3/10/2026, 5:30 PM – The Power of Monsters in Ancient Western Asia: Magic, Seals, Monuments and the Logic of Images

Expanding the Ancient World is a series of professional development workshops and online resources for teachers, run by NYU. Featuring inquiry-based workshops, flexible lesson plans, and up-to-date research, Expanding the Ancient World aims to equip teachers with information and skills that they can share with their students. 

Workshops take place online; click here to register.

Sphinxes, lions, griffins, winged demons, angels, chimeras of all sorts are some of the most captivating and enduring images of Mediterranean antiquity. Monsters are found across in objects of all sizes, from tiny scarab amulets to monumental statues, across the region. They were part of the visual imaginary of people in antiquity, cutting across regions, periods, social classes, and communities.

In this workshop, we will explore hands-on the language of monsters through active observation, drawing, and collaging.

What was the way people engaged with these images and how did they use them to affect the world around them? How can a sphinx be found at the same time as the monster to be banished in a spell, guarding the gates of a city, and perched on top of a gravestone?

Together, we will be analyzing case studies of various monsters and understand how they took part in the ancient imaginary by actively recreating these same mechanisms.

Through this lesson, we will discuss the shared functions of monuments, amulets, magic, and seals in the ancient Mediterranean and Western Asia and strategies of image reproduction in antiquity. This will further provide insights in how the power of an image can continue, change, weaken, expand or be subverted both in antiquity and nowadays.

Workshop led by Leopoldo Fox-Zampiccoli (PhD Candidate, ISAW).