Affiliation: University of Texas at Austin
Denise Schmandt-Besserat is Professor Emerita of Art and
Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her
field is the art and archaeology of the ancient Near East. She was
trained at the Ecole du Louvre, Paris, France. Schmandt-Besserat has
worked on the origin of writing and counting. Her publications on
these subjects include How Writing Came About, University of Texas
Press 1996; Before Writing (2 vols), University of Texas Press 1992;
The History of Counting, Morrow Jr. 1999 and numerous articles in
major scholarly and popular journals (among which Science, Scientific
American, Archaeology, American Journal of Archaeology, and
Archaeology Odyssey). Schmandt-Besserat’s present interest is the
relation between writing and art. Her forthcoming book When Writing
Met Art, will be published by the University of Texas Press in 2007.
