Engineering for the Arts

At MIT, archaeology is studied in an innovative way: it is combined with materials science and engineering. Four faculty members are teaching that methodology to liberal-arts educators from around the country. The goal is to encourage these arts teachers to use engineering to enhance their students' knowledge and skills.

This month the second Summer Institute in Materials Science and Material Culture will bring 15 college teachers to MIT for two weeks of laboratory-based courses. The educators will participate in hands-on sessions in ancient rubber processing, brick making, metallurgy, and glassmaking. The classes will demonstrate how MIT teaches engineering concepts within an archaeological context.

Archaeology professors Heather Lechtman and Dorothy Hosler inaugurated the summer institute last
year with the help of a three-year, $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Materials Research. They have also helped create a new subfield of archaeology that relies upon materials science and engineering. "Science is already one of the liberal arts.' Engineering, as we define it and practice it, ought to be also," Lechtman says.