INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD Newsletter 22 Fall 2018 From the Director Table of Contents Fall is the season associated with harvest, and this issue of the ISAW Newsletter is a cornucopia fi lled with articles exhibiting the abundance of our institute’s research and programming. The range is astonishing, whether considered from the point of view Exhibitions 4 of time—from the Bronze Age through the late fi rst millennium CE—or space—from the north of Roman Gaul, where a cult site Faculty Focus: Robert Hoyland 6 of Mercury attracted the dazzling hoard of silver objects at the heart of our new exhibition Devotion and Decadence (pp. 4-5), by way of the Egyptian Fayum and Cappadocia, where archaeological work is casting light on ancient local economies (pp. 7 and 8), Scholar Focus: Emily Cole 7 to the Indus Valley, where Islam fi rst confronted the cultures of India (p. 6). Community: Students 8 There is another respect in which this issue brings out ISAW’s range, namely the career stages of the people doing this Community: Scholars 12 wonderful research. ISAW’s students and postdoctoral scholars are not so much apprentices as junior colleagues of our faculty, Lectures 13 with their own fascinating projects and publications. In addition to Emily Cole’s fi eldwork in Egypt, we have an advance peek into an interdisciplinary conference on neighborhood life in ancient cities co-organized by another of our Visiting Assistant Conferences 14 Professors, Andrew Dufton (p. 14). And alongside Lorenzo Castellano’s soon-to-be-published work on structures for crop Public Events 15 storage at Kınık Höyük, we feature two other advanced students, Maria Americo and Andrea Trameri, who have been awarded fellowships by the Graduate School of Arts and Science as they fi nish dissertations that are again poles apart in time and methodology: ninth-century CE astronomical texts in Arabic that draw on the legacy of Greek science, and the Bronze Age buff er state of Kizzuwatna (p. 9). We have a full slate of public events this Fall (pp. 5, 13, and 15); I hope you will be able to join us for some of them! Alexander Jones Leon Levy Director and Professor of the History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity ABOUT ISAW Cover Photo: Beaker Commemorating the Isthmian Games (detail). Roman, 1–100 CE. Findspot: Berthouville, France. Silver and gold. The creation of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) at New York University had its roots in the passion of Shelby H. 12.6 cm; Diam. 10.3 cm. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris: inv. 56.10. Inscription: MERCVRIO Q DOMITIVS TVTVS VSLM White and Leon Levy for the art and history of the ancient world, which led them to envision an institute that would encourage the (To Mercury, Quintus Domitius Tutus fulfi lled his vow willingly as merited) study of the economic, religious, political, and cultural connections among ancient civilizations across geographic, chronological, and disciplinary boundaries. Image: Tahnee Cracchiola © Getty-BnF The Institute, established in 2006, is an independent center for scholarly research and graduate education. Photo: Courtesy of Andrea Brizzi Exhibitions Devotion and Decadence The Berthouville Treasure and Roman Luxury from the Bibliothèque nationale de France October 17 - January 6, 2019 Public Programming While plowing a field in 1830 near the village of Berthouville, in area of ancient pilgrimage and assembly, the collection offers Exhibition Gallery Talk: Object Histories rural Normandy, a French farmer unearthed a cache of ancient a striking example of the cross-cultural interactions between Wednesdays, October 17 - December 19, 12-12:20pm silver objects. The Berthouville Treasure, as the find has come Roman and indigenous Gallic culture. No RSVP Required to be known, is the largest and best-preserved hoard of silver from the ancient world. After news of the discovery was com- Approximately seventy-five other luxury objects from the Thursday, October 25 municated to Paris, the collection of silver and gilt-silver statu- collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France including Exhibition Lecture: Seeing the Supernatural: Art and Religion in ettes and vessels—ninety-one silver pieces weighing over fifty silver platters, cameos, intaglios, coins, and jewelry will join the Roman Gaul pounds in total—were acquired by the Cabinet des médailles et Berthouville Treasure for this exhibition. In addition to temple Kimberly Cassibry, Wellesley College antiques of the Bibliothèque royale (now the Département des dedications, opulent prestige objects also had a lived history as Monnaies, médailles et antiques of the Bibliothèque nationale signs of their owner’s wealth, power, and refinement.Devotion Tuesday, October 30 de France) following a bidding war with the Louvre Museum. and Decadence highlights the significance of Roman luxury arts Exhibition Lecture: The Cabinet des médailles: Luxury and and their role in both devotional and domestic