This course will provide students with foundational knowledge in the art, architecture, and archaeology of Egypt, East Africa, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Iran and Central Asia from the Neolithic through Late Antiquity (ca. 7,000 B.C.E. - 650 C.E.). Students will gain an understanding of the relationship between the visual material and the social, intellectual, political, and religious contexts in which it developed and functioned. In this regard, students will also gain an understanding of the evolution of, and exchanges and differences among, the visual cultures of these time periods and regions. It will also expose them to the preconditions for contemporary geopolitics in the region.