HAA 0160 Ancient Empires

The goals of the course are to introduce students to historically influential empires of the ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean world: Akkad, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and Rome. Rather than history as it is reconstructed from texts, this survey will emphasize the comparative cultural profiles of these empires as they are known from the archaeological record: the king or emperor and his constituencies (elites, army, gods), the resources required to control these constituencies (essential commodities, luxuries, an expanded workforce), the visual themes and monument types that were chosen to advertise the success and promote the
continuity of the regime beyond the lifetime of its founder, the use of the regional themes to establish continuity with the historical past, and the cultural impact of empires on those who belonged to them and those who did not. Monument types will include: palaces and tombs, temples and booty as thank-offering for the acquisition of resources, ‘collections’ as illustrative of the regimes’ control over history and geography (i.e. gardens, zoos, museums, libraries), administrative buildings and institutions (law codes and their presentation).