On November 11, 2017, faculty members from Classics, History of Art and Architecture, and Religious Studies organized a bus trip for 47 students to the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Faculty-led tours of the museum focused on ethical issues surrounding the display of ancient materials, discussing topics such as: how museum displays frame critical issues; how pre-modern objects with ‘cross-cultural’ values are inserted into museums spaces that are still divided along anachronistic cultural or national lines; and how archaeological looting, theft, and the black market for antiquities impacts the study of the ancient world. This trip, the first of three events this academic year, is an initiative of the cross-disciplinary Pitt Faculty Working Group for the Ancient Mediterranean, which seeks to promote the study of the material and visual culture of the ancient Mediterranean region.