The theft of art is hardly a modern phenomenon. Nebuchadnezzar's sack of Jerusalem (c. 600 BCE) destroyed Solomon's Temple and the Babylonians looted its sacred vessels and treasures; Verres, a greedy Roman governor of Sicily, illegally amassed astonishing stolen civic treasures; and the Nazi’s art pillaging has still not seen full repatriation from major US art museums. The Roman Emperor Nero robbed Pergamon of its most famous sculpture of the Hellenistic world, the Laocoön Group, and installed it in his notorious Golden House. The Venetian sack of Constantinople in 1204, the Conquistadores’s sack of Mexico and Peru in the 16th century, and French and British expeditions in Egypt and Mesopotamia all provide examples of a trend that lives on today. Perhaps the most notable recent example can be seen in the pillaging of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad and other sacred Iraqi sites. Our five week cultural odyssey will be global in nature and will cover millennia of purloined treasures. We will also probe into a question vexing art collectors today: When can the dislocation of art be justified (for example, when the host country cannot preserve a priceless object) and when does it cross the line? The course instructor has collaborated with US Customs and international agencies on stolen or smuggled art and antiquities.

The glory of the European Middle Ages is often considered to be the product of the Age of Faith, with its monumental architecture of soaring cathedrals and monastic scriptoria producing beautiful manuscripts, especially from the Carolingian Age onward. Perhaps equally important are the products of feudalism, luxury trade and the flowerings of poeticized Courtly Love in art. Where castles and fortresses had often dominated the earlier landscape, cathedrals emphasized heavenly power on earth and gifted artisans worked in secular and sacred workshops honing various crafts on themes from the fantastic to the lyrical as well as imagined celestial imagery. 

In this eight-week course we examine in some detail the treasure trove of artistic, architectural, and archaeological material that has survived to the present day from the immensely rich cultural heritage of the European Middle Ages. This course will move topically from exquisite art and stunning architectural projects (cathedrals and castles) to sculpture and delicate handwork (ivory, wood and stone carving and jewelry); from sacred art (manuscript illumination) to the secular arts of war (chased armor and heraldry) and luxurious textiles (silks and tapestries). The Middle Ages has been romantically revived at times over the past 200 years, most notably in Great Britain by Sir Walter Scott and William Morris, and by Viollet-le-Duc in France. While not dismissing completely their portraits of the medieval period, we will look closely at the findings of recent archaeology and try to reach a more balanced assessment of the accomplishments of what must be considered one of the dazzling pinnacles of European cultural achievement, easily demonstrating that great art existed before the Renaissance. It is also possible that some of the best works of the Middle Ages were at times produced as votives to God or saints as a form of worship or acts of faith, which may have enhanced the crafts in which these works appear.

punic wars, carthage, hannibal

Stanford Continuing Studies: Summer Quarter

July - Aug, 2025

Archaeology should be quantitative as well as qualitative. If we are capable of listening carefully, artifacts can tell us surprisingly detailed stories about their age, where they’re from, the precise material of their composition, the technology behind them, and at times even how they were transported or buried based on traces they carry. Scientific analyses can greatly enhance the process of solving the kind of problems encountered along the way in piecing together these often fascinating stories. Chemistry, physics, geology, biology and botany along with material science are only a few scientific disciplines applied to archaeological research using analytical methods. For example, knowing the underlying geology and soil chemistry of a site could reveal much about the state of preservation of buried objects along with the general climate and susceptibility of objects to weathering, oxidation, deterioration and other vulnerabilities in diverse scenarios. Knowing which analytical tools are applicable to different situations is also relevant. This ten week course explores some of the current processes in scientific archaeology with real case examples offered from the instructor’s Ph.D. in archaeological science and subsequent three decades of research experience.

What is the history of writing and how far back can we trace symbolic visual communication? How and when did humans learn to communicate abstractly by visual symbols beyond verbal language? When can we find the earliest evidence for data encoded in some form of alphanumeric fashion? Did the so-called “Neolithic Revolution,” with technological advances, early agriculture, and sedentary lifestyle and population growth lead to the innovation of writing systems? How does semiotic theory apply to the history of writing from petroglyph and pictograph to hieroglyph, syllabary and alphabet?

