish History at the University of Hartford, who is directing excavations in Israel for the past twenty years,  was approached about using the archaeological technologies he has pioneered in Israel to excavate an infamous concentration buried by the Nazis in the middle of World War II.

Dr. Freund, who works with geophysical survey teams that can map the subsurface of archaeological sites, has been featured in documentaries and books for his work at Qumran, the Cave of Letters, Nazareth, Bethsaida and Yavne. Most recently he used these technologies at a site in the Negev desert that is thought to be the real Mount Sinai. His team went to Sobibor, Poland in July to see if the infamous Sobibor camp still is intact.

In 1943, Sobibor was the site of a successful rebellion. After the rebellion, the Nazis closed the camp, buried it and planted trees to cover its existence and so that rebellions might not spread at other camps. The results from this summer's survey will be presented with insights on how modern technologies can be used to solve archaeological problems that would have required
decades of study in a former generation.

Dates: May 19, May 26, June 2, June 9 (Four Tuesdays)
Time: 7:00-8:30
Location: Jewish Community Center, 334 Amsterdam Avenue, (7th Floor), New York, NY
Fee: $75 for IHARE members/$90   JLSARC00S9

Since its origins in the 19th century, Biblical Archaeology has been a subject that arouses passion!   Once again it has become a battleground but now not just between scholars or between academics and ministers but in the international political arena. Join Peter Feinman, director of IHARE (Institute of History, Archaeology and Education) whose presentation at an Israeli-Palestinian Peace Conference on "When Israel and the Arabs Were Allies" will be published as part of the conference proceedings. 

Topics will include:

• Canaanites, Palestinians, Yasir Arafat and the book of Joshua
• Were the Israelites really Canaanites?
• Who were the Arabs and who weren’t they
• When Israel and the Arabs were Allies

Come explore how Middle Eastern history and politics, Judaism and Islam, faith and science all converge beneath the ground of Israel and her neighbors.

Saturday Fort Ontario, Safe Haven, Rudy’s Stand (9:00-7:30/8:00)
9:00 Welcome and Introduction (underground stone artillery casemate)
9:15 Fort Ontario and the French and Indian War
10:15 Guided Tour I
11:15 Fort Ontario and the American Revolution
12:15 Lunch: outdoors weather permitting (tents and tables) or go to town
1:15 Guided Tour II with cannon firing and muskets
2:15 Fort Ontario and the War of 1812
3:30 Safe Haven Museum and Education Center
6:00 Dinner at Rudy’s Stand
7:00 Rosemary Nesbitt, Storyteller (The Great Rope/Dr. Mary Walker)

Sunday (9:00-3:00)
9:00 Fox Hollow Farms horse drawn trolley Oswego Walking Tour: John Gosek
10:30 Richardson-Bates House
Tour: Terry Prior
Local History and Education: Patricia Michel, SUNY Osewgo
Young History Club
12:30 Lunch
1:30 Marine Museum including Fort Ontario paintings by George Gray: Mercedes Niess
3:00 Oswego Maritime Foundation
3:30 Program Wrap Up

For additional information about the program, contact IHARE at info@ihare.org or 914-933-0440.

To register, make check payable to IHARE and mail to:
IHARE
PO Box 41
Purchase, NY 10577

Spend a weekend immersing yourself in the battle that changed the American Revolution from a colonial rebellion into a world war. Saratoga changed everything. France agreed to a formal alliance with America. Britain now had to fight France from the English channel to India. It also had to decide whether it was more important to recover the American colonies or protect its homeland and other possessions. None of this would have happened without the American victory at Saratoga

Participants will be exposed to multiple perspectives involving the battle including the British plans before and reaction afterward, the battlefield from land and from the water, and the effort to preserve the battlefield for future generations. Join with scholars, the National Park Service, and re-enactors to learn about the event.

