4 April 2026
(Please note that this presentation is in person only in WASHINGTON, D.C.)
Co-hosted by The George Washington University’s Center for Ancient Arabian Studies.
About the Lecture
In 2021, the Cincinnati Art Museum reinstalled the Ancient Middle East gallery. Funded in part by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as individual donors, the newly rebuilt gallery reenvisions how museums can facilitate connections between their visitors and a vast region containing cultures and empires that many are unfamiliar with. This lecture explores the gallery’s thematic pathways, the Nabataean collection of sculpture from Khirbet et-Tannur at the conceptual heart of the gallery, and the contemporary art commissioned from Shahzia Sikander. Additionally, the lecture will discuss how provenance, the role of collectors and scholars, digital and analogue supplementary materials, and other, often invisible interpretative framing devices (e.g., the use of color and light) are utilized within the gallery space.
A Q&A session will follow the presentation.
Date: April 20, 2026
Time: 6:30 p.m. EDT
Place: Elliott School of International Affairs, Room B12, 1957 E Street NW, Washington, DC 20052 (click for map)
About the Speaker
Dr. Sarah Wenner is an archaeologist of the Roman period and an expert in the ceramic traditions of Southern Jordan during that time. She has worked at numerous sites in the region—including Petra, Aila, Humayma, Udhruh, Wadi Rumm, and Khirbet al-Khalde—as well as Pompeii, Tharros (Sardinia), and Monticello (USA). In addition to her interest in local pottery, her scholarship investigates the making of urban sites through the reuse of discarded materials. Wenner also has significant curatorial experience at the Cincinnati Art Museum. She earned her PhD from the Department of Classics at the University of Cincinnati in 2023.