This course explores the history of writing from prehistory on, as writing and language developed to accommodate trade and the exchange of ideas within and between cultures. We will look at such questions as: What does prehistory tells us about the history of writing? How closely related are Mediterranean alphabets around 800 BCE? How did Chinese characters develop from simple pictures? And how did expanding land and sea transportation propel the development of languages in new directions? We will also explore ancient systems such as Egyptian hieroglyphs; Mesopotamian cuneiform; Ugaritic-Phoenician-Hebrew relatives; classical Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Latin; and Runic writing. We also examine Maya and Aztec hieroglyphs for New World precedents. Finally, we will highlight principles of language evolution, as well as exciting moments in the history of decoding ancient languages, including the discovery and deciphering of the Rosetta Stone, the Behistun Inscription, and tablets from the Royal Assyrian library at Nineveh as well as Mycenaean Linear B decoding. Copious examples of each type of symbolic “writing” is shown in amply-illustrated lectures.

Viticulture has traditionally been closely connected with the development of Western culture. Archaeological evidence shows that wine became a social force in the Celtic world when chiefs gained greater status by offering imported wine to their warriors. We also know that Plato’s Symposium connected wine to philosophizing, and the cultural work of bards, poets, dancers, and musicians was often accompanied by wine rituals. Archaeology now also confirms the locus of wine origins around the Caucasus and Armenia, as hinted in The Epic of Gilgamesh and the biblical story of Noah.

The Story of Wine from the Paleolithic and Neolithic Eras to the cultures of the Hittites, Ancient Persia, Crete, Greece, Rome and Sicily through the Medieval World of Charlemagne and the Franks as well as Bordeaux, Burgundy, Alsace, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and California with the Judgment of Paris 1976 and 2006. Wine Mythology includes Near Eastern culture and the Greek and Roman cults of Dionysus and Bacchus.

How long have our human ancestors been gazing up to the night sky and made observations and calculations about time and created calendars? How did technology evolve from tools and weapons of the Paleolithic into pyrotechnology with metallurgy and ceramics, among other practical inventions? From the beginning of numeracy and incipient science, humans have been involved in countless engineering tasks. Archaeoastronomy, Egyptian pyramid building, three millennia of Persian qanats, the genius of Ctesibius, Archimedes and other engineers and mathematicians, the lost treasures of the Library of Alexandria, wonders such as the Antikythera Mechanism, the practicality and durability of Roman roads, aqueducts and bridges, Aztec and Inca hydrology and stone working are some of the topics covered.

Mythology has been a magnet for artists, especially mythology in Classical texts like Ovid and Homer. When the Renaissance rediscovered Classical texts, art and mythology became so richly entwined that religious art diminished and mythological art replaced much of it. Prometheus, Pandora, the Judgment of Paris, Troy, the Olympian gods, heroes like Herakles, Odysseus, and Aeneas, and monsters like Gorgons, centaurs, and sphinxes are just a few of the mythical personae painted and sculpted in Western art. Distinguishing myth and history as Herodotus did, we can ask such questions as these: who and what were the Bronze Age models of Athena and Demeter? How did Aphrodite change from her archaeological antecedent, the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar? What meanings has the caduceus of Hermes possessed through time? Before most people could read, images and their iconographic symbolism were known and spread.

Greek vase paintings and sculpture as well as Medieval and Renaissance art along with Romantic and Symbolist art have depicted countless myth narratives in idiosyncratic ways while preserving the codified language of iconology and iconography. Even without words, visual literacy repeats the symbols and attributes of recognizable stories preserved for millennia.

What is the relationship between archaeology and the biblical stories and places? While the nature of biblical texts is debated as literature or history or both, certainly many places existed that are mentioned in biblical texts, although  people known only from biblical texts are more problematic.  Archaeology should not be used to attempt “proving” the biblical texts, but it can greatly illuminate the overall contexts in which literary texts offer broad cultural information.

Some of the apropos questions asked in this course include: were Abraham and Sarah biblical legends, or were they plausible representations of people from the Bronze Age period? What was the city of Jerusalem like in biblical times? Did Kings David and Solomon exist and what is the evidence? New archaeological explorations continue to fill in the historical record on the cities and the larger-than-life figures of biblical history.