100 Years of Discovery: The OI Museum Staff's Favorite Objects
Statue of Tutankhamun (King Tut) at the OI. Courtesy of the Oriental Institute, Photo Michael Tropea.
By Ellen Wiese
Excavations in Persepolis, Iran in the 1930s. Courtesy of the Oriental Institute.
This academic year, the Oriental Institute is celebrating 100 years of pioneering research and study of the earliest civilizations in the ancient Middle East. Since its founding in 1919, the OI has conducted field-defining research including excavations, field projects, and linguistic research. These projects have uncovered new ways of seeing what connects humans and why—providing insights into the ancient world and the challenges societies still face today, from environmental change to immigration to disruptive technologies.
Their centennial exhibition, “We Start Here: The OI at 100,” commemorates the journey that brought them to this significant birthday, charting the highlights of a century of discovery and research. The OI Museum also completed a multi-million dollar renovation in time for the centennial. As part of this project, 500 objects are being displayed to the public for the first time, including a fragment of the oldest known manuscript of A Thousand and One Nights, statues from the Tell Asmar Hoard, and everyday objects from grooming kits to toys.
Although the scope of the OI’s collections is immense, many of the objects hold personal significance to those who visit and work here. The institution flourishes due to the efforts of a diverse, dedicated team who engage with the objects every day. To celebrate the museum’s centennial, UChicago Arts stopped by to chat with OI team members from conservators to security guards about the pieces on display that mean the most to them.
For more information and the most up-to-date schedule of OI Centennial events, visit oi100.uchicago.edu.
Susan Allison
Associate Registrar
Statue; limestone, paint. Egypt, Medinet Habu, Late Period (724–333 BC). Excavated in 1929. E14380A–D
This Late Period stone statue of a seated female, excavated by OI archaeologists at Medinet Habu, is somewhat of a hidden treasure. It has only come out of storage once in the past decade. It remains unpublished and there was no modern photography of it until 2019. Although the statue isn’t pristine, the colors are striking, and I selected it because of my interest in Egyptian statuary. The OI Museum has 5,000 objects on display, and another 350,000 in storage, the vast majority excavated by OI archaeologists. As one of the Registrars, I’m responsible for the maintenance of the collection. Registrars track all object movements, perform regular inventories, coordinate research requests, and perform many other duties that allow me to discover wonderful objects locked away in a cabinet.
Joseph Barabe
Docent
Annuity contract; papyrus, ink. Egypt, attributed to Faiyum, Hawara. Late Period, Dynasty 30, year 17 of Nektanebo I (December 22, 365 BC–January 20, 364 BC). Purchased in Cairo, 1933. E17481
As a docent, I love showing this beautiful document on display in the Egyptian gallery on my tours. It’s a marriage annuity contract, more of a pre-nuptial agreement than a wedding license. It fits in well with the cast of the Rosetta Stone just to its right, which includes another example of Demotic writing dating to the second century BC. The calligraphy of the contract, with its sweeping, large cursive style, is gorgeous! It’s also enlightening as a contract: it guarantees the wife a secure living, whether living with her husband or not, and the promise that all of the wife’s children will be heirs to the husband’s property. The husband cannot escape the marriage by giving back the 30 pieces of silver, but the wife can! All in all, it’s an ancient object that, in timely fashion, shows the important status of women in ancient Egypt.
Jeff Cumonow
Museum Archivist
Column base; basalt. Turkey, Tell Tayinat, Building I, Iron Age II (900–750 BC). Excavated in 1937. A27859
This column base from the site of Tell Tayinat (ancient Kunulua) in the Amuq Valley in southern Turkey is one of my favorite objects displayed in the OI Museum not just because it is an attractively symmetrical example of the makeup of a beautiful complex within a Neo-Hittite city, but because it is so well documented. As Museum Archivist, I spend much of my time working with materials from the last 100 years of research undertaken by the OI. This column base was excavated between 1935 and 1938 by the OI’s Syrian-Hittite Expedition between 1935 and 1938, and some of the photographs of it are the most iconic images of the period. These photos can be found in the hallways of the OI and serve as a reminder of a century of OI archaeology and the excitement of discovery.
Calgary Haines-Trautman
Youth and Family Program Coordinator
Bowl with bread; Copper alloy, bread. Egypt. Third Intermediate Period, Dynasties 21–23 (1081–711 BC). Purchased in Egypt, 1926–27. E13641A–G, I–K
I find this ancient Egyptian bread to be one of the most astounding items in the Egyptian Gallery. I know mummies are also made of organic materials that have survived for thousands of years, but for me, it is this bowl of bread that truly drives home the improbability of any of this surviving, and how intensely ancient Egyptians strove to preserve the materials of their lives for all eternity. It’s easy to imagine monuments and carefully preserved mummies making it through the millennia to tell their stories, and that some of our grand constructions from today will endure, but I doubt a single slice of bread from today will survive to AD 5000. When I show this to kids, I’m always happy to find them just as floored as I am—and that they are also intrigued by the fact that ancient people whose lives that feel so distant from ours also made and ate bread (and loved it enough to take to the afterlife, too).
OI archaeologists excavating the citadel gate at Khorsabad (ancient Dur-Sharrukin) in Iraq, 1934. Courtesy of the Oriental Institute.
