All upcoming Archaeology programs

Turkey possesses one of the world’s most fascinating histories and richest cultural heritages. It is at once both Eastern and Western, ancient and modern, Christian and Islamic, sensual and austere. A seminar led by independent scholar Nigel McGilchrist pays tribute to this complexity, celebrating the dramatic beauty of Turkey’s landscapes and its wealth of historic monuments and archaeological treasures. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1 credit)

Late in the fifth century B.C.E., ancient China set in motion a revolution that set the course of world history for the following two millennia and a half. Through war, diplomacy, debate, commerce, philosophy, literature, science, and artistic expression, a radically new social order emerged. Andrew Seth Meyer, an expert in early Chinese history, surveys one of the most fertile and significant periods in history.

Maya history, once obscured after European contact, has been illuminated through hieroglyphic decipherment. David Stuart, a historian and archaeologist, reconstructs Maya civilization using indigenous texts and recent discoveries. Drawing from his book The Four Heavens, he reveals cycles of growth and collapse across three millennia, from rainforest settlements to monumental Classic-period cities. Stuart emphasizes royal courts, dynastic rivalries—especially Kanul versus Mutul—that shaped kingdoms and fueled the 9th-century “Great Rupture.”

At the center of classical Greece stood Athens and Sparta. Together, they defeated the Persians, the era’s only superpower. Yet later, they spread conflict and destruction across the eastern Mediterranean, culminating in the horrors of the Peloponnesian War. Historian Adrian Goldsworthy examines the complex and often volatile relationship between militarized Sparta and radically democratic Athens—opposites in ideology and culture, each driven by the Greek longing to excel and experimenting in radically different ways to govern a state.

Home to extraordinary finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum, the Naples National Archaeological Museum offers a glimpse into the ancient Roman world. Italian Renaissance art expert Rocky Ruggiero introduces some of the museum’s most compelling treasures, from breathtaking mosaics and monumental sculptures to everyday objects that reveal how Romans lived, worked, and found pleasure nearly 2,000 years ago. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)