Saturday, June 6 (9:00-8:30)
Saratoga Springs Visitor Center
9:00 Welcome and Introductions, Peter Feinman, IHARE
9:15 The American Revolution: A Global Perspective, Tillman Nechtman, Skidmore College 10:15 British Strategy: Saratoga and the Reconquest of the American Colonies, Ray Raymond, SUNY, United States Military Academy
11:15 The Archaeology of the Battle of Saratoga, David Starbuck, Plymouth State University

Saratoga National Historic Park
12:45 Lunch
1:15 Visitor Center: Video
2:00 Battlefield Walking Tour
4:30 Visitor Center: map/exhibits
5:00 Battlefield Car Tour
6:30 Dinner: Panza’s Restaurant
7:30 A Military History of the Decisive Campaign of the American Revolution, Eric Schnitzer, National Park Service

Sunday, June 7: Saratoga Springs and Schuylerville (9:00-4:00)
Saratoga Springs Visitor Center
9:00 Saratoga and Britain's Strategic Dilemma, Ray Raymond

Schuylerville
10:30 Saratoga Monument (200 steps)
11:00 Schuyler House, National Park Service tour
12:00 Lunch: Randys, Dove Gate Inn
1:00 Canal Cruise

For additional information about the program, contact IHARE at info@ihare.org or 914-933-0440.

To register, make check payable to IHARE and mail to:
IHARE
PO Box 41
Purchase, NY 10577

Date: September 15
Time: 7:30
Location: Chappaqua Library, 195 South Greeley Avenue, Chappaqua
Speaker: Ken Feder, Department of Anthropology, Central Connecticut State University

In October 1869, Stub Newell, a farmer in upstate New York, uncovered the remains of what appeared to be a giant, recumbent man whose body had turned to stone. Geologists and archaeologists immediately declared it to be fraudulent, but such pronouncements meant little to the hordes who descended on the Newell farm to see the giant for themselves. Circus impresario P.T. Barnum was so impressed by the archaeological fake that he tried to purchase it for his sideshow. The perpetrator confessed just a few months after the giant’s discovery but the giant himself continues as a tourist attraction at the Farmers Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Though not nearly as well known as the Piltdown Man hoax, the Cardiff Giant fraud is one of the most instructive in the history of archaeology. And it’s much funnier.

Ken Feder has taught in the Department of Anthropology at Central Connecticut State University since 1977. He is the founder and director of the Farmington River Archaeological Project, a long-term investigation of the prehistory of the Farmington River Valley. He is the author of several books including: Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology; A Village of Outcasts: Historical Archaeology and Documentary Research at the Lighthouse Site; The Past In Perspective: An Introduction to Human Prehistory; and Linking to the Past: A Brief Introduction to Archaeology.

This lecture is presented by the Archaeological Institute of America Westchester Society

Date: Setember 26
Time: 10:00-12:30
Location: Mahopac Library, Route 6, Mahopac, NY

Follow the compelling tale and trail of teenager Sybil Ludington, a Revolutionary War heroine celebrated as the female Paul Revere. When the British launched a surprise attack on Danbury in April 1777, Sybil volunteered to venture out in the night to rally the scattered members of the Dutchess County militia on behalf of her father, the militia commander. Vincent Dacquino, author of Sybil Ludington, A Call to Arms, hosts this bus tour (45-min.pre-tour talk) and offers a dramatic rendition of her night time ride.

Tour fee: $20 adult; $10 child $10; (includes T-shirt).
Registration required by 9/21
Make check payable to IHARE
Mail to: IHARE
PO Box 41
Purchase, NY 10577
Contact: (914) 933-0440; feinmanp@ihare.org.

Directions: From north: Taconic Pkwy. south to I-84 East approx. 9 miles to Exit 18 to R turn onto Rt. 311; go to traffic light and turn L onto Rt. 52 thru Carmel (Rt. 52 becomes Route 6); take Route 6 (by going straight at traffic light) and follow into Mahopac. Library is on (north) right side just after light at East Lake Blvd. intersection. From south: Taconic State Pkwy. to Mahopac/Shrub Oak Exit; east on Rt. 6 approx. 6 mi. to Mahopac Library on left (about 1 block past light at town’s main intersection.)

Because of the archaeological record, we would have a history of ancient Israel even without the Bible. This course is an introduction to that history based in archaeology, especially inscriptions which mention the kings or kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Each inscription be examined and the biblical text consulted for its version of the same events or people. Part one of this course will cover the period from the first mention of Israel by Pharaoh Merneptah to the first and only mention of David; part two will focus on the destruction of the northern kingdom by Assyria and its invasion of the southern kingdom of Judah. Co-sponsored with IHARE (Institute for History, Archaeology and Education) and taught by its director, Peter Feinman.

