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PUBLIC LECTURE: The Star-Crossed Stone - The Archaeology, Mythology and Folklore of Fossil Sea Urchins

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Today's date is Thursday, March 28, 2024
The Star-Crossed Stone - The Archaeology, Mythology and Folklore of Fossil Sea Urchins Other events...
A public lecture by Dr Kenneth J. McNamara, Dept of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge.

On a March day in 1887 the skeletons of a young woman and a child were found on top of a windswept hill in southern England where they had lain in their shallow grave for about 4,000 years. Little would be remembered today about this discovery were it not for one very strange feature of the burial. Nestling close to the very fragile bones were hundreds of fossil sea urchins, each emblazoned by a five-pointed star.

Since that day archaeologists have excavated many graves that contain fossil sea urchins. Such discoveries, along with the recovery of fossil urchins from many other types of archaeological excavations throughout much of Europe, the Near East and northern Africa, have revealed that people have been collecting fossil urchins for an extraordinarily long period of time.

Just what did these prehistoric collectors make of them? Sports of the Devil? Gifts from the Gods? Why did they bother to collect them? And more importantly, what drove them to so often bury them with their dead?

In this talk Dr McNamara will try to answer these questions and explore what Norse mythology tell us about the Vikings’ association of fossil urchins with hand axes; why another species of human 400,000 years ago made a hand axe with a fossil urchin in it; why the lives of a Roman Emperor and an ancient Egyptian priest were both touched by fossil urchins; why, 10,000 years ago, people in the eastern Mediterranean region apparently viewed these fossils as fertility symbols; what prompted a Medieval church-builder in England to frame a window with a collection of fossil urchins; and why today we are still fascinated by five-pointed stars.

Cost: Free. RSVP to [email protected]
Location Webb Lecture Theatre (G21), Ground Floor, Geography Building, UWA
Contact Institute of Advanced Studies <[email protected]> : 6488 1340
URL http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/ken-mcnamara
Start Mon, 27 Aug 2012 18:00
End Mon, 27 Aug 2012 19:00
RSVP RSVP is required.
Submitted by Audrey Barton <[email protected]>
Last Updated Wed, 04 Jul 2012 15:38
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