The 2013 annual general meeting of the Jumbo Creek Conservation Society, November 18, 7:30 p.m. at DTSS Theatre, will feature an exciting illustrated lecture by modern day explorer Paul Bauman. Admission is by donation.

Archaeology is inherently a destructive science; once excavated, an archeological site is essentially destroyed. Geophysicist Paul Bauman uses sophisticated geophysical investigation techniques that allow a site to be explored without being disturbed, working as a radiologist does in a surgical team. Paul will take us to some of the sites that proved pivotal in defining Western Canada, Western civilization, and even humanity.

In his presentation, Paul will rediscover the architecture of a Hudson Bay Company trading post that was burned to the ground in 1861. In Israel, he will locate a previously unknown cave at Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.  And along the Dead Sea coast, he will explore a remote cave near the Dead Sea, the Cave of Letters, lived in by rebels of the Roman Empire. It was in this cave that the largest collection of Roman glassware, Roman period clothing, and papyrus scrolls found anywhere in the Roman Empire, was recovered. In Nazareth, he will identify a building beneath the marble floor of a renowned art shop, and then smash through the floor with a sledgehammer to find…?

In Europe, geophysics will be used to reconstruct the architecture of the Nazi extermination camp of Sobibor, destroyed and buried by the Nazi SS after a desperate revolt in 1943. And in the vast Donana wetlands of southern Spain, Paul will assist archaeologists in locating what they believe to be the lost city of Atlantis… and find where the people of Atlantis went after their city was destroyed.

Paul Bauman is the Technical Director of the Geophysics group at WorleyParsons, in Calgary. He is an avid hiker, climber and skier, and a part time resident of Invermere.

Aspects of his archaeo-geophysical work have been the subject of a NOVA documentary (Ancient Refuge in the Holy Land), a National Geographic movie entitled ‘Finding Atlantis,’ and numerous newspaper and magazine articles including in Time, National Geographic, and the Reader’s Digest. Recently, he was invited to be a presenter at the first ever TEDx talks in Canmore.

Lead image: Paul Bauman at Har Karkom, Israel, using ground penetrating radar survey over the site of a sacrificial alter associated with the Biblical Mount Sinai.

Jumbo Creek Conservation Society

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