Appointment
Dr. William H. Davenport, Curator of the Oceanian Section, has been appointed Associate Director of the Museum.
Grants Received
The University Museum has received a grant of $3,000. from the Seybert Institution to help fund the pilot program called “The World Ancient and Modern.” This is a joint project of the International Classroom and the Museum Education Department for outreach activities.
For other grants, see “Southeast Asia Section.”
Guatemalan Expedition
Dr. Robert J. Sharer, Associate Curator of the American Section, has returned from Guatemala where, during the last three months, he has completed the excavation and laboratory work at the Classic Maya site of Quirigua. The Museum has been excavating there since 1975. The first of the Quirigua Papers reporting on this work is almost ready for publication.
Torre del Mordillo Published
The proton-magnetometer survey by MASCA in 1963 of this fortified hill-top settlement of between the 8th and 3rd centuries B.C. in Calabria, Italy, was followed by excavations that year and in 1966 and 1967. A fully illustrated account of the work and of the finds has now been published by Museum Research Associate and Board Member Oliver C. Colburn in Notizie degIi Scavi, 8th series, Vol. 31 (1977), pp. 423-526. Preliminary reports by Dr. Colburn appeared in vol. 9, no. 3 and vol. 18, no. 2 of Expedition.
Southeast Asia Section
The Ban Chiang Project is now entering the final stages of its first five year program; our National Science Foundation Grant (BNS77-14425) for the continued analysis of the artifactual material was renewed through to the end of February 1980. By the end of this summer all artifactual material will have been reconstructed, analyzed, and coded for computerized manipulation and retrieval. Joyce White (who leaves for Ban Chiang in July), and James Penny (just back from two years in Ban Chiang) are supervising a fine laboratory staff of Pennsylvania work-study students and museum volunteers. William Schauffler has been in charge of our SELGEM computer program. Mr. Schauffler, Miss White and Mr. Penny are all completing Penn Ph.D. degrees on Ban Chiang related projects. Deborah
Kramer, a veteran of the Ban Chiang excavations, a Marshall Scholar and Ph.D. candidate at Trinity College, Cambridge University, is currently at the museum conducting her dissertation research on the Ban Chiang ceramic assemblage.
A Ban Chiang travelling exhibit is scheduled to begin a year and a half from now. A conceptual prospectus written by Dr. Gorman has been accepted by the Smithsonian Institution’s Travelling Exhibits Service (SITES) which will mount the exhibit and orchestrate its national tour and repatriation to Thailand. Mr. Dejo Savanananda, Director General of the Thai Fine Arts Department, will be visiting the museum this May; he will work with Dr. Gorman and the Smithsonian staff to complete arrangements for the exhibit during his visit.
Our post-graduate training program in Southeast Asian archaeology continues tinder support from the Ford Foundation and various Southeast Asian governments. Five young Southeast Asian archaeologists including: Pisit Charoenwongsa (Thailand); Otti Mundarjito (Indonesia); Pthomrerk Ketudhat (Thailand); ti Nyunt Han (Burma); and Wilfredo Ronquillo (Philippines) are currently enrolled in the program. Four new Southeast Asian students are expected to join us in the fall of this year.
Ancient Cities of the Indus
Dr. Gregory L. PossehI, Assistant Curator in the Southeast Asia Section, has edited and contributed to an anthology, Ancient Cities of the Indus, published by the Carolina Academic Press. Included in the anthology are papers by a number of people associated with the Museum: Dr. Robert Dyson, Dr. Samuel Kramer, Dr. Elizabeth Ralph, Mark Han, Dr. George Dales, Dr. Henry Michael and M. Rafique Mughal. The book will be available soon from the Museum Shop.
Resignation
Mr. Ronald J. Goff, the Secretary of the University Museum, has resigned and will be returning to private enterprise.
Note
The editor regrets that in the Winter 1979 number of Expedition (Vol. 21, No. 2) the following credits were omitted: William C, Brinkman drew Figs. 34, 35 and 40 in The University Museum in Egypt,” and Figs. 1, 3, 4 (with John Stengelhofen) 5a, b; 5c (with Charles Evers) in “Abydos: The University Museum—Yale Expedition.”