Recent Events

This lecture is part of the ISAW Library events series and will take place in person at ISAW (15 East 84th Street). Registration is required; click through for the registration link. This lecture explores a new source of evidence for the status and conceptualization of women in Ptolemaic Egypt through a pilot study of classifiers in the hieroglyphic system. From the Old Kingdom onwards, Egyptian hieroglyphic writing employed a highly organized system of category markers—classifiers or determinatives. These “mute” hieroglyphs, typically placed at the end of words, provide a unique window onto the emic organization of knowledge and the categories through which the ancient Egyptians conceptualized their world.

This workshop will take place online. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. Zoom information will be provided via confirmation email to registered participants. Expanding the Ancient World is a series of professional development workshops and online resources for teachers. This workshop explores the organization, equipment, and social life of the Roman army. Everyone knows the Roman army was a powerful military force, but did you know it did much more than fight wars?

This workshop will take place in person at ISAW. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. Rediscover your inner sense of magic in this hands-on workshop at the Galleries at ISAW! Guided by ISAW PhD candidate Leopoldo Fox-Zampiccoli, participants will learn how people in the past channeled their hopes and fears, loves and rivalries, and more by writing spells on amulets and talismans.

This talk introduces how the Arabic and Islamic manuscript tradition inherited and adapted images of the late antique cosmos, focusing on a series of cosmographical maps from the 12th century Andalusian Sufi thinker, Ibn al-ʾArabi (d. 1240) and considering the reception of these images in the visual history of the Islamic world.

This lecture will take place in person at ISAW (15 East 84th Street). Registration is required; click through for the registration link. The Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace was the home of a famous mystery cult of the ancient Greek world, and of the famous Victory statue. Even at its height (3rd-2nd centuries BCE), the cult referenced Archaic and Classical period (7th-5th century BCE) origins in ways both visible and invisible. This talk reconsiders the archaeological evidence of the central valley of the Sanctuary of the Great Gods of Samothrace.

This lecture will take place in person at ISAW. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. Join curator Jeffrey Spier for an in-gallery exploration of the exhibition Cursed! The Power of Magic in the Ancient World. Dr. Spier will discuss the exhibition’s key themes and engage participants in close-looking at a selection of exhibition highlights.

On Tuesday, June 9, 2026 between 6 and 9 pm, join ISAW and our neighbors for the 48th annual Museum Mile Festival!

This workshop is being organized by the OER Project and the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. It will take place online. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. Zoom information will be provided via confirmation email to registered participants. Expanding the Ancient World is a series of professional development workshops and online resources for teachers. Early belief systems weren’t just priests, temples, and lists of gods to memorize. Religion was embedded in every aspect of people's lives—at home, in the marketplace—and it informed everyday decisions.

This lecture will take place in person at ISAW. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. This lecture series will consider current archaeological evidence for the emergence of mixed farming in western Asia, its dispersal and establishment across Europe and the long-term creativity and resilience of early farming households and communities.

This workshop will take place online. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. Zoom information will be provided via confirmation email to registered participants. Expanding the Ancient World is a series of professional development workshops and online resources for teachers. This workshop uses the prompt of a newly started digital project to consider how large scale narratives and individual objects can be integrated into curriculums and into classroom experiences. The project is Global Approaches to Early Representations of the Human Figure, currently browseable at https://gaerhf.org

This lecture will take place in person at ISAW. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. This lecture series will consider current archaeological evidence for the emergence of mixed farming in western Asia, its dispersal and establishment across Europe and the long-term creativity and resilience of early farming households and communities.

This lecture will take place in person at ISAW. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. This lecture series considers current archaeological evidence for the emergence of mixed farming in western Asia, its dispersal and establishment across Europe and the long-term creativity and resilience of early farming households and communities.