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Intellect

Middle Eastern expert to present pair of lectures at BYU July 26-27

Brigham Young University will host a special guest speaker for two Area Focus Lectures on Middle Eastern issues July 26-27.

Amr al-Azm, a professor of archaeology with the Centre for Archaeological Research at Damascus University, will present "In Search of Genghis Khan's Tomb" Tuesday, July 26, at 3 p.m. in 270 Spencer W. Kimball Tower.

The second lecture, "Syria Today—Can There Be Peace in the Near East?" will be held Wednesday, July 27, at 4 p.m. in 238 Herald R. Clark Building.

al-Azm was the chief archaeologist on the search for Khan's burial site in Mongolia in 2002.

In 2003, he began an assessment with Daniel Hull of the University of York of the monastic sites in the Hauran region of southern Syria in an effort to better understand early Christian monasticism.

al-Azm, who is connected with the Syrian Department of Antiquities, also co-directed an excavation that began in 1999 at Tell Hamoukar in northeastern Syria, a site that dates to the third and fourth millennia B.C.

For more information, contact Cynthia Finlayson at (801) 422-5628.

Writer: James McCoy

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