Cities of the Ancient World

We live in a world of cities - for the first time ever, the majority of the population lives in an urban environment - and reflecting on ancient models of the "city" as a human phenomenon offers important lessons for our culture today. Cities of the Ancient World is your opportunity to survey the breadth of the ancient world through the context of its urban development. Taught by esteemed Professor Steven L. Tuck, of Miami University, these 24 eye-opening lectures not only provide an invaluable look at the design and architecture of ancient cities, they also offer a flesh-and-blood glimpse into the daily lives of ordinary people and the worlds they created. Cities of the Ancient World gives you insight into cities large and small, famous and obscure. Ultimately, however, this is a course about people, not just buildings. Studying these cities will give you a new appreciation for the remarkable cultures of the ancient world, from the ruins of Uruk to the Golden Age of Athens, and spur you to reflect on what makes a city survive. More than anything else, Cities of the Ancient World is a course about human beings - what life was like in these cities and how people lived.

All Lectures:
1. The Lure of the City
2. Çatalhöyük - First Experiment in Urban Living
3. Jericho and Its Walls
4. Uruk - City of Gilgamesh
5. Mysterious Mohenjo-daro
6. Kahun - Company Town in the Desert
7. Work and Life at Deir el-Medina
8. Amarna - Revolutionary Capital
9. Knossos - Palace, City, or Temple?
10. Akrotiri - Bronze Age Pompeii
11. Mycenae, Tiryns, and the Mask of Agamemnon
12. Athens - Civic Buildings and Civic Identity
13. Athenian Domestic Architecture
14. Hippodamian Planning - Miletus and Ephesus
15. Olynthus - A Classical Greek City Preserved
16. Wonder and Diversity at Alexandria
17. Pergamon - The New Theatricality
18. The Good Life in Rome
19. The Lives of the Poor in Rome
20. Ostia - Middle-Class Harbor Town
21. Timgad - More Roman Than Rome
22. Karanis - On the Fringes of the Empire
23. Constantinople - The Last Ancient City
24. Lessons and Legacies of Ancient Urban Life