Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East Tours Led by Harvard Students
2025-04-13 13:00 - 14:00, 2025-04-20 13:00 - 14:00, 2025-04-27 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, 6 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Available during the Harvard academic year Sundays at 1:00 pm, October 6, 2024–April 27, 2025. See blackout dates.*
*Blackout dates: December 1, 2024–January 26, 2025; and March 16–23, 2025.
This free tour, led by Harvard students, explores the Mediterranean Marketplaces: Connecting the Ancient World exhibition and how the movement of goods, peoples, and ideas around the ancient Mediterranean transformed the lives and livelihoods of people at all levels of society. Touch replicas and smell “ancient” scents as the students bring the past alive.
Visitors may drop in at the scheduled times. No reservation is required. Tours meet in the lobby and last approximately 45 minutes.
Tours for groups of ten or more may be scheduled at other times. Tours may be available by advance request in these languages: Hindi, Bengali, and Mandarin.

Hiking Southern Italy: Archaeology, Volcanoes & Cuisine
2025-05-11 - 2025-05-22
Welcome to an extraordinary springtime journey through the rich ancient history, breathtaking volcanic landscapes, and legendary food and wine culture of southern Italy and Sicily. Travel and hike with archaeologist Cris Corrado and local guides among active and dormant volcanoes, delight in picturesque landscapes and sea views, and explore fascinating archaeological sites. Italy is home to mainland Europe’s only active volcanoes—Mount Vesuvius, Stromboli, and Mount Etna—and on this tour you will hike on all three of them. On this well-paced tour you will rest at distinctive, four-star hotels, spending four nights in Naples, one on a comfortable ferry from Naples to Lipari, three on the Aeolian island of Panarea, and two in the heart of Mount Etna Park, Sicily. An expert tour manager handles all of the logistics, so you can relax, enjoy, and learn. On all but one of the seven hikes, an extra guide will allow us to split into two groups, so that you may choose either a longer or shorter excursion.
Highlights include:
1. Pompeii, one of the world’s most extraordinary archaeological sites, destroyed (but also preserved!) by the catastrophic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79
2. Hiking the trail of Vesuvius National Park to the crater, with amazing views over the whole Gulf of Naples
3. A breathtaking hike along the “Path of the Gods,” on the Sorrento Peninsula, with views of the Tyrrhenian Sea
4. A ferry ride to the fabled island of Capri to hike along fragrant trails to Roman Emperor Tiberius’ Villa Jovis
5. A visit to the Naples Archaeological Museum, which houses one of the world’s finest collections of Greco-Roman art and artifacts
6. A private boat ride to Stromboli, the most active volcano in Europe, erupting at intervals of approximately 15 minutes
7. A hike up Mt. Etna, Europe’s largest active volcano, with panoramic views of Sicily’s eastern coast
8. Wine tastings at vineyards on Mt. Vesuvius, Salina, and Mt. Etna
This tour requires an elevated level of fitness.

Roman Britain: Romans at the Edge of Empire
2025-06-20 - 2025-07-02
Follow in the footsteps of the ancient Romans in Britain as you venture north from Chester, England, to Edinburgh, Scotland, with a foray along Hadrian’s Wall, which was famously constructed ca. A.D. 122 along the northwest frontier of the Roman Empire. Experience a world at the edge of the Empire and amidst the natural beauty of old medieval towns, verdant countryside, and the scenic Lake District, discovering for yourself the remains of formerly vibrant Roman forts and towns, museum collections of fascinating Roman artifacts, and Rome’s influence on the Britain of today.
Highlights:
•Visit two sites that comprise the UNESCO World Heritage Site “Frontiers of the Roman Empire”: Vindolanda, not only one of Europe’s most important Roman sites but also where your AIA lecturer/host has been doing fieldwork since 2002; and Arbeia Roman Fort, which was a key supply base to Hadrian’s Wall.
•Take a walking tour of the 1st-century A.D. Roman fortress-town of Chester, home to the most complete ancient city walls in Britain as well as Britain’s largest Roman amphitheater.
•Explore the bustling lanes of York, which was established as a Roman garrison town in A.D. 71 and went on to be a Viking stronghold and prosperous medieval city.
•Drive though the breathtaking English Lake District, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, including a cruise excursion on Lake Windermere, England’s largest lake; and a stop at Castlerigg Stone Circle, which is one of the earliest Neolithic stone circles in Britain.
•Walk the streets of the Old and New Towns of Edinburgh, including the historic Royal Mile and Calton Hill, which was considered Edinburgh’s version of Athens’ Acropolis in the 19th century, and are altogether a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
•Marvel at museum collections showcasing spectacular Roman finds and more, including the Yorkshire Museum and Gardens; Great North Museum: Hancock, whose collections include carved and inscribed stones from Hadrian’s Wall, among many other treasures; Vindolanda’s nearby Roman Army Museum; and Edinburgh’s National Museum of Scotland.

Hiking Scotland's Orkney & Shetland Islands
2025-06-30 - 2025-07-10
This is the perfect opportunity to explore all that Scotland’s Northern Isles have to offer: prehistoric stone circles, burial chambers, and settlements; quaint villages; huge seabird colonies; and remarkable plant life—all amidst dramatic landscapes. This will be Scotland seen slowly, with time for in-depth exploration at each site. The Orkney and Shetland islands have an amazing wealth of archaeological sites dating back 5,000 years. Together the islands have more than 18,000 known sites, with new discoveries being made every year. This archaeological saga is worth the telling, and nowhere else can the evidence be seen in more glorious a setting.
Highlights:
1. A private virtual tour of the Ness of Brodgar excavations and access to some of the finds. This ceremonial site in the “Heart of Neolithic Orkney” was in use for around 1,000 years and a 20-year excavation project was completed in 2024. The site is within the
UNESCO World Heritage Site on Orkney, which also includes the chambered tomb of Maeshowe, estimated to have been constructed around 2700 B.C.; the Stones of Stenness; the 4,000-year-old Ring of Brodgar, one of Europe’s finest Neolithic monuments;
Skara Brae settlement; and associated funerary monuments and stone settings. These are unquestionably among the most important Neolithic sites in western Europe.
2. “The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland”—including Mousa Broch, the best-preserved known broch in the world, Old Scatness, and Jarlshof—where the lack of intensive modern farming means that the preservation of these sites and their landscapes is exceptional.
3. The Isles are a birdwatcher’s paradise, and one of the major seabird breeding and feeding areas in the North Atlantic. More than a million birds breed in very large colonies.
4. All meals are included, and you will enjoy comfortable accommodations: four nights at the elegant Lynnfield Hotel, a comfortable overnight ferry from Orkney to Shetland and from Shetland to Aberdeen, and three nights at the remote and charming Busta
House Hotel.

From Berlin to Berkeley: The History of the Edward Gans Collection of Seals and Its Hidden Gems – a Ellen and Charles S. La Follette Lecture
2025-10-29 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
The Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures currently houses the Edward Gans Collection of Seals, comprising almost seven hundred seals and seal-related objects from a variety of periods, extending from the Neolithic Middle East to Post-classical Mesoamerica. Since 2023, a new team of Berkeley scholars has been working on the collection to prepare it for digital publication, and this talk arises from the provenance research undertaken as part of that project. This talk will highlight the fascinating story of how the Gans Collection came to be and the legacy of Nazi persecution that shaped the collection’s history, while also featuring several Sasanian seals in the collection of particular significance. This is one of the annual Ellen and Charles S. La Follette Lectures.
