Editor’s Note: This is part of a series called UChicago Class Visits, spotlighting transformative classroom experiences and unique learning opportunities offered at UChicago.
Chances are that you’ve used something made of ceramic today. Maybe it was sipping your morning coffee from the mug you pulled from the cabinet or hitting the brakes on your car during your evening commute.
But how can something so simple give us a glimpse into past civilizations? In the basement of the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC) around real ancient artifacts—some as old as 5,000 years—students in the “Ceramic Analysis in Archaeology” course at the University of Chicago are looking back in time with their work.
Each week in the Spring Quarter, students learned from veteran archaeologist Prof. Derek Kennet about a different era or technique of pottery-making before going hands-on with everything from fragments to nearly intact pieces.
One class had students inspect samples before drawing them like an archeologist would do in the field, considering details such as the materials used, the colors and design details and even the surface texture before and after glazing.
Naomi Elkin, a second-year College student, is one of two undergraduates in the ceramics course, learning alongside graduate students and Ph.D. candidates.
“Taking a class inside ISAC and engaging with artifacts from around the world is a dream,” said Elkin, who is among the first archaeology majors at UChicago. “Encounters with even the smallest of fragments are capable of providing a wealth of information about their story.”
The goal of the course, said Kennet, is to teach someone with no experience with pottery to think like an archaeologist. With expertise in the Arabian Peninsula and surrounding regions, Kennet argues that our understanding of history is based on the things left behind by humans–and he’s quick to point out that ceramic artifacts are a near-perfect tool for investigating the past.
“Just like today, everybody had some sort of ceramic in their homes,” he said. "They are one of the best sources of evidence left to archaeologists because they can tell us about many of the things people did in ancient societies—eating, cooking, storage and trade.”
A collaborative atmosphere
Elkin is one of just two undergraduate students taking the course with the rest of the ranks being filled out by graduate students and Ph.D. candidates. Kennet believes that this type of collaboration is something that is special about UChicago.
“The equality of students here—from undergraduates to those working towards advanced degrees—is amazing,” he said. “They are all very ambitious, engaged and willing to not only learn for themselves but help others along the way.”
Elkin agrees, believing that this only enhances the experience for them in the class.
“Being in a classroom setting with students further along in their academic careers has provided us with a unique opportunity,” she said. "We've been able to gain plenty of helpful pointers during the hands-on exercises, and hearing about their experience in the field has been a real privilege.”
The big picture from small objects
ISAC has more than 350,000 artifacts to study, offering a glimpse into the daily lives of the past. While being able to literally pick up and draw pieces of history is a fun exercise, the aim of the class is to reach a much bigger goal than that.
“You’ll never find a human society in the past, present or future that you could ask where they came from and be met with a shrug and a ‘we don’t know,’” said Kennet. “There is always a story. Even the tiniest of fragments can help us tell whether that story is true or whether it’s just one of the thousands of myths storytellers have come up with to creatively explain the past.”
The quest of being able to explain the past is one of the things that excites Elkin so much.
She said holding the artifacts doesn't guarantee a full understanding of the worlds they came from, adding that this will also be true when future archaeologists study us. That imperfection is part of the appeal. Elkin said she'll make mistakes as she learns, but she finds a kind of beauty in it—similar to that she sees in the failed pieces she studies.
“I love when we get to handle wasters because we get to learn from the same imperfections that the vessel's creator did,” she said. “It’s a beautiful thing that I find links us very strongly to the past. We come from long traditions of making mistakes and learning lessons from them.”
—A version of this story is published on the University of Chicago College website.
