Books by Geoff Emberling
Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia, 2021
The cultures of Nubia built the earliest cities, states, and empires of inner Africa, but they re... more The cultures of Nubia built the earliest cities, states, and empires of inner Africa, but they remain relatively poorly known outside their modern descendants and the com-munity of archaeologists, historians, and art historians researching them. e earliest archaeological work in Nubia was motivated by its role as neighbor, trade partner, and enemy of ancient Egypt. Increasingly, however, ancient Nile-based Nubian cultures are recognized in their own right as the earliest complex societies in inner Africa. As agro-pastoral cultures, Nubian settlement, economy, political organization, and religious ideologies were organized differently from those of the urban, bureaucratic, and overwhelmingly agricultural states of Egypt and the ancient Middle East. Nubian societies are thus of great interest in comparative study, and are also recognized for their broader impact on histories of the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, as well as of neighboring areas.
Although the archaeology and history of Nubia remains incompletely known, the pace of research on Nubia has increased significantly in the last fifteen years. It is partly because of new dam construction and resulting salvage excavation, partly because other areas of the Middle East and North Africa have become less accessible to research, and partly because of generous funding from the Qatar-Sudan Archaeological Project for about forty archaeological projects in Sudan from 2014 to 2020. The most recent survey of ancient and medieval Nubia—David Edwards’s The Nubian Past (2004)—remains a thought-provoking and insightful overview, but does not take account of more recent research. This volume therefore gathers new research and analytical perspectives on these cultures in the hope that it will make them more accessible to scholars and the broader public.
Edited by Emberling and Williams
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Routledge, 2018
Museums and the Ancient Middle East is the first book to focus on contemporary exhibit practice i... more Museums and the Ancient Middle East is the first book to focus on contemporary exhibit practice in museums that present the ancient Middle East. Bringing together the latest thinking from a diverse and international group of leading curators , the book presents the views of those working in one particular community of practice: the art, archaeology, and history of the ancient Middle East. Drawing upon a remarkable group of case studies from many of the world's leading museums, including the British Museum, the Louvre, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Ashmolean Museum, and the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin, this volume describes the tangible actions curators have taken to present a previously unseen side of the Middle East region and its history. Highlighting overlaps and distinctions between the practices of national, art, and university museums around the globe, the contributors to the volume are also able to offer unique insights into the types of challenges and opportunities facing the twenty-first century curator. Museums and the Ancient Middle East should be of interest to academics and students engaged in the study of museums and heritage, archaeology, the ancient Near East, Middle Eastern studies, and ancient history. The unique insights provided by curators active in the field ensure that the book should also be of great interest to museum practitioners around the globe.
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This volume gathers essays by curators who have developed exhibits of ancient Middle Eastern anti... more This volume gathers essays by curators who have developed exhibits of ancient Middle Eastern antiquities and focuses on what curators do in museums with archaeological collections today.
The chapters present case studies from many of the major museums with collections of art and material culture from the ancient Middle East. The museums represented include national museums (Louvre, British Museum, Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin, Dutch National Museum of Antiquities, Jordan Museum), art museums (Metropolitan Museum and Detroit Institute of Arts), and university museums (Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Penn Museum, American University in Beirut, and the Classics collection of the University of Melbourne).
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This catalogue for an exhibit at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York Uni... more This catalogue for an exhibit at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University provides an overview of earlier Nubian cultures from 3000 to 500 BC, including the so-called A-Group, C-Group, Kerma, and Napatan periods.
The discussion draws on the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which was the major lender for the exhibit.
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The essays in this exhibit catalogue trace the founding mission of the Oriental Institute of the ... more The essays in this exhibit catalogue trace the founding mission of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, in which James Henry Breasted and four colleagues travelled across the Middle East to purchase antiquities, make local contacts, and identify sites for potential field projects.
Breasted's letters to colleagues and family, as well as the numerous photographs from the trip, make this volume a rich source for understanding the intellectual history and political context of a formative moment in study of the ancient Middle East.
--Geoff Emberling, "Introduction"
--Geoff Emberling, "Archaeology in the Middle East before 1920:
Political Contexts, Historical Results"
--James Gelvin, "The Middle East Breasted Encountered,
1919-1920"
--Geoff Emberling and Emily Teeter, "The First Expedition of the
Oriental Institute, 1919-1920"
--Morag Kersel, "The Changing Legal Landscape for Middle
Eastern Archaeology in the Colonial Era,
1800-1930"
--Orit Bashkin, "The Arab Revival, Archaeology, and Ancient
Middle Eastern History"
--Emily Teeter, "Epilogue: An Appraisal of the First Expedition"
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The essays in this exhibit catalogue trace the destruction to the museums and archaeological site... more The essays in this exhibit catalogue trace the destruction to the museums and archaeological sites in Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion and raise issues surrounding the protection of cultural heritage.
