A Brief History of the World in Clay
Clay, oh, modest, pliant Clay where would we be without you? No houses, no cities of mud, brick or concrete - no civilization; no clay tablets recording ownership for state taxation; no writing as we know it; no wine in jars to drown our sorrows; no terracotta armies, nor all the other funerary offerings provisioning us into the next world; no Grecian Urn of Keats; no gnashing of ceramic molar implants; no ceramic insulation - no electricity. The Arts Society by candlelight! An Anthology of Man's most important raw material from the last 20,000 years.
A special interest day of two lectures with lunch, followed by a roadshow in the afternoon.
Lars Tharp was born in Copenhagen and educated in England. He read archaeology at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge University. He has been involved in the auction world for 40 years, is a freelance braodcaster who works regularly with the BBC (among others, The Antiques Road Show) and is curator and museum director of The Foundling Museum.