Visiting Lecturer
Area of Specialization
Biography
Melissa Eppihimer researches the art of the ancient Near East and its history in the modern world. Her past projects have examined historical consciousness in ancient Near Eastern art, royal images from early Mesopotamia, and Early Modern European encounters with cylinder and stamp seals. Her current research concentrates on the collecting and reception of ancient Near Eastern art in the first decades of the 20th century, including, for example, exchanges between dealers in Iraq and collectors in America.
In her teaching, Eppihimer aims to make antiquity accessible and relevant to students, always emphasizing that our knowledge is shaped by the interests and biases of those who have excavated, collected, and studied the past, as well as the contexts in which those processes occurred. Her own experiences working in museums and on archaeological field projects inform her approach to art history. Her courses examine ancient art from the Mediterranean and the Near East, the history and ethics of collecting, and cultural heritage.
She is also the editor of a community magazine in Pittsburgh.
Education Details
PhD, Harvard University, History of Art and Architecture
AM, Harvard University, History of Art and Architecture
BA, Yale University, Archaeological Studies and Music
Selected Publications
“New Evidence for the Origins of a Royal Copper Head from the Ancient Near East,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 57 (2022), 8-24.
Exemplars of Kingship: Art, Tradition, and the Legacy of the Akkadians (Oxford University Press, 2019).
“Visualizing Ancient Near Eastern Seals in Early Modern Europe,” in Implementing Meanings: The Power of the Copy Between Past, Present and Future. An Overview from the Ancient Near East, ed. Silvana di Paolo. Altertumskunde des Vorderen Orients (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2018), 133–64.
“A Paradox of Eighteenth-century Antiquarianism: ‘Persian’ Gems Among the Tassie Casts,” Journal of the History of Collections 28/2 (2016), 191–208.
“Caylus, Winckelmann, and the Art of ‘Persian’ Gems,” Journal of Art Historiography 13/ME1 (December, 2015), 1–27.
“Posthumous Images and the Memory of the Akkadian Kings,” in Critical Approaches to Ancient Near Eastern Art, ed. Brian Brown and Marian H. Feldman (Boston/Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 319–44.
“Representing Ashur: The Old Assyrian Rulers’ Seals and their Ur III Prototype,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 72/1 (2013), 35–49.
“Assembling King and State: The Statues of Manishtushu and the Consolidation of Akkadian Kingship,” American Journal of Archaeology 114/3 (2010), 365–80.