W3908
Undergraduate Seminar Spring 2001
Topics in the Mediterranean Bronze Age: Palaces and Palace cultures
Professor Joanna S. Smith
jss245@columbia.edu; tel: 854-1945
912 Schermerhorn; office hours Mondays 3-5pm
Meets Tuesdays 10:10 am - 12:00 pm in 934 Schermerhorn Hall Download
the syllabus
Topics in the Mediterranean Bronze Age: Palaces
and Palace Cultures (W3908) is a seminar that explores palace cultures
of the Bronze
Age Mediterranean world (Aegean, Anatolia, Syria-Palestine, Cyprus,
and Egypt) in order to define what palaces are, how and by whom
they were used, and what roles they played in the international
world
of the second millennium B.C. The course includes some comparative
discussion of earlier palaces and possible palaces of the third
millennium as well as later Iron Age and later palaces of the Near
East and
Greco-Roman world. During the course of the seminar, each student
will research and present a palace in terms of the following topics:
(1) palace origins, architecture, and landscape; (2) economy, storage,
and record-keeping in and around palaces; (3) public ceremony and
ritual in and around palaces; (4) private cult and ritual in and
around palaces; and (5) élite residence in and around palaces.
W3908:
Undergraduate Seminar Spring 2002
Topics in the Mediterranean
Bronze Age: Ceramic Analysis
M 10:10-Noon, 652 Schermerhorn
Professor Joanna S. Smith
jss245@columbia.edu; 854-1945
Office: 912 Schermerhorn; office hours: W 9-12
Lab: 662 Schermerhorn Extension; 854-6349 Download
the syllabus
Topics in the Mediterranean Bronze Age: Ceramic Analysis (W3908)
is a seminar that gives students the chance to work in depth with
the most common of artifacts -- pottery -- used to understand the
cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean. Ceramics are used to build
chronologies and cultural sequences, understand human interaction,
reconstruct what people ate and how they lived, and illuminate
belief systems. This seminar examines the production, distribution,
and use of ceramics, both as reconstructed for the past and as
interpreted in the present, for ceramics primarily of the Middle
and Late Bronze Ages (second millennium BC). Using ancient materials
on the Columbia campus, particularly finds from the site of Phlamoudhi-Melissa
on Cyprus, students gain first-hand experience with archaeological
finds. Other work includes the study and replication of ceramic
manufacture and an independent research project concerning the
significance of ceramic finds.
For
requirements, readings, and schedule, download the syllabus
above
Download
the syllabus