FRIENDS OF IZIKO SOUTH AFRICAN
MUSEUM Non-Profit Organisation 052-511-NPO Postal address: P O Box 61 Cape Town 8000 South Africa Physical address: 25 Queen Victoria Street Cape Town South Africa Phone: 021 481 3913 Fax: 021 481 3993 Cell: 072 225 6893 E-mail: samfriends@iziko.org.za Website http://www.iziko.org.za/; http://www.iziko.org.za/ static/page/friends-of-the-south-african-museum
NEWSLETTER – SEPTEMBER 2015 Spring is on the way and we look forward to sharing exciting lectures, day outings and trips with our Friends on long-awaited sunny days.
UPCOMING LECTURES Lectures are held in the TH Barry Lecture Theatre at 18:00, unless otherwise advertised. Entrance is free to members on presentation of a valid 2015 membership card. Visitors are asked for a donation of R30 per lecture. Tuesday 29 September Speaker: Professor Mike Bruton Title: When I was a Fish: Tales of an Ichthyologist Professor Mike Bruton will speak about his interesting and varied scientific life, from collecting butterflies and beetles as a child, and as a graduate when he carried out research on the fishes, hippos and crocodiles of a remote lake in northern Zululand. As a newly qualified young scientist he embarked on another voyage of discovery in the laboratories, collection rooms and conference centres of some of the great European museums from a base at the Natural History Museum in London. Here he encountered not only fishes but also dodos, platypuses and Loch Ness monster wannabees. Along the way he became one of the leading experts on the behaviour of the famous ‘living fossil’ fish, the coelacanth, and an active proponent of its conservation. He will describe in detail the 1991 and 1996 expeditions off the South African coast to find coelacanths using the German research submersible, Jago.
Tuesday 27 October Speaker: Jaco Boshoff Title: The wreck of the Portuguese Slaver São Josè South Africa has had a long history of shipwreck exploration, unfortunately mostly by treasure hunters. The Slave Wreck Project presents an archaeological alternative to this by looking at slave shipwrecks along the South African coast. The São Josè Paquete d’Afrique is one of the wrecks that has been successfully located. In this lecture maritime archaeologist Jaco Boshoff will discuss the evidence for the identification of the wreck and will highlight the implications for the archaeology of slavery in southern Africa by analysing the potential of the ongoing investigation of the wreck of São Josè Paquete d’Afrique. Tuesday 24 November Speaker: Shadreck Chirikure Title: ‘After all women pumped bellows’: rethinking pre-industrial mining and metallurgy in sub-Saharan Africa Pre-industrial African metallurgy played an important role in the farming communities of sub-Saharan Africa. Metals such as iron were the mainstay of the utilitarian domain, where they produced tools. Non-ferrous metals were used for making expressive objects and those for personal adornment. Usually the production and use of metal cut across various areas of society, from the symbolic and political to the economic. While a great deal of information is now available about the technology and sociology of mining and metallurgy, there has been little introspection on the role of metals. The economic role of metals has been downplayed just like the role metals have played in promoting internal African connections. Metallurgy is seen as the pursuit of men, with women having no meaningful role except in auxiliary services. This presentation combines information from various sources to develop new understandings of the gender roles and cross craft overlaps in mining and metallurgy. It shows that metal was as important as cattle, land and other productive resources, and that woman played a more prominent role than is currently accepted in conventional thinking.