Northern Cal. ARCE Lecture Jan. 2025 - Aethiopia Abroad: The Role of Kush

The American Research Center in Egypt, Northern California chapter, and the UC Berkeley Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures invite you to attend a lecture by Peter Moore Johnson, The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU: Aethiopia Abroad: The Role of Kush in a Network of Cultural Exchange in the Greater Mediterranean Sunday January 26, 2025, 3 PM  Pacific Standard Time This is a virtual lecture. To register, please click on this Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMvdeGtqjorE9zCOtCkXeTPs4513tOivdCm The lecture will not be recorded. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. There are a few things you should know before you join the lecture: * Advance registration is required. When you click on the link to "Register in advance for this lecture" you will receive instructions by email on how and when to join, along with a link on which you will click to join the meeting. Save the email, as you will need the link it contains to join the meeting. Please do not share the join link with anyone, it is unique to your email address. Try to join at least 10 minutes before the meeting. When you do join the meeting, be prepared to be put in the waiting room until the lecture starts at 3 pm.  This is a security measure. * If you haven't already installed Zoom, I recommend that you download and install the Zoom program (app) well before you try to join the meeting. There IS an option to use your web browser to join the meeting instead of the Zoom program, but the browser interface is limited and depends greatly on what browser and what operating system you're using. * For tutorials on how to use Zoom, go to https://learn-zoom.us/show-me. In particular, "Joining a Zoom Meeting" should show you what you need to do to join our lecture. * All meeting attendees can communicate with everyone, or with individual participants, using the chat window, which can be opened by clicking on the chat button and which you can probably find at the bottom middle of your Zoom viewing screen. Participants will be encouraged to hold their questions for the speaker until after the lecture, and will also be encouraged to address their questions for the speaker to "everyone" in the chat window, not just to the speaker, so that all can see them. "Everyone" is the default chat option. If you have any questions, please email me at arcencZoom@gmail.com. Glenn Meyer Northern California ARCE ePublicity Director Décoration du mobilier, 539-330 BCE (Achéménide) Place of discovery : Suse ville royale donjon SB 3723 Département des Antiquités orientales, Musée du Louvre (© 2008 Musée du Louvre, Dist. GrandPalaisRmn / Thierry Ollivier) About the Lecture: The history of Nubia during the seventh to fifth centuries BCE has been written with an over-reliance on the veracity of non-native, primarily Greek, sources. In Herodotus' Histories the scholar describes the region as an idealized utopia notable for its raw materials and a formidable fighting force. However, Kush's role extended beyond being just a geographical region to be pillaged for mercenaries and material wealth. It was a crucial trade partner in a period of internationalism and cultural exchange in Northeast Africa and the greater Mediterranean. A perceived dearth of representational evidence from Nubia abroad during this period reinforces the notion that Kush's only influence was as a place to be exploited. When artistic evidence is marshaled to consider Kush's influence, analysis has tended to rely solely on stereotypical depictions of Nubians identifiable through stylistic ethnic markers such as physiognomic features and bodily adornment. While this approach has been used to identify Nubian presence abroad, it hasn't accounted for the significance these depictions hold in their local contexts and for their widespread prevalence. This lecture argues that Kushite representational conventions established in the seventh century circulate beyond the borders of Nubia and become integrated into a larger international koine. This process will be presented through a corpus of objects which span both time and place, charting the development of Kushite influence through the Nile River Valley north to Egypt, where it then spreads to the Near East and the Aegean. Iron Age networks of cultural exchange have traditionally only considered the bordering civilizations of the Mediterranean; this talk aims to show the influence of this peripheral sub-Saharan African kingdom. By integrating Africa into these networks of exchange, this analysis will urge for new ways of looking at objects and materials which have traditionally been overlooked by conventional approaches to Western art history. About the Speaker: Peter Moore Johnson is a PhD Candidate at The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. He is currently the Marcia and Jan Vilcek Curatorial Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His research focuses on Kushite-era material culture and self-presentation in ancient Egypt and Nubia. His dissertation, Aethiopia Abroad, is a collections-based project that charts the influence and spread of Kushite material culture across the greater Mediterranean in the second half of the 1st millennium BCE.  His previous field experience includes the Innsbruck-Leiden Excavations at Satu Qala, Iraq, the NYUIFA Excavations at Sanam Temple, Sudan, and the NYUIFA Excavations at Abydos, Egypt. He has several years' experience in museum and curatorial work, including internships at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Oriental Institute Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, RISD Museum, and the Delaware Museum of Natural History, in addition to curating shows in New York, Chicago, and Providence. He holds an MA from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU and a BA (Hons.) in Egyptology from Brown University. --------------------- Parking is available in UC lots all day on weekends, for a fee. Ticket dispensing machines accept debit or credit cards. Parking is available in lots around the Social Sciences Building, and in lots along Bancroft. A map of the campus is available online at http://www.berkeley.edu/map/ . About Northern California ARCE: For more information, please visit https://www.youtube.com/@NorthernCaliforniaARCE, https://facebook.com/NorthernCaliforniaARCE/, https://twitter.com/ARCENCPostings, and https://khentiamentiu.org. To join the chapter or renew your membership, please go to https://arce.org/membership/ and select "Berkeley, CA" as your chapter when you sign up.

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