Mace Head Misidentified as a Fidget Spinner
A photo of this object, currently on display in our Mesopotamian Gallery, was included in a tweet that recently went viral on the internet with nearly 100,000 likes – and counting. The tweet mistakenly identified the artifact as an early version of the modern-day fidget spinner. It is actually a mace head from ancient Mesopotamia.
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New Book by Clifford Ando and Seth Richardson Explores the Ancient State
A new book edited by Clifford Ando, David B. and Clara E. Stern Professor of Humanities and Professor of Classics, History, Law and in the College, and Seth Richardson, Research Associate and Managing Editor of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, explores "the ways in which early states built their territorial, legal, and political powers before they had the capabilities to enforce them" across three continents.
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Oriental Institute Acquisitions Policy approved
On May 10, 2017 the Oriental Institute Voting Members approved an acquisitions policy for the Oriental Institute Museum.
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Lynn Welton will give a lecture on "The Regeneration of Northern Levantine Society in the Early Iron Age"
Lynn Welton will give a lecture about "Reconstructing Identities in a Dark Age: The Regeneration of Northern Levantine Society in the Early Iron Age" on Friday, June 2, 2017, at 4:30 PM in room 146 of Saieh Hall. The lecture is the inaugural CMES Friday lecture on the ancient Middle East.
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Audio from Past Members Lectures Digitized
The Oriental Institute Museum Archives is currently working on a project to digitize the audio-visual materials in the collections of the Oriental Institute. As part of that project, the audio recordings, originally copied on cassette tape, are being digitized and uploaded to the Oriental Institute's YouTube channel. Although the original recordings vary in quality, the digitized audio in many cases represent one of the few, if only, opportunities to hear the voices from great scholars past and present.
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Christopher Woods Appointed Director of the Oriental Institute
Dr. Christopher Woods, Professor of Sumerian, has been appointed the thirteenth director of the Oriental Institute. He will begin his tenure as directoy on July 1, 2017, succeeding Dr. Gil Stein, Professor of Archaeology, who has served as Oriental Institute Director since 2002. Woods, who has degrees from Yale University and Harvard University, has published widely on Sumerian linguistics and culture, including his book on The Grammar of Perspective: The Sumerian Conjugation Prefixes as a System of Voice. He has also served as Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Near Eastern Studies and administered the Oriental Institute's Post-Doctoral Scholars program.
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Lecture by Bernd Müller-Neuhof on "The 4th Millennium Hillfort Pheonomenon of the Jawa Hinterland"
Bernd Müller-Neuhof will give a lecture about "Did South Levantine Urbanization Emerge in the East? The 4th Millennium Hillfort Pheonomenon of the Jawa Hinterland" on Thursday, May 11, 2017, at 12:00 PM in the LaSalle Banks Room of the Oriental Institute.
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Lecture by Aydogdy Kurbanov on "Archaeology of Turkmenistan: 1917-2017"
Aydogdy Kurbanov will give a lecture about "Archaeology of Turkmenistan: 1917-2017" on Wednesday, May 10, 2017, at 12:00 PM in the LaSalle Banks room of the Oriental Institute.
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Lecture by Emanuel Pfoh on "Aspects of the Political Anthropology of the Southern Levant during the Late Bronze Age"
Emanuel Pfoh will give a lecture about "Aspects of the Political Anthropology of the Southern Levant during the Late Bronze Age" on Wednesday, May 31, 2017, at 12:00 PM in the LaSalle Banks Room of the Oriental Institute.
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Oriental Institute Makes Accessing Its Collections Even Easier
↵The Oriental Institute welcomes researchers to make use of our wide-ranging collection of ancient Near Eastern artifacts as well as our expansive photographic and document archives. In order to facilitate access to our collections, we have created a new section on our website entitled Access the Collections. From the landing page, you will find links to pages devoted to Museum Registration, Museum Archives, and the Tablet Collection and to photo requests and permissions to publish. Guidelines and fillable PDF request forms are available for all modes of access. We hope this new feature of our website, alongside our ever-growing Search Our Collections, will encourage the use of the Oriental Institute collections.
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