The Royal Ontario Museum will host afour day symposium called Life in the Afterlife at the same time that a giant Terracotta Warriors show will be on display at the museum.
Life in the Afterlife will explore ideas on life after death across different cultures. Speakers will be talking about the afterlife in numerous places, including Ancient China, Egyptand the Near East. The symposium also examines China during the rule of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor.
The event is aimed at a popular audience. The keynote lecture will be given by journalist Simon Winchester who will be discussing Joseph Needham, an English chemist who studied ancient Chinese science and published several volumes on the topic. Needham died in 1995 and Winchester wrote a book on him called The Man who Loved China. That lecture takes place on Thursday October 14 at 7 pm.
Professor Edward (Ted) Banning gave an interesting interview with Heritage Key about the discovery of a Neolithic landscape in Syria that has stone circles, alignments and (what appears to be) burial cairns. At the museum symposium hes going to be talking about the use of skulls during the Pre Pottery Neolithic Period in the Near East (ca. 8500 5500 BC).
Xiuzhen Janice Li is Senior Curator of the Museum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s Terracotta Army in Xian.She is also adoctoral candidate at University College London. She will be discussing the weapons shown on the Terracotta Warriors and how they were created and standardized – after all, arming a terracotta army of this size is no mean feat!
Also archaeologist Roberto Ciarla will be travelling to Toronto from the Museo Nazionale dArte Orientale in Rome, to talk about the lives of the common people of China during the rule of Qin Shi Huang and what their view of the afterlife was. In 2005 he published the book Eternal Army: The Terracotta Soldiers of the First Emperor.
Registration and Full Schedule
If you register before May 1 you get the early bird fee of $300 for members and $325 for non-members. After that it goes up to $325 and $350 respectively. It may sound a bit expensive but there are numerous lectures and the fee does include some meals. To register, and find out more information, visit the symposium website.
There is more news to come about the Terracotta Warriors show. The Museum will be announcing a series of lectures and debates that will accompany the event.They have also just announced thatthe exhibitwillopenonJune 26.
Schedule of lectures courtesy of the ROM
Thursday October 14
OPENING NIGHT, COCKTAIL RECEPTION & KEYNOTE ADDRESS
3:00 5:00pm SYMPOSIUM REGISTRATION
3:30 5:00pm DOCENT TOURS OF WORLD GALLERIES
5:00 7:00pm COCKTAIL RECEPTION
All Level 2 Bronfman Hall
7:00pm KEYNOTE ADDRESS – SIMON WINCHESTER
Followed by book signing
Joint presentation with ROM Director’s Signature Lecture Series
Samuel Hall Currelly Gallery
Friday October 15
THE AFTERLIFE AROUND THE WORLD
8:00am CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST
Level 2 Bronfman Hall
9:30am OPENING REMARKS
9:45am Archaeological Perspectives
of the Afterlife in Ancient China
Chen Shen | ROM
10:30am Going Forth by Day: The Afterlife in Ancient Egypt
Gayle Gibson | ROM
11:00am Death as Life’s Ambition: Funerary Rites in Madagascar
Sarah Fee | ROM
11:30am Afterlife in South Asian Art and Architecture, From Past to Present
Deepali Dewan | ROM
12:00pm BUFFET LUNCH
Level 2 Bronfman Hall
1:00pm Images of Life, Death, and Resurrection in Late Medival Art
Corey Keeble | ROM
1:30pm The Onkwehonweh Ganohsesgehono Longhouse Civilization and its View of the Afterlife
Amos Key Jr. |
2:00pm The Afterlife of Skulls in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Near East
Ted Banning | University of Toronto
2:30pm The Most Important Journey: Burial traditions Among the Ga of Ghana
Silvia Forni | ROM
3:00pm CLOSING REMARKS
3:30pm ROM Docent Tour of The Warrior Emperor and China’s Terracotta Army (included with buffet dinner)
OPTIONAL
5:00pm BUFFET DINNER (requires separate registration)
Level 2 Bronfman Hall
Menu inspired by The Warrior Emperor and China’s Terracotta Army exhibition
7:30pm Departures, An Academy Award winning Japanese film, is a “delightful and sensitive journey” into perceptions of the afterlife. (included with buffet dinner)
Saturday October 16
QIN SHIHUANGDIS CHINA
8:00am CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST
Level 2 Bronfman Hall
9:30am OPENING REMARKS
9:45am Faith and Thought in the Time of China’s First Emperor
Vincent Shen | University of Toronto
11:00am Life and Afterlife of the Common People at the time of Qin Shihuangdi
Roberto Ciarla | Archologist, Museo Nazionale dArte Orientale, Rome.
12:00pm BUFFET LUNCH
Level 2 Bronfman Hall
1:00pm Standardisation and Labour Organisation in the Qin. Bronze Weapons of the Terracotta Army
Xiuzhen Janice LI | Senior Curator
of the Museum of Emperor Qin Shihuang’s
Terracotta Army, Xian, China;
2:00 pm Art in the time of China’s First Emperor
Klaas Ruitenbeek | Director of
Museum fr Asiatische Kunst, Berlin.
3:00 pm CLOSING REMARKS
OPTIONAL
3:15 pm Afternoon Tea with speakers, c5
(requires separate registration)
Sunday October 17
OPTIONAL
2:00 pm ROMwalk guided tour of Mount Pleasant Cemetery (2 hours; requires separate registration)
Meet at Southwest entrance,
Yonge Street, north of St. Clair Ave.
All symposium lectures will be held in the
Signy and Clophe Eaton Theatre, on Level B1.
please note: No recording devices are permitted.
Life in the Afterlife runs from October 14-17 at the Royal Ontario Museum. Click here for more details.