Theme: Revealing the Ancient World
Join world-class speakers at our Focus Day on peace in the Middle East, find out about the art of activism and examine notable speeches.
What's on
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Andrew George, author of the prize-winning Penguin translation of Gilgamesh and one of the few people who have read all the original cuneiform tablets, explores four themes related to this masterpiece of Babylonian poetry: the archaeology of the poem's recovery, the reconstruction of its text, the story it tells, and its messages about life and death.
Ancient Egyptian Art: Everything is real
Join Egyptologist Bill Manley, author of Egyptian Art, as he highlights some of the finest achievements of a uniquely successful and enduringly compelling civilisation through more than 3,000 years, in order to discover what art meant to the pharaohs and their followers.
Stonehenge: Old rocks, new theories
Stonehenge is Britain’s most famous ancient monument, an extraordinary and enigmatic structure attracting over 1.4 million visitors a year. Archaeologist, writer and broadcaster Julian Richards will explain its sophisticated architecture and show how it has been explored, studied and interpreted over the centuries.
Re-staging Greek Tragedy Today
Join Fiona Macintosh of the University of Oxford and Richard Rowland of the University of York as they explore the power that ancient Greek drama continues to exert over authors and theatre practitioners today.
Imagining Ancient Egypt
Egyptologist and broadcaster Joann Fletcher explains how current imaging techniques which recreate artefacts in a virtual sense, with obvious benefits for conservation, can also be used to place them back into their original ancient setting.
The Writing in the Stone
Join Irving Finkel, the bestselling author of The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood, to find out how he discovers and deciphers text from clay tablets to reveal ancient Mesopotamia.
Can we Save the Past? The case of Herculaneum
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, former Director of the Herculaneum Conservation Project, looks back on the challenges and revelations of a project which, for 15 years, has battled to preserve the remains of Herculaneum.
