oi.uchicago.edu THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO FOURTH EDITION OF THE HANDBOOK REVISED SEPTEMBER, 1935 oi.uchicago.edu 1HE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE BUILOI G, SEEN FROM THE l'<ORTHWEST The results of the Institute's field operations, extending from Turkey quarters buildjng, Fiveexhibition halls and a lecture hall occupy the ground through Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, and Egypt, are gathered for exhibi floor. The other floors are devoted to administration, teaching, and research. tion, study, and public~tion at this scienrific and administrative head- The basement conrains shops, photographic laboratOries, and stOrage. oi.uchicago.edu T ABLE OF CONTENTS I. THE PURPOSE AND HISTORY OF THE ORIEN'fAL INSTITUTE 1 II. THE FIELD EXPEDITIONS 5 Egypt and Northeast Africa 5 The Prehistoric Survey 5 The Sakkarah Expedition 9 The Coffin Texts Project 11 The Abydos Project 13 Theban Tomb Paintings 13 The Epigraphic and Architectural Survey 17 Western Asia 25 The Megiddo (Palestine) Expedition 27 The Syrian-Hittite Expedition. 32 The Anatolian-Hittite Expedition 35 The Iraq Expedition, 41 Babylonian Excavations 41 Assyrian Excavations 51 The Iranian Expedition , 54 III. THE AMERICAN HEADQUARTERS AND HOME RESEARCHES 64 The Oriental Institute Building 64 The Assyrian Dictionary 64 The Archeological Corpus 65 Other Research Projects 66 IV. TilE PUllLICATIONS OF THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE 69 The Field Expeditions 69 Other Projects 73 V. THE PERSONNEL OF THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE 76 VI. THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE MUSEUM. PLANS AND HOURS 80 oi.uchicago.edu •• ___ ./-'P6 ...•.; '!. ...... . ....... '''\ ;' ... ) " ·• .~ ••••••• ,,6.r. TEHERAN RAY I R A ' N ~ SEA ARABIAN OESER * REFERENCE = EXPEDITIONS OF THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE, EXCEPT THE PREHISTORIC SURVEY EXPEDITION, WHICH IS A MOBILE UNIT ~ = FERTILE CRESCENT MAP SHOWING THE FIELD OPERATIONS OF THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE IN THE NEAR EAST The enrire region comprises the Highlal,d ZOl1e in the north, the Desert is a mobile unit, the Prehistoric Survey cannot be indicated by a Star. It and the Nile Valley in the south, and the Fmil, Crescent lying between the will be seen that the expeditions have been strategically distributed, with Desert and the Highland Zone. Stars indicate the locations of the Insti six expeditions in Asia--one at each end of the Highland Zone and others tutc's field expeditions or other scientific projects. These comprise a total at four poinrs along the Fertile Crescent-and likewise six expeditions in of twelve undertakings. of which eleven are still in progress. Because it Egypt and Northeast Africa. oi.uchicago.edu I THE PURPOSE AND HISTORY OF THE ORIENT AL INSTITUTE The Rise of Man: A Challenge The Oriental Institute is a research laboratory for the investigation of the early human career. It endeavors to trace the course of human development from the merely physical man disclosed by the paleontologist to the rise and early advance of civilized societies, the product of a social and material ev olution culminating in social idealism. A generation of archeologicar research has dispelled all doubts as to the scene of this evolution, which is now recognized as having been the ancient Near East, the region folded like a horseshoe around the eastern end of the Mediterranean. The ancient lands of this region today constitute an almost inexhaustible storehouse filled with perishing and still unsalvaged evidences disclosing early human development. Heretofore no comprehensive and sys tematic effort has been made to save and study as a whole these enormous bodies of perishing evidence. Fully recognized, this situation has formed a challenge to modern science and has laid upon it a twofold responsibility: first, the task of salvaging this evidence by scientifically organized and well equipped field expeditions; and second, the study, the constructive interpre tation, and the correlation of the great bodies of evidence which may thus be gathered. The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago was organized to meet this challenge and to aid in enriching modern knowledge with a fuller vision of the rise of man, which in itself constitutes the greatest event in the history of the universe as far as it is known to us. Rescuing the Original Evidence In endeavoring to fulfil its purpose, the Institute operates from its Ameri can headquarters at the University of Chicago, where it carries on a series of researches continually fed by the foreign investigations of its field expedi tions, which have operated along a front of some thirty-five hundred miles, from the southern shores of the Black Sea on the north, eastward to southern Iran (Persepolis and vicinity), thence to Northeast Africa on the west and the Upper Nile on the south (see map). Since it began field work in 1919, the Institute has dispatched or maintained some twenty-six