Lecture
KNOT: Envisioning A Virtual Museum of Indigenous American Heritage in Italy
- Date
- Wednesday 23 March 2022
- Time
- Address
-
Van Steenis
Einsteinweg 2
2333 CC Leiden - Room
- E0.03A
Dr Davide Domenici will present on his work on his ongoing work on creating an open access website that showcases Indigenous American Heritage in Italy. In his talk, “KNOT: Envisioning A Virtual Museum of Indigenous American Heritage in Italy”, Davide will present a project that is in the start-up phase, aimed at creating an open access website which can contain images, descriptions, collection history (with digitized primary sources), scientific data from material analyses, and perspectives from modern indigenous communities regarding the Indigenous American heritage in Italy. In its initial stage, the website does not aim at being exhaustive (that is, to include all indigenous objects in Italian museums), but rather to start from a “core group” of objects which could provide a model and a base for future developments, involving different museums etc.
About the speaker
Davide Domenici is associate professor of anthropology at the Department of History and Cultures, University of Bologna, where he studies anthropology, history and archaeology of Indigenous American peoples during pre-colonial and early colonial times. He participated in various international archaeological projects at Nazca, Perù (1986-1990), Easter Island, Chile (1991-1992), and Teotihuacan, Mexico (1993-1994). Between 1999 and 2010 he directed the Rio La Venta Archaeological Project of the University of Bologna to the Selva El Ocote (Chiapas, Mexico), in cooperation with the Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas. Between 2011 and 2016 he has been Director of the joint Italian-American Cahokia Project (University of Bologna; Washington University, St. Louis, MO), at Cahokia (IL, USA). In recent years, Davide has been working on a long term project of non-invasive chemical analyses of pre-Hispanic and colonial Mesoamerican codices, as well as studying the history of early modern Italian and European collecting of Mesoamerican artifacts.