I am a Toronto-based scholar of the ancient Middle Eastern art and archaeology, and a museum professional. I teach about the art and archaeology of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Levant, and about collecting and displaying Middle Eastern antiquities. My research focuses on the art, archaeology, and religion of the Levant during the Bronze and Iron Ages, and the affinity between Levantine image-making and writing. Finally, some of my most recent works have dealt with the history of excavating, collecting and exhibiting Middle Eastern antiquities in museums in Israel and North America.    

I am currently a Sessional Instructor II at the Department of Visual Studies at the University of Toronto, Mississauga. Prior to that, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the Bard Graduate Center, both in New York. In 2018 I graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where my PhD dissertation, titled “Local Art in the Southern Levant: Middle Bronze Age Bone-Inlaid Boxes of the Geometric Family”, analyzed unique bone-inlaid boxes found in southern Levantine elite tombs during the Middle Bronze Age as a case study for Egyptian-Levantine cultural connections and the development of Levantine art. During my PhD studies, I have been a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University, New York, and Fribourg University, Switzerland. In 2017, my paper, “In Search for Identity”, revisiting Iron Age Levantine ivories, has won the Sean W. Dever Memorial Prize for best student paper in the field of Syro-Palestinian or biblical archaeology. Before that, my MA thesis, examining the use and manufacture of miniature vessels and seven-cupped bowls in the Middle Bronze Age cult site of Nahariya, Israel, was awarded with the Polonsky Prize. I also have a strong background of working in archaeological museums.  

For publications, please see here. For my full academic CV, please see my Academia.edu site. To read more of on my academic approach, please see interview at the Bard Graduate Center and "Staff Picks" at The Ancient Near Eastern Department at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Newsletter.  

I'd love to hear from you! Please get in touch via email: liat.naeh@gmail.com or liat.naeh@utoronto.ca.

Banner photo taken by Uriah at Davisville Village, Toronto.