The Origins of Writing in Mesopotamia

oi.uchicago.edu FALL 2010 T H E O R I E N T A L I N S T I T UPAGET 1 E NEWS & NOTES NO. 207 FALL 2010 © THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO VISIBLE LANGUAGE Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond Also Inside:   Travel To egypT wiTh The orienTal insTiTuTe ChiCago house bulleTin oi.uchicago.edu PAGE 2 NEWS & NOTES IN THIS ISSUE From the Director’s Study 2 Visible Language: Inventions of Writing 3 The Origins of Writing 4 Egyptian Writing System 6 Story of the Early Alphabet 8 Oriental Institute in the News 10 Adult Education 13 Calendar of Events 14 Sunday Films 16 Travel Program 18 Members’ Lectures 21 Humanities Festival 23 Chicago House Bulletin Suq Corner Special Insert Back Cover NEWS & NOTES A Quarterly Publication of he Oriental Institute, printed exclusively as one of the privileges of membership Maeve Reed, Editor Special thanks to Plamena Pehlivanova ThE ORIENTAL INSTITuTE 1155 East 58th Street Chicago, IL 60637 From the Director’s stuDy This issue of News & Notes features a series of articles that highlight key aspects of our new special exhibit Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond, curated by Christopher Woods. Writing is one of the most important inventions ever made by humans. By putting spoken language into material form, people could for the first time store information and transmit it across time and across space. It meant that a person’s words could be recorded and read by others — decades, or even centuries later, thousands of kilometers away. Writing was the world’s first true information technology, and it was revolutionary. One of the most important aspects of writing is the fact that it was invented independently by different cultures in both the Americas and the Old World. As the articles by Christopher Woods and Elise MacArthur explain, both Mesopotamia and Egypt seem to have created their own culturally unique writing systems at more or less the same time in the late fourth millennium bc. It is no coincidence that writing emerged in tandem with the origins of the state as a form of political organization. Scholars have described writing as a “technology of power” and that is absolutely accurate. Writing was first and foremost a tool used by priests, officials, and scribes as a key element of statecraft. We estimate that literacy was limited to less than one percent of the population of the earliest states, so that it was rare for even kings to know how to read and write. It is thus hardly surprising that the earliest writing would have seemed mysterious, powerful, and even inspired by the gods. Like many technologies, writing found new uses and accordingly evolved into new and diverse forms. It is one of those rare technologies that actually became simpler over time. Joseph Lam’s article describes the earliest development of the alphabet — a radical simplification that streamlined writing, making it faster and easier to use, so that literacy became increasingly widespread throughout different sectors of society in the Near East. The Oriental Institute is one of those rare places where the tremendous breadth and depth of scholarly expertise allows us to put together such a fascinating comparative and synthetic perspective on one of humankind’s proudest achievements — visible language. The articles in this issue of News & Notes provide a fascinating preview of this exhibit. We hope you will enjoy it. Telephone: (773) 834-9777 Facsimile: (773) 702-9853 E-mail: oi-membership@uchicago.edu All inquiries, comments, and suggestions are welcome World-Wide Web site: http://oi.uchicago.edu Cover Illustrations: Left: Ornamental peg with trilingual text (Old Persian, Babylonian, and Elamite). Blue frit. Achaemenid period, reign of Darius I, 522–486 BC. Iran, Persepolis, Southeast Palace. Excavated by the Oriental Institute, 1937. 7.9 x 12.4 cm. OIM A29808b Right: Fragment of a Funerary Shroud. Linen, gesso, pigment. Greco-Roman period, fourth–irst centuries BC. Egypt, Dendera. 46.2 x 29.0 cm. OIM E42046 Examples of early writing in the Near East: Left: Numerical tag. Ivory. Naqada III, ca. 3320 BC. Egypt, Abydos, Umm el-Qa’ab. Gift of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1902. 1.2 x 1.2 x 0.2 cm. OIM E5932 Right: Archaic administrative text. Clay. Uruk III period, ca. 3100 BC. Iraq, Jemdet Nasr? (purchased in Paris by J. H. Breasted). 5.9 x 3.4 x 1.6 cm. OIM A2515 oi.uchicago.edu FALL 2010 PAGE 3 VISIBLE LANGUAGE: IN VENTIONS OF WRITING IN THE ANCIENT MIDDLE EAST AND BEYOND A PREVIEW O F T H E NEW EX H IBIT GEOFF EMBERLING A t a historical moment in which our reliance upon the written word and inf or mation stor age is increasing dramatically and irreversibly, it is important and timely to reflect on humanity ’s earliest attempts to p re s e r ve s p e e c h i n w r i t i n g. T h e Oriental Institute’s next exhibit in the Marshall and Doris holleb Family Special Exhibits Gallery will present new perspectives on the origins of Mesopotamian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and alphabets. The exhibit, Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond, opens September 28 (Members’ Preview September 27) and runs through March 6, 2011. O u r s p e c i a l e x h i b i t p ro g r a m provides regular opportunities for faculty and graduate students to present exciting new research, and this exhibit is a particularly good example. The articles that follow, by Associate Professor of Sumerolog y and Guest Curator Christopher Woods, as well as graduatestudent Guest Curatorial Assistants Elise MacArthur and Joseph Lam, provide an overview of the major themes of the show. The exhibit itself will also include examples of early writing from China and Mesoamerica, as well as a feature on hieroglyphic Luwian writing, a relatively late invention of writing in the Middle East for which the Oriental Institute’s collection is unusually strong. While the exhibit is built around Oriental Institute pieces, it is also unusual for the number of loans we have received from other museums. We are excited to announce a loan of fifteen of the earliest cuneiform tablets from the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin, which have never been displayed in the united States, as well as loans of early alphabetic inscriptions from the Semitic Museum at harvard university, clay tablets from the Yale Babylonian Collection, Chinese and Maya pieces from the Art Institute of Chicago, and Chinese oracle bones from the university of Chicago’s Smart Museum. We have been unusually fortunate in having a broad base of funding support that includes a number of foundations and private gifts, and it is a pleasure to thank them all. The exhibit has been generously supported by Exelon Corporation, the Women’s Board of the university of Chicago, The Rita Picken Memorial Fund, Julius Lewis and the Rhoades Foundation, the T. Kimball Brooker Foundation, Mary and Charles Shea (in memory of Rita Picken), David and Judy harris, Toni Smith, Catherine Moore, and Anna White. Figure 1. Rendering of a token ball from Chogha Mish, Iran, ca. 3400 BC. The token ball was scanned in a CT scanner at the University of Chicago Hospitals by Dr. Michael Vannier. The resulting images were processed by Monica Witczak, so that the tokens inside the clay ball are visible. The next stage of visualization will be to extract each token individually I n the century before the first pictographic cuneiform signs were written, Mesopotamian officials had invented another record-keeping technology: clay tokens that could be enclosed in hollow clay balls. The tokens appear to represent numbers and commodities. The “token balls” (also sometimes called clay envelopes or bullae) were impressed with several different cylinder seals on their exterior surfaces, which show that several parties witnessed how many tokens were sealed inside. Token balls could have been records of transactions, or invoices, or a form of contract. As a hypothetical example, we could suppose that three sheep were to be delivered to the temple. A priest and a supervisor of flocks might put three tokens in a token ball and each seal the outside. At a specified time, three sheep would be delivered to the temple, and the token ball would be broken open to verify the transaction. Most tokens are found outside token balls, and most token balls are found broken. Yet more than a hundred intact clay balls have been found, many of them in clusters in domestic contexts. Archaeologists have broken open about five of these token balls, but it is not an adequate sample. The Oriental Institute’s collection includes fifteen unbroken token balls from Chogha Mish in southwestern Iran. We have taken these to the University of Chicago Hospitals, where Dr. Michael Vannier has run them through the latest generation of Phillips CT scanners. We are currently processing the images and expect to be able to make a fuller presentation in the exhibit, and expect that they will shed some further light on the development of writing in Mesopotamia. oi.uchicago.edu PAGE 4 NEWS & NOTES T H E O R I GI NS O F WR ITING IN ME SOP OTA M I A CHRISTOPHER WOODS W riting ranks among humanity’s greatest intellectual and cultural achievements — it divides history from prehistory, and in the eyes of many, represents a defining quality of civilization. In our exhibit Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond, we look at the four instances in human history when writing was invented, with no previous exposure to writing — Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and Mesoamerica. It appears quite likely that all other writing systems derive from, or were inspired to varying degrees by, these four. Our understanding of the origins of writing have developed tremendously since Oriental Institute professor I. J. Gelb published the seminal A Study of Writing in 1952. In that work he argued that writing was developed in Sumer and shortly thereafter the concept, rather than the technology itself, spread to the Nile Valley where it gave rise to Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. The exhibit gives us the opportunity to examine the current state of our knowledge about the origins of writing. *** At some point during the second half of the fourth millennium bc Mesopotamians began to inscribe signs on wet clay in what may very well represent the world’s first writing system. The script is known as cuneiform (from Latin cuneus “wedge”), a descriptive designation that refers to the distinctive wedge-like appearance of the signs, or graphs, which were fashioned with a reed stylus. The cuneiform script was likely invented to express the Sumerian language, but it was subsequently adapted to write a wide variety of unrelated languages throughout the ancient Near East, including Akkadian, Eblaite, Elamite, hittite, hurrian, Old Persian, and urartian. Cuneiform texts were written as late as the first century ad, more than 3,000 years after the script’s invention. A consequence of using durable clay as the principle medium of writing, rather than perishable material such as papyrus, is that Mesopotamia is one of the best-documented civilizations prior to the Industrial Revolution. The exhibit includes examples of the earliest cuneiform documents (fig. 1), dating to 3350–3100 bc, which were found at the sacred temple precinct Figure 1. Uruk tags representing the earliest phase of writing in Mesopotamia. Clay. 3350–3100 BC. (Left) VAT 16749 and (right) VAT 16750. Scale 2:1. Courtesy of the Vorderasiatsiches Museum, Berlin Figure 2. Comparison of selected Uruk IV and Uruk III signs (after Hans J. Nissen, “The Archaic Texts from Uruk,” World Archaeology 17 [1986]: 321, ig. 3) Eana in the city-state of uruk, located in southern Babylonia in present-day Iraq — and there is good reason to believe that this was the birthplace of writing in Mesopotamia. The invention of writing was tightly intertwined with the rapid development of Mesopotamian civilization, as evidenced by extraordinary changes that took place in the city-state toward the end of the fourth millennium. uruk, at the end of the era to which it gave its name — the Late uruk period (ca. 3350–3100 bc) — was characterized by rapid urbanization and population growth, swelling to a population of 20,000 to 50,000 individuals and a size of roughly 2.5 square meters, nearly twice the area of the next largest settlement, and becoming, arguably, the world’s first true city. Coupled to this, uruk experienced a dramatic increase in social, political, and economic complexity. The result was a need to maintain records of production, goods, and labor, and the corresponding rise of a complex administration. Writing was invented in this context. Indeed, that the vast majority of the earliest texts are administrative oi.uchicago.edu FALL 2010 in nature suggests that the invention of writing was a response to practical social pressures — simply put, writing facilitated complex bureaucracy. It is important to note that it is only later — 700 or more years after the first written evidence — that literature appears. We can identity two distinct phases in the evolution of the archaic script, frequently referred to as proto-cuneiform, based primarily on graphic styles, technique of execution, and complexity of the documents, all of which are suggestive of a chronological development. The script and tablets of the earlier phase are labeled uruk IV, while the script and tablets from roughly one hundred years later are labeled uruk III. Although named for the site of uruk where many examples were excavated between 1928 and 1976, uruk III-stage texts have been found at the northern Babylonian sites of Jemdet Nasr, Khafaji, and Tell uqair, testifying to the fact that the new technology quickly spread throughout Babylonia soon after its invention. To date, the proto-cuneiform corpus numbers approximately 6,000 tablets and fragments. The uruk IV tablets, representing the earliest phase of writing, typically bear only a few graphs and are simple in format. Further, many of the graphs are