06.05.2014
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The Nile Delta as a centre of cultural interactions between Upper Egypt and the Southern Levant in the 4th millennium BC, edited by A. Mączyńska, Studies in African Archaeology, vol. 13, Poznań, 2014.
This volume is part of, and a summary of the project entitled The Nile Delta as a centre of cultural interactions between Upper Egypt and the Southern Levant in 4th millennium BC. It contains a collection of papers by researchers involved in investigating the development of the Nile Delta in the Pre- and Protodynastic Periods. Nearly all of these papers were presented at the same-titled conference held on 21 and 22 June 2013 in the Poznań Archaeological Museum, Poland. Although originally planned as a workshop presenting the results of research carried out as part of the project, the conference eventually evolved into a major event and became an opportunity to meet and discuss the role of the Delta communities in the development of the Egyptian civilization in the 4th millennium BC, with particular emphasis on their relations with neighboring areas, i.e. the Southern Levant and Upper Egypt. The conference was attended both by project partners and by invited guests whose papers made an excellent addition to the main topic of the event. Only the paper by Steven Rosen was presented at a workshop called Imports during the Naqada Period: Investigating Two Sides of a Phenomenon organized by W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem on November 26, 2012. The main goal of the workshop was to meet Israeli archeologists, who keep finding Egyptian imports at various sites. An important element of the workshop was the opportunity to discuss Egyptian-Levantine relationships not only from the Egyptian, but also from the Levantine perspective. The article by Steven Rosen is a fine example here.
Agnieszka Mączyńska
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Lower Egyptian Communities and Their Interactions with Southern Levant in the 4th Millennium BC, A. Mączyńska, Studies in African Archaeology, vol. 12, Poznań, 2013.
This monograph is based on my doctoral dissertation written under the supervision of professor Lech Krzyżaniak and defended in the autumn of 2004. Although many people encouraged me to publish the dissertation, and the Council of the Faculty of History at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, issued a positive opinion on the matter, I did not manage to have my thesis printed. Some of the issues addressed there were presented at conferences and published as research papers. In May 2011 I received a grant to finance a 3-year project entitled The Nile Delta as a centre of cultural interactions between Upper Egypt and South Levant in the 4th millennium B.C. The grant was part of the Parent Bridge program financed by the Foundation for Polish Science, and was aimed at providing assistance to young parents-researchers returning to research work after a parenting break. Publishing my doctoral dissertation was originally one of the project tasks. However, I well realized that archeological evidence and its interpretation had changed (sometimes significantly) after 2004. Likewise, my own views and knowledge had evolved during those years. It was thus only natural to update the dissertation and to revise my views presented back in 2004. As a result, this monograph is not merely an English translation of the dissertation defended nearly 10 years ago, but it also addresses the problem of new discoveries from the Nile Delta and Southern Levant. In addition, it presents my current views on the interactions between the Delta, Upper Egypt and Canaan, reflecting the last two years of intensive research.
Agnieszka Mączyńska
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January 18th – March 15th 2014
exhibition curator: Agnieszka Stempin
In the course of excavations archaeologists hold hundreds of years in their hands. Sometimes – as was the case with the research carried out in Ostrów Tumski – the results astound even the discoverers themselves. The monumental sweep of the settlement’s fortified walls, the grand scale of the first Poznań fortress and the excellent state of preservation of oakwood constructions have stirred the minds of scholars as well as the imagination of artists. The thousand-year old material united both parties and so proved that there are many ways of seeking beauty in the past. For the archaeologists, the oak trunks disclosed valuable information throwing some light onto obscure areas of the distant past; as for the artists, they were able to give the same wood fragments a new lease of life by pervading them with modern contents and giving some substance to the symbolic encounter with the long-gone inhabitants of Poznań.
The 1000 years in necklaces exhibition is part of an interdisciplinary project THE MODERN BEAUTY OF ANCIENT WOOD, started by the Genius loci Archaeological Reserve in 2013 and continued into the present year. We have asked for the cooperation of Architecture Department, the Poznań Polytechnic, Sculpture and Spatial Events Department, University of Arts, and the P. Potworowski High School of Plastic Arts, Poznań. The aim of the enterprise was to emphasise the mediaeval engineering feat accomplished in the fortified walls of Ostrów Tumski and to offer artists an opportunity of a new look at history and a closer acquaintance with the past in a novel, exciting way. Sculptures, plastic installations and paintings inspired by the wood kindly made available by the Poznań Archaeological Museum inhabited the place.
Anna Orska Ph.D., a Poznań designer, who for many years has been presenting the amazed public with distinctive jewellery noted for the individual, frequently historic nature of the material used, joined the project and created a unique collection. The wooden stuff of which the earliest Poznań was made has returned under a new artistic guise. Starting with January 18th, the Genius loci Archaeological Reserve has been housing extraordinary and magnificent necklaces, each of them enclosing a moment of the city’s history: the relics of the oak tree discovered by archaeologists.
The exposition of designs made by Anna Orska is an invitation to an unusual get-together with history and a proposal to use artistic contemplation for a better understanding of the Ostrów Tumski phenomenon. The jewellery presented, modern in approach and sensitivity, maps out novel ways of yielding to our fascination for the past. When looking at these beautiful objects, it is worth remembering that each of the necklaces contains a contribution from the mediaeval builders of the city and state that were emerging at that time. The engineers and woodcutters from one thousand years back are the anonymous co-authors of the exhibition.
Archaeological Reserve Genius Loci is located on Ostrów Tumski – Posadzego Street 7, Poznań
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