SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Overview

Name:

Ms Lia Genovese

Email address:

trinacria_1955@yahoo.co.uk, 164823@soas.ac.uk

Thesis title:

Madeleine Colani and the Plain of Jars of Laos

Year of Study:

2009/2010 (year started)

Internal Supervisors

• Crispin Branfoot

External Supervisors

Dr Crispin Branfoot and Dr Elizabeth Moore (Committee Members).

Biography

As well as finance assignments in the USA and Hungary, I have travelled extensively, with the last seven years being spent in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, volunteering and carrying out preliminary research for my PhD topic.

These are some of my main interests: Plain of Jars; Iron Age ethnography and historiography of northeast Laos; Iron Age burial customs in southeast Asia; French Indochina administration in Laos; prehistoric regional links.

Travelling, music of the world, archaeology, comparative religion, sports, photography, films.

PhD Research

The life and work of Dr Madeleine Colani (1866-1943), from her native Strasbourg to Indochina, where she forged a name for herself as a prehistorian and ethnographer. The Plain of Jars is home to some intriguing Iron Age burial sites, including some megalithic stone urns fashioned from sandstone or granite. Scholarly writing on the subject is scarce, especially in English, although internet blogs abound. No travelogue writer fails to mention the legend that the jars were wine containers, fashioned by a race of giants to celebrate a victory over a despotic ruler. In the presence of these massive stone vessels - the largest of which is almost 3 metres high with an estimated weight of 14 tonnes - most visitors experience a mixture of admiration and sadness. Admiration for the intense physical work of carving these urns from boulders, and for the Herculean task of transporting them from the quarry to the burial field, several miles away. The sadness comes from the desolate feeling of being in the presence of an ancient necropolis, but where the evidence has largely been erased by time, man, war or the elements. The visitor is left with many questions: who were these people; what did they believe in; what were their trades; did they exchange pottery for shells; why did they carve jars from stones and transport them for miles to the final resting place; where are the grave goods to accompany the deceased to the afterlife? In my thesis I hope to shed light on some of these questions and I also propose to update Colani's theories on various aspects of the Plain of Jars.

PhD Publications

• 2009 - 'Madeleine Colani - a mini biography’ presented in Vietnam in July 2009 on the occasion of a conference to mark the 100th Anniversary of the discovery of Sa-huỳnh.
• 2008 - Edited and researched two educational publications for the Culture Unit, UNESCO, Bangkok.
• 2008 - Researched and contributed material for the comparatives section of the documentation dossier to list the Plain of Jars as a World Heritage Monument.
• 2007 - British Library, UK. Paper on the Proceedings of the XII International Congress of Orientalists (Rome, 1899), published in the Education website of the International Dunhuang Project (IDP) http://idp.bl.uk/education/orientalists/index.a4d

PhD Conferences

• 2010 - 30-31 March, SOAS Research Students' Society's conference (will present paper).
• 2010 - 10 June, SEA Archaeology Workshop, Oxford (planning to present paper).
• 2010 - 27/9-01/10, 13th EurASEAA, Berlin (planning to present paper).

PhD Affiliations

• Associate member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants of the UK (CIMA).
• SOAS alumna.