pictographs. The uruk III phase of the script, on the other hand, represents significant development (fig. 2). The curved lines of the uruk IV phase were straightened, while the strokes that comprise the graphs were restricted to certain orientations and were created by a stylus with a triangular cross section. Additionally, the graphs were simplified and depicted more abstractly — for example, graphs of animal heads or facial features, which were rendered naturalistically in the uruk IV phase, were now omitted or depicted schematically. These developments, which may have been made in the interests of efficiency as well as aesthetic concerns, would continue well into the third millennium. As a consequence, those signs that were pictographs gradually became conventionalized symbols (fig. 3) — certainly contemporary users of the script would have regarded them as such, having no knowledge of the pictographic PAGE 5 origins of certain graphs. With the loss of curvilinear lines, in particular, the script assumed its distinctive cuneiform appearance as graphs were pressed into clay in short, wedge-like strokes. With the development of the script, the graphs were reduced from about 900 in the archaic script to about 600. And at some point, likely in the third millennium, the graphs were rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise so that now they rested on their backs and the script was read from left to right rather than vertically (e.g., sag “head, person”). → The reason for the change is obscure and much debated; however, it should be noted that developments of this kind are typologically quite common. *** The majority of the archaic text corpus –– specifically, about 90 percent –– is administrative in nature. That is, these are economic texts that figured into a complex bookkeeping system, consisting primarily of receipts and expenditures of animals and a wide range of commodities and raw materials. The tablets identify the goods, their quantities, and the individuals and institutions involved in the transactions. These were the detailed records of the business activities involving the Eana, the sacred precinct and central economic unit of uruk. The tablets displayed in the exhibit demonstrate not only the types of administrative information contained in the archaic text corpus, but also the differences between uruk IV and III phases of the script. The uruk III tablets provide a glimpse into the economic life of uruk at the close of fourth millennium, and include accounts involving livestock, slaves, grain, and other commodities (fig. 4). The roughly 10 percent of the archaic text corpus that is not concerned with administrative matters are critically important for understanding early Mesopotamian intellectual life and the means by which the new technology of writing was passed from one generation to the next. These texts, referred to as lexical lists (fig. 5) represent one of the most distinctive and prevailing signatures of Mesopotamian civilization. Essentially long lists of thematically Figure 3. The evolution of cuneiform signs (after Jerrold Cooper, “Babylonian Beginnings: The Origin of the Cuneiform Writing System in Comparative Perspective,” in The First Writing Script Invention as History and Process, edited by Stephen D. Houston, p. 85 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) oi.uchicago.edu PAGE 6 Figure 4. This archaic administrative text describes the amount of barley needed to plant a ield. Baked clay. Uruk III period, ca. 3100 BC. Iraq. 5.9 x 3.4 x 1.6 cm. Obverse. OIM A2515 organized words — ancient dictionaries, of a sort — lexical lists constituted the native lexicographical tradition. These texts were the primary paradigm for the scholarly organization and presentation of information, and served, moreover, as a means for teaching professional vocabulary and the intricacies of cuneiform writing. Copying a complex text of this NEWS & NOTES kind would certainly have been assigned to a more advanced scribal student. A more elementary exercise is represented by a tablet in the exhibit (fig. 6), in which a student has practiced inscribing various signs. This crudely formed lump of clay anticipates the elementaryschool exercises known from later periods, which where typically inscribed on round, bun-shaped tablets. Lexical lists were copied and recopied by scribal students down to the end of cuneiform culture. One text on display in our exhibit represents the oldest, most important, and most copied lexical list known — the Standard Professions List (see fig. 5), a hierarchically organized inventory of uruk officials and occupations; other lexical texts from the archaic period include lists of plants, animals, wooden implements, jars, and cities. *** Writing, as we have seen, was invented in Mesopotamia for a very restricted application, namely, for bookkeeping purposes. Much of the omitted grammatical information was either unimportant to the purpose at hand or was predictable from context, rendering its inclusion redundant. The proto-cuneiform texts were in a sense mnemonic devices — the decoder or reader of these texts had to rely heavily on the broader context in order to recover their full messages. Figure 6. Writing exercise. Clay. Uruk III period, ca. 3100 BC. Iraq, Uruk. 4.3 x 5.1 x 1.9 cm. VAT 16741 As this context is forever lost, these documents pose enormous problems of decipherment and interpretation for the modern scholar. This was a writing system that was modeled on speech but did not mimic speech. Consequently, it is more appropriate to speak of “interpreting” texts rather than of “reading” them. Indeed, the breach between writing and speech extends to word order, or syntax. The order of graphs is fluid in early texts and words were not written in the order in which they were spoken. Tablet format, to a limited degree, compensated for this, as the organization of cases containing signs played an important role in organizing information. Not until the second half of the third millennium did the sequence of graphs within cases of text reflect the sequential order of speech. *** The exhibit includes a number of uruk III administrative tablets from the Oriental Institute’s collections, supplemented by two uruk III texts borrowed from the Yale Babylonian Collection. The centerpiece of the Mesopotamian section, indeed of the exhibit, is the twelve proto-cuneiform tablets on loan from Berlin’s Vorderasiatisches Museum. The loan includes not only a number of uruk IV administrative texts, but also the Standard Professions lexical list — some of the earliest written records known. Our show represents the first time these artifacts have been exhibited in the united States. Figure 5. The Standard Professions List. Lexical lists of this kind represent one of the most distinctive and prevailing signatures of Mesopotamian civilization. Clay. Uruk IV period, ca. 3200 BC. Iraq, Uruk, Eana precinct. 8.7 x 6.1 x 1.8 cm. VAT 15003 oi.uchicago.edu FALL 2010 PAGE 7 T H E CONC EPTI O N AND DEVE LOP ME NT OF T HE EGY PTI A N WRITING SYSTE M ELISE V. MACARTHUR I n the Egyptian section of the Visible Language exhibit, we examine the conception and development of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Beginning in the fourth millennium bc, Egyptians expressed themselves using a range of symbols — animals, humanoid figures, boats, and landscapes — and media — rock drawings, decorated pottery, pot marks, cylinder seals, and decorated ceremonial objects (fig. 1). Although these arrangements had meaning in ancient times, they are not strictly defined as writing. Instead, we consider these symbols to be precursors to actual ancient Egyptian writing, which first appeared in the tomb of a prominent ruler, buried at the site of Abydos, in the famous Tomb u-j, at about 3320 bc. In Tomb u-j, writing is featured in three ways: painted on pottery vessels, incised on small tags, and carved into cylinder seals — which survive by means of their impressions. By 3320 bc, the ancient Egyptian writing system was already flourishing, its sophistication evidenced by the use of the rebus principle, which broadens the meaning of symbols to include words with the same sound, but different definitions. The classic example of this in English being the use of a bee [∞] and a leaf [:] to write the intangible word “belief.” W ith Tomb u-j, Eg ypt moves into its last major phase of Egyptian prehistory — the Naqada III period. hundreds of inscriptions date to the time from Naqada III to the beginning of the Pharaonic period (ca. 3150 bc), coming from sites across Egypt, in Nubia, and the southern Levant. These inscriptions allow us to document the development of the script. By the reign of King Den of the First Dynasty (ca. 3110–3020 bc), the ancient Egyptian writing system seems to be well developed and its corpus of hieroglyphic signs (more or less) complete. By the reign of King Peribsen of the late Second Dynasty (prior to ca. 2686 bc), we have the first positive attestation of a conjugated verb in Egypt. The purpose of early Egyptian writing was twofold: it was used to track taxes and incomes and to express the power of the ruler — thus, it functioned in both administrative and ideological capacities. Also of note, in the Early Dynastic period (Dynasties 1–2), we find numerous examples of the names and titles of private (non-royal) people. T h e o b j e c t s f e a t u re d i n t h e Egyptian portion of the exhibit range from the precursors to writing, to a case that contains examples of the various scripts (hieroglyphs, hieratic, Demotic, and Coptic) that were used to write the Egyptian language over course of its long history. Figure 2. Polynomial texture mapping (PTM) imaging of an object. Sealing. Clay. Dynasty 0, reign of Narmer, before ca. 3150 BC. Egypt, Abydos. Gift of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1902. 11.4 x 11.0 x 3.8 cm. OIM E6718 We have also made use of new technology, specifically, polynomial texture mapping (PTM) imaging (fig. 2). This technology and software, used courtesy of the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project, allows the angle, intensity, and focus of light, in a psuedo–3-D manner, to be manipulated without handling the fragile object. Figure 1. Chronological development of early writing in Egypt oi.uchicago.edu PAGE 8 NEWS & NOTES T H E STO RY O F TH E E ARLY AL P H ABET JOSEPH LAM F or those of us who have grown up using the alphabet from the time we were children, it is easy to take for granted its significance as an invention. however, the flourishing of alphabetic writing appeared relatively late in the history of the ancient Middle East. The other major writing systems originating in the Middle East, the Mesopotamian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphic, were complicated systems consisting primarily of logographic and/or syllabic elements (and hundreds of signs), giving the potential for great richness of expression on the one hand, but also requiring considerable scribal training in order to master its subtleties. By contrast, alphabetic systems are characterized by the graphic representation of phonemes (the shortest contrastive units of sound in a language, whether consonants or vowels) and so have on the order of tens of signs, greatly reducing the symbolic inventory. Incidentally, the earliest West Semitic alphabet was characterized by the exclusive writing of consonants, which exploits a feature in the phonological structure of all Semitic languages, wherein every syllable begins with a consonant. While one ought to beware of making too quick a connection between the simplicity of a writing system and broad literacy, it has been proposed that the alphabet made the process of scribal training much easier. The earliest evidence for alphabetic writing comes from the early second millennium bc in the Sinai and Egypt. The Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions, first systematically examined by Sir Flinders Petrie in 1905, consist of linear pictographic symbols inscribed on statuettes, stone panels, and rock faces at Serabit el-Khadem, an ancient Egyptian mining site in the Sinai peninsula. More recently, in the mid-1990s, two singleline rock inscriptions were discovered at the desert site of Wadi el-hol in Egypt, in a script that strongly resembles the Proto-Sinaitic texts. The hybrid nature of these earliest signs gives us clues regarding the origins of the early alphabet. On the one hand, most if not all of these pictographs have plausible connections to Egyptian hieroglyphs, implying that the inventors were influenced at some level by Egyptian writing. On the other hand, the phonemes represented by these symbols are derived from the West Semitic (and not Egyptian) words behind the pictographs. For instance, the sign for a hand is used to denote the /k/ sound through the West Semitic word kaph for “palm” or “hand,” a word that also comes to be the name of the letter. (For comparison, the Modern hebrew name for the corresponding letter is Aramaic incantation bowl. Baked clay. Iraq, Khafajah. Sasanian, third–seventh century AD. 18.4 x 4.1 cm. OIM A17877 precisely kaph; note also the Greek letter name kappa.) This association of the letter name (kaph) with its initial phoneme (/k/) is called the acrophonic principle, and it is by the recognition of this principle that the Sinai inscriptions have been partially deciphered, revealing intelligible phrases such as lb‘lt (“for the Lady”) and rb nqbnm (“chief of the miners”). The presence of hieroglyphic inscriptions near either Serabit el-Khadem or Wadi el-hol would have provided sufficient impetus for such an invention to occur, if in fact one of them represents the ultimate place of origin. The presence of Asiatics as workers and mercenaries in Middle Kingdom Egypt is well documented and would furnish the broader sociohistorical backdrop for this remarkable innovation. Another collection of data coming from the second millennium is the Proto-Canaanite inscriptions, a diverse and fragmentary group of texts (inscribed on pottery and other objects) from