March 6: Lecture by Marian Feldman

Remembering and Forgetting in Ancient Mesopotamia: Ziggurats, Royal Sculpture, and the Shaping of the Akkadian Empire during the Ur III Period (c. 2100–2000 BCE)

This talk investigates the destruction and reconstruction of sacred space by the rulers of the so-called Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2100-2000 BCE), as well as their contrasting preservation and curation of royal monuments from the Akkadian dynasty that preceded them (c. 2350-2150 BCE). It proposes the imbricated nature of the Akkadian and Ur III periods, especially as we have come to understand each of them today, while also making an argument for the way architectural spaces generate bodily experiences that are central to collective identity and memory in contrast to representational monuments of a discursive nature. In doing so, Dr. Feldman explores how people engage variously with spatial and representational experiences and the effects on shared memory thus generated in order to analyze how the two modes of memory making intertwined with one another in the sacred precincts of the Ur III rulers, and especially that of the temple complex of the god Enlil, known as the Ekur, at Nippur.

March 6 at 6:00 pm
✎ Webinar Registration Required (click here)