6 times on Tuesdays
4:15 PM - 5:45 PM
Sep 29 - Nov 3
$90.00 Member
$100.00 Non-Member
JLSISR01F0

6 times on Tuesdays
4:15 PM - 5:45 PM
Nov 10 - Dec 15
$90.00 Member
$100.00 Non-Member
JLSISR02F0

To register, go to: http://www.jccmanhattan.org/category.aspx?catid=1042

Date: October 11
Time: 2:00
Location: Scarsdale Library, Scarsdale
Speaker: Yekaterina Barbash, Brooklyn Museum

The talk will explore the history of Egyptian Art at the Brooklyn Museum, focusing on a number of the most important sources of the collection. In conjunction with the story of collecting, certain objects from the Brooklyn Museum's permanent installation will be illuminated in detail. In conclusion, the future of the collection will be touched upon, highlighting upcoming exhibitions and a selection of never before seen objects from the collection.

Yekaterina Barbash is an Assistant Curator of Egyptian Art at the Brooklyn Museum. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Egyptology from the Johns Hopkins University, and a B.A. in art history from NYU. Prior to joining the Brooklyn Museum, she taught ancient history and art history at a number of colleges, including NYU (SCPS), Berkeley College, CUNY College of Staten Island.

This lecture is presented by the Westchester AIA

Date: October 19
Time: 7:00 PM
Speaker: Leonard Greenspoon, Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization, Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Studies and Theology, Creighton University, Omaha
Location: Jewish Community Center, 334 Amsterdam Avenue, New York

This presentation will highlight selected translations of the Bible from antiquity to the 21st century, with an emphasis on the translators (as individuals or as members of a committee), their intended audience, and their approach to the text that are rendering.  We will go considerably beyond free "vs." literal, to investigate the social, political, cultural, historical, and religious contexts in which selected translators have worked and to chart the multiple influences at work during the process.  We will also consider the immediate and long-term impact these versions have had.

Scarsdale Adult School: Understanding Egypt
Instructor: Dr. Peter Feinman

The story of ancient Egypt stretches back three millennial before the rule of Cleopatra, the last Pharaoh. This civilization that flourished along the Nile River has fascinated observers from ancient times to the present. We shall explore the history of Ancient Egypt, with attention to the art, architecture, customs, and culture. The course consists of three lectures and two museum visits. We will have a guided tour of the Egyptian collection at the Brooklyn Museum of Art with our speaker from this coming October AIA lecture and meet we Ed Bleiberg a previous speaker who was our host during our last Brooklyn Museum trip. We will have a second trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and meet with Catharine Roehrig, the Egyptian curator who spoke to us last January at the Scarsdale Library.

Dates:
Lectures: October 22, 29 and November 5, 1:30-3:00, Scarsdale Library
Brooklyn Museum: November 12, 1:30
Metropolitan Museum: November 19, 1:30

Costs:
Lectures: $115 Class #Day 12
Lectures and one trip: $155 Class#Day13
Lectures and two trips: $200 Class #Day 14

The costs do not include transportation.

To register go to www.ScarsdaleAdultSchool.org or call 914-723-2325

Date: November 15
Time: 2:00
Location: Manhattanville College, Purchase Street, Purchase
Speaker: David Gilman Romano, University of Pennsylvania

The talk will describe the last several years of work at Mt. Lykaion, a collaborative project of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the University of Arizona and the 39th Ephoreia of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, Tripolis under the auspices of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.  We have very exciting finds from the site including a Mycenaean ash altar at the location of the later altar of Zeus, and pottery in and around the altar that dates as early as the Late Neolithic and Early Helladic periods.

David Romano Gilman has been working as an archaeologist in Greece for over 30 years.  He has participated in Greek excavations in Corinth and Nemea and has conducted his own research in Athens, Corinth and Mt. Lykaion.  At Corinth he has directed the Corinth Computer Project since 1988, a study of the city and landscape of Roman Corinth.  He has been teaching at the University of Pennsylvania since 1982 and currently is Adjunct Professor of Classical Studies in the Department of Classical Studies.  He also is the Director of the Archaeological Mapping Lab at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, The Lab is dedicated to the scientific study and analysis of ancient cities, landscapes and sanctuaries by means of the use of digital cartography, GIS, remote sensing and other spatial analytical techniques.

