Gannon Opens New Archaeology Museum Gallery
Posted: April 10, 2013
Carolynn
B. Masters, Ph.D., RN, provost and vice president for academic affairs, and Linda
M. Fleming, Ph. D., dean of the College of Humanities, Education and Social
Sciences, join Suzanne Richard, director of the Collins Institute for
Archaeological Research, and guest speaker William G. Dever to cut the ribbon
opening Gannon’s new Archaeology Museum Gallery.
“This
is a very significant opening. It‘s
very rare for a university the size of Gannon to have an archaeology museum,”
said William G. Dever, Ph.D., and he would know. Dever is a world-renowned American
archaeologist specializing in the history of Israel and the Near East in
Biblical times, and he was also the speaker at the 2013 Collins Institute for
Archaeological Research Annual Lecture Series on Sunday, April 7.
That
event, attended by about 100 persons, also saw the public inauguration of the
museum of which Dr. Dever spoke. Located
on the third floor of the Palumbo Academic Center, the Archaeology Museum
Gallery is home to a collection of objects from the Bronze Age site at Khirbat
Iskandar, an excavation directed by Suzanne Richard, Ph.D., who was a student
of Dever’s.
These
objects—pottery, figurines and a very rare bronze spear point, have rested
peacefully beneath the desert in what is now the Kingdom of Jordan, some of
them for almost 5,000 years. They are a
mute testament to a civilization that disappeared more than two centuries
before the birth of Christ.
Dr.
Dever, the Distinguished Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at Lycoming
College and visiting professor of archaeology in the department of Near Eastern
studies at UCLA, has directed 30 seasons of excavations in Israel and has
authored 22 books, 366 scholarly articles, and 60 reviews. His lecture was
titled, “Uncovering the Past: My 50 Years as a Biblical Archaeologist,” a breezy
and fascinating look at discoveries and people, war, and politics, if not one
with a completely accurate title.
“The
truth of it is,” Dr. Dever admitted, “that I have been an archaeologist for 56 years
now.”