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UPM'S
RESEARCH IN IRAQ
The University of Pennsylvania Museum has a long history of field work in the Middle East, beginning with the late 19th century excavations at Nippur, early Mesopotamia’s pre-eminent religious center, in what is today Iraq. The Nippur excavations were the first American archaeological project in that part of the world. Since that time the Museum has worked in nearly every country in the Middle East, with research including not only archaeological surveys and excavations, but also ethnographic studies. In addition to work at Nippur, carried out from 1888-1900 and again in the late 1940s and early 1950s (with the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago), the Museum joined with the British Museum to support excavations at Tell al-Muqayyar (the ancient site of Ur), directed by Sir Leonard Woolley, from 1922-1934. In the same years the Museum also worked at Tepe Gawra, an important prehistoric site near Mosul in northern Iraq, Khafaje, in the lower Diyala River basin near Baghdad, and Fara (ancient Shuruppak) in the center of the floodplain. UPM’s Mesopotamian collections cover a period of time ranging from 5000 B.C. to the early Islamic period (8th or 9th centuries). Perhaps the best known artifacts are from the Royal Cemetery of Ur, a burial ground with more than 2000 internments, including those of the kings and queens who ruled the city-state ca. 2500 BC. They include the personal jewelry of Puabi, the queen, and the "ram-in-the thicket," a statuette of a goat rampant in a tree. The "ram-in-the-thicket" is made of shell, lapis lazuli, gold and copper and typifies early Mesopotamian composite art. The Mesopotamia storeroom also holds smaller collections from other parts of the Middle East, including Palmyrene sculptures and south Arabian artifacts from Yemen. |
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FROM
THE ARCHIVES:
The
Museum’s Photographic Archives contains extensive records and images
taken on the expeditions mentioned above. Given the focus of this web
feature, the Museum has posted highlights from the photographic collections,
offering a small overview of the thousands of prints that are available
to the public for private or scholarly use. For general information on
ordering prints, whether for your home, your office, or your publication,
click here.
To view the samples of the collections, choose a site:
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