Students in Professor Samuel Holzman’s ART 407 / CLA 407 / VIS 408 / HLS 408 “Drawing Archaeology” came away with a robust drawing portfolio along with an understanding of how archaeologists use drawings to think about the past. This hybrid studio/seminar course was supported by a grant from the 250th Fund for Innovation in Undergraduate Education. 

Each week students discussed approaches to visualization while drawing excavated artifacts from the study collections of art & archaeology's Department of Visual Resources. 

“It is very special that Princeton students have access on campus to study collections of artifacts from a long history of University sponsored excavations that allow us to turn objects over in our hands as we draw—oil lamps, terra cotta loom weights, bronze arrowheads,” said Holzman. “Hands-on artifact drawing is what makes this class unlike all other classes at the university.” 

“It is very special that Princeton students have access on campus to study collections of artifacts from a long history of University sponsored excavations that allow us to turn objects over in our hands as we draw….Hands-on artifact drawing is what makes this class unlike all other classes at the university.” 

— Professor Samuel Holzman

This special opportunity was not lost on students in the course. Prospective ecology and evolutionary biology major and archaeology minor Rose Habib, class of 2027, said the most impactful part of the course was “definitely the hands-on study of artifacts from Princeton’s special collections and the great instruction on how to depict them accurately in a drawing.” “In fact,” said Habib, who is an international student from Syria, “Howard Crosby Butler’s collection of archaeological illustrations from Syria was my favorite as it allowed me to revisit my country in a way.” 

Day one, however, started with drawing teacups. 

In order to develop the skill to render a fragment of an excavated object, students practiced drawing these complete pottery vessels first. The teacups were first drawn by hand, then scanned and “inked” in Adobe Illustrator.

As Holzman pointed out, alongside the ability to depict artifacts, drawing refines the ability to see it.  “Drawing is a tool of observation that requires you to pause and really look at an object,” he said.  

Holzman also introduced students to an array of digital technologies available to archaeologists today, like digital drafting in Adobe Illustrator, 3D scanning, and 3D printing, as supplementary tools.  “These are very useful additions to the toolkit of the archaeologist, which I regularly put to use in my own research,” he said, “but they are not substitutes for drawing by hand.”

The point clearly resonated. “If there’s one thing I learned from ART407, it’s why drawing matters greatly in archaeology, and how it serves a purpose that photography alone cannot achieve,” said Habib. “An archaeological illustration must be carefully tailored to its intended audience and the specific purpose it serves, regardless of the technology available to the illustrator,” she explained.

“An archaeological illustration must be carefully tailored to its intended audience and the specific purpose it serves, regardless of the technology available to the illustrator.”

— Rose Habib, Class of 2027

Each student presented to the class a biography of a notable archaeological illustrator like Émile Gilliéron, Tatiana Proskouriakoff, and Sheila Gibson. By closely examining the work of renowned archaeologists, students became attuned to how interpretation and visualization are entangled. 

“Students frequently returned to ‘their’ illustrators as we thought about how research questions have shaped the visual conventions of the field,” said Holzman.  “A major theme of this class is that images shape our perception of the past,” he explained, “and we should look just as critically at a digital mesh model on a computer screen as we do at a print by Piranesi.”

For class of 2026 astrophysics major and archaeology and computer science minor Lillie Szemraj, the realization that archaeological evidence represents a specific interpretation continues to resonate. “One key takeaway is that an archeological site can be interpreted from many different perspectives,” she said. Each archaeologist makes a choice when rendering an object or site, she explained, “what kind of drawing they choose to use for a site, or how they portray what elements of a site or object are still intact versus imagined,” she said, contrasting the examples of works by Piet de Jong and Frederick Catherwood.  

Discovering this inherent subjectivity made a lasting impression on Szemraj, who called it  “an incredibly useful tool to bring with me when examining and understanding future archaeological works.” 

Habib agreed, “the value of an archaeological illustration goes beyond simply depicting an artifact or site, and way beyond one discipline. It’s a valuable tool in which there’s never one way for representation and always plenty of room for interpretation,” she said.

Along with regular drawing practice, Holzman also lined up a program of international guest speakers, demonstrations, and collections visits. 

At Princeton University Library’s Special Collections students examined Inigo Jones’s fold-out drawings of Stonehenge and the colossal folios produced by Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt. 

“A major theme of this class is that images shape our perception of the past, and we should look just as critically at a digital mesh model on a computer screen as we do at a print by Piranesi.” 

— Professor Samuel Holzman

At the Lewis Library’s Makerspace, Makerspace Specialist Ariel Ackerly demonstrated 3-D scanning and printing methods. For a final project, prospective computer science major in the class of 2027 Angela Cai 3D-scanned a fragmentary Roman lamp from Antioch, reconstructed it in Blender, and 3D-printed a replica that can be used in experiments to gauge its capacity, brightness, and burning duration.

“I chose my final project topic after we had a class in the Makerspace, where we learned how 3D scanning and printing technology is used in archeology….to match my technology interests with my drawing interests.” said Cai. “It was very hands-on in terms of trying new software and using my technological problem-solving skills for a more artistic application,” Cai continued. “I realized this can apply to a lot of industries, so that leaves a lot of room for career exploration. I also learned archeology has a larger overlap with computer science than I thought coming into this class, which I enjoy.”

Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann and Vinzenz Brinkmann, whose full-color reconstructions of ancient Greek statues have been exhibited around the world, gave a retrospective presentation of their work produced through the Frankfurt Liebighaus Polychromy Research Project.  They explained the multispectral photography and imaging techniques that detect surviving traces of color on marble artifacts, which are amplified in their reconstructions.  “The Brinkmanns have shaped the agenda of polychromy studies through eye-catching reconstructions," Holzman said. 

Peter Cobb of the University of Hong Kong explained his methods for capturing 3D imagery of all pottery sherds discovered at his archaeological fieldwork project in Armenia in the lecture “More Love for the Common Body Sherd: Implications and Challenges of 3D Scanning All Your Pottery.”  By maximizing available technology, Cobb aims to leave no sherd un-captured.  From the resulting abundance of data, he envisions machine learning virtually reconstituting vessels en masse.

Szemraj found Cobb’s lecture particularly inspiring. “As a computer science minor and astrophysics major, this intersection of computer science and archaeology is exactly what I am interested in,” she said. For Habib, Cobb’s lecture “truly shifted my perspective on the future of archaeology.”

 "I began to think in different ways than I have before in my traditional STEM courses.” 

— Lillie Szemraj, Class of 2026

Both Habib and Szemraj chose to pursue the minor in archaeology this semester. “Professor Holzman is excellent and has an infectious excitement about the class material,” said Szemraj. “I felt well supported and engaged throughout the semester, and definitely feel as though I began to think in different ways than I have before in my traditional STEM courses.” Habib agreed, “The class provided a good balance between artistic and analytical approaches, offering various opportunities to work with archival materials and reconstruct fragmentary evidence in ways that improved my understanding of both the objects and their context.” 

Holzman is pleased by the enthusiasm his course inspired and hopes his students will take their newly acquired drawings skills on excavations this summer. “But more importantly,” he said, “I hope they will take the forensic, analytical eye of the archaeologist into other endeavors in their lives.”

“I think that drawing is such an important habit that I also have drawing-based assignments in ART 102, ART 207 and ART 401,” said Holzman, who is teaching ART 102: “An Introduction to the History of Architecture” and ART 401: “Archaeological Methods and Theory” in spring 2025.