Nour Ammari

Nour Ammari is a PhD Candidate specializing in late antique and early Islamic visual culture in the Southern Levant (5th–10th centuries CE). Her dissertation examines inscribed portable objects from present-day Northern Jordan during the transitional period surrounding the centralization of the first Islamic state, using these artifacts to explore cultural syncretism and the relationship between script, language, and identity in multifaith communities during a period of porous yet developing confessional boundaries. More broadly, her research engages questions of text and materiality, the quotidian record, and the critical interrogation of the historiographical categories of "Byzantine" and "Islamic" themselves.

Her cross-disciplinary approach draws on art historical, archaeological, and textual methods. She holds an MA in Art History from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2017) and an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago (2020). Her theoretical interests span new materialism and object-oriented ontology, the biography and itinerary of objects, historiography of early Islam, and exhibition and reception studies. 

Her fieldwork and professional experience reflect the range of her commitments. She has excavated for three seasons at Siniya Island, Umm al-Quwain, UAE, and held an Islamic Curatorial Fellowship at the American Numismatic Society in summer 2025. At ISAW, she served as a practicum student in 2022, contributing to Through the Lens: Latif al-Ani's Visions of Ancient Iraq, and continued with the exhibitions team on Madinat al-Zahra: The Radiant Capital of Islamic Spain, for which she developed online materials and curated a selection of Spanish Umayyad coins for gallery display.

Areas of Interest:
Late Antique and Early Islamic Visual Culture in the Levant (5th–10th centuries CE) · Historiography of Early Islam · Muslim-Christian Relationships and Lived Religion · Numismatics · Materials and Materiality · New Materialism and Object-Oriented Ontology · Biography, Necrography, and Itinerary of Objects · Relationships between Text and Image · Islamic Archaeology · Exhibition and Reception Studies · Negotiations of Images and Image Making