March 1, 2010
For more than 20 years, the Joukowsky Lectureship has presented preeminent scholars to audiences throughout North America. Named after past AIA president Martha Sharp Joukowsky, the lectureship is offered to archaeologists of every speciality. This season’s lecturer is Shelley Wachsmann, the Meadows Professor of Biblical Archaeology with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology and the Nautical Archaeology Program at Texas A&M University.
Few places on earth are farther from an ocean than Shelley Wachsmann’s birthplace: Regina, Saskatchewan. In the early 1970s, living in Israel and fascinated by scuba diving and the new discipline of nautical archaeology, he and a friend convinced the late Yigal Shiloh to organize the first-ever dive course in Jerusalem. In 1976, when Israel’s Department of Antiquities and Museums (now the IAA) created an Inspector of Underwater Antiquities job, Wachsmann was the only applicant with a degree in archaeology and a valid diver’s license. He spent the next 13 years overseeing Israel’s submerged heritage, recovering Napoleonic cannons and excavating a 2,000-year-old fishing boat in the Sea of Galilee. Since 1990, he has taught at Texas A&M University, while also conducting fieldwork in Israel, Greece, Portugal, and Egypt. Professor Wachsmann has been lecturing for the AIA since 1992, visiting more than 40 AIA Societies. “I get particular joy from participating in the lecture program,” he says. “It gives me an opportunity to share the adventures and the discoveries of my research with the general public.”
The Joukowsky Lectures are only one part of the AIA’s Lecture Program. In more than 100 locations in the United States and Canada, the AIA presents lectures on a myriad of topics. Check the AIA’s website today for a lecture near you.
Visit www.archaeological.org/lectures for a full listing of lectures, and contact your local AIA society or call 617-358-4184 for more information on events near you.