This lecture is presented by the Westchester AIA

Date: November 16
Time: 7:00 PM
Speaker: Peter Feinman, Institute of History, Archaeology, and Education
Location: Jewish Community Center, 334 Amsterdam Avenue, New York

The Mesha Stele is an underutilized key to understanding Israelite history and the writing of the Bible. Many biblical scholars consider one of the great achievements of biblical scholarship to be the elimination of the Exodus as a real event in history. In so doing, they have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. No one would say that because God does not exist that therefore the destructions of God’s home in Jerusalem in 586 BCE and 70 CE were insignificant events that resulted in no attempt to explain why God allowed such events to occur. No one would say that because Jesus was not the son of God that therefore his execution by Rome was not a traumatic event to his followers which lead to written explanations seeking to understand it. Similarly with Mesha’s archaeologically attested destruction of the sanctuary to Yahweh at Mount Nebo, the biblical site of the burial place of Moses should not blind us to the reaction of the people to that event. I assert that 9th-century Israel believed that the founder of its people was buried there and that the destruction of the site was as traumatic to them as the Jerusalem temple destructions were to the priests. The result was a call to arms, a scroll written by a northern prophet in the Moses paradigm that just as a Yahweh-selected prophet-anointed hero has liberated us from Pharaoh Solomon, so a repeat is necessary against the dynasty of Pharaoh Ahab and his failed sons. This northern-prophet scroll was one of a series of such scrolls which bridge the gap between E and D as part of the ongoing writing in Israel in response to political events of significance.

Peter Feinman is the founder and president of the Institute of History, Archaeology, and Education, a non-profit organization which provides enrichment programs for schools, professional development for teachers, and public programs. He received his B.A. in history from the University of Pennsylvania, a M.Ed. from New York University, an MBA from New York University, and an Ed. D. from Columbia University. He recently organized a symposium on “Pseudoarchaeology and the Bible” held at the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, as part of the education outreach program of the American Schools of Oriental Research. His forthcoming articles include, “Canaanites and Catholics versus God’s Chosen Peoples: William Foxwell Albright’s Biblical Archaeology,” Near Eastern Archaeology, “The Methodist Upper Iowa Conference: From Wilderness Settlement to Middle-American Melting Pot,” Methodist History, and The Tempest in the Tempest Stela: A Cosmic Story in History, Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar. He created Teacherhostels™ and Historyhostels for people who love to learn and visit the historic sites of the Hudson River Valley and New York State.

Date: December 6
Time: 2:00 PM
Speaker: Lisa Ackerman, World Monuments Fund
Location: Greenburgh Public Library, 320 Tarrytown Road, Greenburgh
 
The talk will focus on the current international collaborative efforts to rehabilitate the site and return it to a state of effective public presentation. In addition to the well publicized efforts of UNESCO and its ICC Sub-Committee on Babylon's report on current conditions, World Monuments Fund is assisting in the organization of necessary architectural and archaeological conservation work at the site. WMF personnel have been on site a number of times in recent months. A feature of by talk will be the ability to present current images of key areas of the site.

Ackerman is the Executive Vice President at WMF and am managing WMF's activities for the projects in Iraq. Previously she was the Executive Vice President at the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. She holds a degree in Historic Preservation from Pratt Institute, an MBA from New York University, and a BA from Middlebury College. She was the 2007 recipient of Historic District Council's Landmarks Lion and in 2008, the inaugural recipient of US/ICOMOS's Ann Webster Smith Award for International Heritage Achievement.

This program is sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America Westchester Society

Date: December 7
Time: 7:00 PM
Speaker: Gary Greenberg, biblical author
Location: Jewish Community Center, 334 Amsterdam Avenue, New York
 
The talk will look have three phases. First it will discuss a long-ignored ancient Egyptian account of the Exodus. Second, it will show that the author used mythological themes to illuminate the historical event and that this was a common practice in ancient Egypt. Third, the talk will explain how the biblical author of the Exodus story used the same Egyptian mythological themes as the author of the Egyptian story. The conclusion will be that the Exodus story has ancient roots that date back to the second millennium BCE.

Gary Greenberg is the author of several books on biblical history, including The Moses Mystery, 101 Myths of the Bible, and The Judas Brief. He has presented papers at several international academic conferences dealing with biblical and Egyptian history and served as a consultant to National Geographic Television's "Science of the Bible" series.