Meetings start promptly at 2.30pm and usually last for 1 hour.
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Petra – Caravan City of the Ancient Arabs.
Petra, famous for its hundreds of rock-cut tombs, was a great trading centre of the ancient Arabs on the edge of the desert. This lecture will use the archaeology, architecture, and art of Petra to reconstruct the trade routes, the technology, the everyday life, the hybrid culture, and the death rites of the Nabataean Arabs who occupied the city. We will discover a city on the edge in every sense – standing between desert and sown, between nomadism and civilisation, between Middle Eastern culture and Graeco-Roman classicism: an exotic Oriental mix in a stunning mountain landscape.
Dr Neil Faulkner
Educated at King’s College Cambridge and Institute of Archaeology UCL. Works as lecturer, writer, archaeologist and occasional broadcaster. Research Fellow, University of Bristol. Editor, Military History Monthly. Director, Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project. Director, Great Arab Revolt Project. Author of The Decline and Fall of Roman Britain, Apocalypse, Hidden Treasure, Rome: Empire of the Eagles, and The Ancient Greek Olympics: a visitor’s guide. Author of forthcoming Lawrence of Arabia’s War. Major TV appearances include Channel 4’s Time Team, BBC2’s Timewatch, Channel Five’s Boudica Revealed and Sky Atlantic’s The British.
8th May 2019
The Art and Craft of John Piper
The Art and Craft of John Piper
An abstract painter in the 1930s, John Piper was also a writer, critic and typographer and his love of architecture – especially medieval churches and stained glass – made him a highly sensitive observer of his surroundings. During the Second World War he became one of the best-known Official War Artists, creating powerful images of the destruction of Coventry Cathedral, the Houses of Parliament and of the city of Bath, as well as recording a wide range of buildings, from derelict Welsh cottages to the grandeur of Windsor Castle.
Jo Walton
Jo has combined teaching and lecturing with a career in art bookselling and has been a volunteer guide at both Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Now a freelance lecturer for The Arts Society, the Art Fund, and Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery and local art societies.
12th June 2019
AGM arrangements to be advised.
