Professor Andrew Reynolds, Professor of Medieval Archaeology, UCL Institute of Archaeology

Monday 9 January saw the opening event of the Institute of Archaeology’s 75th Anniversary programme with an engaging tour de force from Cyprian Broodbank, Professor of Mediterranean Archaeology, who delivered his inaugural lecture to a packed house.

An audience of almost 200 filled the Institute’s main lecture theatre to capacity – with standing room only – shortly before Cyprian’s lecture was introduced by Professor Stephen Shennan, Director of the Institute, with Professor Stephen Smith, UCL’s Dean of Social and Historical Sciences, in the Chair.

At the core of his lecture lay the notion that a focus on the Classical period in the Mediterranean region has obscured from view much earlier social and economic reactions to the ‘Middle Sea’.

Escaping the traditional bounds of period- and regionally-based archaeology, Cyprian drew widely on the archaeology of human societies from the later palaeolithic (later stone age) onwards, incorporating recent ethnographic material, and ranged in equal measure across this vast and varied cultural melting pot –  a maritime region that links the Iberian peninsula, with its distinctive (but less well-known) prehistoric archaeology, in the west with the eastern Mediterranean and the so-called ‘cradle of civilisation’.

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Propaganda, spying, exploration, secret societies and, of course, money were all key ingredients of a workshop on British Mandate Palestine and Transjordan held on 9 November, writes Paul Butenshaw.

The workshop,’ Tourism as Colonial Policy? The History of Heritage Tourism in British Mandate Palestine and Transjordan’, brought together an impressive array of scholars and experts to explore the interrelationship of scholarship, state and travel in this pivotal period of the region’s history.

Professor Michael Berkowitz (UCL Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies), began proceedings with an examination of Zionist tourism to Palestine in the inter-war period, describing how tours sought to control travel and showcase a particular view of the area and its history that suited their own perspectives. (more…)

In what amounts to either a delicious coincidence or a scheduling coup, the Institute of Archaeology held its ‘Cybertut: Archaeology Discovery, Tutankhamun and Cyberman’ event last week, just as the ruthless Cybermen reappeared in the latest series of Doctor Who.

A Cyberman insignia from The Tomb of The Cybermen

For those of you who don’t know, these emotionless cyborgs replaced their body parts with robotics in a supreme act of self-preservation and vie with the Daleks for the title of the Doctor’s greatest adversary.

So, what is the link between them and Tutankhamun? This was exactly the question posed by a new documentary, Curse of the Cyberman’s Tomb, which was screened at the event – following a short introduction by Vice-Chair of the Egypt Exploration Society and UCL PhD student John J Johnston.

Filmed in the UCL Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, the documentary is scheduled to appear as an extra on the new DVD edition of classic Doctor Who serial, The Tomb of the Cybermen.

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The Festival of British Archaeology is an annual 16 day event (this year 16–31 July) and aims to encourage visits to “sites of archaeological/historical interest or museums, heritage and resource centres to see archaeology in action and to take part in activities on-site”.

To celebrate, UCL Institute of Archaeology, the fourth largest archaeology collection in the world (behind the Cairo Museum, the British Museum and the Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin), held an Open Day on 27 July with many activities throughout the department and tours of their main collections store by Ian Carroll (Collections Manager), one of which I attended.

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