Internationally known underwater archaeologist and CU-Boulder history Professor Robert Hohlfelder will kickoff the fall 2000 Chancellor聮s Community Lecture Series on Wednesday, Sept. 13, with his presentation "Swimming Over Time: A Survey of the Submerged Ruins of Aperlae."
All talks in the Chancellor聮s Community Lecture Series will be at 7 p.m. in the Chapel at The Academy, located at 970 Aurora Ave. in Boulder. The monthly lectures are free and open to the public.
Hohlfelder will speak about his latest discoveries regarding a church lying underwater in the ruins of the town Aperlae in southern Turkey. The church is one of five found in the town, where only about 1,000 people lived as recently as 700 A.D. Aperlae has no written history, so Hohlfelder and other archaeologists are trying to piece together as many physical clues as possible to explain their findings.
Aperlae was a small, remote maritime city in ancient Lycia. The harsh terrain of its interior forced a reliance on the Mediterranean Sea from its founding to its demise. The Aperlites stabilized and enhanced their urban waterfront in modest ways over the centuries but basically maintained and sustained their intimate relationship with the sea without elaborate docking or harbor installations. Fishing, probably a primary industry, centered on the harvest of murex trunculus, the marine mollusk from which a special purple dye coveted by the Roman elite was made.
The program is co-sponsored by The Academy and the CU-Boulder Office of Community Relations on Wednesday evenings once a month from September through December. The series continues the community program launched in September 1998 that brings CU-Boulder faculty into the community for talks ranging from arts and humanities to business and the sciences.
Parking is available along the streets that border The Academy: Lincoln, Cascade, Aurora and 10th. For more information contact the CU-Boulder Office of Community Relations at (303) 492-8384.