various sites in Palestine. Two tentative reasons can be adduced for placing these later than the inscriptions from Serabit el-Khadem and Wadi el-hol. First, within the Proto-Canaanite texts, one can observe a gradual evolution away from purely pictographic shapes to more abstract, stylized forms. Second, their context in Palestine puts them one step removed geographically from the Egyptian sphere, the presumed context of the alphabet’s invention. While the earliest datable Proto-Canaanite inscription, the Lachish Dagger (a highly pictographic four-sign inscription), can be attributed to the seventeenth century bc on archaeological grounds, the majority of the oi.uchicago.edu FALL 2010 PAGE 9 Proto-Canaanite objects come from the thirteenth century and later. North of Palestine, in the region of modern Syria, no direct evidence exists for the linear alphabet before the first millennium bc; however, here we have relevant data of a different kind. At the site of Ras Shamra on the Mediterranean coast (near modern Latakia), in the ancient city of ugarit (ca. thirteenth century bc), we find a fully functioning alphabetic system utilizing cuneiform signs — wedges impressed with a stylus on clay — rather than linear characters. This system of thirty signs, which appears not to have been based on SumeroAkkadian syllabic cuneiform, was used mostly for inscribing texts of all genres in the local West Semitic language of ugaritic, but occasionally for other languages as well (e.g., hurrian). Based on evidence from various “abecedaries” (inscriptions containing all the letters written out in order) coming from this site, and on the shapes of certain of the alphabetic cuneiform signs, it is likely that the ugaritic alphabet was a conceptual adaptation of the linear alphabet for cuneiform writing. With the turn of the first millennium bc came the stabilization of the alphabet in terms of the orientation of the letters and the direction of writing (right to left). This is generally associated with the Phoenicians, since the twenty-two– letter system that came as the result of this stabilization corresponds exactly to the phonemic inventory of Phoenician. When hebrew and Aramaic speakers adopted this alphabet for their own texts, they did not create additional symbols for phonemes in their languages that were absent in Phoenician; they simply utilized the twenty-two available signs, making practical accommodation where necessary. W hether this was due to the perceived prestige of the Phoenician script or some other reason is difficult to ascertain. In any case, while the direction of writing and orientation of letters remained stable, the shapes of the letters continued to develop over the course of the first millennium, giving birth to distinct hebrew and Aramaic scripts and perhaps other separate orthographic traditions as well. In particular, the familiar “square” script, which grew out of the Aramaic script tradition, began to be used for writing hebrew sometime in the Second Temple period, and became the standard Jewish script (and is now used for Modern hebrew). Most likely, the spread of alphabetic writing to the Greeks is also to be attributed to the first millennium; according to classical tradition, the Greek alphabet was borrowed from the Phoenicians, a scenario that would fit well with the appearance of the earliest Greek inscriptions in the eighth century bc. Script correspondence chart of select alphabetic signs (1) (2) (3) (4) West Semitic letter name (with meaning in parentheses) Possible Egyptian hieroglyphic prototype, shapes drawn from the sign list of Gardiner 1957, and correspondences follow the suggestions of Hamilton 2006 Proto-Sinaitic stone plaque from Serabit el-Khadem (Sinai 375a = Catalog No. 89); signs traced from digital photograph by the author Izbet Sartah ostracon; sign shapes drawn after Kochavi 1977, p. 7 (5) (6) (7) (8) El-Khadr Arrowhead #2 (Catalog No. 91); signs traced from digital photograph by the author Mesha Stela, in the Moabite script (highly resembling the Old Hebrew script); signs traced from digital photograph by the author Incised ostracon from Samaria (C1012 = Catalog No. 90) in the Old Hebrew script; signs traced from digital photograph by the author Greek letters (with names in parentheses) oi.uchicago.edu PAGE 10 ❝ ❞ NEWS & NOTES THE OrIENTAL INSTITUTE IN THE NEWS A selection of recent coverage of the Oriental Institute in Chicago and national media sources General Channel 2 News May 3, 2010 “ Ten of the Best Free Places to Go in Chicago” — http://cbs2chicago. com/topstories/chicago.free. attractions.2.1671490.html Chicago Sun Times Pioneers to the Past exhiBit July 13, 2010 “Chicago Area, Illinois Museum Grants. Interesting Projects,” by Lynn Sweet — http://blogs.suntimes.com/ sweet/2010/07/chicago_area_illinois_ museum_g.html Wall Street Journal mohammeD anD the Believers Hyde Park Herald May 12, 2010 “Adopt-a-Dig” The Boston Globe Examiner.com May 16, 2010 “Eric Schneider’s Hot Dixieland Quartet Performs at The Oriental Institute for HyPa Jazz Event” — http://www.examiner. com/x-30433-Chicago-News--EventsExaminer~y2010m5d16-Eric-SchneidersHot-Dixieland-Quartet-performs-at-theOriental-Institute-for-HyPa-jazz-event Federal Times July 1, 2010 “Culture, Cash and the Cubbies“ — http://www.federaltimes. com/ar ticle/20100701/ TRAVEL01/7010305/1003/TRAVEL01 June 19–20, 2010 “Unearthing Ancient Attitudes,” by Lee Lawrence — http://online.wsj.com/ article/SB1000142405274870356160457 5282343365922152.html The Chicago Reader’s Best of Chicago 2010 May 2, 2010 “Professor Fred Donner and His New Book: Mohammed and the Believers” — www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/ articles/2010/05/.../islams_beginnings/ June 24, 2010 “Best Museum Exhibit of 2010” — http:// www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/bestmuseum-exhibit/BestOf?oid=1980441&f eature=1989689 New York Times Sunday Book Review Archaeology Magazine online June 27, 2010 Review of Fred Donner “Mohammed and the Believers” — http://www. nytimes.com/2010/06/27/books/review/ Rodenbeck-t.html?ref=books July 1, 2010 “ Pa s s p o r t t o A n t i q u i t y,” b y G e o f f Emberling — http://www.archaeology. org/online/features/breasted/ National Public Radio “World View with Jerome McDonnell” July 13, 2010 Interview with Geoff Emberling and Orit Bashkin about the Pioneers Show — http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/ Program_WV.aspx?episode=43158 jOIN/rENEW TODAy! I would like to become a Member of the Oriental Institute / Please renew my Oriental Institute membership Name: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Address: ___________________________________________________ City/ State/Zip: _________________________________________ Daytime phone: _______________________________________________ E-mail: ______________________________________________ ❐ ❐ ❐ ❐ $50 Annual Member $40 Senior Member (65+) $40 National Associate (US residents 100 miles from Chicago) $75 Overseas Member (residents outside the US) I prefer to pay by ❐ Check (payable to the Oriental Institute) ❐ $100 Supporting Associate ❐ $500 Sponsoring Associate ❐ $1,000 james Henry Breasted Society ❐ MasterCard ❐ Visa Account number: ____________________________________________________________ Exp. date: _________ 3-digit security code: ________ Signature: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ you can also renew by calling (773) 834-9777 or visiting us online at oi.uchicago.edu/getinvolved/ Questions? E-mail or call the Membership Oice: oi-membership@uchicago.edu / (773) 834-9777 cut out and send form to: the oriental institute membership oice, 1155 east 58th street, chicago, il 60637 oi.uchicago.edu FALL 2010 PAGE 11 CUISINE & COOkEry OF THE NEAr EAST a taste oF istanBul thursday, november 4 7:00 Pm istanbul restaurant 3613 north Broadway chicago, il 60613 Join us to expand your culinary knowledge and recipe repertoire with a special visit to Istanbul Restaurant, where chef Yasar Demir will invite you to savor a sumptuous array of authentic dishes from his Turkish homeland. Enjoy a full meal that begins with a variety of appetizers and the chef ’s signature in-house baked breads such as the soft, oven-warm emek served with olive oil, spices, and fresh lemon. hen sample and learn the history of a Grand Bazaar of elegant entrees and traditional desserts that Centerstage Chicago calls “some of the best Turkish food in the city.” Thursday evening, November 4. Meet at Istanbul Restaurant, 3613 North Broadway, Chicago, IL 60613. Free parking available in the North Community Bank Lot at 3639 North Broadway. ProGram Fee: $49 for Oriental Institute Members; $54 for non-members. Includes, tax, gratuity, a favorite recipe provided by the chef, and wine compliments of the Oriental Institute. FAMILy PrOGrAM M u m m i e s Ni g h t tales and treats for halloween thursday, october 28 6:00–8:00 PM oriental institute We can’t keep this event under wraps! Come to our annual pre-halloween celebration for a “tomb-full” of family fun! Get up close and personal with a mummy, discover painted coins and a Book of the Dead, and view Mummies Made in Egypt, an award-winning children’s film from the Reading Rainbow series. Browse the latest children’s books on ancient Egypt, try on an outit from King Tut’s closet, and enter our “Guess the Mummy Lollipops” contest. hen take a treasure hunt in our Egyptian Gallery to see if you can find out what a mummified ancient Egyptian priestess actually looked like when she was alive 3,000 years ago! Recommended for children ages 4 and up, accompanied by an adult. aDmission: $3 payable at the door. Free for children under 4 and Oriental Institute Members with membership card. Preregistration not required. his program is presented in conjunction with Chicagoween, the city’s recognition of family-friendly Halloween events. MEMBErS’S PrEVIEW visiBle lanGuaGe: inventions oF WritinG in the ancient miDDle east anD BeyonD Monday, September 27 6:00–8:30 PM An Exclusive Oriental Institute Members’ Event RSVP Required Explore the newest research on one of the greatest inventions of all time: writing. Artifacts, some of which have never before been exhibited in the united States, reveal the origins of writing in Mesopotamia and Egypt as well as the other two independent writing systems of China and Mesoamerica. Among the objects are examples of the earliest pictographic tablets from uruk (Iraq), and bone tags with the earliest Egyptian hieroglyphs. he exhibit addresses how the cuneiform writing of Sumer was adapted to write many other languages, the invention of the alphabet in the Sinai, and the variety of scripts used to write ancient Egyptian. he exhibit also explores how technology is being used to study early writing system, with CT scanning of token balls to non-destructively study the tokens sealed within, digitally removing clay envelopes from clay tablets to reveal the text inside, and the use of PTM photography to create high-deinition images. 6:00 pm Program and remarks by Curator Christopher Woods, followed by exhibit viewing in the Marshall and Doris Holleb Family Gallery for Special Exhibits. 7:30—8:00 pm Exhibit catalog signing. The Suq will feature a special selection of related books and gifts. Please RSVP by September 20 to Meghan Winston, Special Events Coordinator, at meghanwinston@uchicago.edu or (773) 834-9775. oi.uchicago.edu PAGE 12 NEWS & NOTES Don’t miss out — register early! PUBLIC EDUCATION Please enroll me in the following public program(s): MEMBErS NON-MEMBErS TOTAL ❐ sex, Drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll: a lively introduction to the ancient near east _____ $145 _____ $195 _____ ❐ images for eternity: an introduction to ancient egyptian art _____ $240 _____ $290 _____ ❐ ancient egyptian hieroglyphs by mail _____ $255 _____ $295 _____ _____ $49 _____ $54 _____ ❐ a taste of istanbul ☎ ☎ inventions of Writing Public symposium Free, but pre-registration required. Call Public Education at (773) 702-9507 teacher Workshop: reading the Past Free, but pre-registration required. To register, contact Kristy Peterson at the Smart Museum of Art at (773) 702-2351 or kristypeterson@uchicago.edu.  studying the Body: rare medical texts of the history of medicine To purchase tickets, visit chicagohumanities.org  a mummy comes to life To purchase tickets, visit chicagohumanities.org GranD total _______ ❐ I would like to become a member of the Oriental Institute. Enclosed is $50 for an Annual Membership; $40 for seniors, UC/UCH Faculty & Staf, and National Associates (persons living more than 100 miles from Chicago within the USA). Please send a separate check for membership. I prefer to pay by ❐ Check (payable to the Oriental Institute) ❐ Money order ❐ MasterCard ❐ Visa Account number: ____________________________________________________________ Exp. date: _________ 3-digit security code: ________ Signature: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Name: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Address: ___________________________________________________ City/ State/Zip: _________________________________________ Daytime phone: _______________________________________________ E-mail: ______________________________________________ cut out and send form to: the oriental institute Public education oice, 1155 east 58th street, chicago, il 60637 reGistration anD reFunD Policy For multi-session on-campus courses, a full refund will be granted to anyone who notiies us about his/her cancellation before the irst class meeting. A student who notiies us of his/her cancellation after the irst class meeting, but before the second class meeting, will receive a full refund minus a $50 cancellation fee. After the second class meeting, no refunds will be granted unless the course is canceled by the Public Education Oice. Failure to attend a class does not entitle a registrant to a refund. Some courses require a small materials fee to be paid at the irst class meeting. For correspondence courses, full refunds will be given if cancellation is received at least one week prior