Archaeology

In this course, students learn about contemporary archaeological and anthropological perspectives in the study of material culture. Questions that come up include: why the summer solstice is celebrated at Stonehenge; how houses differ across cultures; why we give each other gifts and wrap them; and how clothing gives us identity? Studying human-object relations from a range of perspectives, students explores the role of materiality and the consumer society.

The course provides a comparative understanding of mobility and migration patterns in prehistory. It examines theoretical approaches that explore human adaptation towards changes in society related to migration or increased/decreased mobility. The course is transdisciplinarily linked to subjects like anthropology, linguistics, genetics, and geochemistry. From anthropological models, it engages the societal causes and causations of mobility and migration. Linguistics is implemented as a tool to understand connections between languages and different forms of cultural movement, and novel approaches from the natural sciences like ancient DNA and isotope analysis are explored to further contextualize physical mobility. The course also implements a practical component where the theory from the lectures is put into practice in laboratory work (in a broad sense). Scientific approaches are explored to get a source-critical perspective on how to frame and understand contact between and within cultural groups.

This course investigates the development of the Egyptian understanding of the Afterlife and the Gods. It discusses the role of the temple both as a religious and economic institution, and the creating of an industry based around the creation of funerary objects and tombs. It covers topics such as mummification, the development of private tomb architecture, the role of the Offering Cult and focus on sites of particular significance such as Abydos. The course as a whole provides the students with a comprehensive overview of how the Egyptians – both elite and non-elite – interacted with their Gods, understood their mythology and prepared themselves for Eternity.

Burial mounds, megalithic tombs, enigmatic earthworks, ringforts, ancient churches, medieval castles, and shipwrecks these are just some of the vast array of archaeological monuments in the Irish landscape. This course teaches you how to recognize and date these various sites and monuments, how to access and use various online resources that contain detailed map-based information about all known Irish archaeological sites, and finally, how archaeologists progress from this abundance of "raw" data to interpreting and presenting archaeological monuments and landscapes to the public.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course starts with introductions into the concept of monumentality and memory in archaeology. The topics are addressed and discussed into detail mainly using examples from Pharaonic Egypt (3000 B.C.E – 300 B.C.E.), a culture which is due to its long duration and the long-lasting traditions on the one hand, and the presence of a large monumental record, especially well suited as a case study. While the major focus is laid upon the emic perspective, presenting and interpreting processes within the Egyptian culture, the course also includes the etic perspective from antiquity until today. The course shows how ancient monumentality and the cultural memory are still being used and how they affected and still affect archaeology. Topics covered include: monumentality – What does it mean and why does it matter; an introduction to the concept of memory within archaeology; monuments of Pharaonic Egypt; what makes a monument a monument in Pharaonic Egypt, the concept of the monumental discourse; cities and residences as expressions of monumentality; the heydays of monumentalism: the pyramids of the Old Kingdom and the time of Ramesses II; Damnatio Memoriae: the Amarna Period and its reception; the structure of the Ancient Egyptian history: how monumental records shaped the later idea of Ancient Egypt; reuse and usurpation; Archaism in Ancient Egypt; monumentality and memory in the Mayan Culture; the construction of memory and identities in the European prehistory: monuments and megalithism; the memory and monuments of Ancient Egypt from Roman times until the decipherment of the hieroglyphs in 1822: what remained without the knowledge of the Ancient Egyptian language; and the memory and monuments of Ancient Egypt today.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. This course provides a general understanding of the use of archaeological methods and data in the context of the study of the Roman economy and critically assesses relevant archaeological evidence. The underlying questions in this module are: what was the nature of the Roman economy? What has archaeology contributed to our picture of the Roman economy? The module is organized thematically and largely focuses on the Roman imperial era, with comparisons to earlier and/or later periods as appropriate. Topics covered include transmarine trade, different types of production activities, and technological innovation. The course discusses topics including agricultural processing facilities; evidence for the production and trade in wine and olive oil; the exploration of marine resources; the use of water power in production processes; and technological innovation.

The course involves an exploration of early historic and medieval Ireland in its European context. Topics include an examination of Roman influences, the archaeology of the Christian church, the exciting developments associated with the Viking Age in Scandinavia and the North Atlantic, the impact of the Norse on Ireland, and the transforming influence of the Anglo-Normans in castle building, town development, and rural villages in the Irish landscape.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course is separated into two parts. The first part is on an introduction to Phoenician and Punic Archaeology. Topics in this part include: the identity of Phoenicians and Punics between history, microhistory and archaeology; relations with the substrata in the contexts of expansion; and commercial contacts and cultural exchanges with the great civilizations of the ancient Near East and the pre-Roman Mediterranean. The second part is on the archaeology of production and material culture from the Phoenician East to the Punic Mediterranean. This part of the course examines the archaeological data relating to various expressions of Phoenician and Punic material culture, analyzing the different evidence of production chains that can be traced between the Syrian-Palestinian coast and the central-western Mediterranean, from the end of the Bronze Age to Romanization. In particular, starting from the study of each single handcraft productions, the technological aspects of the various materials examined are explored, as well as the issue of the contexts of supply of raw matters. Students interested in participating in archaeological excavations are required to complete the safety course for archaeological sites.

From the study of monuments to the archeology of buildings, this course provides an up-to-date view of the specific investigative methods applied to ancient monuments that have developed over the past few decades. These will be the subject of a broad historical perspective, methodological initiation, and practical approaches. The course builds skills that any art historian required to study architectural works must have today: knowing and understanding the history of monumental studies and the evolution of their methods, up to the implementation of building archeology in its various facets, and creating an aptitude to go beyond disciplinary limits to consider collaborations with neighboring disciplines (Archaeology, Archaeometry, History). 

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course offers basic knowledge of the methodologies and of the perspectives of near eastern art history and the reading of symbolism embedded in the material record. The course examines how to recognize and critically examine visual materials, and fine tune the critical tools needed for interpreting ancient visual communication. The course explores elements on sculptural complexes of the Bronze and Iron age in Syria and South-East Anatolia with particular reference to visual communication and architectural settings. Several contexts are analyzed according to a critical approach which are discussed together with the students also through the main scientific references on the relevant subjects. The course discusses sculptural complexes of the Bronze and Iron age in Syria and South-East Anatolia: visual communication and architectural settings.