Archaeology

From state-sponsored excavations in Tunisia to debates over Neolithic discoveries in central France, early archaeology was defined by a tension between scientific rigor and public spectacle. Sensations: French Archaeology between Science and Spectacle, 1890–1940, a book by Daniel J. Sherman, Member (1993–94; 2016) in the School of Historical Studies, unearths the long-running historical controversies that forged the discipline as we understand it today.

Rubina Raja, Member (2019) in the School of Historical Studies, explains how archaeological context can transform understanding of ancient societies. By analyzing a "loose head" from Palmyra, Syria, she demonstrates how local craftsmen were not merely imitating foreign styles but creating distinct works, fundamentally reshaping our view of Palmyra's cultural identity.

Introducing Celia Sánchez Natalías, William D. Loughlin Member in the School of Historical Studies, whose research focuses on lead curse tablets, or defixiones, from the Roman period. In this Q&A, she discusses her ‘autopsy’ work, being motivated by curiosity, and her fascination with virtually unrolling papyri.

Alison Locke Perchuk, past Member in the School of Historical Studies (2018-19), has authored the first interdisciplinary account of the Monastery of St. Elijah, built circa 1122-26 near Rome. It includes archaeological and historical readings of the monastery’s architecture, frescoes, and sculpture, with an eye toward epigraphy, liturgy, theology, memory, and landscape.

On November 9, 2018, Israel Finkelstein, Jacob Alkow Professor of the Archaeology of Israel in the Bronze and Iron Ages at Tel Aviv University, gave a public lecture on "Jerusalem in Biblical Times: Comments on the Archaeology and History ca. 1350...

Joan Breton Connelly, former Member (2010–11) in the School of Historical Studies, discusses how the Parthenon sculptures conveyed genealogical myths that answered for the Athenians the most basic human questions. 

Historians today can hardly answer the question: when does history begin? Traditional boundaries between history, protohistory, and prehistory have been blurred if not completely erased by the rise of concepts such as “Big History” and “macrohistory...

It has been nearly sixty years that I have been engaged in an active scholarly life. My first article came out fifty-eight years ago, and there are still now two or three studies in the process of being printed or ready to appear on the Internet. In...