Upcoming Virtual Lectures October 2020 You must register for each lecture you wish to attend Member Only* Title: Maurice Nahman: Antiquities Collector, Dealer and Authority Date and Time: October 18 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time/ 9:00 PM Eastern European Time Speakers: Iman Abdulfattah The late 19th-early 20th century saw a proliferation of collectors and museums acquiring objects from the Middle East. What was being collected by these individuals and institutions was largely shaped by the connoisseurship of a well-connected network of dealers in possession of vast assemblages of antiquities. One such figure was Maurice Nahman (1868–1948). The objective of this lecture is to reconstruct his biography and professional trajectory through the lens of his relations with art historians, curators, collectors and buyers, with a focus on post-pharaonic material. *This online lecture is available exclusively to ARCE members. Registration will close 48 hours in advance of the lecture time. Member Only* Title: Putting Them Back Together Again: The Story of the Old Kingdom Prisoner Statues in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the British Museum Date and Time: October 25 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time/ 9:00 PM Eastern European Time Speakers: Tara Prakash During the late Old Kingdom, pharaohs had nearly life-size statues of kneeling, bound foreign captives erected within their pyramid complexes. Today two unprovenanced examples of these unique statues, which are known as prisoner statues, are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art while a third one is in the British Museum. All three arrived at these museums fully reconstructed and restored. This lecture will discuss both the ancient and recent history of these statues. This online lecture is available exclusively to ARCE members. Registration will close 48 hours in advance of the lecture time. Public Access* Title: The Curse of the Black Eggplant: Reconstructing Occult Economies in Late Ottoman Egypt Date and Time: October 31 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time/ 9:00 PM Eastern European Time Speakers: Taylor Moore Occult objects and services were a central part of the economic marketplace in late Ottoman Egypt. Sudanese magicians read palms and told fortunes in open markets. Charms, talismans, and ingredients for magical recipes were available for purchase at the local 'attar. Anxious women bribed the gatekeepers of Khedival gardens handsomely to access the black eggplant—a natural amulet that cured (or inflicted) infertility in any who traversed its fertile patches. Yet, these are not the actors we generally cast in histories of capitalism and political economy in the Middle East. In this talk, Moore uses the "amulet tale" of the black eggplant as a frame to reveal the occult economies that were a robust—if not integral—part of Egypt's economic market in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries *Registration will close 24 hours in advance of the lecture time. | |