Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures

Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures A leading research center for the cultures of ancient West Asia and North Africa
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The Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures is a world-renowned showcase for the history, art, and archaeology of the cultures of ancient West Asia and North Africa. The museum displays objects recovered by ISAC excavations in permanent galleries devoted to ancient Egypt, Nubia, Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Anatolia, and the ancient site of Megiddo, as well as rotating special exhibits.

This week we're looking at different materials related to the South Caucasus at the ISAC! Winner of The 2025 Mediterrane...
06/02/2026

This week we're looking at different materials related to the South Caucasus at the ISAC! Winner of The 2025 Mediterranean Seminar Prize for the Best Source Edition and Translation and the 2025 Dr. Sona Aronian Book Prize for Excellence in Armenian Studies, "An Armenian Futūh Narrative: Łewond’s Eighth-Century History of the Caliphate," was written by Sergio La Porta and Alison M. V***a and published by ISAC in 2024. The text is an important source for the history of early Islamic rule and the only contemporary chronicle of second/eighth-century caliphal rule in Armenia, describing the events that took place during the century and a half following the Prophet Muḥammad’s death in AH 11/632 CE. You can download the book for free here: https://isac.uchicago.edu/research/publications/lamine/lamine4

We're excited to announce a new joint class with the (ARISC): "A Grand Tour: Travels in the South Caucasus." Course Sch...
06/02/2026

We're excited to announce a new joint class with the (ARISC): "A Grand Tour: Travels in the South Caucasus." Course Schedule: 8 weeks, Mondays, June 29th–August 17th, 2026, 4–6 pm CDT/5–7pm EDT. Classes meet online via Zoom with recordings available.
Register here:
https://bit.ly/ISACARISCGrandTourClass

Experience traveling through the South Caucasus in the 19th and early 20th centuries through a joint course taught by experts from ARISC and the University of Chicago! With the advent of the railroad, the 19th century saw a revolution in travel with more people journeying further afield than ever before. At the time under the control of the Russian Empire, and subsequently the Soviet Union, the South Caucasus, now the independent countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, were an attractive location for the adventurous traveler. From the famous diarist Anne Lister who visited Georgia with her partner Ann Walker and died at Kutaisi in 1840, to Alexander Dumas père, author of The Three Musketeers who marveled at the fire temple of Baku in Azerbaijan in 1858, and Russian poet Alexander Pushkin's visit to Armenia in 1829, the region has fascinated travelers. This course explores the South Caucasus through photography, painting, music, and literature as viewed through the eyes of travelers.
Instructors: Brian Fairley (Univ. of Pittsburgh), Rebecca Ruth Gould (SOAS Univ. of London), Polina Kasian (Univ. of Chicago), Anna Oldfield (Coastal Carolina Univ.), Rebecca Ruth Gould (SOAS Univ. of London), Alyssa Mathias (Knox College), Arpi Movsesian (Univ. of Notre Dame), and Tasha Vorderstrasse (Univ. of Chicago).

We end Nubia Month with a look back at some of our programming that happened over the month! A highlight was when a Lab ...
05/31/2026

We end Nubia Month with a look back at some of our programming that happened over the month! A highlight was when a Lab School 2nd Grade Class and students from City Elementary came to visit the ISAC Museum where they learned about ancient pets in Nubia, particularly Prince Arikankharer and his hunting dog! The following week, each class visited the Lincoln Park Zoo, where they learned about modern habitats of the animals and climate change, which explains why some of the animals they saw in the ISAC Museum exhibition, no longer live in Nubia. Thanks to the for hosting us!

