Elisabeth MONAMY
(Vienna, Austria)
Keywords: experience, archaeology, antique recipes
Abstract:
When asked what I do or where I work, my answers are: “I am a Near Eastern archaeologist!” Most of them nod and smile. But I realise that they have no idea what I am talking about. While teaching at University I was shocked that student had only few notions about how present archaeology and especially Near Eastern themes are in our daily life. That was the moment I decides to change something. I want to bring (Near Eastern) archaeology to a wider public, to reach the “normal” population and make them realise that antique topics, not only known from the bible, are still very prevailing. Therefore, I decided to combine having a nice and interesting evening with new information, food / drinks and knowledge. I started my own business and organise antique cooking classes!
I started with Roman recipes and people actually were asking a lot of questions about life in the Roman Empire. Every cooking evening is of great joy for the participants because they have fun cooking Roman recipes, something new to them, and they enjoy learning a little more about this dead civilisation. This proficiency is such a nice experience for me too that I extended the cooking classes to Babylonian recipes.
During the conference I would like to present this innovating idea of archaeology for Austrian circumstances. Although it may sound not very scientific it is a huge job of public relations and publicity for archaeology. People talk about it, learn something new and realise that dead civilisations are still around us in our daily life.