to the course’s announced starting date. After that time, no refunds will be granted. For single session programs, no refunds will be granted, but if the Public Education Oice is notiied of cancellation at least 48 hours before the program begins, a credit voucher will be issued for the full amount. With less than 48 hours notice, a voucher for the full amount, less a $10 cancellation fee, will be issued. Credit vouchers can be used for any Oriental Institute singlesession program for one full calendar year from the date on the voucher. Tickets sold by other organizations for programs held at the Oriental Institute are subject to the cancellation policies of the organization selling the tickets. Only those registered for classes may attend them. he Public Education Oice reserves the right to refuse to retain any student in any class at any time. oi.uchicago.edu FALL 2010 PAGE 13 FALL ADULT EDUCATION COUrSES he following courses are co-sponsored by the Graham School of General Studies. Each course ofers Teacher Recertiication CPDUs from the Illinois State Board of Education and each counts as an elective for the Graham School ’s noncredit certiicate in Arabic Language and Cultures. For more information, please call Public Education at (773) 702-9507. sex, DruGs, anD rock ‘n’ roll: a lively introDuction to the ancient near east Your grade-school history class had it all wrong; ancient people were not as well behaved as your textbooks said they were. his four-session course reveals Katharyn Hanson & a more mischievous, passionEudora Struble ate, and sometimes dangerous side of the ancient Near East. October 9–October 30 The first two classes expose Saturdays, 1:30–3:30 PM archaeological and textual eviOriental Institute dence of sex and sexuality in ancient Mesopotamia, SyriaPalestine, and Egypt. he third class delves into drugs, opiates, and alcohol. he fourth class shares what scholars know of ancient music, dancing, and the ancient equivalent of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. his class concludes with a visit to the Oriental Institute Museum galleries. The ancient Egyptians surrounded themselves with powerful and spellbinding art with a major purpose of guarRozenn Bailleul-LeSuer anteeing eternal life in the Netherworld. Within the conOctober 13–December 8 straints of stylistic conventions, Wednesdays, 7:00–9:00 PM craftspeople skillfully manipuOriental Institute lated many media, and while doing so they expressed cultural changes in their society. his course introduces the main concepts of Egyptian art, emphasizing features distinguishing each period of Pharonic Egypt through extensive use of the Oriental Institute collection. After completing the course, students will better appreciate the innovative spirit and personal touch of ancient Egyptian artists as they continue to explore ancient Egyptian civilization in museums or in Egypt itself ! instructors: Katharyn Hanson is a PhD candidate in Mesopotamian Archaeology in the University of Chicago’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and co-curator of the Oriental Institute exhibit Catastrophe! The Looting and Destruction of Iraq’s Past. Eudora Struble is a PhD candidate in SyriaPalestinian Archaeology in the University of Chicago’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. She has excavated extensively in jordan and Turkey. instructor: rozenn Bailleul-LeSuer is a PhD candidate in Egyptology in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. She specializes in the economic impact of wildlife on ancient Egypt, and representations of wildlife in Egyptian art. cPDus: 8 requireD texts: The instructors will provide a packet of readings at the irst class session. his class meets at the Oriental Institute from 1:30 to 3:30 PM on Saturday afternoons beginning October 9 and continuing to October 30. Pre-registration is required. Please note that some course material is of a sexually graphic nature. COrrESPONDENCE COUrSE hieroGlyPhs By mail Andrew Baumann & Mary Szabady October 25, 2010–February 22, 2011 Taught by correspondence, this course inRegistration deadline: October 15 troduces students to an in-depth study of Middle Egyptian, the “classical” language of ancient Egypt. Learn the fundamental structure and grammar of the language by completing the irst eight lessons and exercises of Middle Egyptian Grammar by James hoch. Mail or fax completed lessons to the instructor, who will correct them, answer any questions, and return the lessons by mail or fax. hose who complete all course assignments will receive a certiicate of course completion from the Oriental Institute. imaGes For eternity: an introDuction to ancient eGyPtian art cPDus: 16 requireD text: Gay robins. The Art of Ancient Egypt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. his class meets at the Oriental Institute from 7:00 to 9:00 PM on Wednesday evenings beginning October 13 and continuing to December 8. Pre-registration is required. here will be no class on Wednesday, November 24. instructors: Andrew Baumann holds a PhD in Egyptology from the University of Chicago. He has been an epigrapher and artist for the Oriental Institute’s Epigraphic Survey based at Chicago House in Luxor, Egypt. Currently he is Publications Manager for the University of Chicago Press. Baumann will be assisted by Mary Szabady, who is a graduate student in Egyptology in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. requireD texts: James hoch. Middle Egyptian Grammar, available at the Suq for $65. James hoch. Middle Egyptian Sign List, available at the Suq for $18. Oriental Institute Members receive a 10% discount. Illinois residents are subject to a 9.5% sales tax. hese books may also be purchased online at https://oi.uchicago.edu/order/suq/products/egypt_langlit.html he course begins on Monday, October 25 and continues for 16 weeks, with a two-week break during the winter holidays. Registration deadline: October 15. Pre-registration is required. oi.uchicago.edu PAGE 14 NEWS & NOTES FA L L 2010 C A L E N DA r Unless otherwise noted, all programs take place at the Oriental Institute. All programs subject to change. SEPTEMBEr 27 | monDay visible language: inventions of Writing in the ancient middle east and Beyond Members’ Preview 6:00 pm See page 11 for details 28 | tuesDay visible language: inventions of Writing in the ancient middle east and Beyond Exhibit Opens to the Public 17 | sunDay Film 2:00 pm See page 16 for details 20 | WeDnesDay 24 | sunDay 6 | WeDnesDay 9 | saturDay egypt: Journey to the Global civilization Film 2:00 pm See page 16 for details 13 | WeDnesDay Chicago humanities Festival Event 2:00 pm See page 23 for details 25 | monDay 28 | thursDay mummies night: tales and treats for halloween Family Event 6:00 pm See page 11 for details 31 | sunDay land of the Pharaohs Special halloween Film Showing 2:00 pm See page 16 for details NOVEMBEr 3 | WeDnesDay images for eternity: an introduction to ancient egyptian art Adult Education Course October 13–December 8 7:00 pm See page 13 for details hieroglyphs by mail Correspondence Course October 25–February 22 See page 13 for details sex, Drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll: a lively introduction to the ancient near east Adult Education Course October 9–October 30 1:30 pm See page 13 for details 10 | sunDay a mummy comes to life the libyan anarchy: egypt and nubia in the era from solomon to assurbanipal Members’ Lecture 7:00 pm See page 21 for details studying the Body: rare medical texts of the history of medicine Chicago humanities Festival Event 12:00 noon See page 23 for details sign, symbol, and script: origins of Written communications and the Birth of Writing Film 2:00 pm See page 16 for details visible language: inventions of Writing in the ancient middle east and Beyond Exhibit Tour 12:15 pm See page 15 for details OCTOBEr 3 | sunDay mesopotamia: i have conquered the river towards a Better understanding of amarna: recent research in the city and its main cemetery Members’ Lecture 7:00 pm See page 21 for details 4 | thursDay reading the Past Teacher Workshop 4:30 pm Meet at the Smart Museum of Art See page 22 for details oi.uchicago.edu FALL 2010 PAGE 15 FA L L 2010 C A L E N DA r 7 | sunDay a taste of istanbul 25 | thursDay Cuisine & Cookery of the Near East 7:00 pm Istanbul Restaurant See page 11 for details DECEMBEr islam: empire of Faith, Part i 5 | sunDay Film 2:00 pm See page 16 for details 8 | monDay Behind closed Doors: an evening with oriental institute registrars 8 | WeDnesDay 14 | sunDay 21 | sunDay 12 | sunDay 19 | sunDay sign, symbol, and script: origins of Written communications and the Birth of Writing Film 2:00 pm See page 16 for details mt. nemrud: throne of the Gods Film 2:00 pm See page 16 for details islam: empire of Faith, Part ii Film 2:00 pm See page 16 for details Ab Urbe Condita: early cities at hamoukar during the chalcolithic and early Bronze age Members’ Lecture 7:00 pm See page 21 for details inventions of Writing Public Symposium 1:00 pm See page 22 for details Deciphering the Dead sea scrolls Film 2:00 pm See page 16 for details Associate Members’ Event 7:00 pm See page 21 for details 13 | saturDay museum closed for thanksgiving Day sign, symbol, and script: origins of Written communications and the Birth of Writing Film 2:00 pm See page 16 for details 25 | monDay 26 | sunDay EXHIBIT TOUr visiBle lanGuaGe: inventions oF WritinG in the ancient miDDle east anD BeyonD Christopher Woods Wednesday, October 20 12:15 PM FREE Be among the irst to take a curator-led tour our newest special exhibit, Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond. Join Christopher Woods, Associate Professor of Sumerology and exhibit curator, to view and discuss artifacts that are among the earliest examples of writing as it emerged in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and Mesoamerica. museum closed for the holidays Breasted hall closed for the holidays oi.uchicago.edu PAGE 16 SUNDAy FILMS NEWS & NOTES Each Sunday afternoon, you can enjoy the best in documentary and feature films on the ancient Near East at the Oriental Institute. Films begin at 2:00 PM and admission is free. Running time ranges from 30 to 50 minutes unless otherwise noted. Docents will be available in the galleries to answer questions following each film showing. October 3 Sign, Symbol, and Script: Origins of Written Communications and the Birth of Writing (1996) Written language is arguably humankind’s most important invention. his ilm explores such topics as the function of tokens, and wall paintings; the emerging of Egyptian hieroglyphs, Mesopotamian cuneiform, and Chinese ideograms; the inluence of Sinaitic script and the metamorphosis of the Phoenician alphabet into the Latin characters we use today. his ilm is also shown on November 21 and December 19. October 10 Egypt: Journey to the Global Civilization (2000) he disciplines of archaeology, anthropology, engineering, and climatology contribute to a thought-provoking examination of this great ancient civilization and its contributions to world culture. October 17 Mesopotamia: I Have Conquered the River (2000) Explore ancient Mesopotamia — today’s Iraq — in a ilm that examines the vital role of waterways in the development of this great ancient civilization. he ilm features a dramatic computerized recreation of life along the Euphrates River more than 4,000 years ago. October 24 No Film Showing. Special Program for Chicago Humanities Festival. See page 23 for details. SPECIAL FILM SHOWING FOr HALLOWEEN lanD oF the Pharaohs sunday, october 31 2:00 PM Breasted hall Free Come in costume to celebrate halloween with this screening of a classic hollywood epic that literally had a cast of thousands dressed as ancient Egyptians — 9,787 in one scene alone! If you come dressed in an Egyptian-style costume you’ll receive a discount coupon from our the Suq and we might even post your picture on our Web site. You’ll also experience the grandeur, vastness, and spectacle of Land of the Pharaohs as it was meant to be seen: on the big screen. Directed by howard hawks with a script by William Faulkner and a musical score by Dimitri Tiomkin, most ilm bufs agree that Land of the Pharaohs was 1950s hollywood movie-making at its best. October 31 Land of the Pharaohs (1955). 104 min. See below. November 7 Islam: Empire of Faith, Part I (2000). 100 min. November 14 Islam: Empire of Faith, Part II (2000). 