DAS Archaeology Lecture Courses

DAS Archaeology Lecture Courses

January to March 2018

The Devon Archaeological Society is offering the following programme of lecture courses for the period January – March 2018. The courses are open to non-members as well as to members of the Society.

Click on the course title for further details and a short introductory reading list.

Each course will consist of either eight or ten 2-hour sessions, each with a tea/coffee break in the middle and plenty of opportunity for discussion. One or more sessions may comprise a field visit. There will be no essays to write, nor exams to take, but students will be encouraged to read around the subject. Where possible there will be a book box for class members to borrow from, and members of DAS may borrow from the Society’s Library at Berkeley House.

The specialist archaeological bookseller Oxbow Books – www.oxbowbooks.com – carries, or can obtain, all of the recommended titles, which can also be obtained from Amazon – www.amazon.co.uk

The Exeter classes will be held at the Society’s premises at Berkeley House, Dix’s Field, Exeter. Note that the room at Berkeley House is accessed by stairs: there is no lift.

The Plymouth classes will be held at the Athenaeum in a ground floor lecture room. There is disabled access from the rear of the building.

The Newton Abbot classes will be held at the Council Offices, Great Western House, Devon Square, Newton Abbot. There is a stair-lift to the 1st-floor lecture room.

Course fees 2018

10 classes 7 classes

Standard fee ……………………………………………………...... …...... £90 £63

Reduced fee for senior citizens or unwaged …………...... …….. £80 £56

Click here for a course Booking Form.

Note that classes will run only if there are sufficient takers. Any money paid in advance for classes which do not run will be refunded in full.

No receipts will be sent out (though they can be provided on request). Assume that you are on a course unless informed to the contrary.

If you have any queries e-mail the Society at:

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THE COURSES

EGYPTIAN ART IN THE NEW KINGDOM, c. 1550 – 1050 BC

Tutor: Robert Morkot

In these classes we will look at some of the key productions ofEgyptian artists over the five hundred years of the Egyptian empire. We will look at changes over the period, and the influences that come into Egypt from its empire. We will also consider how to 'read' Egyptian art in its context, and the complex meaning of its images.

Recommended reading:

Location: Exeter, Berkeley House

Timing: Tuesday evenings, 7.00 pm – 9.00 pm

7 sessions starting Tuesday February 13th

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RECENT WORK ON RURAL SETTLEMENT IN ROMAN BRITAIN

Tutor: Derek Gore

Several studies of aspects of the Romano-British countryside have been published recently offering new interpretations and raising questions about our approach to the subject. How accurate is our data and our interpretations based on them? Did Conquest bring abrupt change to late Iron Age agriculture? What was the relationship between town and country? How important were villas in agricultural production? What do we know about the lives of the peasants who worked the land and formed the majority of the population? These and other questions will be answered in a startlingly exciting new approach to the subject.

Recommended reading:

McCarthy, M. 2013: The Romano-British Peasant.

Prag, J. and Neave, R. 1997: Making Faces Using Forensic and Archaeological Evidence

Smith, A., Allen, M., Brindle, T. and Fulford, M. 2016: The Rural Settlement of Roman Britain. Britannia Monograph 29.

Allen, M., Lodwick, L. Brindle, T., Fulford, M. and Smith, A. 2017:

The Rural Economy of Roman Britain: New Visions of the Countryside of Roman Britain. Britannia Monograph 30.

Location: Newton Abbot, Council Offices

Timing: Monday mornings, 10 am – 12 noon

10 sessions starting Monday January 8th

Location: Exeter, Berkeley House

Timing: Friday afternoons, 1.30 – 3.30 pm

10 sessions starting Friday January 12th

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THE LANDSCAPE OF MEDIAEVAL ENGLAND

Tutor: Richard (Sandy) Sandover

This series of lectures will look at the factors that led to the creation of the Mediaeval landscape of England. The symbiotic relationship between Crown and Church resulted in the building of impressive symbols of power and, yet, the humble plough has left behind some equally visible marks on the countryside. A time of great wealth, of abuses of power and the burgeoning of trade mechanisms, both internal and external, forged a new dynamic 'middle class', the beginnings of a nation of shopkeepers! The landscape of mediaeval England is, perhaps, the most accessible landscape from an archaeological perspective; this, combined with historical records, where available, can get us quite close to a creditable 'stab' at what the countryside looked like then. The lecture series will include a visit to Hound Tor Mediaeval Village on Dartmoor.

