Recent Events

This lecture will take place in person at ISAW. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. This lecture examines the origins and development of this technique, as well as how Rodin’s process of combining disparate parts opened onto a genre of remarkable assemblage sculptures that incorporate ancient vessels and other found elements.

This workshop will take place in person at ISAW. 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 in-person workshop invites teachers to discover the profound impact of ancient Egyptian art on the French master sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840–1917), through both the sculptors works and through the Egyptian antiquities he collected. Throughout the workshop you will take part in a series of object-based learning activities that explore how Rodin studied ancient Egyptian statuary and reliefs, which subsequently fed into his own practice and revolutionary approach to the human form.

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 online workshop invites teachers to discover the profound impact of ancient Egyptian art on the French master sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840–1917), through both the sculptors works and through the Egyptian antiquities he collected. Throughout the workshop you will take part in a series of object-based learning activities that explore how Rodin studied ancient Egyptian statuary and reliefs, which subsequently fed into his own practice and revolutionary approach to the human form.

This lecture will take place in person at ISAW. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. Ancient Egyptian images of the body are at the same time both highly recognizable and foreign to the modern viewer. From impossible composite figures of human-animal hybrids to seemingly stiff and block-like human forms in sculpture, Egyptian depictions were meant not simply to capture a likeness, but to manifest powers in order to establish the presence of, and relations between, depicted entities.

Please join illustrator and teaching artist Joan Chiverton for an afternoon of sketching and watercolor in the galleries in conjunction with our new exhibition Rodin’s Egypt. Develop your drawing skills and discover a new way of seeing the human form, as you sketch masterpieces from Rodin’s collection of Egyptian antiquities and masterpieces made by the sculptor.

The domestication of plants in prehistory allowed humanity to demographically expand, form dense population congregations (urbanism and social hierarchies), and advance the arts and sciences. For millennia, humans drove the evolution of domestication traits in crops and animals. Archaeologists, ecologists, and geneticists are all working to develop new theories about how domestication in antiquity occurred; one of these theories – the ecological release hypothesis – suggests that crops and animals evolved traits of domestication as a response to humans simply removing predators and herbivores. Dr. Spengler will briefly explore a few key themes in this theory and the rich history of domestication and culture, which he traces in his recent book, Nature's Greatest Success: How Plants evolved to Exploit Humanity.

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 lecture will take place in person at ISAW. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. In the 10th century BCE, the formerly grand kingdom of Assyria consisted only of what is today northern Iraq and centered on the three cities Assur, Nineveh (modern Mosul) and Arbela (modern Erbil).

This event will take place in person. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. Please join us as Carl Walsh, ISAW Assistant Curator, hosts a conversation with Bénédicte Garnier, Musée Rodin, in the gallery for a behind the scenes look at Rodin’s Egypt. Benedicte and Carl will address the themes of the exhibition, discuss Rodin’s sculpture and his Egyptian antiquities on display, and explore comparative perspectives on the representation of the human.

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. Belief systems around the body have a great influence on how societies conceptualize themselves, others, and their divinities. For the ancient world, the idealized bodies of gods and heroes, immortalized in flawless marble, have long defined our vision of Greece and Rome, but beyond these perfect forms lies a more complex story. This workshop delves into the lived reality of the body in antiquity, exploring how beliefs surrounding beauty, fitness, medicine, and disability shaped societies.

This lecture will take place in person at ISAW. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. This talk will explore some of the questions and controversies surrounding the deployment of these Turkish troops and its consequences, drawing upon a contemporary literary work recently translated by the speaker, "The Turks and the Caliphal Army," by the celebrated Arabic writer al-Jahiz (d. 868).

This lecture will take place in person at ISAW. Prof. von Reden will offer alternative ways of thinking about why we find Chinese silk in Palmyra, Egyptian glass vessels in Afghanistan, and Roman coins in Thailand and Vietnam.