Show Notes
For this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by university administrator, historian and former museum administrator Dr Toner Stevenson. Toner is the co-author with Dr Nick Lomb, of the new book Eclipse Chasers (2023).
Using a coin of the Roman emperor Nerva, minted in 96 AD when he came to power, they discuss how his funeral two years later coincided with a solar eclipse and how humans have interacted with eclipses for millennia. From Australian First Nation astronomy to the successful 1922 Australian scientific expeditions to capture data to prove Einstein's theory that gravity could bend the fabric of time and space - a project commemorated in its centenary year last year in postage stamps and in minted coins - bringing us back to Nerva's coin.
Guest: Dr Toner Stevenson is Head of the School of Humanities in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney. She is also a Honorary Associate in the Discipline of History at the school. She gained her doctorate in Social Sciences in 2016, after a long career in museums with leadership roles at the the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, including the Sydney Observatory where she was able to combine her museology interests with her passion for astronomy. She witness a total solar eclipse in 2012.
Host: Dr Craig Barker, Head of Public Engagement, Chau Chak Wing Museum and Director, Paphos Theatre Archaeological Excavations. Follow @DrCraig_B on Twitter and Instagram.
Objects details: Silver Denarius of Nerva, 96 AD, minted in Rome, Italy. Acquired before 2004 [NM2004.1667]
More from Object Matters
In this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by historian and author Dr Kiera Lindsey. Together they discuss her new book on colonial Sydney artist Adelaide Ironside titled Wild Love. Together they examine speculative history, writing biographies and art in colonial New South Wales, and explore Adelaide's complex relationship with University of Sydney founders William Charles Wentworth and Sir Charles Nicholson.
In this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Dr Anastasia Christophilopoulou, an archaeologist and curator at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and the 2023 Sir Charles Nicholson Lecturer. Together they discuss the Being An Islander project and associated Islanders: The Making of the Mediterranean exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, as well as Anastasia's archaeological interests in material culture in island environments, including Crete, Sardinia and Cyprus, where they discuss an Archaic period cult sanctuary site called Salamis Toumba.
In this special episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Egyptian archaeologist Dr Heba Abd el-Gawad. Together they discuss the unique role ancient Egypt plays in museums globally, the missing modern Egyptian voice in ancient Egyptian exhibitions, decolonising collections and her work as part of the AHRC-funded project ‘Egypt’s Dispersed Heritage: views from Egypt’, partnering with UK museums and archives to communicate the history of cultural dispersal and examining opportunities to create dialogue with modern Egyptian communities.
For this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Dr Natali Pearson of the University of Sydney's Sydney Southeast Asia Centre (SSEAC). Natali is a critical heritage scholar, so together they discuss her work on the maritime heritage of Southeast Asia, including her own work and her recent publication on the Belitung shipwreck in Indonesian waters, and the importance of Australians knowing our nearest neighbours better. Moving from Southeastern Asia to the Mediterranean, together they discuss the second century BC transport amphora (Greco-Italic style) covered with shell encrustations, and muse upon the sea's influence on human cultural history, trade and transportation of commodities and the importance of the encrustation as part of the object's history.
For this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by zoologist and 2023 Macleay Miklouho-Maclay Fellow Dr Angel Luis Viloria Petit, who has recently completed his research in Sydney, examining historic collections of butterflies. The Chau Chak Wing Museum houses the natural history collection of Alexander Macleay (1767-1848) largely amassed prior to his arrival in the colony of NSW in 1826. Many of the insects were acquired by Macleay from other naturalists, including Dru Drury (1725-1804) who published three volumes on butterflies. In his three months in Sydney, Venezuelan-based Dr Viloria has examined thousands of specimens in the collection and has successfully identified more than 260 primary type specimens, many from Drury's collections dating back to the 1770-1790s, identifiable from hand-painted illustrations from within those publications.