Media Contact: Todd Johnson, NC State, 919/515-3865

October 28, 1996

Archaeology Special by NC State Filmmakers to Air Nov. 3, Dec. 2

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Remains at three archaeological sites widely separated by time and place -- an ancient city in the Middle East, a Spanish shipwreck off Bermuda and a Choctaw village in Mississippi -- are united in a one-hour documentary film on archaeology that will air on UNC-TV Sunday, Nov. 3, at 1 p.m. and Monday, Dec. 2, at 9 p.m.

The film was produced by the Office of Production Services at North Carolina State University. It features faculty from NC State, East Carolina University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The film will air as part of the series of Search specials that Production Services has produced for N.C. Public Television.

Dr. Thomas Parker's excavations at Aqaba, Jordan, are featured in the documentary. In 1994, Parker discovered Aila, a 2,000-year-old city buried beneath Aqaba. Aila was a port city on the Red Sea. Parker is a professor of history at NC State.

Also featured will be the work of Gordon Watts of ECU. Watts has been investigating 17th and 18th century Spanish shipwrecks off the coast of Bermuda.

Another segment of the film will document the archaeological work in Mississippi of Dr. Vin Steponaitis of UNC-Chapel Hill. Steponaitis has excavated Choctaw villages dating from the 1500s to the 1700s.

The film documents the extensive field work necessary for archaeological research. The researchers, their student assistants and the filmmakers dove in the Atlantic, fried in the Jordanian sun and dug in the Mississippi mud to show how archaeologists collect the data that reveals so much about human life in the past.

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