Sarah Wisseman, author: March 2021

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Mapping sites from above and Cahokia

In our last lecture for "Overlooked Archaeology," we discussed LiDAR and satellite photography as well as older remote-sensing techniques for discovering and mapping archaeological sites.

LiDAR

Good summary of LiDAR technique with examples from around the world.

SPACE ARCHAEOLOGY

Great Ted talk by archaeologist Sarah Parcak

Wonderful book (available on Amazon):

CAHOKIA:

Best website, hands-down. Called "Re-envisioning Greater Cahokia," it is an interactive map with tons of information on recent discoveries.

Videos: Hour-long lecture by archaeologist Timothy Pauketat

Shorter introduction to a longer PBS video

YouTube channel for ISAS. includes hour-long lecture on Cahokia's red goddesses by Tom Emerson and a short clip on current use of drones as well as other interesting clips.

Articles and book excerpts on Cahokia:

Tim Pauketat on Cahokia causeway and cosmology

An excerpt from Cahokia: Mirror of the Cosmos by Sally A. Kitt Chappell

Grossmann celts and Nick Wisseman discovery

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Health and Disease in ancient times...

This topic is from the third lecture of "Overlooked Archaeology." We covered heart disease and many other ailments in overstudied mummies such as the Italian Iceman and the Chinese noblewoman Lady Dai. We also discussed DNA studies of teeth, which reveal diet, disease, and migration patterns, ancient surgery and medicine, evidence of tooth decay in skeletal remains, and early dental remedies.

Videos:

Carolyn Freiwald on Tales from Teeth

A humorous medical clip about Galen, ancient Rome's most notorious doctor

Websites:

The Iceman's poor health

Lady Dai, Chinese mummy

Woman the Hunter

The Beaded burial at Cahokia

The death of Pliny from going too near an erupting volcano

Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Overlooked Archaeology, lecture 2 notes and links

During our second lecture, we finished up a discussion of ancient pets and animals in religion and moved on to ancient sanitation (especially in Roman cities) and the procuring of food before corn agriculture in Illinois. The last major topic was consumables: wine, beer, olive oil, insect repellent, chocolate, and the "black drink" of North America.

Videos:

A cherished pet bobkitten in Illinois

Plumbing at Petra in Jordan that allowed for gardens and swimming pools in a desert setting

Interesting links:

Plumbing: great article on Roman sanitation.

Vegetarian diet in Egypt

How the Egyptian pyramid workers got fed

Mesopotamian recipes

Early French wine-making

Cahokia black drink

Interview with Sarah Underhill Wisseman

How did you become a writer?
My parents read to me when I was very little, and my father wrote two unpublished mysteries after he retired. My university job has always required writing, but I wrote mostly non-fiction until about 1998.

What is your background?
I grew up in Evanston, IL and Weston, MA. Since college, I have worked as a museum curator, database manager, conservation lab assistant, field archaeologist, archaeological scientist, cook on an archaeological dig, and dorm mother. I majored in Anthropology as an undergraduate, and that’s when I fell in love with archaeology and museum work.

Your books are about archaeology and museums. Do you have experience in those areas?
Yes. I’ve been on archaeological excavations in Israel, Italy, North Carolina, and Nevada. My museum experience began in college when I took a job as a museum guard at the Peabody Museum in Cambridge, Mass. Since then I have worked in five other museums in four different cities in registration, conservation, research, curation, tour-guiding, fund-raising, and database management.

Have you published other books?
Yes. Five books of non-fiction on ancient Greek vases, Greek archaeology, scientific methods in archaeology, and Egyptian mummies.

How did you become an archaeologist?
During my freshman year in college, a friend handed me a brochure about a summer archaeology program in Israel. I signed up and it changed my life. I went back for a junior year abroad, living in Tel Aviv and digging in the dessert around Beersheva and the Dead Sea area. I completed my graduate work (M.A. and Ph.D) at Bryn Mawr College in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology.

Is “Bound for Eternity” based on real life?
Yes. At the University of Illinois, my colleagues and I conducted an investigation of an Egyptian mummy using X-ray, CT scanning, and other non-destructive analyses. I wrote about our results in several technical articles and then in a book for the general public called “The Virtual Mummy” which was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2003. The murder mystery grew out of that experience (of writing the non-fiction book).

Why Boston for your setting?
I grew up in a Boston suburb and went to high school and college in that area. Although I have lived in Illinois for over twenty years, I wanted to return home to Boston in my books since it is one of my favorite cities. Also, Cape Cod was my parents’ home after they retired.

Is your museum real?
No, but it is based upon a former attic museum at the University of Illinois.

Is “Dead Sea Codex” based on real life?
Yes and no. The story and characters are fictional, but the settings of Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, and the site of Masada are real and known to me from nearly two years of living and traveling in Israel in the 1970s.

Dead Sea Codex is a prequel for Bound for Eternity. Do you have plans for future books?
Yes. The third book, "The House of the Sphinx," is based on my recent trip to Egypt and will include both archaeology and bioterrorism. “The Fall of Augustus” will be set in Boston again and begins with a death by falling statue. In a later book in the series I plan to move the setting to James Barber’s hospital and create a mystery using my husband’s medical background.

Have you won any awards for your writing?
No, but I have placed in a couple of contests: I finaled in the 2004 St. Martin's Press/MALICE DOMESTIC CONTEST for the Best First Traditional Mystery Novel and won third place in the 2004 Leditslip contest for the Best Mystery Novel Proposal