Today! Sekhmet Unraveled in Breasted Hall from 4–6pm! The culmination of Nubian Month is a theatrical performance by the...
05/30/2026

Today! Sekhmet Unraveled in Breasted Hall from 4–6pm! The culmination of Nubian Month is a theatrical performance by the touring company HERitage emBODYment. Register: https://bit.ly/ISACHeritageEmbodyment

Sekhmet Unraveled is a multi-modal, multi-lingual (English, Arabic, Fadija, Coptic) performance by the award-winning HERitage emBODYment ensemble. Created in response to the museum’s Egyptian and Nubian galleries, Sekhmet Unraveled merges contemporary realities with ancestral memories to re-author the histories of Egyptology, museum collections, and what it means to be Egyptian, Nubian, and American. From heartfelt, poetic personal anecdotes, to satirical songs and clowning, to funerary and celebratory rituals, Sekhmet Unraveled invites audiences to celebrate contemporary and ancient cultures in a museum space, and re-think how they engage with history, art, and heritage within and beyond the museum.

HERitage emBODYment views the personal as political, our bodies serve as extensions of our ancestors’ memory as we intertwine our lived histories with theirs. Nabra Nelson is Nubian-Egyptian-American, and Sarah Fahmy is Egyptian raised in England and the US–raised in different diasporas, though our identity stories are similar. As multi-disciplinary theatre makers, performers, and scholars, our ensemble emerged out of a frustration with structural inequities and Orientalist mis-representation in mainstream US media and theatre of Arab, African, Muslim women, and the coloniality of Egyptian antiquities.

Today! Join us for Nubian Month Community Fun Day from 1–4pm! A fun day out for all the family exploring the museum with...
05/30/2026

Today! Join us for Nubian Month Community Fun Day from 1–4pm! A fun day out for all the family exploring the museum with crafts, scavenger hunts, food, comedy, and more. The event includes entrance to the award-winning HERitage emBODYment touring performance of Sekhmet Unraveled by Dr Sarah Fahmy and Nabra Nelson. Sneak previews of this will be performed in the galleries between 2-3pm.
https://bit.ly/NubianMonthFunDay

The culmination of Nubian Month is a theatrical performance by the touring company HERitage emBODYment.Sekhmet Unraveled...
05/29/2026

The culmination of Nubian Month is a theatrical performance by the touring company HERitage emBODYment.

Sekhmet Unraveled is a multi-modal, multi-lingual (English, Arabic, Fadija, Coptic) performance by the award-winning HERitage emBODYment ensemble. Created in response to the museum’s Egyptian and Nubian galleries, Sekhmet Unraveled merges contemporary realities with ancestral memories to re-author the histories of Egyptology, museum collections, and what it means to be Egyptian, Nubian, and American. From heartfelt, poetic personal anecdotes, to satirical songs and clowning, to funerary and celebratory rituals, Sekhmet Unraveled invites audiences to celebrate contemporary and ancient cultures in a museum space, and re-think how they engage with history, art, and heritage within and beyond the museum.

Register here: https://bit.ly/ISACHeritageEmbodyment

Tonight! The Documentary film series, African Empires concludes with Part 4: Sudan, "Amanirenas, discovering the Candace...
05/29/2026

Tonight! The Documentary film series, African Empires concludes with Part 4: Sudan, "Amanirenas, discovering the Candaces," May 29, 6:00–8:00pm. Focusing on Amanirenas, who is thought to be the one-eyed kandake (queen) who is mentioned by the Greek author Strabo as having defeated the Romans. This film traces her rule and how she fought the Roman Empire as they attempted to expand southwards into Africa.
Register here: https://bit.ly/AmanirenasFilm

This Saturday, May 30, join us for Nubian Month Community Fun Day from 1–4pm! A fun day out for all the family exploring...
05/28/2026

This Saturday, May 30, join us for Nubian Month Community Fun Day from 1–4pm! A fun day out for all the family exploring the museum with crafts, scavenger hunts, food, comedy, and more. The event includes entrance to the award-winning HERitage emBODYment touring performance of Sekhmet Unraveled by Dr Sarah Fahmy and Nabra Nelson. Sneak previews of this will be performed in the galleries between 2-3pm.
https://bit.ly/NubianMonthFunDay

Tonight! In person or online (https://bit.ly/ISACLectureObluskiLiveStream)ISAC Visiting Scholar lecture with Artur Obłus...
05/28/2026

Tonight! In person or online (https://bit.ly/ISACLectureObluskiLiveStream)
ISAC Visiting Scholar lecture with Artur Obłuski, “A Treasure Box Buried in Sand, Africana Byzantina from Nubia,” May 28, 7:00–9:00pm.

