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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.

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 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 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 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 lecture will take place in person at ISAW. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. The ancient Mesopotamian world was populated with a wide range of demonic and monstrous creatures, all of which intersected with daily life in a variety of mostly-malignant ways. Most often, demons, or the chaotic figure of the witch, could cause serious harm, being associated with disease and illness, or even death, particularly in infants and young children.

This workshop will take place in person at ISAW. Registration is required; click through for the registration link. Protect yourself with the eye of Horus or scare off all evil with the fierce face of the demon Pazuzu! At times calling on spooky spirits, at times relying on benevolent magical symbols, amulets were part of the lives of people across the ancient Mediterranean.