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They will Speak November 7 on “Malden Ancestors and New Technologies at Bell Rock Burying Ground”
Special to The Advocate
The Malden Historical Society is pleased to showcase a new collaboration between Harvard professor of archaeology Jason Ur and local historian Mark Linehan. On Thursday, November 7, at 6:30 PM at the Malden Public Library, the community is invited to learn about their fascinating work in a new presentation, “Malden Ancestors and New Technologies at Bell Rock Burying Ground.”
After spending more than two decades leading archaeological surveys in Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq, Dr. Jason Ur has turned his attention to the Colonial burying grounds of New England. During the pandemic, he flew a camera drone over nearly two dozen burying grounds, with a particular emphasis on Bell Rock. In addition to creating 3d models using those photographs, Ur has recently partnered with Malden historian Mark Linehan, who has taken this work further to re-animate this mortuary landscape with the lives of early Malden residents. On November 7, they will present their work. In addition to sharing their methods and the results of their ongoing research, they will explain what makes Bell Rock unique compared with other burying grounds of the same era and discuss possible applications of this research for the benefit of the City of Malden and its people. Everyone is invited to come out and learn something new about early Maldonians, early burying grounds, and new technologies for investigating the past.
Mark Linehan is a Malden resident and a member of the Malden Historical Society. For the last eleven years, he has worked as a tour guide on Boston’s historic Freedom Trail. He also has had the pleasure of working as Dr. Jason Ur’s research assistant on his work on historical New England burial grounds. Linehan has also worked as a professional actor for the past seventeen years and has been a proud member of Actor’s Equity Association for the last thirteen years.
Dr. Jason Ur is the Stephen Phillips Professor of Archaeology and Ethnology in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. He specializes in early urbanism, landscape archaeology, and remote sensing, particularly the use of declassified US intelligence imagery. Ur has directed field surveys in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. He is the author of Urbanism and Cultural Landscapes in Northeastern Syria: The Tell Hamoukar Survey, 1999-2001 (2010). Since 2012, he has directed the Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey, an archaeological survey in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq. He is also a former director of Harvard University’s Center for Geographic Analysis. Among other projects, he is preparing a history of Mesopotamian cities.
The Malden Historical Society is a local volunteer-run nonprofit organization founded in 1886 and dedicated to collecting, preserving, and disseminating the history of Malden and beyond. This year, we are proud to join the rest of Malden in celebrating the 375th anniversary of the city’s founding. To learn more about the Malden Historical Society, visit www.maldenhistoricalsociety.org or email info@maldenhistoricalsociety.org.