For more than a century, archaeological research in Sudan has revealed some of the most remarkable treasures of African—and global—cultural heritage, a scholarly tradition closely associated with the University of Chicago and the pioneering work of James Henry Breasted. Over the past six decades, the archaeology of medieval Nubia has also become a major field of expertise for the University of Warsaw. Within the framework of Nubian Month at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC), this lecture surveys landmark discoveries that have transformed our understanding of Nubian societies between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, with particular emphasis on two historic capitals: Faras and Old Dongola. Drawing on key excavations and recent interdisciplinary research, it highlights spectacular finds—from monumental architecture and urban landscapes to funerary evidence, inscriptions, and painted decoration—that illuminate religious change, political authority, and everyday life along the Middle Nile.

Artur Obłuski is an archaeologist specializing in the study of medieval Nubia. He has been the director of the Poilish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw, since 2018, having previously headed the PCMA UW Research Centre in Cairo. He advocates a change in the approach to archaeological research in Africa and the Middle East from considering it as a purely scientific endeavor towards using heritage to foster economic development of local communities and their active involvement in the research process.

Today! If you are on campus today, May 28, catch the ISAC Brown Bag talk at 12 in the LaSalle Banks Room (basement) of I...
05/28/2026

Today! If you are on campus today, May 28, catch the ISAC Brown Bag talk at 12 in the LaSalle Banks Room (basement) of ISAC! May-Sarah Zeßin, Visiting Research Scholar, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, NYU will give the talk: "Reading and Communicating Between the Lines: Craftspeople’s Marks on Glazed Bricks and Ivories from the 1st Millennium BCE in Ancient West Asia."
Glazed brick decoration adorned temples and palaces in ancient West Asia from the mid-15th century BCE onward. While monuments such as the Sin Temple at Dur-Sharrukin (Khorsabad) and the glazed brick panel from Fort Shalmaneser at Kalhu (Nimrud) are often discussed for their iconography recent scholarship increasingly emphasizes production and assembly and the skilled craftspeople involved in their manufacture. This talk examines craftspeople’s marks on glazed bricks dating to the 1st millennium BCE. It traces when these marks were applied within the production and construction sequence, and addresses the interpretive and methodological challenges of reading such marks as evidence for individual labor. It concludes by highlighting fitters’ marks shared across media: similar guiding marks appear on glazed bricks, stone objects, and carved ivories, with initial findings from ongoing study of objects in The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Speaker Bio
May-Sarah Zeßin is currently a Visiting Research Scholar at ISAW (NYU) and an archaeologist specializing in ancient West Asia. In July 2025, she received her PhD at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (Germany) on the technological aspects of glazed architectural elements, with a focus on craftspeople’s marks on glazed bricks from Mesopotamia and northwestern Iran in the 1st millennium BCE. She holds a B.A. in Cultural Studies (Viadrina University Frankfurt Oder, Germany) and an M.A. in History and Cultures of the Ancient Near East (Freie Universität Berlin). From 2017 to 2022, she was a Research Associate at the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin (GlAssur project, Babylon project) and previously worked at the German Archaeological Institute (Eurasia Department). Her research integrates archaeology, philology, and museum studies, with interests in craftsmanship, material culture, and cross-craft and cross-cultural interactions.

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1155 E 58th Street
Chicago, IL
60637

Opening Hours

Tuesday 10am - 4pm
Wednesday 10am - 4pm
Thursday 10am - 4pm
Friday 10am - 8pm
Saturday 10am - 4pm
Sunday 10am - 4pm

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(773) 702-9514

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