Topic varies from semester to semester. For the Fall 2020 semester, the topic will be: The Icon. This seminar explores the Byzantine icon and its legacy. Spanning nearly two millennia, from the emergence of Christian sacred portraiture to the reception of icon painting by the early twentieth-century Russian avant-garde, the seminar will introduce you to the history, historiography, and theories of the icon. While our focus will be on Byzantium and the wider world of Orthodox Christianity, especially in the Slavic Balkans and Eastern Europe, the seminar will also engage with fundamental questions concerning the nature, status, and agency of images across cultures. Topics to be addressed include iconoclasm and the problem of idolatry; the social and ritual lives of icons; authorship, originality, and replication; viewer response and the cultural construction of vision; the frontier between art and the sacred image; and the afterlife of the icon in modernity.

Topics varies from semester to semester. For the Spring 2020 semester, the topic will be Violence and Ancient Mediterranean Art. The Greek and Roman world was fascinated by representing humans and beasts enduring physical and psychological pain, and images of violence inflicted by mortal and supernatural beings alike. These images occur in art of all kinds, consumed both privately and publicly, emerging in the domestic, religious, military and political sphere. They had a range of aims, from affording emotional catharsis, building political cohesion or enforcing social norms, to generating religious awe or confidence in empire -- and giving entertainment. As we explore this corpus, we can ask: what might be the roots of such preoccupation with the art of violence and pain in the 'Classical tradition' and its post-antique legacy? Many modern cultures exhibit similar fascination: how far can modern reactions to and theories about such images be guides to reconstructing ancient viewership? How can ancient texts and histories help us in this interdisciplinary project?

Introduction to thin-section petrography of stone and ceramic archaeological materials. Using polarized light microscopy, the first half of this course will cover the basics of mineralogy and the petrography of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. The second half will focus on the petrographic description of ceramic materials, mainly pottery, with emphasis on the interpretation of provenance and technology. As part of this course, students will characterize and analyze archaeological samples from various collections. Prior knowledge of geology is not required.

Topic varies. Fall 2019: During the short period of the Neo Sumerian Empire at the end of the third millennium BCE, Mesopotamian concepts of kingship were crystallized through images, buildings, and textual creations. This seminar will examine this central institution from many points of view that invite cross historical and cross-cultural consideration.

Sanctuaries remain an important focal point for the study of Greek religion. Both as sites for worship, dedication, oracular activity and other cult activity and as sites for the mediation of elite and state competition sanctuaries are, along with the polis, the most essential structuring institutions of Greek life. This seminar takes a selection of larger and smaller extra-urban sanctuaries and examines their growth, articulation and function.

A one-semester survey of Islamic art and architecture which examines visual culture as it functions within the larger sphere of Islamic culture in general. Particular attention will be given to relationships between visual culture and literature, using specific case studies, sites or objects which may be related to various branches of Islamic literature, including historical, didactic, philosophical writings, poetry and religious texts. All primary sources are available in English translation.

This course offers a survey of ancient Iranian art and culture from the painted pottery cultures of the Neolithic era to the monuments of the Persian Empire. Particular emphasis is placed on the Early Bronze Age.

Digital methodologies are an integral part of contemporary archaeological practice, and demand that archaeologists to hold a new set of skills and knowledge fundamentals. This course will expose students to a broad range of digital approaches through a review of relevant literature and through applied learning opportunities centered on a course project. The technological underpinnings, best practices, and influences on archaeological practice and theory will be discussed for each method covered in the course. Applied learning opportunities in digital data collection methods will include: aerial and satellite remote sensing, global navigation satellite system (GNSS) survey, 3D scanning methods, close-range photogrammetry, and near-surface geophysical prospection. Students will also have opportunities for practical experience in digital database design and management, geographic information science (GIS) and 3D modeling and visualization. Students will communicate the results of the course project in a digital story that will be presented at the end of the term. Prior archaeological classwork and/or experience preferred.

In this course we will approach the relationship between plants and people from archaeological and anthropological perspectives in order to investigate diverse plant consumption, use, and management strategies. Topics will include: plants as foods and intoxicating beverages; medicines, poisons, and psychoactive plants; plants as building supplies and textiles; wild plant collection, and the origins of plant domestication. Students will learn both field procedures and laboratory methods of archaeobotany through a series of hands-on activities and lab-based experiments. The final research project will involve an original in-depth analysis and interpretation of archaeobotanical specimens. By the end of the course, students will feel comfortable reading and evaluating archaeobotanical literature and will have a solid understanding of how archaeobotanists interpret human activities of the past.

This course is intended to familiarize new graduate students with the collections of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the wide range of scholarly interests and approaches used by faculty at Penn and neighboring institutions, as well as to provide an introduction to archaeological methods and theory in a Mediterranean context. Each week, invited lecturers will address the class on different aspects of archaeological methodology in their own research, emphasizing specific themes that will be highlighted in readings and subsequent discussion. The course is divided into five sections: Introduction to the Mediterranean Section; Collections; Method and Theory in Mediterranean Archaeology; Museum Work; and Ethics. The course is designed for new AAMW graduate students, though other graduate students or advanced undergraduate students may participate with the permission of the instructor.