October 15 is International Archaeology Day (IAD), which is sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America and held each year on the third Saturday of October. AIC is registered as a Collaborating Organization for IAD this year and we are encouraging all AIC members to promote this event, archaeology, and how we as conservation professionals support archaeological projects and collections. You can do this in many ways, including by posting on the AIC and ADG Facebook pages and on the AIC blog, with a tag for International Archaeology Day. The hashtag for social media is #IAD2016.
As ADG co-chair and conservator at the Penn Museum, I will take this opportunity to promote the Penn Museum Symposium, Engaging Conservation: Collaboration Across Disciplines, taking place this week in Philadelphia from 6-8 October 2016. This 3-day symposium is being held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Penn Museum’s Conservation Department. Founded in 1966, it is thought to be the first archaeology and anthropology museum conservation lab in the United States to be staffed by professional conservators.
The Symposium will feature 31 paper presentations by conservators, archaeologists, anthropologists, and specialists in related fields, which will address topics related to the conservation of archaeological and anthropological materials and the development of cross-disciplinary engagement over the past half century. The full schedule and abstracts can be found on the symposium website by following this link. Look for upcoming posts summarizing the events.
The Penn Museum will be hosting a variety of other events on October 15th in celebration of IAD, including offering behind-the-scenes tours of the Museum’s Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM). CAAM opened in 2014, and encompasses teaching and research labs, staffed by specialists in ceramics, archaeobotany, archaeozoology, human skeletal analysis, archaeometallurgy, digital archaeology, and conservation.
We look forward to hearing about other ways in which our colleagues are involved in supporting archaeological projects and collections. Happy International Archaeology Day!