ANCS 370: That Belongs in a Museum!

In an iconic scene in Indiana Jones: Last Crusade, Indiana Jones mutters the famous phrase, “That belongs in a museum!” when a relic is forcibly taken from him. Though the scene is Hollywood fiction, it does serve to highlight real tensions surrounding antiquities. Simultaneously viewed as objects of material, cultural, and aesthetic value, ancient objects occupy a nebulous space in the modern world. Using both archaeological and museological perspectives, this course is designed to introduce students to the types of artifacts that survive from antiquity and to explore some of the special challenges associated with antiquities collections.