Archaeology Weekend Recap

Posted: April 18, 2012 - 10:24 , by royal

Submitted by Chen Shen, Vice President, World Cultures

A busy gallery filled with guests and archaeologists!

Here we have UofT graduate students explaining artefacts from the Aegean, behind them more students showing Onario artefacts, and behind them quipu-making with Dr. Justin Jennings!

Over 40 archaeologists from the ROM and the University of Toronto shared their knowledge of the people of the past and their artifacts during Archaeology Weekend on April 14 to 15, jointly organized by ROM Programs and the Department of World Cultures. There were activities for children, from colouring and digging in the sand, to understanding stratigraphy and petrographic analysis! There were objects to see and many to touch, including one of the oldest artifacts in the ROM’s collection – an Acheulian handaxe.

Most especially there were the archaeologists, with ROM curators, technicians, and conservators, UofT profs (indeed some of the ROM’s curatorial staff are also UofT profs), their graduate and undergraduate students, and experimental archaeologists from the Dark Ages Recreation Company, who were all on hand to talk about their work and their discoveries. There was a massive boost to attendance, and everyone had a great deal of fun! We’re all looking forward to doing it again!

Special thanks to the UofT’s Michael Chazan, Carl Knappett, and Heather Miller; and the non-DWC archaeologists in the ROM, Debra Foran, Dan Rahimi, and Julian Siggers for their participation – and all the UofT students!

Visitor take a closer look at the display in Currelly Gallery.

Dr. Debra Foran, the Director of the UofT's Tell Madaba excavations and field school, with two UofT students, talk about some of the finds from the dig and educate the public about stratigraphy!

Dan Rahimi shows a young visitors an artifact.

Dan Rahimi, archaeologist and also the ROM's Vice President of Gallery Development, explains one of the ROM's oldest artefacts to one of the ROM's youngest visitors.

Dr. Kay Sunahara sits behind one of the busy activity tables at Archaeology Weekend.

Dr. Kay Sunahara deals with a difficult question from the public in our "Meet the Archaeologist" activity.

Dr. Reichel speaks to visitors.

Dr. Clemens Reichel gets down to basics and explains how important pottery is in the everyday lives of these children.

A view of the conservation table.

Helen Coxon and Cathy Stewart of ROM Conservation explain some of the things t hat we do to artefacts after they are dug up