A&A NEWS

The Program in Archaeology Kicks Off the Year with Fieldwork Reports and a Greek Feast!

A&A's Program in Archaeology celebrated the start of the year with a packed room of present and future archaeologists — and a brimming platter of baklava!

Director of the Program in Archaeology Professor Samuel Holzman and Undergraduate Program Administrator Kelly Lake welcomed the group along with department archaeologists lecturer Breton Langendorfer, Visual Resources Digital Project Specialist Leigh Anne Lieberman, and Professor John Sigmier.

Our archaeology minors bring diverse academic perspectives from majors across campus, including anthropology, classics, ecology & evolutionary biology, history, physics, and public & international affairs. Thanks to A&A's summer fieldwork grants, several of them participated in excavations over the summer and could join in swapping fieldwork stories over a feast of Greek favorites.

The story-swapping continues when the full community of archaeologists across campus convene at the Archaeology Fieldwork Colloquium on October 14.

Princeton’s Archaeology Community Reports Summer 2026 Fieldwork Research Results

Princeton’s archaeology community was in full force this summer, including several graduate students and undergraduates working toward their minor in the program in Archaeology, supported by A&A’s summer fieldwork grants. Fieldwork took them to Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Türkiye.

Read fieldwork reports from across the globe

Learn more about the outcomes of this summer's archaeological research at the upcoming Archaeology Fieldwork Colloquium on October 14, 4:30-6 pm, in the Princeton University Art Museum, Tuttle Lecture Hall, Room 134.

Katy Knortz Curates Digital Exhibition of Visual Resource's Greek Lantern Slides

By Katy Knortz, A&A Graduate Student

In 2015, members of the Visual Resources division (VR) of Princeton’s Department of Art & Archaeology began weeding through a collection of glass lantern slides that had been stored in a warehouse off-campus. The collection was large: 12 pallets of slides, roughly six cabinets per pallet, amounted to about 135,000 slides. The goal of this initial sort was to remove copy stand images–those that are photographs of catalogs or publications–and to retain only the slides that depicted original photography or those that clearly belonged to specific and special collections (for instance, all the slides in a drawer labeled Panofsky, which included the note “we can’t read Panofsky’s handwriting,” a cry for help from a past cataloguer).

While reviewing the collection, members of the team noticed that three cabinets had identical drawer labels; moreover, the handwriting on the slides themselves was also identical. Upon closer inspection, members of the team noticed the quality of the images and the subjects (almost all located in Greece) indicated that it was a special collection in itself. In 2019, VR devised a workflow to capture with the highest level of detail (using an old-fashioned negative copy stand and digital camera) the glass lantern slide images and the full slide with label. Members of the team also transcribed the information on the label. The results of this work, which have been presented as VR’s Greek Lantern Slide Collection, are so comprehensive and so meticulously cataloged that VR then turned its attention to understanding how the collection had originally been brought together. 

Continue reading about lantern slide exhibition

Shirley C. Atchley at an Oudoor Café, Athens, Greek Lantern Slide Collection

Clara Docherty ’28, Minor in the Program in Archaeology, Reports on her Summer Fieldwork in Portugal

Working toward her minor in the Program in Archaeology, Clara Docherty ’28 participated in fieldwork at the Santa Susana Archaeological Project in Central Alentejo, Portugal this summer, supported by A&A’s summer fieldwork grant.

“I can’t express enough how moving it was to be in the spaces where these civilizations once were," she said. "I learned that fieldwork is one of the most engaging ways to understand history, and I look forward to continuing this newfound passion for archaeology.”

Taking CLA 326 with Professor Farrior piqued Docherty's interest in Roman villas . "This excavation especially excited me as it involves everyday Roman life in a region far from the city of Rome," she said.

"I was surprised at how much information archaeologists can gather from small artifacts," she continued. " Whenever I found a small piece of pottery, the archaeologists were able to gather where it came from, who made it, what time period it was from, and what ceramic it came from. This always left me speechless and excited for more, and gave me a new appreciation for how evidence is carefully pieced together to reconstruct the past."

Read Clara Docherty's reflection

A&A’s Casts Get Much-Needed Conservation

By Jennifer Loessy

When visitors enter the Department of Art & Archaeology on the 3rd floor of the Princeton University Art Museum, they almost always stop to comment on the cast collection, which holds a prominent place in the suite.

The department’s plaster cast collection has evolved over the years.

