{"id":20839,"date":"2024-09-06T11:28:48","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T10:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/?p=20839"},"modified":"2024-09-06T11:28:48","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T10:28:48","slug":"a-season-of-success-the-royal-asiatic-society-of-georgias-summer-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/a-season-of-success-the-royal-asiatic-society-of-georgias-summer-highlights\/","title":{"rendered":"A Season of Success: The Royal Asiatic Society of Georgia’s Summer Highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently Professor Giorgi Kalandia, President, and Tamar Latsabidze, Vice-President, of the Royal Asiatic Society of Georgia<\/a>, have been in touch to provide the latest news about the activities of the Society. Since the last blog post: ‘Unveiling the Oriental Art Treasures: the Premiere by the Royal Asiatic Society of Georgia’<\/a>, the Society has been involved in some more exciting initiatives. We are grateful to them for sharing this news:<\/p>\n

Through the collaboration of the Palace of Arts and the Royal Asiatic Society of Georgia, a virtual exhibition has been created and published on the website of the world’s largest cultural institution, Google Cultural Institute. The exhibition features a clay tablet that is over 4,000 years old. This tablet is a unique example of ancient writing, and it is likely the only one of its kind in Georgia. The tablet dates back to the time of the Third Dynasty of Ur (2132-2024 BC) and contains a text in the Sumerian language. The document is a record of income, detailing the purchase of aromatic substances by the state warehouse from various individuals.\u00a0 You can view the virtual exhibition at Unveiling Ancient Sumerian Scents\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/a> which includes credits recognising the contribution of the Royal Society of Georgia.<\/p>\n

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The Sumerian clay tablet (from Google Arts and Culture<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Art Palace of Georgia, with active participation by the Royal Asiatic Society of Georgia, celebrated the 150th anniversary of Julius Straume, the renown Latvian public figure and one of the first orientalists in Georgia who studied textile graphics and weaving traditions among the people of the Caucasus. The celebration included the opening of an exhibition, publication of a catalogue and the unveiling of a bust of Straume in Museum Square in front of the Julius Straume building (see featured image at head of page). The event, hosted by Prof Giorgi Kalandia, General Director of the Art Palace of Georgia Museum of Cultural History and President of Royal Asiatic Society of Georgia, was attended by Ms. Thea Tsulukiani, Minister of Culture and Sport of Georgia, Ms. Hadas Ester Meitzad, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Israel to Georgia, and Mrs Ed\u012bte Medne, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Latvia to Georgia, among other guests.<\/p>\n

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Photographs from the official opening of the exhibition in honour of Julius Straume.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Thirdly, Tamar sent news of the “Georgian Manuscripts of Chronicles of Georgia in the British Library,” project which has recently been recognised as one of the successful initiatives under the “Diaspora Initiatives” program for its outstanding execution, and has received an award from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Georgia. The project, initiated by Tamar Latsabidze together with Giorgi Kalandia, involved the creation of two illuminated manuscripts to be donated to the British Library’s Georgian manuscript collection. The British Library contains probably the largest number of Georgian manuscripts outside of Georgia but none of these were illuminated. The new manuscripts were created in 2022 of the texts, \u2018Life of the King of Kings \u2013 David\u2019 and \u2018Life of the King of Kings \u2013 Tamar\u2019, copied from the \u2018Kartlis Tskhovreba\u2019 (the Georgian Chronicles, literally \u2018Life of Kartli\u2019 or \u2018Life of Georgia\u2019). The work was undertaken by the Georgian\u00a0 artists and calligraphers, Giorgi Sisauri and Otar Megrelidze using traditional colours and techniques to create beautifully written and illustrated manuscripts. Further information can be found about this project on the\u00a0British Library<\/a> blogpost, Georgian Manuscripts in the British Library<\/a>, and in a video on the Georgian Art and Culture media platform, Atinati<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Portrait of Queen Tamar (\u2018Life of the King of Kings \u2013 Tamar\u2019) From British Library blog post<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Portrait of King David (\u2018Life of the King of Kings \u2013 David\u2019)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We are very grateful for the provision of this exciting news from the Royal Asiatic Society of Georgia and particularly thank Tamar Latsabidze and Professor Giorgi Kalandia for keeping us informed of their activities.<\/p>\n

~ ~ ~ ~ ~<\/p>\n

In other news:<\/p>\n

Tonight (Friday 6 September) we start our 2024-2025 Lecture Series with renowned mask-carver Kitazawa Hideta who will be joined by the author and producer of English-language noh, Jannette Cheong, to explore the process of designing, carving and working with noh masks. Kitazawa is unique in the noh world in making new masks for innovative and experimental Noh pieces, including English-language noh, as well as producing classical noh and kyogen (nohgaku) masks. He will demonstrate the different stages of carving, offering a rare opportunity to understand how iconic noh masks are made for both traditional and contemporary noh.<\/p>\n

This discussion and demonstration is part of the wider Nohgaku outreach and education programme \u2013 full details of which can be found\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is with great sadness that we announce the cancellation of Robert Arnott’s lecture, due to take place on Thursday 12 September, having been informed that\u00a0 Professor Arnott died on 31st August 2024. Our thoughts are with his wife Patricia, his family and friends. Prof Arnott’s obituary can be read on the Green Templeton College website<\/a> where he was an Associate Professor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently Professor Giorgi Kalandia, President, and Tamar Latsabidze, Vice-President, of the Royal Asiatic Society of Georgia, have been in touch to provide the latest news about the activities of the Society. Since the last blog post: ‘Unveiling the Oriental Art Treasures: the Premiere by the Royal Asiatic Society of Georgia’, the Society has been involved…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":20846,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[2959,2594,2591,2595,2593,2596,2541,2274,2540,2592,2543,1959],"class_list":["post-20839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lectures-events","tag-about-the-society","tag-art-palace-of-georgia","tag-georgian-history","tag-giorgi-sisauri","tag-julius-sraume","tag-otar-megrelidze","tag-professor-giorgi-kalandia","tag-robert-arnott","tag-royal-asiatic-society-of-georgia","tag-sumerian-dynasty","tag-tamar-latsabidze","tag-the-british-library"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20839"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20857,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20839\/revisions\/20857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}