David H. Schneller
Education
Ph.D. Columbia University, 2021
Areas of Interest
Ancient Greece and West Asia, mobility and interaction among Syrian, Egyptian, Cretan, Cypriot, and Aegean artists, culturally-specific crafting knowledge
Profile
David H. Schneller is an art historian and archaeologist whose research and teaching focuses on ancient Greece and West Asia. His current book project, Crafting Across Time and Space: Artistic Exchange in the Eastern Mediterranean, investigates small, portable votive objects that have been found in sanctuaries across the Greek world and are stylistically linked to West Asia, Cyprus, and Egypt. By narrating materially informed object histories that center culturally-specific crafting knowledge, the book makes the case for collaborations among a diverse group of ancient artists and their patrons during the early first millennium BC. It fills major gaps in our understanding of the mobility of and interactions among ordinary Syrian, Egyptian, Cretan, Cypriot, and Aegean artists who are omitted from the written sources. This research has been supported by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation, and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Professor Schneller has also been Assistant to the Director of excavations at the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Onchestos in Boeotia, Greece. Prior to joining the Department of Art History at UCLA, Professor Schneller taught in the Core Curriculum and Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University and in the Art History Department at the State University of New York at New Paltz.