AN INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD has just been funded at New York University:

N.Y.U. and Columbia to Receive $200 Million Gifts for Research

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD and JONATHAN D. GLATER
Published: March 21, 2006 (New York Times)

New York University and Columbia have each received donations of about $200 million, among the largest to academic institutions in recent years. The gifts, from different donors, come as both universities try to compete with rivals that have far larger endowments.

The gift to N.Y.U., among the largest it has ever received, will create a multidisciplinary center for the study of the ancient world. Consisting of cash and real estate valued at up to $200 million, the gift is from the Leon Levy Foundation. Mr. Levy, who died in 2003, was a Wall Street investor and benefactor of art and archaeology. The university president, John Sexton, and the Levy foundation's trustee, Shelby White, Mr. Levy's widow, are expected to announce the gift today.

[...]

N.Y.U. officials emphasized in interviews that a goal of the new center, to be called the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, was to approach the research and teaching of antiquity on a broad geographic and thematic scale. The focus will be on cultural evolution through time and across societies and regions, incorporating the history, archaeology, literature and art of antiquity.

The areas to be studied will include not only Europe and the Mediterranean basin, but also Central and East Asia — from Gibraltar to Taiwan, as Glen W. Bowersock, a historian familiar with the plans, put it.

[...]

The institute will be in a six-story townhouse at 15 East 84th Street, which was previously owned by the Ogden Reid family and then the American Jewish Congress. The Levy Foundation bought the property two years ago and is having it renovated.

Christopher Ratté, a classical archaeologist at N.Y.U., said the institute was expected to hire five or six full-time professors, maybe an equal number of visiting fellows, and several post-doctoral researchers.

[...]

Congratulations to NYU! This is excellent news. Shelby White and the late Leon Levy have made a very valuable contribution to the study of antiquity -- notably in Larry Stager's Ashkelon dig -- for many years. Oh, and congratulations to Columbia too on their new Science Center.