In recent years, many leading museums have found themselves at the center of controversies focusing on whether they have developed their antiquities collections unethically.

Centaurs, Gorgons, Sphinxes, and many other myth personae have been painted and sculpted for thousands of years in Western Art, but what can we learn from their accumulated layers of meaning? Who and what were the older models of

This course emphasizes the unique practices of conducting archaeology in the Alps and montane, high altitude regions while also covering global practices. Topics include geomorphology, montane ecology and paleoclimatology and how these help determine the ancient alpine environment

How many people in history actually deserve to have their names described as "great"? Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, Constantine the Great, Charlemagne, Frederick the Great, and Catherine the Great are a few that immediately spring to mind. These historic figures earned the designation because they either greatly influenced history in their day, or they affected humankind afterward. Some others could be described as great if only because their intimidating influence was admittedly profound. As such, we have Nero-the-Not-So-Great, as well as Pope Gregory the Great, William the Conqueror, and Genghis Khan.

"Hannibal is a name that evoked fear among the Romans for decades. His courage, cunning and intrepid march across the Alps in 218 BCE with an army and elephants over snowy crags and dangerous passes are still features of one of the most exciting reads in ancient

"If any global archaeologist were asked to name the top ten archaeological discoveries that have made the greatest impact on archaeology and history, most lists would be likely to unanimously mention the following huge impact discoveries: the Rosetta Stone, Pompeii, Nineveh, Troy, King Tut's Tomb, Machu Picchu, Thera-Akrotiri, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Olduvai Gorge starting with the Leakey Era and the Tomb of the Ten Thousand Warriors in China. This exciting book, written with a taut narrative, relates the dramatic moments of these discoveries, whether by professional archaeologists or by amateurs' accidents, and highlights their significance to history." Continuing Studies Class 10 week course September-December Goto: www.tendiscoveries.com now!

Many evidences from ancient art and archaeology witness how seriously athleticism was taken as both a personal and communal value within society. The ancient Greeks believed in balancing mind and body where physical training was rigorously accompanied by mental training and vice versa. Few people know Plato's real

"Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69) was one of those few genius artists who achieved fame in his youth only to be nearly abandoned by society in his later life. While ushering in the Dutch Baroque Age at the height of Amsterdam’s glory days in the 17th century, Rembrandt summed up Realism and in some ways anticipated both Romanticism and Impressionism. While he is still considered by some to be the greatest biblical painter of all time, Rembrandt hardly ever went inside a church.

The European Renaissance derives its name from the “rebirth” or rediscovery of ancient cultural models and ideals. Petrarch’s Ad Fontanes, “[Back] to the Fountains,” was the hallmark of the day, as thinkers in all disciplines dipped into the European cultural past for fresh inspiration.

How familiar we are with phrases like "Pandora's Box" or "the Labors of Hercules" or "Between a Rock and a Hard Place" or "Siren Song" and many others that have become idioms and metaphors for common expressions in our lives, now illumined in this course. Themes like the Trojan War, the Coming of Spring and the Seasons, The House of Kadmos and Oedipus and the Sphinx, Perseus and Medusa,

Prometheus Brings Fire, Deukalion and the Flood, Cupid and Psyche, Dionysus and Wine myths, the Loves and Feuds of the Gods, How Zeus, Poseidon and Hades divided the Cosmos between Them, Heroes and Monsters, Pegasus and Chimaira are just a few of the tales and topics in the course. Mythology - even fictive - may treasure kernels of truth about humanity. Patrick Hunt will also assign and share readings from his own unique and original retellings of myth.

GREEK MYTHOLOGY (CLASSGEN 18)
Stanford University, Fall Quarter 2006,
Undergraduate and graduate enrollment

This course is limited to registered students, including from outside Stanford.

Large-scale and small-scale engineering in the ancient world offer fascinating parallels to modern technology. How were the pyramids of ancient Egypt constructed? How did the Romans create a hydrology system with extensive aqueducts, and over 50,000

"The great mythologer Joseph Campbell suggested history can be real but not necessarily true whereas mythology is not necessarily real but full of truth. Some of the questions examined in this class are "Can we find kernels of historical truth in mythology as in places such as Troy, Mycenae and Thebes and other archaeological sites?" "How do mythology and archaeology overlap?"

Persia has had one of the longest, most glorious and fascinating histories in the world. Too often neglected by the West, Persia has a wealth of culture and has made immense contributions to civilization jealously admired and acknowledged by the ancient Greeks and the later Byzantines at least from Cyrus the Great around the 6th c. BCE all the way through the Ottoman perod in the 19th century. Its legendary arts and architectural sites range from Achaeminid

Persepolis to Safavid Tabriz and Isfahan with great monuments, rich textiles, intricate miniature paintings, ceramics and perfumed gardens. Its jeweled metalworking include such materials as the fabulous Oxus Treasure Hoard discovered in the 19th c. and its great literature includes the epic SHAHNAMEH (Book of Kings) to the Tales of Rustam, the medieval Persian Hero. These are only a few highlights covered in the course.

(ARC 118)
9/26/05 - 11/28/05
First class: September 26, 2005
Stanford Continuing Studies
Monday evenings (ten weeks)
7:00 - 8:50 p.m.



"Top Ten Archaeology Discoveries of the World"
(a previous course)

If an archaeologist were to list the most exciting and seminal archaeological discoveries in the world, nearly every list would include King Tut's Tomb, Machu Picchu, the Rosetta Stone, Pompeii, Akrotiri on Thera, the 10,000 Chinese Tomb Warriors, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Assyrian Library of Ashurbanipul at Nineveh, Troy, and Olduvai Gorge or African Great Rift ancient human ancestors like "Lucy."