AAMW540 - Topics in Medieval Art: Migrating Materiality: Ivory Carving Around the Mediterranean

Topic varies from semester to semester. For the Fall 2020 semester, the topic will be Migrating Materiality: Ivory Carving Around the Mediterranean. The craft of ivory carving around the Mediterranean is contingent upon the availability of imported elephant tusks, from either South East Asia or, more frequently, from the African continent. The shifting winds of trade routes offer an interpretive paradigm with which to analyze ivory objects from a variety of different cultural groups: the lack or abundance of ivory and the resulting desire for or surfeit of the material shapes its meaning and use around the Mediterranean basin. The study of ivory objects as they migrate around the Mediterranean allows us to investigate the rich intercultural interactions between Eastern and Western Christians, and both of these with the Islamic world. This course focuses on an object-oriented knowledge of ivory artifacts, with a strong emphasis on the collections at the Penn Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and other area collections.