Ancient World

Named for the influential Biblical studies scholar and former director of the White Levy Program for Archaeological Publications at Harvard University, Philip J. King, this endowed position supports an outstanding scholar of the ancient world, with a focus on the ancient Near East and Mediterranean.

In 2010, Foundation support enabled the creation of the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library, in collaboration with the Israel Antiquities Authority. Using the world’s most advanced imaging technology, the Library preserves and makes accessible to the public for the first time thousands of scroll fragments, including the oldest known copies of biblical texts.

In honor of Lord Anthony Quinton, a unique and important thinker in the realm of moral philosophy, the Foundation endowed a Tutorial Fellowship in Classical Philosophy at New College, Oxford University, where Lord Quinton held positions as Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy and served as President of Trinity College.

The Foundation made several grants in support of Ur Online, a pioneering open-access digital research tool created by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology in collaboration with the British Museum. The project makes materials from the 1922-1934 excavations led by Sir Leonard Woolley at the ancient city of Ur - one of the largest and most important cities of ancient Mesopotamia - available to researchers and the public.

The Foundation has provided longstanding support to the Museum of Cycladic Art, including a major gift in 2007 for the fourth floor permanent exhibition, 'Scenes from Daily life in Antiquity.' The exhibit allows visitors to examine the public life of the ancient city, the religious and funerary customs, and the daily activities of men and women through 142 artifacts from the museum’s collections.

Completed in 2013, the conservation gallery ‘Restoring the Past: The Leon Levy Gallery’ at the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, illustrates the rich history of conservation through objects from the Ashmolean collections stretching back to the Museum's founding in 1683. It is one of two galleries devoted entirely to the history of conservation through the present day - the only permanent galleries of their kind in a major museum of art and archaeology.