Sarah E. Bond is an associate professor of history at the University of Iowa. She blogs on antiquity and digital humanities, and is the author of Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire (Yale University Press, February 2025).
Art
During work along the right bank of the Tiber this summer, the archaeological group Cooperativa Archeologia uncovered what was first thought to be a villa, but later considered to be a church.
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A site in Israel continues to turn up stunning polychromatic mosaics from the late Roman empire that challenge current notions of ancient Jewish aesthetics and the art of depicting scripture.
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The College Board’s recent decision to begin their curriculum for Advanced Placement (AP) World History at the year 1450 CE will omit millennia of global human history and may further support a Eurocentric view of the world within US high schools.
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In the Italian city of Pesaro last month, a court ruled that the Getty Museum’s prized “Victorious Youth” statue should be returned to Italy, and in response, the J. Paul Getty Trust issued a public reply, noting that Italy has no cultural claim on the statue.
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One of the most celebrated statues from antiquity, the “Discobolus” remains a cautionary tale about the ways in which we speak about ideal bodies through the art we curate and display.
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Exhibitions at British cultural institutions have lately underscored the artistic output of Ethiopian scribes, and in the process, have also renewed questions around whether museums that have benefitted from acts of imperialism and colonialism should now return looted objects.
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Examining the clothing and also the color that Romans used to visualize those they defined as “barbarians” gives us a clue as to how Romans differentiated themselves from their foes
News
Collaborations among Egyptologists and digital linguistics promise global visualizations of what was written on inscriptions, papyri, wall paintings, and other sources of Hieroglyphs. It may also allow for more popular knowledge of Egyptian Hieroglyphs and encourage its assimilation into popular lan
Art
Would you think differently about a work of art if you knew it depicted a slave owner? New labels installed at the Worcester Art Museum are drawing attention to the connections between art, slavery, and wealth in early America.
News
Last year, it appeared as though the bulk of the holdings of the UT-Austin Fine Arts Library would be moved but, after a concerted campaign, a plan to keep them on campus was adopted.
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Despite the current political landscape of the US, we can look to antiquity to see that the red cap was actually once a symbol of citizenship and welcome to the foreigner.
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Two major public universities have recently moved to radically downsize or entirely relocate their fine arts libraries, which is in keeping with broader trends of libraries doing away with books.