Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations

Examples of cross sections of Egyptian blue samples.

Tracing an ancient blue across the ancient world

Penn researchers Vanessa and Alexis North are studying one of the largest collections of Egyptian blue objects ever found in the ancient Near East, shedding new light on how the world’s first synthetic pigment may have traveled far beyond Egypt.

4 min. read

A bowl of dried ginger root for traditional Chinese medicine.

How does medicine come to be?

By tracing substances from their roots to how they’re used today, a team including Hsiao-Wen Cheng of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations aims to answer questions about how medical practices evolve.

2 min. read

Students and faculty look at rare books in the Lea Library.

Exploring ‘One Thousand and One Nights’

A seminar from Middle Eastern medievalist Paul Cobb gets students talking and thinking about the “disorienting” storytelling in “One Thousand and One Nights.”

3 min. read

Wolf Humanities Center welcomes new director Ayako Kano

Ayako Kano, professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, has been appointed as director of the Wolf Humanities Center. Professor Kano is a cultural historian specializing in the history of gender and performance in Japan and has been teaching at Penn since 1995.

2024 Booklaunch award for Nancy Steinhardt

Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt's book, “Yuan: Chinese Architecture in a Mongol Empire,” has won the Booklaunch award for Best Architectural History Book of 2024. Shatzman Steinhart is a professor of East Asian art at the School of Arts & Sciences. Her book is the first comprehensive English-language study of Chinese architecture during the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty.

Preserving Assyria explores the preservation of cultural heritage in post-conflict Iraq

Michael Danti of the School of Arts & Sciences discusses the Penn Museum’s latest exhibit, “Preserving Assyria,” which explores the preservation of cultural heritage in post-conflict Iraq and showcases the rise of the New Assyrian Empire.

2,600-year-old jewelry stash from ancient Egypt includes gold statuette depicting family of gods

Shelby Justl of the School of Arts & Sciences says that Karnak Temple in Egypt was dedicated to the worship of a “golden triad” of deities.

Archaeologists find a pharaoh’s tomb, the first since King Tut’s, Egypt says

Joseph Wegner of the School of Arts & Sciences and Penn Museum says that a newly uncovered pharaoh’s tomb provides evidence of a pivotal ruler in ancient Egypt.

Do these ancient seals unlock clues to the origins of writing?

Holly Pittman of the School of Arts & Sciences and Penn Museum helped contribute to a study arguing that ancient Sumerian seals used to brand products shaped the formation of cuneiform, humanity’s earliest known example of writing.

People at laptops at a table, one screen open to Wikipedia

Enhancing ‘representational equity’ on Wikipedia

As part of the inaugural Wiki Education Humanities & Social Justice Advisory Committee, Heather J. Sharkey, a professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, will continue working to improve Wikipedia content on historically underrepresented topics.

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