David Gordon Mitten (October 26, 1935— January 18, 2022) became emeritus in January 2010. In his career at Harvard, he was George M. A. Hanfmann Curator of Ancient Art, Emeritus, Harvard University Art Museums, a full member of the Department of History of Art and Architecture, and served as Associate Director of the Sardis Expedition for Harvard University. He spent 17 summers in the field at Sardis, Turkey with the Harvard-Cornell Archaeological Exploration of Sardis. He spent three weeks at Sardis working with Aimee F. Scorziello, creating a catalogue and description of the hundreds of reused objects and blocks excavated in the Roman synagogue in the 1960s. When completed, this will be a chapter in a multi-authored publication about the synagogue.

Interested in all areas of classical antiquity, he specialized in publishing classical bronzes, including, with S. F. Doeringer, Master Bronzes from the Classical World (1967), Classical Bronzes Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI (1975), and, with Arielle P. Kozloff, The God's Delight: The Human Figure in Classical Bronze (1988).

For a number of years he taught a survey course on Greek art, architecture, and archaeology, along with seminars on Greek sculpture, vase painting, bronzes, and Greek coinage utilizing the excellent collection in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum. He also taught courses and seminars on Aegean, Anatolian, and Achaemenian Persian art and archaeology. For fifteen years he taught with Helmut Koester of the Harvard Divinity School the seminar, "Archaeology and the World of the New Testament," in which participants presented their final finished reports on-site in Greece and Turkey.

Prof. Mitten taught regularly in the Harvard Extension School on both the survey and seminar levels and has supervised many theses for the Master of Liberal Arts program there. He also lectured widely on study trips to the Mediterranean area for the Harvard Alumni Association and the Harvard Art Museums.