60 min. his highly regarded two-part PBS series tells the story of Islam’s irst thousand years, showing how it sustained the intellectual legacies of Greece, Egypt, and China, and how it brought immeasurable advances in science, medicine, and the arts to Europe in the Middle Ages. hese ilms are being shown in conjunction with Arab heritage Month in Chicago. November 21 Sign, Symbol, and Script: Origins of Written Communications and the Birth of Writing (1996) November 28 No ilm showing during hanksgiving weekend December 5 Deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls (1999) his ilm explores the discovery and heated disputes surrounding the authorship and interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest and most complete biblical manuscripts ever found. he ilm features commentary by scholars from around the world, including Norman Golb, Ludwig Rosenberger Professor in Jewish history and Civilization, university of Chicago. December 12 Mt. Nemrud: hrone of the Gods (2001) Discover the eighth wonder of the ancient world in this ilm highlighting the massive ruins located on Mount Nemrud in eastern Turkey. December 19 Sign, Symbol, and Script: Origins of Written Communications and the Birth of Writing (1996) December 26, 2010, and January 2, 2011 Breasted Hall closed for the holidays. Sunday ilm showings begin again on January 9, 2011. oi.uchicago.edu FALL 2010 DONOr SPOTLIGHT PAGE 17 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO WOMEN’S BOARD M any of the projects and excavations featured in News & Notes developed from humble beginnings and with limited resources. One group that has played a critical role in the development of many of these projects is the university of Chicago Women’s Board. This summer, we were privileged to host members of the Women’s Board for a tour of our Conservation Laboratory, specifically to see the Compact Phoenix conservation laser system that Women’s Board funding provided in 2007. The Phoenix uses laser technology to remove dirt and accretions from artifacts that have spent centuries underground. The laser system made it possible for Oriental Institute conservators to take a quantum jump in the speed, precision, and effectiveness of this painstaking work. This is not the first time the Women’s Board has committed to helping the Oriental Institute. Over the years, the Women’s Board has become an integral partner in our discoveries, providing the seed funding for projects that have grown in scope and stature, such as the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project and excavations at Zincirli in Turkey, Tell Edfu in Egypt, and hamoukar in Syria. In 2009, the Women’s Board provided support for excavations at Kerkenes Dağ in Turkey, allowing the Oriental Institute to uncover this once-powerful Phrygian city. Most recently, a generous grant given by the Women’s Board to the Oriental Institute will allow us to secure an international museum loan of rare Mesopotamian tablets from Berlin for our upcoming exhibition, Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond. These are only a few of the examples where the university of Chicago’s Women’s Board has made a significant impact on Oriental Institute projects and programs. From all of us at the Oriental Institute, Thank you. Gifts such as these help us continue the high-quality research and programming for which the Oriental Institute has earned its world-class reputation. If you are interested in making a gift to the Oriental Institute or would like information on giving opportunities, please call Rebecca Silverman in the Development Office at (773) 702-5062. Conservator Laura D’Alessandro points out the results of Phoenix laser treatment on an artifact from the Oriental Institute collection Members of the Women’s Board pose for a group photo with Oriental Institute conservators Laura D’Alessandro and Alison Whyte PROJECTS FUNDED BY THE WOMEN’S BOARD     The Oriental Institute is under University of Chicago jurisdiction; the University of Chicago is a 501(c)3 organization registered within the State of Illinois. Donations to the Oriental Institute are deductible to the extent allowed by Illinois law; please check with your tax advisor for further deduction eligibility.   Kerkenes Dağ Persepolis Zincirli Tell Edfu Hamoukar Egyptian Gallery highlights book for the Museum     Visible Language special exhibit Conservation (Compact Phoenix laser system) Syriac Manuscript Project Abydos oi.uchicago.edu PAGE 18 the NEWS & NOTES oriental institute The Wonders of AncienT egypT travel Escorted by Dr. Robert K. Ritner March 12–28, 2011 Dear Members of the Oriental Institute, US to CAIRO | Saturday, March 12 Depart Chicago on Lufthansa Airlines For over a century, the Oriental Institute has been one of the foremost academic institutions working in Egypt. From James Henry Breasted’s expeditions in the early 1900s, to the establishment of the Epigraphic Survey in 1924, and down to the present day, we have had a continuous and distinguished record of research in the Nile Valley. Our unparalleled scholarly expertise is the reason why you should travel to Egypt with an Oriental Institute Travel Program. Whether this will be your first visit to Egypt or a return, we have the experience and access to show you what really counts. Our programs go far beyond the usual tours, calling upon our own in-country staff and colleagues to give you up-to-date information about current research. Our specially designed itinerary includes the most important sites from all periods of Egyptian history, even some “off the beaten track” gems. One of the highlights of the tour is the visit to Chicago House, the headquarters of the Epigraphic Survey in Luxor, where you will meet our staff of Egyptologists and artists, and hear about their vital work documenting the reliefs and inscriptions of ancient Thebes. Your tour leader, Dr. Robert K. Ritner, has been leading Oriental Institute tours to Egypt regularly for thirty years. Dr. Ritner’s familiarity with the sites, his vast knowledge, and his enthusiasm for Egypt will make this trip the experience of a lifetime. Space is limited and our tours fill rapidly — I encourage you to join us! CAIRO | Sunday, March 13 Arrive into Cairo and transfer to Mena house Oberoi hotel, located at the foot of the Great Pyramid. Gil J. Stein Director, Oriental Institute, and Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology ProGram CAIRO | Monday, March 14 We begin our touring with an exploration of Memphis and Sakkara, the necropolis of Memphis. At Sakkara we will tour the Step Pyramid complex of Djoser, which predates the Giza pyramids and is the world’s first monumental building constructed entirely in stone. We will also visit the Sakkara Museum, the smaller Pyramid of Teti, and the tombs of the nobles Ti and Ptahhotep and Mereruka. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner. CAIRO | Tuesday, March 15 Our touring today brings us to the only surviving representatives of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx. We will have an opportunity to enter one of the pyramids and to visit the museum where the remarkably preserved remains of the Solar Boat of Cheops are displayed. (B/L) CAIRO | Wednesday, March 16 The focus of this day is the Egyptian Museum where we will view the highlights of its huge collection including the mummy room and the objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun. After visiting Beit el-Sennari, the first house of Egyptology, touring continues with a walking tour of Islamic Cairo. This warren of streets is lined with a multitude of fascinating architecture. We will visit Al-Azhar Mosque, an accumulation of centuries of styles and influences. We end our walk in the renowned Suq Khan al-Khalili. (B/L/D) LUXOR | Thursday, March 17 After a morning flight to Luxor, touring begins at the magnificent sanctuary of Amun-Re at Karnak with its maze of monumental gateways, obelisks, pillared halls, and subsidiary shrines. We will also visit Karnak’s open-air museum. In the evening we will attend a special reception at Chicago house, the home of the Oriental Institute Epigraphic Survey project. (B/D) LUXOR | Friday, March 18 Today we will cross the Nile to visit the tombs of the Valleys of the Kings and Queens. Among the tombs to be visited are those of Tutankhamun and three other pharaohs selected from the tombs opened to the public today. We will also visit the tomb of Roy as well as the Temple of Queen hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri, one of the most spectacular monuments in Egypt, and the Colossi of Memnon. (B/L/D) LUXOR | Saturday, March 19 Returning to the Nile’s west bank, we tour some of the hundreds of tombs of the nobles, spread over two square miles, including the tombs of Ramose, Snefer, Menna, and Rekhmire. These tombs are of special interest for their naturalistic murals that give us an intimate view of life in ancient Egypt. We will also stop at the ancient village of the artisans, Deir el-Medina, one of the bestpreserved town sites in Egypt and the subject of the television series “Ancient Lives.” (B/L/D) Option: An early morning hot-air balloon ride over the spectacular monuments of Luxor. LUXOR | Sunday, March 20 Drive north through villages of bakedmud houses and lush cultivated lands bordering the Nile to Dendera and visit the Temple of hathor, goddess of love, music, and wine. On the roof of the temple is a plaster cast of the famous Zodiac of Dendera (original in Paris), one of three circular representations of the heavens found in Egypt. We continue to Abydos where we will tour the Temple of Seti I, viewing the famous oi.uchicago.edu FALL 2010 List of Kings and some of the most beautifully painted reliefs surviving from Pharaonic times, and the nearby small temple of Ramsses II. (B/L/D) LUXOR | Monday, March 21 This morning our luggage will be transferred to the cruise ship Amarante Nile, our floating hotel for the next four nights. Touring will continue on the west bank with the temples and chapels of Medinet habu, the largest built by Ramesses III, and the Ramesseum. The morning ends with the rarely visited tombs of Kheruef and Ankh-hor. In the late afternoon, we will visit Luxor Temple beginning at the newly renovated “Avenue of Sphinxes,” which originally linked Luxor and Karnak temples. We will examine the Roman fresco paintings restored jointly by Chicago house and the American Research Center in Egypt, as well as the open-air museum and blockyard, conserved by Chicago house. (B/L/D) EDFU | Tuesday, March 22 This morning we will drive to Esna to visit the half-buried Temple of Esna, dedicated to the ram-headed creator god Khnum-Re and dating to the Roman period. After our visit, the Amarante will make a special stop to pick us up at the Esna dock. We sail on to Edfu for the night. (B/L/D) ASWAN | Wednesday, March 23 Touring begins at the Temple of Edfu, a well-preserved Ptolemaic temple of the falcon god horus. We then sail on to Kom Ombo. Often called the Acropolis of Egypt for its spectacular site overlooking the Nile, Kom Ombo is unusual for its equal dedication to two gods, horus the Elder and the crocodile god Sobek. (B/L/D) ASWAN | Thursday, March 24 Today’s touring includes the granite quarries, where an immense, unfinished obelisk remains embedded in its native stone. We continue to the high Dam, a project that forever changed the Nile’s annual cycle. The morning ends with a visit to Philae, the Ptolemaic temple dedicated to Isis. This afternoon we sail by felucca to Elephantine Island to visit the excavations and Nilometer. (B/L/D) PAGE 19 ASWAN | Friday, March 25 We disembark this morning and fly to Abu Simbel, where the rock-cut temples of Ramesses II and his favorite queen Nefertari have been saved from the rising waters of the Nile resulting from the Aswan high Dam. Returning to Aswan, we spend the remainder of the day visiting the Museum of Nubian Civilization. (B/L/D) CAIRO | Saturday, March 26 Touring begins at the Kalabsha Temple built in the reign of Augustus on the site of an earlier sanctuary founded by Amenhotep II. In the same antiquities park we will visit the relocated GrecoRoman kiosk of Qertassi and the shrine of Ramesses II from Beit el-Wali. This afternoon we will fly back to Cairo. (B/L) CAIRO | Sunday, March 27 After a full day at leisure, we will gather for our farewell dinner. Option: A morning Old Cairo tour, which will include the Coptic Museum and the Coptic Church of Abu Sarga. (B/D) • Transfers to and from airports for tour participants arriving or departing on flights other than the group flights • Excess luggage charges • Medical expenses • Travel insurance • Beverages and items not on the menus • Items of a purely personal nature • Any items not listed PLEASE NOTE: This tour should be considered moderately strenuous. It requires walking over rough, uneven terrain, step climbing, and some long driving days. All participants are expected to be physically active and able to walk independently throughout our full touring days. For additional information or to register for The Wonders of Ancient Egypt, please contact the Oriental Institute Membership Off ice at oi-membership@uchicago.edu or at (773) 834-9777. CAIRO to CHICAGO | Monday, March 28 Transfer to the airport for our Lufthansa flights to Chicago. (B) TOUr PrICE PEr PErSON: $7,685 (includes group airfare from Chicago) SINGLE SUPPLEMENT: $1,270 LAND ONLy rATE: $6,655 (without group airfare) TOUr PrICE INCLUDES: • Transatlantic group flights from Chicago on Lufthansa Airlines • All domestic lights within Egypt • Surface travel by air-conditioned motor coach • Accommodations in deluxe hotels/Amarante Nile cruise ship based on two persons sharing a twin-bedded room with private bath as listed or similar • Meals as listed in the itinerary • Baggage handling for one suitcase per person • All gratuities to tour escorts, guides, drivers, and porters • A $400, tax-deductable contribution to The Oriental Institute DOES NOT INCLUDE: • Passport and visa fees ROBERT K. RITNER is a Professor of Egyptology at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and was from 1991 to 1996 the first Marilyn M. Simpson Assistant Professor of Egyptology at Yale University. Dr. Ritner is the author of the books The Libyan Anarchy: Inscriptions from Egypt’s Third Intermediate Period and The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice, as well as over 100 publications on Egyptian social and political history, religion, magic, medicine, language, and literature. In association with The Field Museum of Chicago, Dr. Ritner was the academic advisor for its current Egypt installation and for two British Museum exhibits. In addition, he served as consultant and lecturer for the traveling Cairo Museum exhibit Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt. He has led Oriental Institute tours to Egypt regularly for thirty years. oi.uchicago.edu PAGE 20 NEWS & NOTES ANNUAL MEMBErS’ EVENT Passport to the Middle East: Check Out Our Digs! Guests gather to enjoy Middle Eastern food presented by Occasions Chicago Catering A pril was the highlight of the Oriental Institute event season, ending with our annual Members’ Event, Passport to the Middle East: Check Out Our Digs! This year, the event gave guests an in-depth look at each of the seven Oriental Institute digs: The Galilee Prehistory Project, Tell Edfu, Tell Zeidan, Jericho, Zincirli, hamoukar, and Kerkenes Dağ. Check Out Our Digs! also served as the kick-off for our new Adopta-Dig program, which focuses on creating a partnership of discovery between donors and field researchers. The setup for this event was unique in that each of the Oriental Institute excavations had its own booth, situated at a specific place within the galleries. During the event, guests were invited to visit each booth and speak with the dig directors about their excavation seasons and findings. Each dig director prepared a booth with different props and informational tools that helped event-goers learn more about each specific dig. Middle Eastern cuisine, provided by Occasions Chicago Catering, was presented in the Robert and Deborah Aliber Persian Gallery. Fare included chicken and lamb kabobs, falafel, hummus, and dolmades. Dr. Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental Institute, raffled off six, custom-made pieces of artwork, commissioned from our very own artist, Angela Altenhofen. One drawing was specifically designed for six of the digs according to its actual landscape and native botanicals. This event would not have been possible without the assistance of the Visiting Committee Events Committee, dig directors, and the many other Oriental Institute staff members and volunteers who helped with the planning and staffing of this event. Thank you for your help in making this another successful evening! Erik Lindahl (at right) and Scott Branting (left) answer questions about Kerkenes Dağ David Schloen (far right, in back) and Eudora Struble (far left) talk to guests about the excavations at Zincirli Meghan Winston, Special Events Coordinator oi.uchicago.edu FALL 2010 PAGE 21 MEMBErS’ LECTUrES The Oriental Institute Members’ Lecture Series is a unique opportunity for supporters of the Oriental Institute to learn about the ancient Near East from world-renowned scholars. Unless specified below, lectures are held the first Wednesday of every month, October through June, at 7:00 PM in Breasted Hall at the Oriental Institute. These lectures are made possible by the generous support of Oriental Institute Members. the liByan anarchy: eGyPt anD nuBia in the era From solomon to assurBaniPal Wednesday, October 6, 2010 7:00 PM — Breasted Hall Dr. Robert K. Ritner, Oriental Institute For six centuries during the Third Intermediate Period, Egypt experienced the third and last of its eras with no single king or capital. he period is also designated the Libyan Anarchy because of the domination of the country by multiple descendants of Libyan mercenaries. Once thought to have been fully Egyptianized, these Libyans retained their native dress, names, and — most importantly — their social customs that reduced the uniied Egyptian state into zones of loosely aligned tribal authority until uniication under a former Libyan family in the Saite Renaissance. toWarDs a Better unDerstanDinG oF amarna: recent research in the city anD its main cemetery AB URBE CONDITA: early cities at hamoukar DurinG the chalcolithic anD early BronZe aGe Wednesday, November 3, 2010 7:00 PM — Breasted Hall Barry Kemp, University of Cambridge Wednesday, December 8, 2010* 7:00 PM — Breasted Hall Clemens Reichel, University of Toronto Co-sponsored by the American Research Center in Egypt Excavations at hamoukar in Syria have substantially enhanced our understanding of the emergence of cities in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. By 3500 bc this site accommodated an early walled city with complex bureaucracies. By 2200 bc it had expanded to an urban metropolis with large public buildings and elaborate private houses. his lecture presents new insights gained during the 2008 and 2010 excavation seasons at hamoukar. Amarna, the city of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, is one of the most complete examples of an ancient Egyptian city. For almost four decades, Barry Kemp has overseen excavations at Amarna, including the study of material excavated from the city’s houses and excavations at the main cemetery. In this lecture, Kemp demonstrates how recent work, including the study of human remains, has helped to bring about a better understanding of this important city and its residents. BehinD closeD Doors: an eveninG With oriental institute reGistrars The Oriental Institute Museum galleries display only a fraction of the Institute’s collection of ancient artifacts. Under the watch and Monday, November 8 care of our registrars, many of the 7:00 PM Museum’s 300,000 artifacts reside An exclusive Associate Members’ Event behind closed doors in the storerooms of the Institute. Associate Level Members are welcome to join the registrars for a special tour of these rarely seen spaces, view never-displayed collection treasures, and learn about recent improvements to Registration and artifact housing that ensure the health and safety of the collection for years to come. his is an exclusive Associate Level Members’ event and an RSVP is required. Please RSVP by October 29, 2010, to Meghan Winston, Special Events Coordinator, by calling (773) 834-9775 or e-mail: meghanwinston@uchicago. edu. For more information about becoming an Associate Level Member, please call Maeve Reed, Membership Coordinator, at (773) 834-9777 or e-mail: oi-membership@ uchicago.edu * Please note that this lecture will be held on the second Wednesday of December WATCH FOR THESE FUTURE MEMBERS’ LECTURES: visiBle lanGuaGe: the earliest WritinG systems Wednesday, January 12, 2011 Christopher Woods, Oriental Institute urBan liFe in an ancient assyrian city: results From Ziyaret tePe, turkey Wednesday, February 9, 2011 Lyn Rainville, Sweet Briar College Co-sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America oi.uchicago.edu PAGE 22 NEWS & NOTES Begin the story of Reading the Past at the Smart Museum with a tour of the special exhibit Echoes of the Past: The Buddhist Cave Temples at Xiangtangshan, followed by an exploration of the exhibition Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond at the Oriental Institute. Enjoy wine and hors d’ouevres at the Institute and hear university of Chicago Professor of Assyriology, Matthew W. Stolper, explain how 3-D digital technology is changing the way we conduct research and understand the past. Receive free classroom materials and generate ideas for connecting the disciplines of social science, technology, and the arts in your classroom while reinforcing Illinois State Goals 13, 16, 17, 25, and 26. OrIENTAL INSTITUTE/ SMArT MUSEUM OF ArT TEACHEr WOrkSHOP reaDinG the Past Thursday, November 4 4:30–7:30 PM Begins at the Smart Museum 5550 South Greenwood Ave, Chicago, IL 60637 Continues at the Oriental Institute Free Pre-registration required CPDUs: 3 Pre-registration is required as space is limited to 40 participants. Contact Kristy Peterson at the Smart Museum at (773) 702-2351 or kristypeterson@uchicago.edu to register. Learn about the stories told by sixth-century Chinese Buddhist cave sculptures and Iranian clay tablets, and how advances in today’s technology have lead to exciting new discoveries that help us “read” the past. his free teacher workshop is open to K–12 educators. PUBLIC SyMPOSIUM INVENTIONS OF WrITING In a 21st-century world flooded with written words and vast amounts of information, it is nearly impossible to imagine a time without writing. Join a panel of eminent scholars to explore how writing, an information revolution even greater than the digital revolution of today, was invented not just once but separately in four distinct times and places — ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and Mesoamerica. Find out why each of these societies invented writing, how their uses of writing difered, how their written symbols encoded language and thought, and how the presence of new ways to communicate changed life and culture in each society, a process that still continues throughout the world today. Presented in conjunction with the special exhibit Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond, speakers from the Oriental Institute include: Saturday, November 13 1:00–4:45 PM Reception: 5:00 PM Oriental Institute FREE Pre-registration required Workshop is sponsored by the university of Chicago’s Reva and David Logan Center for Creative and Performing Arts.  Janet H. Johnson, Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Egyptology  Joseph Lam, PhD candidate in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, where his focus is on Semitic Languages  Christopher Woods, Associate Professor of Sumerology and exhibit curator Guest speakers include:  Joel Palka, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Latin American Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago  Edward Shaughnessy, Lorraine J. and Herrlee G. Creel Distinguished Service Professor in Early Chinese Studies and Civilizations, University of Chicago cPDus: 5 Admission to the symposium is free but pre-registration is required. Contact Public Education at (773) 702-9507. oi.uchicago.edu FALL 2010 PAGE 23 ChiCago humaniTies FesTival aT The orienTal insTiTuTe Each year the Chicago Humanities Festival partners with the University of Chicago for a special day of programming in Hyde Park. This year’s festival theme is The Body, and two of the festival’s thirteen events are hosted by the Oriental Institute. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit: chicagohumanities.org. a mummy comes to liFe stuDyinG the BoDy: rare meDical texts oF the history oF meDicine Sunday, October 24 12 NOON–1:00 PM Breasted Hall, Oriental Institute he history of medicine is full of breakthroughs and brilliant moments — but it has had its share of breakdowns and dead ends, too. he university of Chicago Library’s recent acquisition of over 3,000 rare medical texts from Rush university ofers a fascinating glimpse into medical history, from sixteenth-century anatomy books to treatises on the insane. Join a panel of scholars who will address the relevance and value of these texts from varied perspectives. NEW PUBLICATION Sunday, October 24 2:00–3:00 PM Breasted Hall, Oriental Institute Peer into the life of an ancient Egyptian with an Egyptologist, a physician, and an artist as your guides. More than two thousand years ago, the priestess Meresamun was mummiied and entombed in a beautifully painted coin in the belief that through this process her spirit and story would live forever. he coin and mummy are centerpieces of the Oriental Institute Museum. Egyptologist Emily Teeter discusses aspects of Meresamun’s personal life and her profession as a temple musician. Dr. Michael Vannier, Professor of Radiology at the university of Chicago, shows how he used the latest CT scan technology to explore Meresamun’s health and her age at death. Joshua harker, a Chicago-area forensic artist, demonstrates how he used the CT data to reconstruct Meresamun’s physical appearance in ways that make this ancient Egyptian priestess come alive again. beyond the ubaid: transformation and integration in the late prehistoric societies of the middle east Edited by Robert A. Carter and Graham Philip Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilizations 63 Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2010 Pp. ix + 396; 147 igures, 11 tables ISBN-13: 978-1-885923-66-0 $42.95 Originally coined to signify a style of pottery in southern Iraq, and by extension an associated people and a chronological period, the term “ubaid” is now often used loosely to denote a vast Near Eastern interaction zone, characterized by similarities in material culture, particularly ceramic styles, that existed during the sixth and fifth millennia bc. This zone extended over 2,000 km, from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Straits of hormuz, including parts of Anatolia and perhaps even the Caucasus. The volume contains twenty-three papers that explore what the ubaid is, how it is identified, and how the ubaid in one location compares to another in a distant location. The papers are the result of The ubaid Expansion? Cultural Meaning, Identity and the Lead-up to urbanism, an International Workshop held at Grey College, university of Durham, 20–22 April, 2006. The book is available from the David Brown Book Company/Oxbow Books — www.oxbowbooks.com oi.uchicago.edu 2009–2010 ChiCago house bulletin ChiCago house bulletin issued by the epigraphic survey of the oriental institute, the university of Chicago Volume XXi september 2010 ChiCago house season oCtober 2009 to april 2010: a season Diary october We are back in the saddle once again for our 2009–2010 field season in Luxor and have found the city unusually lively for this time of year. Shortly after we arrived, a contingent from the Government of Egypt (GOE) came for a review of the Luxor development project, so the whole town had to be prepared, as is always the case with VIP visits, which included painting the curbstones alternating black and white, street banners, and so on. After that, on October 20th uSAID Egypt hosted a formal inauguration of the west bank dewatering program, which I was pleased to attend. It was a joyous affair in a huge tent set up alongside the Ramesseum, one of the sites that will be protected from high-groundwater salt decay by the dewatering system once it is activated in 2010. Afterward, American Research Center in Egypt Director Gerry Scott, ARCE Luxor Associate Director John Shearman, and I took around a contingent of our uSAID friends on a review of uSAID-supported projects in Luxor, ending up at Luxor Temple for a look at the current work there. Word is that the GOE has decided to dismantle the entire Corniche boulevard west of Luxor Temple and will replace it with a pedestrian walkway. This plan requires the old Corniche entryway be closed, and a new entrance to the Luxor Temple precinct be opened up on the eastern, city side of the temple. We found the construction of the new entrance well underway, along the ramp leading up to the cafe area, with a new security building built parallel to the ramp and just outside the sanctuary of the St. Thecla Church. The church is one of our future projects, near the unexcavated section of Roman mudbrick enclosure wall that abuts the eastern Luxor Temple pylon that we will be cleaning and restoring with ARCE this season. This week, I finished a round of talks with the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and ARCE that will allow us to move forward on this project, in