--McGuire Gibson, "The Looting of the Iraq Museum in Context"
--Donny George, " The Looting of the Iraq Museum Complex"
--John Russell, "Efforts to Protect Archaeological Sites and
Monuments in Iraq, 2003-2004"
--Katharyn Hanson, "Why Does Archaeological Context Matter"
--Clemens Reichel, "Cataloguing the Losses: The Oriental
Institute's Iraq Museum Database Project"
--Elizabeth Stone, "Archaeological Site Looting: The Destruction
of Cultural Heritage in Southern Iraq"
--Patty Gerstenblith, "Legal Aspects of Controlling the
International Market in Looted Antiquities"
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Papers by Geoff Emberling
Kelsey Museum Newsletter, 2023
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The Routledge Companion to Publicly Engaged Humanities Scholarship, ed. D. Fisher-Livne and M. May-Curry, 2024
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American Journal of Archaeology, 2023
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Stone Canvas: Towards a Better Integration of 'Rock Art' and 'Graffiti' Studies in Egypt and Sudan, 2023
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The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East, 2023
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Offerings to Maat: Essays in Honour of Emily Teeter, ed. C.M. Rocheleau and T. Hardwick, pp. 63-76. CIPEG Journal: Ancient Egyptian & Sudanese Collections and Museums 5 (2021), 2021
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Applied Geochemistry, 2021
This study reports new trace element and Pb and Sr isotope compositions of tooth enamel from arch... more This study reports new trace element and Pb and Sr isotope compositions of tooth enamel from archaeological remains at a Medieval (Christian) cemetery located adjacent to the Kushite royal cemetery of El-Kurru, Sudan. The archaeological site of El-Kurru is located along the Nile River on the southern edge of the Nubian Plateau; the bedrock geology consists of Neoproterozoic crystalline basement and is overlain by fluvial sandstones and mudstones of Cretaceous age. El-Kurru is situated between two well-developed drainage basins, and in the past has been subjected to periodic (wadi-related) flooding as a result of intense local precipitation events. Enamel samples were taken from 18 individuals of varying ages and both sexes. Trace element abundances for a significant number of samples record elevated concentrations relative to modern ("in-vivo") enamel, including Pb and U; however, the abundances for both elements do not correlate significantly with the contents of the remaining trace elements (Ba, Fe, Mg, Mn, Nd, Sr) investigated here. The calculated enrichment factors for all trace elements studied here relative to average crustal values are not consistent with exposure to Pb ores for human purposes, which is corroborated by the Pb isotope results. The Sr isotope compositions define 2 main groups that yield 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios that are either higher or lower than 0.7072 with similar Sr abundances (range between ~100 and ~400 ppm). The Pb isotope compositions are extremely variable and correlate well with their corresponding U/Pb ratios; the former overlap Pb isotope ratios for proximal Neoproterozoic rocks belonging to the Saharan Metacraton and Arabian Nubian Shield tectonic provinces. The combined trace element abundances and Sr and Pb isotope compositions for the enamel samples located within the Christian cemetery at El-Kurru are best interpreted to record interaction with groundwater that occurred post-mortem during flooding events. As reported in previous anthropological studies of a similar nature, the Pb isotope results reported here are particularly sensitive to monitoring post mortem diagenetic alteration given their extremely low abundances in non-altered tooth enamel. In contrast, the 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios have been minimally perturbed by post mortem alteration, and therefore most likely represent individuals with distinct Sr isotopic signatures inherited from different geographic regions.
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National Museums in Africa: Identity, History and Politics, 2022
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The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia, ed. G. Emberling and B.B. Williams, pp. 995-1014, 2021
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The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia, ed. G. Emberling and B.B. Williams, pp. 1127-47, 2021
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American Journal of Archaeology, 2020
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Sudan & Nubia, 2019
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A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Art, ed. Ann C. Gunter, 2019
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Books by Geoff Emberling
Although the archaeology and history of Nubia remains incompletely known, the pace of research on Nubia has increased significantly in the last fifteen years. It is partly because of new dam construction and resulting salvage excavation, partly because other areas of the Middle East and North Africa have become less accessible to research, and partly because of generous funding from the Qatar-Sudan Archaeological Project for about forty archaeological projects in Sudan from 2014 to 2020. The most recent survey of ancient and medieval Nubia—David Edwards’s The Nubian Past (2004)—remains a thought-provoking and insightful overview, but does not take account of more recent research. This volume therefore gathers new research and analytical perspectives on these cultures in the hope that it will make them more accessible to scholars and the broader public.
