Recent Events

This lecture will take place in person at ISAW. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. This talk will analyze how the Chu, Qin and Han empires conquered and colonized this region, gradually transforming it from a culturally alien frontier into a regular, if remote, part of the Han empire. The paucity of texts on this region’s early history reflects the disdain early China’s literate elites held towards it and makes archaeological evidence particularly important.

Prof. Candida Moss draws from her research in her recent book, God’s Ghostwriters, to reveal how enslaved scribes, copyists, and curators were essential to the production, preservation, and dissemination of the texts we now regard as sacred or canonical.

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. Mysterious rituals, legends of mighty gods, massive temples, tombs filled with offerings for the afterlife, visions of mythical creatures, magic amulets, and echoes in literature that remain sacred today.

Dr. Leah Mascia presents on the ways in which funerary customs of Roman Egypt adapted to a changing multicultural landscape while remaining firmly embedded in the Pharaonic tradition.

Come join Elizabeth Clancy, an NYU alumni and experimental archaeologist working on weaving and textiles in the ancient world, in a hands-on workshop exploring how the ancient Etruscans wove textiles and clothing. Try your hand at spinning fleece into yarn using a spindle whorl and make your own mini-tapestry inspired by ancient Etruscan designs! Afterwards you can explore the exhibition and come face to face with weaving tools used by Etruscan women to create textiles at the temple of Poggio Colla. This is a free craft focused workshop with limited spaces so please make sure to register on the link below!

This lecture will take place online. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. At the earliest stages of its development, Etruscan civilization was defined by emerging aristocratic power, which, during the Late Iron Age (8th century BCE), was expressed through warrior elites.

This workshop will take place in person at ISAW. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. Please join illustrator and teaching artist Joan Chiverton for an afternoon of sketching in the galleries in conjunction with the exhibition Rethinking Etruria. Develop your drawing skills and discover a new way of seeing the exhibit, as you sketch masterpieces and other objects. Following a brief introduction and tutorial, Ms. Chiverton will circulate the galleries and provide individual coaching, if desired. All skill levels are welcome, from beginner to advanced. Participants should bring their own drawing pad or paper with a board, but we will have paper on hand if necessary. Gallery specific pencils will be provided by ISAW. For conservation reasons pens, pastels, charcoal and paints need to be kept at home.

This year ISAW is participating in the Museum Mile Festival, a block party along Fifth Avenue between 82nd and 105th Street. The festival is free and all participating museums open their doors to the public for the evening. Fifth Avenue is closed down and the street transforms into a venue celebrating our NYC museums and the start of summer through art and music.

This workshop has been rescheduled for Monday, May 12th, at 5:30pm. The 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 will explore ancient Greek religious systems through the lens of a particular god, the god of healing, Asclepius.

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. Writing is such an integral part of our everyday lives that it is difficult to imagine how we could live without it. But just like so many of the other technologies that have become essential to us, writing had to be invented. Scholars studying the ancient past have discovered that writing was invented independently in four different places: in Mesopotamia (in modern-day Iraq) around 3300-3200 BCE; in ancient Egypt around 3200 BCE; in ancient China around 1200 BCE; and in ancient Mesoamerica (in modern-day Mexico) around 1000 BCE. In this workshop, we will focus on the invention of writing in Mesopotamia.

Maria Doerfler (Yale University; ISAW Visiting Research Scholar 2014-15) returns to ISAW to discuss wealth and death in late antique Syria, part of her forthcoming monograph from the Cambridge University Press, Death and Afterlife in Syriac Christianity: Social Identity and Emotional Communities.

This lecture will take place in person at ISAW. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. This lecture examines Arsacid luxury material beyond Iran both as object and idea. As under the Achaemenids before and Sasanians after, these charismatic objects potentially entangled or “assembled” aspects of identities of those outside the empire at a range of societal levels, including those who had dealings with the empire and those who encountered them even in negative and in reaction.