coordination with the new SCA/GOE plan for that area. There were some surprises at Khonsu Temple as well. We found that the SCA has excavated the open area in the forecourt and exposed more reused blocks that we have the responsibility to record as part of ARCE’s documentation and restoration program, so the epigraphic team (Brett McClain, Jen Kimpton, Keli Alberts, and I) hit the ground running. The work of the SCA archaeologists — old friends Moaman Saad and Shimaa Montasser (now engaged to be married!) — revealed that the post-Pharaonic Coptic community living in the temple had removed the floor blocks and dug a deep pit in the center of the court, function unknown. On the last scheduled day of work, they found the reason. At three and a half meters down they discovered a lined well — a major piece of the puzzle, that explains the pit and missing paving. SCA Luxor Director Mansour Boraik tells me that the work will continue a few more days, then it will be filled in. In the meantime we are working on the Khonsu Temple roof until the pit is filled in and the new floor blocks are installed. We have also resumed our work at Medinet habu, where the main conservation work this season will focus on transferring fragmentary material from the old blockyard to the new one, and recording all the material on Julia Schmied’s master database. The uSAID-funded dewatering project trenching to the south and east of the temple is well underway and on schedule. Tina Di Cerbo is happily constructing one new mastaba after another in the Luxor Temple blockyard with our workmen, making terrific progress. Julia headed to Edfu today to work with Nadine Moeller at Tell Edfu, and will be back here by week’s end for a month and a half work with us; she and husband Krisztián Vértes are scheduled to return in early February. november Luxor continues to change almost daily, and because the modern landscape is directly on top of a series of ancient landscapes, the antiquities community has its work cut out for it these days. But these challenges are bringing people together. In a wonderful collaboration, the SCA, ARCE, and AERA (Mark Lehner’s Ancient Egypt Research Associates) are collaborating on another salvage archaeological field school in Luxor that this time will focus on the remnants of the Luxor Tell behind the Andraus Pasha’s houses near Luxor Temple. The one housing the National Democratic Party headquarters had already been demolished before we arrived, quite to everyone’s Chicago House Bulletin XXI, Page 1 oi.uchicago.edu 2009–2010 ChiCago house bulletin surprise. The Luxor Tell section is now rising above where the house used to be, its stratigraphy exposed like a layer cake. The surviving house, still inhabited by the descendants of Andraus Pasha, is slated for eventual demolition. The GOE wants the tell remnant, already partly excavated by Don Whitcomb and Jan Johnson in 1985–86, completely removed as part of the Corniche site-management program. Mark, the SCA, and the field school (directed by Mark and Mohsen el-Kamal), will spend two and a half months excavating it. And there is other good news: 75 acres of illegal fields and irrigation systems encroaching into Amenhotep III’s Malqata Palace and Deir el-Shelwit areas in western Thebes have been destroyed. Gurna Inspectorate director Mustafa Waziri took me on a review of the area and says that the deed was done with six bulldozers and two trucks full of police in June. Negotiations are also underway with the local landowners to purchase land abutting the antiquities areas for the construction of a protective wall around the Malkata Palace site and Roman temple at Deir el-Shelwit, based on plans drawn up by the Metropolitan Museum and Emory university team last year. Similar walls are going up around Giza and Abydos, with more to come as Egypt’s population and land needs grow. Who would have ever thought that it would come to this? … January 2010 I can’t believe that we are already well into the third week of January; the season is just shooting by. On January 9, 2010, Mark Lehner, Mohsen el-Kamal, and the SCA/ARCE archaeological field school started work on the Luxor Tell — they will be training thirty archaeology inspectors in salvage excavation and recording techniques. They have already made excellent progress, and have delineated the structures of the upper level, including the service area of the now demolished, nineteenthcentury Pasha’s house. The sphinx-road work has lurched forward as well — the GOE has decreed that a major increment of the work must be finished by March. In order to speed things up, the Egyptian army is now working with the SCA conservators on the restoration work, and several road sections look like scenes out of the movie The Ten Commandments as the army engineers and stone workers shape new stone blocks to replace the destroyed sphinx bases and road sections. Many of the Nectanebo I sphinxes along the road are totally gone, so we are preparing to hand over to the SCA all the broken-up sphinxes we recovered from the area of the great eastern Roman gate and partially reassembled in our blockyard. The SCA will finish the reassembly and place them on new bases along the newly exposed and rebuilt sphinx road. The timing is actually perfect, since the three large and several small platforms in the blockyard used for sphinx restoration can now be used for our St. Thecla Church documentation and restoration work next season. I am pleased to report that we have received a grant from the Sawiris family to catalog, document, and restore parts of this lovely sixth-century basilica — the oldest known in Luxor — whose foundations were uncovered by the SCA in 1960; only the sanctuary survives, and LOTS of architectural bits scattered around the blockyards that we will survey, move, document, and analyze next year. We will see if some restoration to the original building is possible. There have been three SCA-sponsored symposia this season. The first, on November 4th, commemorated work done after howard Carter in the Valley of the Kings. Another occurred the next day in Cairo honoring over a hundred years of hungarian archaeological work in Egypt, at which I spoke, highlighting the extraordinary art work of our hungarian staff member Krisztián Vértes. From January 3rd to 5th I participated in a three-day colloquium on Temples of Millions of Years held here in Luxor. The colloquium was extremely interesting, and a lively shouting match between two senior Egyptologists and two archaeoastronomers over Egyptian temple orientation gave the last day some additional zest. I gave a paper highlighting our Medinet habu publications, including our new volume Medinet Habu volume IX, and announced the Oriental Institute’s new digital publication program as well (free PDF downloads of every Egypt title — including all of ours — via the Oriental Institute Publications Web page). It was very well received, and our colleagues were tremendously pleased by the generosity of the Oriental Institute and its friends, particularly Lewis and Misty Gruber, who funded the scanning. Our Christmas and New Year’s celebrations were filled with cheer, and shared with a few Australian, Japanese, ARCE, and Egyptian friends and colleagues. On New Year’s Eve, we danced under a full ‘blue moon’ and beautiful stars; we even experienced a partial eclipse. It was warm that night — and actually, it’s been the warmest winter I have ever experienced here in Luxor, in the mid-80s F or higher every day, highly unusual for this time of year. At Luxor Temple stone mason Frank helmholz has just laid the last of the 111 fragments in the Amenhotep III sun court eastern wall. After I helped him tweak their position, he is mortaring everything in place and putting up the last of the sandstone backing slabs on the exterior of the wall. It looks really good, and should be done by the end of the month. It’s gigantic! I’m itching to do the reconstruction painting on the plastered area in the spaces between the fragments. We are also in the final stages of our blockyard open-air museum installation. Conservator hiroko Kariya and Tina are both working overtime to get everything ready for the opening at the end of March, and it’s looking fantastic. We have assembled 4,000 years of inscribed fragment groups in chronological sequence all along the outside of the temple to the east and have even laid a paved sandstone walkway and steel guard rails to direct the hoards of tourists along the displays. We are very, very proud of this work, which will be lit for night viewing, with labels in English and Arabic. Architect Jay heidel is also designing a series of educational panels for the main axis of the temple — long needed in Luxor Temple. This fall we also literally broke new ground and collaborated with ARCE on an archeological cleaning and restoration project (with Pam Rose as archaeologist) of the third-century ad, Roman castrum wall of Diocletian where it abuts the Chicago House Bulletin XXI, Page 2 oi.uchicago.edu 2009–2010 ChiCago house bulletin eastern Ramesses II pylon. Now that we have cleared it and defined at least its northern exterior edge, we are discussing stabilizing what’s left of the brick wall, which still stands a couple of meters high but is badly decayed, and is very much like an apple core now. Epigrapher Christian Greco is also back with us, working on his translations of all the Roman inscriptions in the Luxor Temple complex, some of which we discovered in the blockyard and are completely unknown. At Khonsu Temple Brett, Jen, and Keli continue to document the hundreds of reused blocks in the foundations and flooring of the temple prior to the ARCE floor restoration, and in the process are finding more pieces of the original, dismantled Eighteenth Dynasty Khonsu Temple and Nineteenth Dynasty additions — some of it from the time of Sety I. At Medinet habu Lotfi hassan and his crew are busy transferring material from the old blockyard to the new one we built and finished last season and in front of it are creating another open-air museum display area. Sue Osgood and Margaret De Jong are working away on drawings for the next volumes in our small Amun temple series, Margaret on the facade lintel, reinscribed by Ptolemy VIII, and Sue inside the lintel of the Akoris doorway, where she is tracing Thutmoside pillar reliefs covered by the later doorway. You never know where this work is going to take you! And as if that were not enough, we have even started the prep work for documenting and cleaning another late Amenhotep III-period private tomb, that of Nefersekheru (TT 107) the steward of Amenhotep’s Malkata Palace. With our MMA and Emory friends surveying, archaeologically investigating, and eventually restoring the palace itself (they resume next month and will be staying with us), it seemed an appropriate time to begin the condition study and preliminary documentation work of this tomb now. That, plus the fact we obtained the concession a LONG time ago, as a parallel to the Theban tomb of Kheruef (TT 192) that we published in 1980. Yarko Kobylecky and Ellie Smith will be photographing the inscribed facade within the next few weeks, and our plan is to draw the inscribed facade next season. We will plot strategy regarding the clearing of the broad hall — filled to the ceiling with debris — with Boyo Ockinga and Susanne Binder of Macquarie university who will be working with us on the project. No one has ever accessed farther than the broad hall, so, while it appears that the rest of the tomb is undecorated, there may be some interesting bits farther on. As I mentioned, this season has been full of surprises. On January 18th, I was working late in my office when Sue Osgood called to tell me that her bathroom plumbing had exploded, and that I had to get up there right away to see the damage. This was not the first time this had happened — the plumbing in our historic residence is sometimes a bit of a challenge. I didn’t find exploded plumbing, but I did find the entire Chicago house staff assembled in Sue’s balloon-filled sitting room, shouting “SuRPRISE!” and scaring me half to death. It was a surprise Heb Sed/thirty-year jubilee to commemorate my thirty-plus years working in Egypt and at Chicago house! They presented me with a photo album (with many embarrassing photos), and in a short speech Brett informed us that I had been a member of the Epigraphic Survey longer than anyone in its history (I think that the term “living legend” was used, which made everyone laugh). unbeknownst to me, the team had been preparing this event — and the photo album — for weeks. I was completely surprised, and very touched. We have a pretty extraordinary team out here. And sneaky, too. February–March We are all well as we head into the last weeks of the field season. This week the GOE started trenching along the outside of the Chicago house front wall to lay new electrical and water conduits for the new Corniche. They have closed off the road to the north and south of us, all the way to the hospital, and the Egyptian army is doing all the construction, so it’s quite a production — I don’t think that I have ever seen so many trucks and front loaders. Trenching just outside our front wall for a reinforced concrete service tunnel has already begun — I’m glad that we built our new front wall high! The March 29th opening date for the Luxor Temple blockyard open-air museum is fast approaching, and we are furiously preparing for that now. Signs made by hiroko are still going up, and the last of the stone paving slabs arrived today. I finished the restoration painting of the missing bits on the plaster between the stone fragments of all the groups in the main display area today, and have resumed working on the Amenhotep III wall — also recently finished — which is actually great fun. I am giving a lecture at the SCA Mummification Museum lecture series on our work this season and will announce the opening then to our friends, colleagues, and guides. And, after MONThS of incredible heat, the temps here dropped over 30 degrees last week, from 