Today, 46 casts are currently on display in the cast room and throughout the department’s suite. The remaining collection is either in faculty offices or in off-site storage. 

The Department also has a plaster model of a nave bay of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame d’Amiens, which was created by Princeton University Professor Richard Stillwell in 1922. The model is also on display in the suite.

As with any work of art, the casts need cleaning and occasional repairs. This summer, The Art Conservation Group completed the first phase of a cleaning and restoration project, including much-needed repairs to the Stillwell model damaged during the department’s two moves. 

Additional restoration projects will continue this year, as part of the department’s ongoing commitment to maintaining and conserving these once-again valuable teaching tools.  

Learn about cast collection conservation

Erin Toomey of The Art Conservation Group restores a a plaster cast and a nave bay of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame d’Amiens (Photos/ Kirstin Ohrt)

New mosaic in the Princeton University Chapel honors Native and Indigenous stories

By Emily Aronson, Office of Communications

A colorful stone mosaic honoring Native and Indigenous stories has been installed in the Princeton University Chapel as part of efforts to expand the representations of faiths and belief systems in the communal space where the University community and public are welcome. 

Ahead of the Chapel’s centennial in 2028, the mosaic adds to the rich tapestry of art and imagery that has been thoughtfully woven into the space throughout its history, from the depictions of scholars, scientists and poets in the stained-glass windows to the abstract 25-foot silk paintings that hang from the ceiling. 

The 50-foot-wide mosaic titled “Presence,” which is integrated into the floor along the first row of pews, was created by the artist Marianne Nicolson (Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw). The intricate piece features imagery from Native and Indigenous groups across North America, inspired in part by the Lenape and Delaware peoples, and highlights the connection between humans, plants, animals, the sky, the earth and the water. 

Chapel mosaic full story

During finishing work on-site in the Chapel this summer, artist Marianne Nicolson (Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw) trimmed tesserae, or tiny pieces of stone, and then laid them out in the mosaic. (Photos/ Ryan Campbell, Office of Communications)

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Discover IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework)

IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) can be a way to help you view and curate digital collections of high-resolution images more effectively and creatively.

Yichin Chen, Curator of Asian Collections and Digital Specialist at Visual Resources, Department of Art & Archaeology, will introduce what IIIF is, how it can be used in courses, and what role AI can play in its integration. She will also share her experience at the 2026 IIIF Annual Conference.

Thu., Oct. 1, 12–1 pm,

Princeton University Art Museum, Room 369

IIIF Workshop

Chinese Archaeology Reading Group

Please join us and share your research interests, writing challenges, etc., all related to archaeological methods and material culture, both practical and theoretical.

How do we read material culture and objects?

We will read some important Western theorists like Norbert Elias's The Court Society and Ian Hodder and Colin Renrew's archaeological writings as well as scrutinize Chinese texts and the archaeological reports in Kaogu and Wenwu for what they may reveal. Some of the reports are also available in English.

Schedule:

Fridays 4:30-6:00 pm

Jones Hall, Room 305 (inside the East Asian Studies Library):

Oct. 2: Gender in Archaeology (Only this session is in Jones 307)

Oct. 16: Architecture and Space in Archaeology

Oct. 30 or Nov. 6: Material Culture in Texts and Found Objects

Contact chaoliu@princeton.edu for reading materials

Join Us at the Program in Archaeology Fieldwork Colloquium 

Program in Archaeology Fieldwork Colloquium

Wed., Oct. 14, 4:30-6 pm

Princeton University Art Museum,

Tuttle Lecture Hall, Room 134

Fieldwork Colloquium

ALUMNI NEWS

Met Conservator Jean-François de Lapérouse ’81 Illuminates Ancient Casting Techniques

Jean-François de Lapérouse ’81 is a conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He recently participated in the study of a mid-3rd-millennium B.C.E. metal sculpture of a vessel support with an ibex from Iraq using high-energy computed tomography scanning. The piece is one of the earliest known examples of hollow core lost wax casting. His blog on the project was recently posted as part of the museum’s “Perspectives” series. As part of the same initiative, Jean-François previously copublished an article on the casting of a slightly later Mesopotamian head in the Met’s collection, “Revealing Ancient Technology: A High-Energy X-Ray Computed Tomography Examination of a Mesopotamian Copper Alloy Head,” in npj Heritage Science, 23 August 2024. These investigations are part of a larger effort to employ advanced imaging to highlight the unprecedented achievements of early Mesopotamian casting technology. 

In Memorium

Sally Diann Mills *93