IISER MOHALI

Abstract: This talk explores how ‘memory’ is made and remade in particular places, moving from ancient Egyptian desert sites to Himalayan mountain communities. It looks at how landscapes hold the past not only through ruins and objects, but also through oral traditions, storytelling, and everyday ritual. Bringing archaeology into conversation with ethnography, the talk asks how songs, legends, and local cosmologies keep older histories alive, bridging the gap between what is dug up and what is still remembered. By following these story-filled landscapes, from old burial grounds to high-altitude shrines-it reflects on how communities live with their past, and what their ways of remembering can teach us about culture, heritage, belonging and identity in a rapidly changing world.

About the Speaker: Dr. Sonali Gupta-Agarwal is an anthropological archaeologist and a lawyer. She completed her PhD on Egyptian archaeological pottery from the University of California, Los Angeles (USA) and is the founding Director of the Himalayan Institute of Cultural & Heritage Studies (India) and the Himalayan Conservation & Preservation Society (USA).