Kiersten Neumann
Curator, Research Associate
Statue; gypsum (with modern restoration). Iraq, Dur-Sharrukin, Nabu Temple, Forecourt. Neo-Assyrian period, reign of Sargon II (721–705 BC). Excavated in 1933. A11808
The statue photographed here is one of a pair of statues of divine attendants that once flanked the main entrance to the forecourt of the Nabu Temple in the city of Dur-Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad), capital of the Assyrian Empire during the reign of king Sargon II. In this ancient context, they marked the entrance to a ritualized space where practices fundamental to maintaining the support and good will of the gods were carried out. When I look at this statue, I’m not just affected by its robust visual attributes—recalling that the statues would have been painted in antiquity and how impactful such polychrome would have been, alongside the intricate carving and articulated facial features—but I also think about its potential for interaction and perhaps even touch; for example, the square block with saucer-like hollows atop its head suggests that temple personnel may have placed dishes or other objects on this surface that were connected to temple practice. If they contained liquid, this might have evoked the four streams of water that are carved into its body as if flowing from the vessel clasped in its hands.
Philip Halpern
Docent
Cast of the law code of Hammurabi; man-made materials. Purchased in Paris, 1931. C478. Cast after the original: basalt or diorite. Iran, Susa. Old Babylonian period, reign of Hammurabi (1792–1750 BC). Excavated in 1901–02. Musée du Louvre, Paris
In 1901 at the ancient site of Susa, located in present-day Iran, Jacques de Morgan uncovered an imposing black diorite stone slab known as “Hammurabi’s Code” which he brought back to Paris and now resides in the Louvre. The OI is fortunate to possess a perfect replica. The divine figure sitting atop the stele was the god of light and justice, known as Utu in Sumerian and Shamash in Akkadian. King Hammurabi of Babylon, the man standing, received the rod and ring from Shamash and thus gained divine authenticity to reign.
Three themes related to the stele fascinate me. First, how Hammurabi’s complex political and social motivations resulted in the promulgation of human and property rights. Second, how the Elamite King Šutruk-Nahhunte I, who ruled six centuries after Hammurabi and reigned 300 miles to the east, looted the stone with the intent to usurp the cultural, religious, and artistic bounty of the Babylonians. Third, how the early codification and standardization of rules and measures have influenced our own concept of justice and commerce.
Ella Parker
Museum Guard
Relief fragments; limestone, paint. Egypt, Deir el-Bahri, Tomb 312. Late Period, Dynasty 26, reign of Psamtik I (664–610 BC). By exchange with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1950. E18236AA, AB, AC, B–C, E, H–I, K–L, O, Q–U, Y–Z
My chosen object is the group of relief fragments from the tomb of Nespakashuty, a vizier of Upper Egypt and also the mayor of Thebes, in the Egyptian gallery. On these fragments are several sections of graffiti, written in both Demotic and Coptic. As a gallery guard, one of my roles is to fearlessly combat the human instinct to touch, violate, and engage with that which has been designated untouchable. The graffiti on this wall is one of my favorite objects because it plays at this concept. Taunting each passerby, it is unable to be physically engaged with in its modern, preservative museum setting and yet boasts clear evidence of its having been vandalized in the past.
It’s a bit surreal, handling artifacts that were handmade by people so long ago, and recalling the figurines’ domestic and ceremonial significance for people at the time. –Josh Tulisiak
Josh Tulisiak
Manager, Exhibition Design and Production
Figurines and plaques; clay. Iraq. Ubaid–Parthian periods (5800 BC–AD 224)
This display of clay figurines from Mesopotamia represents about 5,000 years of human history, from a small female figure decorated with paint to a significantly larger female figure adorned in a garment. I think it is fascinating that such large quantities of these have been preserved, all with distinct characteristics. The installation process made me appreciate these even more, as I was tasked with designing the layout and installing each figurine on the wall via processes that ranged from using a variety of very tiny pins to some more robust metal work. As is the case with most of the artifacts we have on display, great care and attention to detail was executed while preparing these for exhibition, as some of these figurines are over 7,000 years old. It’s a bit surreal, handling artifacts that were hand-made by people so long ago, and recalling the figurines’ domestic and ceremonial significance for these people at the time.
Alison Whyte
Associate Conservator
Glazed bricks with part of a bull; baked clay, glaze (with modern restoration). Iraq, Dur-Sharrukin, Courtyard XXVII, panel left of entrance to the Sin Temple. Neo-Assyrian period, reign of Sargon II (721–705 BC). Excavated in 1932. A11810.147–150, 156–158, 163
One of my favorite things at the museum are these glazed bricks from the Sin Temple façade at Dur-Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad), capital of the Assyrian Empire under king Sargon II. The OI excavated this temple along with other royal buildings atop the citadel of Dur-Sharrukin and parts of the lower town from 1929–35. When I joined the conservation laboratory in 2001, a project to stabilize this portion of the bricks was underway and I was thrilled to be a part of it. This section shows the head of a bull, but there are many more bricks from the temple façade in storage. All together they formed a colorful processional scene of animals and other figures in blue, yellow, white, and black glazes. One of the most interesting aspects to me is that there are a series of markings on the unglazed sides that helped the ancient bricklayer place the bricks correctly so the design would come out accurately. Many of the remaining bricks are in need of treatment and the conservation department is really excited to begin a new initiative to stabilize more of them for potential display in the future.
Learn more about OI Centennial events at oi100.uchicago.edu.