Lectures

NEAF Public lecture

Noble Neighbours: Life in Imperial Cities of the Neo-Assyrian Empire

Shana Zaia, University of Vienna
Centre for Classical and Near Eastern Studies of Australia (CCANESA),
Level 4 Madsen Building F09 University of Sydney

Wednesday 29 May 2019

Bookings essential | Click here for more information and to RSVP.

Near Eastern Archaeology Foundation  Saturday Seminar Series

Beyond the Edges of their World: European Travellers in the East

Europeans had travelled to the edges of Western Asia and North Africa from Antiquity, merchants, pilgrims and military. Some went further and explored previously uncharted territory. However, during the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries a different group followed. These were adventurers, tourists and scientists. This group recorded their explorations and gathered collections during their travels then taking these collections back to Europe. These lectures will tell the stories of just some of them. They range from an archaeologist who dug naked, a Dutch heiress who led a team into the centre of Africa, an eccentric professor who went missing in the Sinai in 1882’ carrying a treasury of gold, a Transylvanian slave girl who spoke Dinka, the language of the central Nile, an eminent archaeologist who ventured into the interior of Arabia and an English aristocrat who lived out her life in the Ottoman Empire during which time she excavated at Ashkelon.

These were individuals who lived the richest of lives and in so doing added to the Europeans’ knowledge of other worlds, knowledge of their culture and their histories. Their stories add to our lives by showing just how much an individual can achieve in a lifetime, enduring extreme hardship, constantly risking death but persevering against all setbacks to achieve their aim.

Venue:
The lectures will be held in CCANESA, University of Sydney.

Dates and tmes:
The lectures will start at 10 am with a coffee/tea break a 11.30, then the second lecture at 12 noon till 1.30pm, followed by drinks and a chat with the lecturer.

• 18 May 2019 Dr. Jamie Fraser
  Derring-do and derring-don’t: Ill-fated travellers to the Levant in the 19th and early 20th centuries
  
• 25 May 2019 Maree Browne
  Afternoon Tea in Khartoum
  
• 1 June 2019 Dr. Kate da Costa
  Lady Hester Stanhope
  
• 8 June 2019 Dr. John Tidmarsh
  In the steps of Dame Freya: Travels in the land of Incense

Click here for more information and to register (PDF, 193KB)