"With this guide, students and scholars can locate the impressive plaster casts made from classical Greek and Roman statues and other pieces that were brought to Cornell by A. D. White. They can also search out sculptures, pottery, coins, and functional objects from the ancient world that have been added to Cornell's collections over the years. Many of these antiquities are of high quality and significance. They are invaluable for research and scholarship and for teaching present-day students in fields from classics to art history to Near Eastern studies, anthropology, and city and regional planning."--from the Foreword by Hunter R. Rawlings III
A Guide to the Classical Collections of Cornell University gives an overview of the Cornell Classical collections and discusses the history and instructional role played by the H. W. Sage Collection of Casts, an epitome of nineteenth-century scholarship and attitudes toward classical antiquity in the American university. It goes on to illustrate and discuss a selection of pottery, ceramics, sculpture, inscriptions, and Greek and Roman coinage in the Cornell collections. A chapter on "Life and Death in Antiquity" shows how humble objects provide an insight into this aspect of the Greek and Roman world.