scientific missions, [ 1 ] oi.uchicago.edu THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE reconnaissance surveys, or expeditions carrying on long-ccntinued field opera tions. Of these undertakings, eleven are still operating as more or less permanent projects which must be continued for years to come. In these operations the Institute is endeavoring gradually to salvage the original evi dence for the compilation of a new and fuller history of civilization. It is slowly recovering the fragments of the world's greatest epic, the Conquest of Civilization. In the Oriental Institute's quest for the lost books of that epic there is something of high romance which imbues the Institute's staff both at home and abroad with an eagerness to discern more fully the causes and the nature of that mysterious and persistent buoyancy of the human spirit which, in spite of declining intervals, has made the direction of the human movement from the beginning-probably for several hundred thou sand years-a rising line. These operations involve adequate housing in the field and complete equipment with modern mechanical devices, the machinery and inventions of modern man, brought to bear upon a quest for the true story of man's rise from a dim past, discernible only in part. Frequently these modern devices have resulted in bringing to light the ingenuity of ancient man, who had already anticipated, however crudely, many of the mechanical and even intellectual developments of our present age. This fourth edition of the Oriental Institute Handbook is intended to sum marize briefly the progress of Institute activities, as seen in the various scientific projects which it is now carrying on both in America and in the Near East. The Creation of the Oriental Institute The action by the Trustees of the University of Chicago creating the Orien tal Institute in the spring of 1919 was made possible by the generosity of Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The subsequent growth of the Institute has likewise been due not only to further support from the same generous donor but also to substantial appropriations by the General Education Board and the Inter national Education Board, as well as to gifts from Mr. Julius Rosenwald, Mr. Theodore W. Robinson, the Hon. Robert P. Lamont, Mr. Henry J. Patten, and others, including one anonymous donor. This support has made it possible to transform what was once a university department of oriental languages and literatures into an investigative body a research group, to whose ranks have been added other specializing investi gators having no teaching duties and appointed solely to carryon a series of related research projects in the vast field of early human development upon which modern life has been built up. Geographically considered, this field, as we have already indicated, is the ancient Near East. Its permanent Egyp tian headquarters are at Luxor (see Figs. 20-21); its three headquarters in [2 ] oi.uchicago.edu PURPOSE AND HISTORY Asia-one for Palestine, one for Syria, and one for Iraq (Babylonia and Assyria)-are shown in Figures 30, 31, and 37. Its administrative headquar ters, where the control of all field projects is centralized, are in the Oriental Institute building (frontispiece) on the quadrangles of the University of Chi cago. Here also original monuments and documents from the field are studied and displayed, and the home research projects are carried on. The Oriental Institute is an integral part of the University, and its funds are intrusted to and administered by the University's Board of Trustees. FIG. I.-THE RECONNAISSANCE EXPEDITION OF 1919/20 MEETS SHEIKH SUWAN OF THE SABKHAII ARABS ABOVE DEIR EZ-ZOR ON THE MIDDLE EUPHRATES Sheikh Suwan, the second figure from the left, was the head of a powerful group of Arabs. At that time he was basing great hopes on President Wilson and the Fourteen Points, knowlcd,":e of which had reached him even in this far-away Arab wilderness. The first venture of the new Institute immediately after its foundation in 1919 was a preliminary survey of the Near East, beginning in Egypt and ex tending through Western Asia, especially Mesopotamia (Fig. 1), with the purpose of developing plans for excavation and field research. This survey, involving a hazardous journey of twenty thousand miles through regions at that time still fraught with active warfare, revealed unparalleled opportuni ties for archeological field work of many kinds. The story of this fruitful venture appeared under the title The Oriental Institute-a Be,'l,illning ant! a Program (now out of print), which formed No.1 in the Oriental Institute's "Communications" series. The projects which have grown out of this pre liminary reconnaissance and from subsequent explorations are descri bed in [ 3 ] oi.uchicago.edu THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE the following pages. A fuller account of the background and history of the Institute up to the beginning of 1933 is given by the Director, James Henry Breasted, in The Oriental Institute (Volume XII of . 