100+ degrees F, even at night, to 70–80 degrees during the day and the 50s–60s at night. Very sweet! We were frying out there. Our poor Malkata friends, Diana Craig Patch, Catharine Roehrig, Peter Lacovara, and Ginger Emery, staying with us during the whole month of February, experienced some of the worst of it, but made great inroads in their program. They worked in two areas of the palace, the workmen’s village near the audience pavilion, and the temple of Amun, where they have started to make sense of the different building phases. Partly due to their activity at the palace, and their surveying and mapping of the whole area last year, the SCA is really building a protective 11 km wall around the entire site. I have seen the wall with my own eyes, and it is a wonder. Quite frankly, it is the only way the site will be protected. This is the way of it now, all over Egypt. On a very happy note, on February 12th, Krisztián Vértes returned to Luxor after months of chemo and radiation therapy for a rare cancer that is now in check, al ’humdililah. Welcome back, Krisztián! Colleague Margie Fisher worked with us in February and March, and in late February she and I picked up Jay in Middle Egypt where he had just finished a surveying gig at Sheikh Abada. On our way to Cairo we stopped at Amarna, where I was surprised to see literally kilometers of green fields in the southern half of the site. I had not seen Amarna since Chicago House Bulletin XXI, Page 3 oi.uchicago.edu 2009–2010 ChiCago house bulletin 1992, and the change is profound. Even more startling was the trip north to Cairo, along the western desert road. We could see the pyramid field the entire way, from Meidum north, far to the east of us. The area between us and the pyramids for hundreds of kilometers (even the desert to the west of us as far as the eye could see), all desert only a short while ago, is now cultivated fields and orchards. The pyramids are now on a long island of desert, completely surrounded by cultivation and new suburbs! I found myself torn between admiration at the resourcefulness of the Egyptian people — who can turn the desert into lush cultivation so quickly now — and shock at this fast-growing threat to Egypt’s fragile antiquities. So, that is the challenge facing the archaeological community in Egypt. But lots of good things are happening too. The ARCE/SCA archaeological field school under the direction of Mark and Mohsen successfully excavated and recorded one of the last bits of the Luxor Tell behind the torn-down Pasha’s house/National Democratic Party headquarters. We held library orientations for the team and gave several seminars for the students on epigraphic recording techniques (one in the library, one at Khonsu Temple, and one at Medinet habu), and I attended the graduation ceremony on March 11th to help our friends celebrate. They had everything to be proud of; their accomplishment is history itself, and well done. On Monday, March 29th we opened the Luxor Temple blockyard open-air museum to the general public, a project three years in the making. The results are quite wonderful, I am very pleased to report, and well worth our efforts. Viewers are led along a protected, lit area that hugs the eastern side of the Amenhotep III temple and court. There we have mounted and reassembled more than more than sixty sets of block fragments and joined groups chronologically that range from the Middle Kingdom through to the present day, representing 4,000 years of building activity. At the north end are display platforms showing conservation issues, and a long platform dedicated to material that was recovered during the uSAIDsupported dewatering trenching around Luxor Temple, the archaeological monitoring for which was coordinated by an ARCE/SCA collaboration. The joined fragment groups represent thirty years of my personal work on the site, so I am particularly pleased to have them accessible to everyone now. One of the coolest things about the museum is the fact that we have an almost unbroken sequence of relief carving from the later dynasties, from the Twenty-ninth Dynasty through the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Viewing these groups, one after the other, one can see how the official carving styles changed and evolved over time. Much of the material will eventually go back to the various monuments from which it was quarried, so we view the museum as an organic, ever-changing facility, and there is much more to share as the years go by. We have intentionally made the labels quite spare, but this summer we will put together an online catalog linked to the Epigraphic Survey Web site, with lots of information for those who desire it. Sincerest congratulations must go to hiroko, Tina, and our intrepid workmen, who outdid themselves in the realization of this long-held dream. The culmination of the museum is to be found inside the Amenhotep III sun court around the northeastern corner, into which the public is led from the museum. We finished the restoration and reconstruction on the original wall of 111 fragments that I had partially published in the Cleveland Museum symposium proceedings Amenhotep III: Art Historical Analysis back in 1990, a gigantic bark of Amun scene, depicted resting in state in the middle of the court. The scene is preserved almost all the way up to the cabin/shrine top, with Amenhotep III presenting a huge pile of food offerings to the bark that has paused in the court on its way into the main sanctuary for the Opet Festival rituals. The wall was carved during Amenhotep III’s reign, was hacked by Akhenaten, restored by Tutankhamun, appropriated by horemheb, and enlarged by Sety I, who inscribed a restoration inscription. So, it is very sweet finally getting it re-erected where it belongs. Frank and our workmen positioned the fragments around a brick core, as Chicago house did with the restored Khonsu barge group in the Colonnade hall that was finished in 2006. Because the 111 block fragments represent only half of the decorated wall surface, I am painting the missing bits of decoration with acrylic paint (burnt umber) in simple outline, as we did in the Colonnade hall; I still have a bit more to do. I did the same thing with the joined chronological groups in the openair museum to good effect. The two areas have taken a long time to paint, but it makes everything more comprehensible for the uninitiated viewer (and certainly kept ME out of mischief the latter part of our season). This work, and the funding for the blockyard open-air museum is all thanks to the World Monuments Fund (Robert W. Wilson Challenge to Conserve Our heritage grant). Bless you! april We completed our 2009–2010 season yesterday, April 15th, and I am tying up loose ends here at the house today and tomorrow before heading for Cairo tomorrow night. I still have to pack up my office, back up my files, sign checks, plot financial strategy with finance manager Safi Ouri, and make sure that administrator Samir el-Guindy has everything he needs from me. I finished and turned in my preliminary reports for our four field projects yesterday (Luxor Temple, Medinet habu, Nefersekheru tomb, and Khonsu Temple) to our SCA friends. It’s been a wildly productive season and everyone is happy, al ’humdililah. All the staff have now left for home; Tina is still here closing up the house and will finish the last week of the month (thank you, Tina!). It’s hOT again; 106 degrees F yesterday. Most staff got away in time, but at least six ( Yarko, Brett, hiroko, Marie, Keli, and Jen) are stuck in Cairo due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland. All European airports are now closed, which is surreal. We are all praying that the wind picks up and blows the ash away soon. It is always an adventure out Chicago House Bulletin XXI, Page 4 oi.uchicago.edu 2009–2010 ChiCago house bulletin here, but no one expected a volcano in Iceland to affect us here in Egypt! Once again, let me extend my heartfelt thanks to the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities and to Chairman Dr. Zahi hawass for another productive collaboration this season. Sincerest thanks as well to those of you who faithfully and generously support our preservation work in Luxor; bless you all. If you find yourselves in Luxor and would like to stop by and see our work and facility, please contact us in advance to determine the best time for a meeting. Chicago house is open from October 15th until April 15th each year, and is closed Saturday afternoons and Sundays. To arrange a visit during the season, please contact the Oriental Institute Membership Office at (773) 834-9777, or contact me, Epigraphic Survey Director Ray Johnson, directly at: wr-johnson@uchicago.edu. ADDRESSES OF ThE EPIGRAP hIC SuRVEY October through March: April through September: Chicago house The Oriental Institute Luxor 1155 East 58th Street Arab Republic of Egypt Chicago, IL 60637 TEL: (011) (20) (95) 237-2525 TEL: (773) 702-9524 FAX: (011) (20) (95) 238-1620 FAX: (773) 702-9853 All photographs, except where otherwise noted, are digital images taken by Ray Johnson. Chicago House professional staff 2009–2010. Top row, left to right: Brett McClain, Jen Kimpton, Keli Alberts, Christian Greco; Second row from top: Mohamed Abou el-Makarem, Girgis Samwell, Samir el-Guindy, Sai Ouri, Frank Helmholz; Third row from top: Dina Hassan and Nino, Nahed Samir and Joia, Nan Ray, Marie Bryan, Anait Helmholz; Balustrade left: Loti Hassan and Kiko; Balustrade right: Yarko Kobylecky; Bottom row: Hiroko Kariya, Sue Osgood, Jay Heidel, Ray Johnson, Ellie Smith, and Sue Lezon. Photo by Yarko Kobylecky and Sue Lezon Chicago House Bulletin XXI, Page 5 oi.uchicago.edu 2009–2010 ChiCago house bulletin New entryway to Luxor Temple Inspector Ghada drawing a loose block at Khonsu Temple Keli tracing Khonsu Temple loor block Brett collating Khonsu Temple court foundation block Chicago House Bulletin XXI, Page 6 oi.uchicago.edu 2009–2010 ChiCago house bulletin Khonsu Temple court reused Sety I block Brett, Jen, and Keli collating in the Khonsu Temple court Keli’s foil vulture rubbing Khonsu Temple block drawing by Krisztián Keli drawing the vulture loor block in the Khonsu Temple court ambulatory Khonsu Temple court ambulatory new loor blocks in place after documentation Chicago House Bulletin XXI, Page 7 oi.uchicago.edu 2009–2010 ChiCago house bulletin Khonsu Temple roof fragment tracings by Keli Khonsu inscribed by Ramesses IV Khonsu Temple roof work Medinet Habu blockyard moving Julia photographing in the Medinet Habu blockyard Medinet Habu blockyard conservation area Chicago House Bulletin XXI, Page 8 oi.uchicago.edu 2009–2010 ChiCago house bulletin Medinet Habu prisoner heads block Medinet Habu blockyard Ramesses III lintel reassembly Medinet Habu blockyard block moving by Frank and crew Sue drawing reliefs hidden by the lintel at Medinet Habu Sue Osgood inside the Akoris lintel at the top of the scaffolding at Medinet Habu Chicago House Bulletin XXI, Page 9 oi.uchicago.edu 2009–2010 ChiCago house bulletin Margaret demonstrating drawing techniques during the ield school epigraphy seminar at Medinet Habu Nefersekheru epigraphic team Nefersekheru decorated facade being photographed by Yarko Nefersekheru unexcavated broad hall interior being examined by Boyo Ockinga Nefersekheru’s title: Steward of the palace ‘Nebmaatre is the Dazzling Aten’ Nefersekheru tomb from above Chicago House Bulletin XXI, Page 10 oi.uchicago.edu 2009–2010 ChiCago house bulletin Roman wall excavations at Luxor Temple, December 2009 Roman wall excavation documentation at Luxor Temple Jay and Pieter Collet surveying the Roman wall at Luxor Temple Sami and Saber installing lamps in the blockyard open-air museum Luxor Temple Roman wall archeological team Pam, Jay, and Andrew Bednarski Luxor Temple blockyard open-air museum path construction Chicago House Bulletin XXI, Page 11 oi.uchicago.edu 2009–2010 ChiCago house bulletin Display mastaba construction Display mastaba inishing Hiroko inilling the Nectanebo II group Nectanebo II fragment group construction Coptic dove from a lintel in the open-air museum Nectanebo II group inished for display Chicago House Bulletin XXI, Page 12 Alaa plastering the inilled surface of the Nectanebo group oi.uchicago.edu 2009–2010 ChiCago house bulletin Egyptian creatures display Open-air museum crew Open-air museum central area Open-air museum south Open-air museum opening March 29, 2010. photo by Yarko Ptolemy XII cat detail Chicago House Bulletin XXI, Page 13 oi.uchicago.edu 2009–2010 ChiCago house bulletin Colonnade Hall Amun and Mut Dyad cleaning by Siska and Hiroko Dewatering display and Colonnade Hall Luxor Temple orientation panel designed by Jay Heidel Amenhotep III wall construction Sety I group Chicago House Bulletin XXI, Page 14 Amenhotep III outer wall slab construction oi.uchicago.edu 2009–2010 ChiCago house bulletin Amenhotep III outer wall inished Amenhotep III outer wall slabs being mortared into place Amenhotep III interior, inscribed wall being positioned by Frank, January 2010 Amenhotep III wall being plastered and inilled by Salah The inished, restored Amenhotep III wall Ray painting missing details on the plaster between the blocks on the Amenhotep III wall. Photo by Jay Heidel Chicago House Bulletin XXI, Page 15 oi.uchicago.edu 2009–2010 ChiCago house bulletin SCA conservator Saleh restoring a Nectanebo I sphinx before moving Sphinx-moving in February Sphinx being restored on sphinx road Thecla Church blocks Service tunnel trench outside Chicago House, March 24, 2010 Corniche service tunnel and riverbank construction, June 2010 Chicago House Bulletin XXI, Page 16 oi.uchicago.edu PAGE T H E 40 NEWS & NOTES OrIENTAL INSTITUTE THE SUQ The University of Chicago 1155 East 58th Street • Chicago, Illinois • 60637 (773) 702-9514 CORNER NEW AT THE SUQ visible language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond Catalog for the new exhibit of the same name Pp. 240, 103 color pages Member’s Price: $26.95 Suq, The Oriental Institute Gift Shop • Telephone: (773) 702-9509 • E-mail: oi-suq@uchicago.edu