David H. Schneller

David H. Schneller is an art historian and archaeologist whose research and teaching focus on the ancient Mediterranean and western Asia. His scholarship centers on sculpture and material practice, examining how artworks were made, remade, and encountered over time, with particular attention to processes of making and long object histories.

He is currently completing his first book, Crafting Across Time and Space, which develops a cross-material study of terracotta, stone, and bronze sculpture in the early first millennium BC. Rather than organizing objects by style, iconography, or cultural attribution, the book approaches sculpture through sustained attention to making as an ongoing condition, tracing how different materials register carving, casting, repair, and inscription across extended histories of use.

At UCLA, he teaches broadly across the art of antiquity. His courses address a wide range of media including sculpture, architecture, painting, and minor arts and emphasize materials, techniques, and historical context as central tools for understanding ancient art.