'The Uni versity of Chicago Survey"), on sale in the lobby of the Oriental Institute building. "The Human Adventure" In 1934 the Oriental Institute released an eight-reel talking picture called "The Human Adventure" (screening time, 72 minutes). This film represents an altogether new type of educa tional endeavor. It sketches the rise of man from savagery to civiliza tion in terms of the Institute's re searches. The picr.ure was produced under the scientific supervision of Dr. Breasted, who appears on the screen and contributes a portion of the introduction. The story was writ ten by Mr. Charles Breasted, who directed the production and whose voice narrates the story from the screen. "The Human' Adventure" is dis tributed solely by Mr. Wendell G. Shields, 1270 Sixth Avenue, Rocke feller Center, New York City, to whom all inquiries regarding rental should be addressed. For the time being, the film is available only in FIG. 2.-THE GREAT COLUMNS IN THE TEMPLE 35-millimeter size. For those nct OF KARNAK A scene from the Institute's talking picture, ha ving sound-picture reproducing "The Human Adventure." equipment, the distributor will pro vide the finest available sound equipment and will be responsible for all details of exhibition. [ 41 oi.uchicago.edu II THE FIELD EXPEDITIONS EGY PT AND NORTHEAST AFRICA THE PREHISTORIC SURVEY It is obvious that the study of earliest man must carry the investigator back into the geological ages; hence the Institute's investigations in the Near East have been extensively concerned with the problems of natural science, especially geology. Under Dr. Kenneth S. Sandford of Oxford University as field director the Institute organized a Prehistoric Survey which undertook the first detailed investigation of the geological history of the Nile Valley in connection with a careful search for the earliest evidences of the appearance of man. That expedition has now completed an archeological survey of the earliest geologically dated evidences of man in Northeast Africa, extending for more than seventeen hundred miles inland from the mouths of the Nile (Fig. 3). Back in Oligocene times, millions of years ago, the Nile began as a colossal stream carrying northward the drainage of all Northeast Africa across the North African Plateau (now the Sahara) to the predecessor of the Mediter ranean Sea. It transported enormous masses of gravel, which now lie spread over vast areas of the Sahara. Here and there lie also silicified or petrified tree trunks as much as seventy feet long, brought down on the waters of this mighty Oligocene river. There is no evidence of man's presence along this earliest Nile. Earliest Evidences of Man Yet Discovered in the Near East Somewhat east of its earliest course this drainage began to cut a channel which finally deepened and expanded into the present Nile Valley. Along this later Nile the Survey discovered a stretch of over sixty miles of former Nile bed (now dry) some sixty feet in depth, and at the bottom of this gravel bd they found stone implements wrought by the hands of man and marking for us the advent of man in Egypt. The age of these implements is early Pleistocene. That is, in terms of European geological history they go far back into the European Ice Age, although there was, of course, no Ice Age in North Africa. These implements are therefore the oldest human artifacts yet found in the Near East. The American data for establishing the length of the Ice Age are better than those available in Europe. The general verdict of [5 ] oi.uchicago.edu FIELD EXPEDITIONS American geologists is that the Ice Age began about a million years ago. In that case the earliest stone implements of Egypt are a million years old. Most European geologists and archeologists favor a much later date. The Desiccation of North Africrl and the Age of the Sahara Even more important than this new observation is a group of very instruc tive discoveries made by the Prehistoric Survey in the Faiyum Lake depres- FIG. 3.-THE PREHISTORIC SURVEY IN CAMP AMONG THE GRAVEL HILLS AND SAND DRIFTS IN THE SAHARA DESERT WEST OF THE NILE BETWEEN SAKKARAH AND THE FAIYUM sion in the Sahara Plateau on the west side of the Nile, sixty miles above Cairo. Here sllccessive lake terraces, discovered by the Survey, disclose the stages of the shrinking lake. These terraces, like the sinking sand in an hour glass, mark off the falling waters of the lake (Fig. 4) and the advancing desiccation of North Africa. This piece of research has for the first time disclosed the date of the desicca tion which created the Sahara Desert. It began in the middle of the Paleo lithic or Old Stone Age. Such a tremendous change completely transformed the life of man on the North African Plateau. The discovery that Paleolithic man was exposed to this change is one of far-reaching importance. We have long known that Paleolithic man on the l10rth side of the Mediterranean was exposed to the advance of ice and the rigors of the Ice Age; now we see that on the south side of the Mediterranean Paleolithic man was exposed to desicca- [6J