Cyprus Mail 2 August 2021 - by Eleni Philippou
Tree-rings are extraordinary archives of information. The growth patterns recorded, and chemistry stored within the cellulose of each tree-ring can potentially provide key information for architectural history, art history, archaeology, palaeoclimatic and palaeo-environmental studies, and much more, ranging from dating information to the sources of wood used in the past, to records of past fires, temperature and rainfall. It is all of this that a seminar will focus on Wednesday at the Amphitheatre Costas Stefanis of The Cyprus Institute, and live streamed online.
The presentation will look at recent work in Cyprus, the eastern Mediterranean and North America and a number of important new contributions from tree-rings that write or re-write history. Examples include the resolution of Old Assyrian/Old Babylonian chronology in the earlier second millennium BC, a unique monumental wooden structure in northern Italy from the mid-second millennium BC, closely dating the 4th century BC Mazotos shipwreck off the south coast of Cyprus, investigating the Byzantine to Ottoman heritage of Cyprus, and reconsidering the accepted timeline for Indigenous sites during the period of initial European contact, invasion and then settlement in North America.
The seminar will be in English and the live stream will be open to the public from the YouTube channel and Facebook page of The Cyprus Institute. Led by Sturt Manning, Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences in Classics at Cornell University, USA. Director of the Cornell Tree Ring Laboratory and an Associate Provost at the Cyprus Institute, Manning has lengthy expertise in tree-ring projects.
He has carried out archaeological or archaeological science/tree-ring projects extensively in the Mediterranean, especially the east Mediterranean, as well as North America, Mexico and China. His current research projects include the wooden heritage of Cyprus, the Kalavasos and Maroni Built Environments Project, the dendrochronology of northwest Mexico, the Vasca Votiva in northern Italy, Levantine dendroarchaeology, and the Dating Iroquoia project in northeast North America.
Colloquium: Using Tree-Rings to Date and Write History
Seminar with professor Sturt Manning. August 4. The Cyprus Institute, Nicosia and live streamed on Facebook and YouTube. 8.30pm-10.30PM
