Arielle Hardy

Arielle received her B.A. at UCLA, with a double major in Classical Civilizations and Art History. She went on to earn an M.A. in Art History at UC Davis and an M.A. in Classics at CU Boulder. Her art history Master’s thesis, “Singing Sorrow in Stone: The Mourning Siren in Greek Art,” examined the development and use of the mourning siren motif, and argued for its interpretation as a stand-in for the human women whose role in funerary ritual was dramatically limited by sixth-century legislation directed at funeral practices. Beyond her academic experience, Arielle worked for several years as Assistant Curator at the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art and has participated in archaeological projects in Italy, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece. Broadly, her research interests focus on the intersections of sacred space, ritual practice, and mythology. She intends to pursue research further exploring relationships between human actors and divinities in the Hellenistic period, particularly as evinced by sanctuary and temple architecture. Her dissertation takes large Hellenistic altars as its subject, and considers formal and functional shifts over time.