Edited by Emberling and Williams
The chapters present case studies from many of the major museums with collections of art and material culture from the ancient Middle East. The museums represented include national museums (Louvre, British Museum, Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin, Dutch National Museum of Antiquities, Jordan Museum), art museums (Metropolitan Museum and Detroit Institute of Arts), and university museums (Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Penn Museum, American University in Beirut, and the Classics collection of the University of Melbourne).
The discussion draws on the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which was the major lender for the exhibit.
Breasted's letters to colleagues and family, as well as the numerous photographs from the trip, make this volume a rich source for understanding the intellectual history and political context of a formative moment in study of the ancient Middle East.
--Geoff Emberling, "Introduction"
--Geoff Emberling, "Archaeology in the Middle East before 1920:
Political Contexts, Historical Results"
--James Gelvin, "The Middle East Breasted Encountered,
1919-1920"
--Geoff Emberling and Emily Teeter, "The First Expedition of the
Oriental Institute, 1919-1920"
--Morag Kersel, "The Changing Legal Landscape for Middle
Eastern Archaeology in the Colonial Era,
1800-1930"
--Orit Bashkin, "The Arab Revival, Archaeology, and Ancient
Middle Eastern History"
--Emily Teeter, "Epilogue: An Appraisal of the First Expedition"
--McGuire Gibson, "The Looting of the Iraq Museum in Context"
--Donny George, " The Looting of the Iraq Museum Complex"
--John Russell, "Efforts to Protect Archaeological Sites and
Monuments in Iraq, 2003-2004"
--Katharyn Hanson, "Why Does Archaeological Context Matter"
--Clemens Reichel, "Cataloguing the Losses: The Oriental
Institute's Iraq Museum Database Project"
--Elizabeth Stone, "Archaeological Site Looting: The Destruction
of Cultural Heritage in Southern Iraq"
--Patty Gerstenblith, "Legal Aspects of Controlling the
International Market in Looted Antiquities"
Papers by Geoff Emberling
Although the archaeology and history of Nubia remains incompletely known, the pace of research on Nubia has increased significantly in the last fifteen years. It is partly because of new dam construction and resulting salvage excavation, partly because other areas of the Middle East and North Africa have become less accessible to research, and partly because of generous funding from the Qatar-Sudan Archaeological Project for about forty archaeological projects in Sudan from 2014 to 2020. The most recent survey of ancient and medieval Nubia—David Edwards’s The Nubian Past (2004)—remains a thought-provoking and insightful overview, but does not take account of more recent research. This volume therefore gathers new research and analytical perspectives on these cultures in the hope that it will make them more accessible to scholars and the broader public.
Edited by Emberling and Williams
The chapters present case studies from many of the major museums with collections of art and material culture from the ancient Middle East. The museums represented include national museums (Louvre, British Museum, Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin, Dutch National Museum of Antiquities, Jordan Museum), art museums (Metropolitan Museum and Detroit Institute of Arts), and university museums (Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Penn Museum, American University in Beirut, and the Classics collection of the University of Melbourne).
The discussion draws on the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which was the major lender for the exhibit.
Breasted's letters to colleagues and family, as well as the numerous photographs from the trip, make this volume a rich source for understanding the intellectual history and political context of a formative moment in study of the ancient Middle East.
--Geoff Emberling, "Introduction"
--Geoff Emberling, "Archaeology in the Middle East before 1920:
Political Contexts, Historical Results"
--James Gelvin, "The Middle East Breasted Encountered,
1919-1920"
--Geoff Emberling and Emily Teeter, "The First Expedition of the
Oriental Institute, 1919-1920"
--Morag Kersel, "The Changing Legal Landscape for Middle
Eastern Archaeology in the Colonial Era,
1800-1930"
--Orit Bashkin, "The Arab Revival, Archaeology, and Ancient
Middle Eastern History"
--Emily Teeter, "Epilogue: An Appraisal of the First Expedition"
--McGuire Gibson, "The Looting of the Iraq Museum in Context"
--Donny George, " The Looting of the Iraq Museum Complex"
--John Russell, "Efforts to Protect Archaeological Sites and
Monuments in Iraq, 2003-2004"
--Katharyn Hanson, "Why Does Archaeological Context Matter"
--Clemens Reichel, "Cataloguing the Losses: The Oriental
Institute's Iraq Museum Database Project"
--Elizabeth Stone, "Archaeological Site Looting: The Destruction
of Cultural Heritage in Southern Iraq"
--Patty Gerstenblith, "Legal Aspects of Controlling the
International Market in Looted Antiquities"