settings. Power from Ancient Rome to Modern France* Clare Fitzgerald, ISAW In the decades that followed, excavations were carried out on *Please note that this event will take place at the farmland where the farmer unearthed the treasure. These Devotion and Decadence: The Berthouville Treasure and Roman La Maison Française NYU at 16 Washington Mews archaeological investigations revealed the foundations of a Luxury opens on October 17, 2018 and will be on view through Gallo-Roman fanum, a theater and temple complex devoted to January 6, 2019. Saturday, November 10, 5:30-8:00pm Mercury Canetonensis, a god particularly revered in the region. Exhibition Gallery Event: Sketch Night Subsequent research at the site clarified successive stages of This exhibition is made possible by generous support from the Joan Chiverton, Fashion Institute of Technology the sanctuary’s construction and revealed a second temple Selz Foundation, The Achelis and Bodman Foundation, and dedicated to Mercury’s mother Maia or Gallo-Roman consort the Leon Levy Foundation. Additional funding was provided by Thursday, November 15 Rosmerta. It is now believed that the temples were a pilgrimage Frances Marzio and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Exhibition Gallery Talk: Ancient Silversmithing and Modern site, where votive gifts were dedicated to Practice Mercury and his counterpart. Although Wendy Yothers, Fashion Institute of Technology it is not known when the buildings were Thursday, November 29 destroyed, we do know that the treasure Exhibition Lecture: A Roman Temple Treasure: The Berthouville was deliberately buried in the late second Silver and Its Contexts or early third century CE. Kenneth Lapatin, J. Paul Getty Museum The Berthouville Treasure includes two Thursday, December 6 striking statuettes of Mercury, around Exhibition Panel Conversation: The Berthouville Treasure and seventy vessels including bowls, cups, the Gallo-Roman World: Art, Literature, and Cultural History pitchers, and plates, as well as separate Moderator: Clare Fitzgerald, ISAW handles, feet, appliqués, and fragments. Panelists: James Uden, Boston University; Andrew Johnston, Even the earliest studies of these objects Yale University; Francesco de Angelis, Columbia University revealed that this was a temple trea- Saturday, December 15, 4:00-5:00pm sure, rather than a personal service, as a Exhibition Gallery Talk: Ancient Silversmithing and Modern number of the pieces not only represent Practice Mercury, but also include dedicatory Wendy Yothers, Fashion Institute of Technology inscriptions to the god. The inscriptions on some of these vessels also tell us Saturday, January 5, 2019, 9:00-11:30am something about the diverse people who Exhibition Gallery Event: Sketch Morning consecrated them and the operation of the Joan Chiverton, Fashion Institute of Technology shrine. The Gallic names, Combaromarus Bowl with a Medallion Depicting Omphale. Roman, 1–100 CE. Perfume Flask with Three Figures Representing the Seasons. and Camulognata, inscribed on a ladle and Findspot: Berthouville, France. Silver and gold. H. 8.2 cm Diam. 28.9 cm. Roman, 25 BCE–50 CE pitcher respectively, identify their Gallic Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris: inv. 56.11. All events require an RSVP at isaw.nyu.edu/rsvp or 212.992.7800 Cameo glass with modern resin neck and enameled metal foot. and begin at 6pm unless otherwise noted. donors. Other objects were dedicated at Inscription: MERCVRIO AVGVSTO Q DOMITIVS TVTVS EX VOTO H. 15.5 cm; Diam of foot. 3.2 cm Admission to lectures closes 10 minutes after scheduled start Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris: Camée.623 the temple by women as well as men, by (To Augustan Mercury, Quintus Domitius Tutus in fulfillment of a vow). time. Please visit isaw.nyu.edu for event updates. ex-slaves and the freeborn. Located in an Image: Tahnee Cracchiola © Getty-BnF Image: Serge Oboukhoff © BnF-CNRS-Maison Archéologie & Ethnologie, René-Ginouvès 4 ISAW Newsletter 22, Fall 2018 ISAW Newsletter 22, Fall 2018 5 Faculty Focus Scholar Focus The Muslim Discovery of India Living at the Lake’s Edge: Excavations at the Graeco-Roman Settlement of Qarah Robert Hoyland el-Hamra in the Fayum, Egypt Professor of Late Antique and Early Islamic Middle Eastern History Emily Cole What peoples and cultures did the Muslim Arabs encounter speaking of “the torrents of blood from innards that had Visiting Assistant Professor, 2016-18 when they entered northern India in the eighth century from burst out from the heavy bellies of great warriors” and of “the Postdoctoral Scholar, Center for the Tebtunis Papyri, University of California, Berkeley their newly acquired base in the lower Indus Valley, in modern turbans and trenchant swords reddened by a thick veil of blood Pakistan? This is the question that I am trying to answer for that had poured from wounds in the trunks and cheeks of If Egypt is a gift of the Nile, then the in Lake Qarun, but also connected my next project. It is not an easy question.