Israeli archaeology expert to give Kenyon lecture

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tau.ac.il/humanities/archaeology/directory/dir_yuval_goren.html" target="_self">UCL Institute of Archaeology Kenyon lecture
Yuval Goren at Tel Aviv University

The UCL Institute of Archaeology has invited one of Israel's top archaeological investigators to deliver this year's Kenyon Lecture.

Yuval Goren, Professor of A rchaeology at Tel Aviv University, will take us back to the
explosion of international commerce in the 14th and 13th centuries BCE, when the Egyptian, Hattian, Mitannian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires established a network of trade relations after centuries of military conflict. This network spanned from the Anatolian Plateau to the Nile valley and from the Argolid to the Euphrates. Professor Goren will examine the rich literary records of this time, including international correspondence and the exchange of scholarly texts between distinct cultures, which survive in the form of cuneiform texts.

He will show how archaeologists have unearthed details of this time and reconstructed the period through the use of petrographic microscopes as well as the material study of these texts and ceramic vessels.

Professor Goren specialises in ceramic petrography and chemical analysis of artefacts, and their archaeological and historical interpretation.

In his seminal work, he documented the Amarna letters and similar Late Bronze Age cuneiform tablets that were exchanged between Aken-aten, Pharaoh of Egypt and the many regional rulers of the day in the Levant.

He is also well known for helping to expose fakes and forgeries among the many items of allegedly Biblical origin that populate the arts market, including such disputed items as the coffin or ossuary of James, brother of Jesus.

Professor Goren will give his lecture, 'International Exchange in the Eastern Mediterranean: Food and Ships, Sealing-Wax and Kings as seen Under the Petrographic Microscope' on Thursday 13 November 2008 at 6pm in the Darwin Lecture Theatre, Gower Street.

A wine reception will follow in the Wilkins North Cloisters, UCL Main Building. Admission is free and all are welcome.

The Kenyon Lecture was instituted in 2006 and is named after the late Dame Kathleen Kenyon, former secretary, acting director and lecturer in Palestinian archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology.