Lecture to explore Bronze Age tombs in Cyprus

March 03, 2008

"A thousand and one tombs in Bronze Age Cyprus" will be explored in a free public lecture this Wednesday at the University of New England.

Everyone is invited to hear David Frankel, Reader in Archaeology at La Trobe University in Melbourne, deliver the 12th annual Maurice Kelly Lecture at 5.30 pm on Wednesday 5 March. Dr Frankel will discuss the research that he and his colleague Dr Jennifer Webb and their team have undertaken at the ancient site of Deneia in central Cyprus.

More than a thousand Bronze Age underground chamber tombs can still be identified in several extensive cemetery areas beside the village of Deneia. These extraordinary burial grounds were in use for at least a millennium, from the beginning of the Bronze Age at about 2400 BCE. The large quantities of attractive pottery (illustrated here) which were placed with the dead allow researchers to document the size and development of the community and its changing social relationships with other areas of Bronze Age Cyprus.

UNE's Museum of Antiquities, which presents the annual Maurice Kelly Lecture, has some items from Deneia which were donated by Mrs Eve Stewart almost a decade ago.

Dr Frankel, who has been on the staff at La Trobe University for 30 years, has a long-standing interest in the archaeology of Cyprus. He has conducted major excavations at the Early and Middle Bronze Age settlement at Marki Alonia (1990–2000), the cemeteries at Deneia (2003–2004), and a Chalcolithic site near Politiko (2006–2007). He has also carried out a series of excavations at Indigenous sites in south-eastern Australia, and investigated prehistoric coastal trade in Papua New Guinea. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

His presentation on Wednesday, in Lecture Theatre 111 of UNE's Education Building, will be preceded at 5 pm by refreshments in the room opposite.

"Those who recall David Frankel's fine lecture in the Aspects of Antiquity series a few years ago will know that they are guaranteed a first rate talk on the 5th of March – informative and enjoyable," said UNE's Professor Greg Horsley, Chair of the Museum of Antiquities Board. Professor Horsley urged everyone in the New England region with an interest in the past to avail themselves of opportunities such as this Museum lecture "to hear world-class speakers".

The annual lecture is named in honour of Dr Maurice Kelly who established the Museum within the Classics Department at the University in 1959. Dr and Mrs Kelly have lived in Armidale since 1954.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at March 3, 2008 09:45 AM