UNC Asheville Hosts Talk on Archaeologist Harriet Boyd Hawes

UNC Asheville will host a talk on “The Excavation and Adventures of Harriet Boyd Hawes: A Pioneer American Archaeologist in Crete” by archaeologist Geraldine Gesell at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 22, in UNC Asheville’s Ramey Library Whitman Room. The talk is free and open to the public.

Hawes was the first American archaeologist in Crete. She worked in eastern Crete at Kavousi and Gournia from 1900-1904. While other archaeologists focused on palaces and royal life, Hawes focused on small towns and the daily lives of the common people. Her excavation book described details of houses, stratigraphy, pottery, tools and stone vases, as well placing emphasis on the surrounding geology, geography, ethnography, flora and fauna.

Gesell is a classics research professor at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. An expert on Minoan religion and ritual, Gesell has been the director of excavations at the site of Kavousi on the island of Crete since 1984. She has published extensively on Kavousi as well as more generally on Minoan civilization in her book “Town, Palace and House in Minoan Crete.” One of her personal interests is the role of pioneer women archaeologists in Greece.

The talk is co-sponsored by UNC Asheville’s Classics Department and the Western Carolina Society of the Archaeological Institute of America.

For more information, call Laurel Taylor, UNC Asheville adjunct assistant professor of classics, at 828/251-6290.

Media Contacts:

• Laurel Taylor, UNC Asheville adjunct assistant professor of classics, 828/251-6290
• Jill Yarnall, UNC Asheville Public Information Assistant Director, 828/251-6526