First Year Studies 180: 

Cultivating Ancient Worlds

Office Hours: W, 3 to 5 and by appt.

Richard Fisher

Campus Circle 7 Fall 2003

 
 

 
This course is a multi- and interdisciplinary undertaking, highlighting our two primary means of engaging the cultures of antiquity: the primary texts of literature and collections of artifacts in museums. Civilizations treated include Mesopotamia (Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian), Egypt, Greece and, time permitting, Persia. Texts offer everything from formulaic phrases, ritual incantation, epigraphy and diplomatic reports to lyric poetry, philosophic dialogues and vast epic narrative. As we read and discuss texts, and visit major collections in Chicago, the course seeks to achieve three goals: 

1) to immerse students in the practices of reconstructing ancient civilizations through their literary artifacts; 
2) to bring students into additional meaningful contact with influential ancient civilizations through visits to Chicago museums and experience with collections, displays and ideologies;
3) to introduce students to the world of secondary resources in libraries at great
institutions. 

In pursuing these goals concurrently the hope is to create a dynamic investigational interplay among textual study, classroom discussion, museum experience and scholarly investigation of archival and critical sources. Throughout the course emphasis will
be placed on awareness of how ancient civilizations have influenced our modern world and many of its characteristic features. There will be 3-4 class excursions to Chicago museums, including the Oriental Institute, Field Museum and Art Institute. 

Our reading list includes Gilgamesh, the Odyssey, and a set of reprinted readings on history and archæology, cultural criticism and art history. Students will be asked to write short papers approximately every other week and construct a final research project. There will be a short exam on each major unit, but no mid-term and no final exam. Readings and excursions to Chicago will be announced in class, and the schedule is open to some revision: flexibility is the order of the day. In-class presentations take the place of a textbook, and thus provide essential background and foundational matter for the entire course. Discussions will be supplemented by activities involving individual research, cinematic presentations (aka watching movies) and some computer-assisted materials; these will be assigned at appropriate intervals, with plenty of advance notice. 

Here is our schedule of our study units in broad outline: 

 
Weeks 1-2 
  Introduction; archæology, culture, history
Weeks 3-6 
  Mesopotamia
Weeks 6-10 
  Egypt
Weeks 11-15 
  Greece & Persia
Week 15 
  Retrospective, final papers/projects

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The following works were consulted in compiling the weekly presentations for the course:
 

MESOPOTAMIA


Art of the First Cities (Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition catalog)
Bottéro, Everyday Life in Ancient Mesopotamia
Bottéro, Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia
Chiera, They Wrote on Clay
Collon, Ancient Near Eastern Art
Crawford, Sumer and the Sumerians
Egypt and the Near East (Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition catalog)
Frankfort, Wilson & Jacobsen, Before Philosophy
Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods
Hallo & Simpson, The Ancient Near East
Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels
Jacobsen, The Harps That Once . . .
Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness
Kramer, History Begins at Sumer
Kramer, The Sumerians
Lamberg-Karlovsky and Sabloff, Ancient Civilizations
Leick, Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City
Leick, Whoís Who in the Ancient Near East
Maisels, Early Civilizations of the Old World
Maisels, The Near East. Archaeology in the ëCradle of Civilizationí
Metropolitan Museum of Art (exhibition catalog), Art of the First Cities
Metropolitan Museum of Art (exhibition catalog), Egypt and the Near East
Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia
Roaf, Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East
Roux, Ancient Iraq
Sasson, Civilizations of the Ancient Near East
Strommenger, 5,000 Years of the Art of Mesopotamia
Zettler, Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur
 
 

EGYPT


Adams, Protodynastic Egypt
Adams, Egyptian Mummies
Agnese and Re, Ancient Egypt: Art and Archaeology of the Land of the Pharaohs
Andreu, Egypt in the Age of the Pyramids
Assmann, The Mind of Egypt
Baines and Malek, Cultural Atlas of Ancient Egypt
Brega, Egypt: Past and Present
Brewer and Teeter, Egypt and the Egyptians
Brier, Egyptian Mummies
David, Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt
Davies, Reading the Past: Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Davies and Friedman, Egypt
Egypt and the Near East (Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition catalog)
Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids (Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition catalog)
Fakhry, The Pyramids
Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead
Fleming et. al., The Way to Eternity: Egyptian Myth
Harris, History of Ancient Egypt: The Culture and Lifestyle of the Ancient Egyptians
Hawass, Silent Images: Women in Pharaonic Egypt
Hornung and Bryan, The Quest for Immortality
Iversen, The Myth of Egypt and Its Hieroglyphs in European Tradition
James, A Short History of Ancient Egypt
James, Tutankhamun
Kemp, Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization
Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature (3 vol.)
Lurker, The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Egypt
Malek, Egypt: 4000 Years of Art
Manly, Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Egypt
Meeks, Daily Life of the Egyptian Gods
Meskell, Private Life in New Kingdom Egypt
Metropolitan Museum of Art (exhibition catalog), Egypt and the Near East
Metropolitan Museum of Art (exhibition catalog): Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids
Montserrat, Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt
Redford, Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt
Quirke and Spencer, The British Museum Book of Ancient Egypt
Robins, The Art of Ancient Egypt
Robins, Egyptian Statues
Robins, Proportion and Style in Ancient Egyptian Art
Russman: Eternal Egypt (British Museum catalog)
Shafer et. al., Religion in Ancient Egypt: Gods, Myths, and Personal Practice
Shaw, Exploring Ancient Egypt
Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt
Shaw and Nicholson, Dictionary of Ancient Egypt
Silverman, Ancient Egypt
Smith, Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt
Snape, Egyptian Temples
Stafford-Deitsch, The Monuments of Ancient Egypt
Steindorff and Seele, When Egypt Ruled the East
Teeter, Ancient Egypt: Treasures from the Collection of the Oriental Institute University of Chicago
Thomas, Akhenatenís Egypt
Thomas, Egyptian Gods and Myths
Tyson and Bernard, Valley of the Kings
Watterson, Gods of Ancient Egypt
Welsh, Tutankhamunís Egypt
Wilkinson, Reading Egyptian Art
 
 

ARCHAEOLOGY


Bahn, Cambridge Illustrated History of Archaeology
Bahn, Tombs, Graves & Mummies
Braudel, Memory and the Mediterranean
Courbin, What is Archaeology?
Cunliffe, The Oxford Illustrated Prehistory of Europe
Evans, The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy
Fagan, Archaeologists: Explorers of the Human Past
Fagan, The Oxford Companion to Archaeology
Fagan, Time Detectives
Keeley, War Before Civilization
Maisels, Early Civilizations of the Old World
Maisels, The Near East. Archaeology in the ëCradle of Civilizationí
Manning, A Test of Time
Renfrew & Bahn, Archaeology
Robertshaw, The History of African Archaeology
Runciman, The Origins of Human Social Institutions
Stiebing, Uncovering the Past
Trigger, A History of Archaeological Thought
Wenke, Patterns in Prehistory