Distinguished archaeology scholar Eric Cline will kick off a lecture series presented by the East Tennessee Society of the Archaeological Institute of America and the University of Tennessee McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture September 24 with a look at the collapse of the Bronze Age.
Cline, a professor of classics and anthropology at George Washington University, will speak at 7:30 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of the John C. Hodges Library.
His lecture, which is free and open to the public, is titled “1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed.” Cline will argue that the end of the Bronze Age civilizations of the East Mediterranean (Mycenaean Greeks, Troy, Hittites, and Egypt) was not the result of a single invasion but of multiple causes. In his lecture, he will discuss the similarities and parallels that can be drawn with the world today.
Cline will also teach a class seminar titled, “Wine, Frescoes and Feasting: the Ongoing Excavations of the Canaanite Palace at Tel Kabri, Israel,” at 12:40 p.m. in Room 206 of the Humanities and Social Sciences Building. The seminar is free and open to the public.
His visit is co-sponsored by the Partnership for the Academic Study of Early Judaism, Fern and Manfred Steinfeld Program in Judaic Studies, the Department of Religious Studies, the Department of Classics, and the Center for Student Engagement Issues Committee.
Cline is a Fulbright scholar, National Geographic Explorer and best-selling author. He co-directed archaeological fieldwork at the biblical Armageddon site Megiddo and is currently co-director of the excavations at the Canaanite palace of Tel Kabri in northern Israel, where Minoan-style wall paintings were found. He has won numerous writing and teaching awards. His book 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed was considered for a 2015 Pulitzer Prize.
Cline is one of eight archaeology lecturers who will be speaking this year. The remaining lectures will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the McClung Museum. Speakers are:
October 13—W.Y. Adams, emeritus professor of anthropology, University of Kentucky, “Nubia in Global Perspective.”
October 27—Gwyn Davies, associate professor of history, Florida International University, “The Late Roman Fort at Yotvata, Israel.”
November 10—Anne Chapin, associate professor of art history and archaeology, Brevard College, “Dressed to Impress: Art and Haute Couture in the Aegean Bronze Age.”
January 19—Tim Baumann, research associate professor and curator of archaeology, McClung Museum, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, “Painting in the Shadows: Prehistoric Negative Painted Pottery in Tennessee and the Eastern Woodlands.”
February 16—Charles Finney, Cave Research Foundation, “Cave of Remembered Dreams: Recording Cultural Resources in the Cumberland Gap Cave System.”
March 8—John H. Oakley, chancellor professor and Forrest D. Murden Jr. Professor, College of William and Mary, lecture on Greek archaeology, title to be announced.
April 5—James J. Aimers, associate professor of anthropology, State University of New York, Geneseo, “Recent Research on the Maya Collapse.”
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C O N T A C T :
Aleydis Van de Moortel (865-974-8279, avdm@utk.edu)