Art History 212 - ANCIENT CITIES & SANCTUARIES

This course explores many different aspects of life in the cities and sanctuaries of the ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece, Etruria, and Rome. Recurrent themes will include urbanism, landscapes, and patterns of worship, including initiation, sacrifice, and pilgrimage. We'll probe how modern notions of the secular and the sacred influence interpretation and how sometimes the seemingly most anomalous features of the worship of Isis or of the juxtaposition of commercial and domestic space within a city can potentially prove to be the most revealing about life in another place and time.