Dear all,
as Jen I am PhD student. I am doing my PhD in Munich on animal bones
from Egypt. I am working on freelance most of the time at the moment -
i.e. for the institutes of Egyptology and Palaeoanatomy in Munich, for
the Swiss Egyptology Institute and the German Institute for Archaeology
in Cairo. I also think that the idea of having a network/conference for
young zooarchers is a wonderful idea. As I am Egyptologist, too, I took
part in one of the few young Egyptologists conferences two years ago
with great success. It was good to see what the others are working on
and how. So, it should work out for Zooarchaeology as well.
Furthermore I think its really important for getting in contact with
people and hopefully also staying in contact be it via e-mail or via
further meetings and conferences. But, it would be good to have some of
the well-established zooarchers, who are willing to criticize sensibly,
around as chairmen for example, too. Especially when you are really new
in the subject it can help a lot, but only if you are not trodden into
the ground at once. And there should be people as chairmen and those
presenting papers working all around the world and being able to tell
the others about the problems and means they had to talk while working
there. For example in Egypt we are not allowed to talk anything out of
the country or even the place where it was found without have to go
through a horrible lot of paperwork, trouble and spending money. On the
other hand they don't have the equipment for special analyses (x-raying,
c14-measuring and so on) in the country. Bringing them to Egypt is not
working either because of the dust, the government, the money, they
weight, etc. I would be happy to know if others do have similar problems
and how they manage to solve them.
On the other hand I think it's important still to have mixed
conferences/contacts, meaning with archaeologists and people working in
other sciences. I am planning a conference on Egyptology and Natural
Sciences for hopefully next year and would like to take the chance in
this e-mail to ask what other zooarchers are thinking about that. One
aim of the conference should be to bring Egyptologists, Zooarchers,
Botanists, Geologists and so on to talking and creating a picture of the
environment of Egypt through the millenia. The influences of environment
and its changes are supposed to be the key catalyst for the onset of
Egypt's high culture. Unfortunately in Egyptology the further ways of
development of flora, fauna, climate etc. are more or less neglected
though for sure they had their effects on Egypt's history. In this
conference I want to bring Egyptologists and people working in natural
sciences on one table as equals - not having Egyptologists as main
researchers and the other working just FOR them. The overall concept of
the conference is not yet ready but I hope it sounds interesting for
some of you, too, and would be happy about your responses on it.
Best regards,
Johanna Sigl
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