OPTION I. ARCHAEOLOGY—Signature Assignment Option

Choose and visit the website for one of the following museum exhibitions/collections:**

Arts of the Americas (not “American Art”) (permanent) – Dallas Museum of Art
Classical (“ancient Mediterranean”) art collection (permanent) – Dallas Museum of Art
Art of the Ancient Americas (permanent) – Kimbell Museum (Fort Worth)
Antiquities (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, etc.) collection (permanent) – Kimbell Museum

It must be one of these two museums and must be one of the collections referenced above.

** If you do not reside in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, you will need to identify a museum in your area with archaeological collections. You will need to provide the name and location of the museum, as well as collection/exhibit that you are focusing on.

Choose three different artifacts to analyze, representing the same culture group. Do not choose three of the same type of items (e.g., weapons, pots, garments, etc.); pick different kinds of things. These must be old/ancient items, recovered by archaeologists. This excludes art works painted by European or non-European artists, as well as sculptures produced by these or other “modern” artists. The products of these artists are relatively old, BUT are not considered ARTIFACTS, and none were recovered by archaeologists. In other words, do not select a Rembrandt, Diego Rivera, Monet, or other international painting or artwork (e.g., Japanese teacup) simply because it is being displayed at the museum you selected. These artists produced beautiful and impressive works of art, BUT they are not archaeological artifacts.

As you read the sections in the Haviland et al. book on archaeology, pay attention to what is described, and how it is described. Keep this in mind when writing your text.
After you select a museum, begin by looking only at the items themselves, without reading any of the accompanying descriptions (except to check that they are from the same culture group). Can you tell what their purpose was? What are they made of? Can you determine anything at all about the culture that created them just from your observation of each item?
Details are very important. You should provide as detailed as possible description of the objects. For example, rather than indicate it is “colorful,” describe the specific colors you observe; or if you note a pattern of markings, describe the patterns that you see, do not limit yourself to saying it has “lines.” What is the estimated size and or weight of the object? If it has human representations, are the figures adults or children, males or females, etc. In what direction are the lines or markings; if it has circles, are the circles concentric, and how many circles; if humans are represented, are they at the same horizontal level; in which direction are the faces facing; are humans wearing any ornaments; are they wearing footwear; earrings?; etcetera. Details matter. Use the zoom function in online exhibits and expand the image to see the object more closely, and rotate the object if the site allows you to do this. Doing this will help you see more details.
At the bottom of each description, INCLUDE the image you described, BUT the image should not take up more than half-of-a-page. Below the image include the specific URL for the object you selected. Do not simply include the URL for the museum. Again, DETAILS matter—help the reader “see” what you see. An URL starts with http (or) https://name (Links to an external site.)
…Then, read the item description and other interpretive materials that the museum has available. Example, age of object. What more did you learn? How did archaeologists and other scholars arrive at their conclusions about these artifacts (or does it even tell you this)? Do you think there are other interpretations possible?

Your “report” should be 2-5 pages (typed; double-spaced; one-inch margins on all four sides; in Times New Roman 12-point font; with no additional line spacing before or after a paragraph; and submitted as a Microsoft Word document to Canvas). The first half of the assignment should be a description of the three artifacts as you experienced them before you accessed any additional information, as precise as you can make it, and should include your own early hypotheses about they may be. Here your focus is on what you think the object is. The second half should be a more complete description of the artifacts and the culture they were drawn from, and how the artifacts fit into that culture, as well as any reflections you may have about how they were interpreted and explained by their discoverers and/or by the museum that displays them. This is an observation paper, not a research paper. Your only “sources” are the artifacts themselves. Do NOT use/cite other, outside sources.

Title information: Do not include a title page (as the first page). The title of the Signature Assignment should take up a single line as the first line in your text. Do not create a header.

Example: “Signature Assignment #1—Archaeology—[First-Name Last-name]”

Naming of Electronic File: “Your-Last-name-Signature#1-Archaeology”