Recommended Reading

Astill, G. and Grant, A. (eds) 1988: The Countryside of Medieval England. Oxford, Blackwell Publishers.

Aston, M. 1985: Interpreting the Landscape. Abingdon, Routledge.

Dyer, C. 2002: Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain 850-1250. New Haven & London, Yale University Press.

Taylor, C. 1983: Village and Farmstead, a History of Rural Settlement inEngland. London, Book Club Associates.

Taylor, C. 2000: Fields in the English Landscape (revised edition). Stroud, SuttonPublishing Ltd.

Location: Exeter, Berkeley House

Timing: Monday afternoons, 1.30 – 3.30 pm

10 sessions, starting January 15th

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EARLY CHRISTIAN AND BYZANTINE ART

Tutor: Dr Geri Parlby

This course will look at Christian and Byzantine art from its origins in the third and fourth centuries to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Like the art of other cultures, early Christian and Byzantine art is made up of a pictorial language or ‘iconography’, designed to represent the religious, political and social belief system of the time. As well as learning how to identify and enjoy these wonderful works of art and architecture we will also be attempting to read their language and understand the influence they extended on the beholder at this time. Beginning in the catacombs of Rome and the Christianisation of the Roman Empire, we will then witness the creation of Constantinople and the foundation of Byzantium. Pausing between the politics, religious upheavals and court intrigues we will take time to experience the beauty of a vast array of manuscript illuminations, enamels, ivory carvings, mosaics, sculptures, jewelry and paintings, all created by some of the finest craftsmen of the Byzantine empire before its final fall in the 15th century.

Location: Plymouth Athenaeum

Timing: Friday mornings, 10.15 am – 12.15 pm

10 sessions starting Friday 12th January

Suggested reading

Cormack, R. 2007: Icons, London: British Museum Press

Cormack, R. 2000: Byzantine art, Oxford: OUP.

Elsner, J. 1998: Imperial Rome and Christian triumph. The art of the Roman Empire AD 100-450. Oxford: OUP.

Harris, J. 2016: The Lost World of Byzantium: Yale UP

Jensen, R.M .2000: Understanding early Christian art. London: Routledge.

Lowden, J. 1997: Early Christian and Byzantine art. London: Phaidon.

Mango, C. 2002: The Oxford history of Byzantium. Oxford: OUP.

Mathews, T.F. 1999: The clash of the gods: a reinterpretation of early Christian art. Princeton: PUP.

Rodley, L. 1996: Byzantine art and architecture. Cambridge: CUP.

Rutgers, L.V. 2000: Subterranean Rome. Leuven: Peeters Publications.

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THE TUTORS

Derek Gore was, for many years, a Teaching Fellow in the Archaeology Department at the University of Exeter. He has been teaching University lifelong learning classes for over 30 years. His interests lie in the Roman and early medieval periods.

Robert Morkot studied Ancient History and Egyptology in London and Berlin, and is now a senior lecturer in the Department of Archaeology, Exeter University. From 1999 he developed the Egyptology programme for Exeter’s Department of Lifelong Learning and has since then regularly taught adult education classes alongside his internal teaching. His research interests are based in the Mediterranean and North-East Africa, and have been particularly involved with Egypt, Nubia and Sudan, and Libya. His publications include The Egyptians: an Introduction and The Black Pharaohs: Egypt's Nubian Rulers.

Geri Parlby has an MA in Byzantine Art from the Courtauld Institute and a theology doctorate from Roehampton University. She has been lecturing for the past 12 years both in the UK and internationally. For many years she ran Exeter University’s distance learning course on Byzantine Art. She is principal lecturer on the Arts Society South West Area’s History of Art course, is an Honorary Research Fellow at Roehampton University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Richard (Sandy) Sandover is a ‘born again’ archaeologist who returned to archaeology after a career in the Fleet Air Arm. After digging with Gill Juleff (ExFe) and Eileen Wilkes (Bigbury) as an undergraduate, his Masters was in Landscape Archaeology and this led him to a PhD that used a landscape archaeological approach to held decipher Domesday – ‘Reconstructing the Medieval Landscape of Devon: Comparing the Results of Cartographic Analysis and the Domesday Survey’. Richard is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Exeter.