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Chester
Archaeological Society
President: His Grace the Duke of Westminster KG CB OBE TD CD DL Registered Charity No 1068062 |
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Chester
Archaeological Society
President: His Grace the Duke of Westminster KG CB OBE TD CD DL Registered Charity No 1068062 |
Lecture ProgrammeBetween the Autumn and Spring (usually October to May) we organize a programme of monthly lectures on Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons; these are held in the Lecture Theatre of the Grosvenor Museum unless otherwise stated. Our lectures cover a wide range of topics and are given by speakers who are experts in their field. In addition, conferences are occasionally organized in partnership with other organizations. Admission to lectures is free to members of the Society. Visitors are welcome on payment of an admission fee, normally £4.00.Please take your seats at least five minutes before a lecture is scheduled to start so that meetings can begin on time. Wednesday 5 October 2011 at 7.30
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SPECIAL LECTURE Saturday 3 December 2011 at 2.30 pm Çatalhüyük, Turkey: a neolithc city Shahina Farid (Field Director, Çatalhöyük Research Project, Institute of Archaeology, UCL) Chris On the wide, flat south Anatolian plain, near the Turkish city of Konya, there is a broad mound, about 80 metres high. Excavations have revealed its importance as one of the first cities the world had known. Nine thousand years ago, Çatal Hüyük was home to up to ten thousand people. The whole mound is made up of the remains of mud brick houses, one on top of another. Many are adorned with painted plaster and the horned skulls of cattle. The settlement occupied a key stage in history, when people were first settling down, domesticating cattle and driving the agricultural revolution. Saturday 7 January 2011 at 2.30 pm Richard the Engineer of Chester (c 1240–1310) Dr Richard Turner (CADW) Chris This lecture will look at the life and career of one of Edward I's most prominent military engineers and his role in the building of the castles in north Wales. Royal records will be combined with those from Chester, which reveal Richard's entrepreneurial activities in around the city of his birth, to give one of the most complete pictures of a man who made good during the late 13th century. Chris Wednesday 8 February 2011 at 7.30 pm Excavations at Lathom House: the northern court Jamie Quartermaine (Oxford Archaeology North) Chris In 2009 archaeological excavations adjacent to the 18th-century, Leoni-designed Lathom House near Ormskirk indicate that the remains of the late medieval house (twice besieged during the Civil War) underlie the 18th-century mansion. The house was of great importance, being the home of Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII and grandmother of Henry VIII. The house was on a scale comparable to that of royal palaces. Chris Saturday 10 March 2011 at 2.30 pm When the Celtic tiger roared: Ireland's golden age for archaeology Brendan Wilkins (Wessex Archaeology) Chris Imagine a place where the term ‘millionaire archaeologist’ would not sound ridiculous and young archaeology students could look forward to excellent career prospects, with salaries equivalent to any other profession. Imagine hundreds of excavations up and down the country crying out for help, willing to pay handsomely, even for inexperienced diggers; imagine also that these excavations were fiercely regulated to control their quality. This is an archaeo-utopia: but for a short time it existed. This was Ireland’s Celtic Tiger archaeology. Weighing up the legacy of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ economic boom, it is clear that it was a golden age for archaeologists; however, was it also a golden age for archaeology? And, what insight does that give us into how archaeology is practised in the UK? The site director looks at the main differences between how commercial archaeology is practiced in Britain and Ireland – illustrated with a countdown of the top ten sites of the Celtic Tiger. Chris Wednesday 25 April 2011 at 7.30 pm ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING followed by The commemorative power of art in early Anglo-Saxon England Prof Howard Williams (University of Chester) Chris Surviving artefacts dated to the early Anglo-Saxon period (c AD 450–650) are busy with decoration; much of it is abstract, some of it zoomorphic, and only rarely is the human form explicitly and unambiguously represented. Archaeologists have long speculated on its meaning and significance in defining identities and ideologies in the centuries following the collapse of Roman Britain. This lecture will review and discuss recent interpretations of visual ornamentation in this period, best known to the general public through the rich princely graves of Taplow, Sutton Hoo and Prittlewell as well as the older artefacts within the recently-discovered Staffordshire Hoard. The talk will focus upon how this art served to commemorate the dead when placed in funerary contexts and how this is the key to understanding its other uses in early Anglo-Saxon society Chris Saturday 12 May 2011 at 2.30 pm Results from the Habitats and Hillforts Project in Cheshire Dan Garner (Cheshire West and Chester Council) Chris This fascinating project has been very active over the last the few years focusing on the chain of historically important hill-top Iron Age hillforts that lines Cheshire's Sandstone Ridge. The talk will give an update on the archaeological activities and discoveries that have been made. O © 2011 Chester Archaeological Society. Last updated 30-11-2011 |
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