Cheryl Ward, director for the Center for Archaeology and Anthropology at Coastal Carolina University, will give a talk titled "The Trouble with Treasure," on Wednesday, Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. at the University's Waccamaw Higher Education Center in Litchfield. The discussion is free and open to the public.

This is the third of eight sessions in the University's "Culture and Crisis" community dialogue series, sponsored annually by the Board of Visitors of the Thomas W. and Robin W. Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts.

Ward’s lecture will explore the ethical and legal issues of treasure finding. She will discuss the conflicts between the entrepreneurial, “finders-keepers,” and striking it rich school of treasure hunting; and the creed that values heritage preservation, the pursuit of knowledge and global stewardship. Ward will consider questions dealing with legal and ethical problems, as well as abstract issues such as whether Indiana Jones could get tenure in a modern university.

Ward, associate professor of history, is a maritime archaeologist who specializes in the history and construction of wooden ships. She currently serves as co-principal investigator for maritime artifacts at the pharaonic port at Wadi Gawasis on the Red Sea in Egypt and last year completed the reconstruction and sailing of an ancient Egyptian seagoing ship. Her published works include “Sacred and Secular: Ancient Egyptian Ship Construction,” “The Philosophy of Shipbuilding: Conceptual Approaches to the Study of Wooden Ships,” and many articles in both scholarly and popular journals.

For more information, contact Sherry Crawford at 843-349-2421.