Announced in 2006 with a $200 million gift from the Foundation, the Institute is a center for advanced scholarly research and graduate education, intended to cultivate cross-cultural study of the ancient world, from the western Mediterranean to China. It is headed by Dr. Roger Bagnall, a distinguished scholar educated at Yale University and the University of Toronto and a specialist in the social and economic history of Hellenistic, Roman and Late Antique Egypt.
ISAW is a center for advanced scholarly research and graduate education, to encourage the study of the economic, religious, political and cultural connections between ancient civilizations. It offers both doctoral and postdoctoral programs, with the aim of training a new generation of scholars who will enter the global academic community and become intellectual leaders. ISAW is a discrete entity within NYU, with its own endowment and its own board of trustee.
ISAW’s exhibitions, public lectures, publications, digital resources, and other programs expand upon its vision and reflect the Institute’s ideal of study that bridges disciplines and ancient peoples.
Each year since 2007, ISAW has appointed 8 to 12 visiting research scholars, offering them an oasis in which they may pursue independent research in ancient world studies.
ISAW’s exhibitions are intended to shed light on central questions about the economic, religious, political, artistic and technological connections among ancient societies. “Wine, Worship and Sacrifice: The Golden Graves of Ancient Vani” was presented in 2008, and “The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley, 5000 – 3500 B.C.” went on view in November 2009.
Watch Philippe de Montebello’s interview of Jennifer Chi on Channel Thirteen’s SundayArts about the “Lost World” exhibit here.
ISAW is developing an extensive library in its field of study. It has so far acquired several private libraries whose strengths lie in Greek and Roman art, history and archaeology, Egyptology, Assyriology and Late Antique and Byzantine history, and Asian art. ISAW continues to acquire books, especially in areas underrepresented in other New York libraries.
Digital Programs
The Digital Projects team uses digital technology to advance scholarship worldwide. Among its undertakings to date are the Pleiades project, an online, open gazetteer for ancient Greek and Roman places, edited jointly with the Ancient World Mapping Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an online project to support research on Greek and Roman papyrology.
