Welcome to Saturday University, a monthly lecture series featuring experts from around the world. Gain new insights on Asia throughout time as our visiting scholars, authors, artists, and thought leaders delve into new themes each season.
Magic, Materiality, and Miniatures in First Millennium BCE West Asia
Between the 9th and 7th centuries BCE, the state of Assyria was a hegemonic power in ancient West Asia, procuring an immense amount of material wealth through booty and tribute. Neo-Assyrian kings used these riches to build their palaces—decorated with their famed wall sculptures—and temples at the capital cities of Nimrud, Khorsabad, and Nineveh. At the same time, there was a flourishing tradition of small, portable artworks like figurines, jewelry, and ornaments that were created as a means of protecting oneself from the unknown and malevolent as well as invest users and makers of said objects with power. This talk is an exploration of these items, the superhuman subjects they were meant to attract or deflect, and the role of such miniatures against the backdrop and monumentality of political and cultural imperialism.
Miriam Said is an art historian specializing in the art and architecture of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean world in the first millennium BCE. She is interested in materiality studies, technologies of magic, gender, and the intersection of pop culture and antiquity. Her research has been supported by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Said's current book project explores apotropaia depicting Mesopotamian demons and other superhuman beings. Deploying a phenomenological approach, her research foregrounds the intersection of human-object relationships, materiality, presence, scale, and textual inscription with the goal of reconstructing the vibrant histories of these objects and their ritual function and animation. In addition to her research and teaching, Said has previously worked in curatorial and museum education departments at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and The Walters Art Museum.
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