A Special Exhibition at the ISAC Museum
September 17, 2024 – March 23, 2025
In 1924, an Egyptologist, an artist, and a photographer—the staff of the University of Chicago’s new Epigraphic Survey—began the task of recording the scenes and inscriptions carved on the walls of the enormous, 3,000-year-old temple of Pharaoh Ramesses III at Medinet Habu near Luxor. It was the culmination of a long-standing dream of James Henry Breasted, the first American Egyptologist and founder of ISAC (then the Oriental Institute), to both copy and publish all the historical texts in the Nile Valley. The Epigraphic Survey was established to undertake this unimaginably ambitious program of field research.
A century later, the Epigraphic Survey continues to fulfill Breasted’s mission. Housed at Chicago House in Luxor, the expedition has documented some of the most important—and endangered—records to survive from ancient Egypt, using a well-established and tested method to create highly accurate facsimiles of the carvings and texts and to publish them as a permanent archive.
The special exhibition Chicago on the Nile features photographs, artifacts, original artworks, and publications that illuminate a century of endeavor to preserve the records of Egypt’s ancient past, along with engaging accounts of life and work at Chicago House in Luxor over the past 100 years.
FROM THE EXHIBITION
I am now laying plans to copy not merely the historical, but all the inscriptions of Egypt and publish them…
James Henry Breasted
Exhibition Materials
- Download the press release Chicago on the Nile: 100 Years of the Epigraphic Survey in Egypt
- Downland and purchase the publication Chicago on the Nile: A Century of Work by the Epigraphic Survey of the University of Chicago, by Emily Teeter
- Download the children's activity booklet So You Want to Be an Epigrapher?
- Purchase Chicago on the Nile-related merchandise at the Museum Shop
Exhibition Programming
- Exclusive Exhibition Preview, September 16, 5:00–7:00pm CT (in-person) — Not yet a member? Become one today!
- ISAC Special Exhibit Lecture, "Chicago on the Nile: 100 Years of the Epigraphic Survey," & book signing, with Emily Teeter, October 20, 4:00pm CT (in-person and online)
- ISAC Special Exhibit Lecture, with Anna-Latifa Mourad-Cizek, Winter 2025
Related Content
- Learn more about the Epigraphic Survey
- Download and purchase publications of the Epigraphic Survey
- Read about the latest work by the Epigraphic Survey in the ISAC Annual Report 2022–2023
- Visit the Epigraphic Survey's digitalEPIGRAPHY
- Watch the ISAC Armchair Traveler "Luxor, City of Amun," with Emily Teeter
- Watch the ISAC lecture "The Epigraphic Survey at 93: Changing the Face of Archaeology," with W. Raymond Johnson
- Watch the ISAC Ancient Languages Workshop "Session 1: Ancient Egypt," with Foy Scalf
- Contemporary Art Installation of works by Johannes Weninger
- Professional webpage for artist Johannes Weninger
Media Coverage
- Hyde Park Herald, "'Chicago on the Nile' Brings a Century of Hieroglyph Studies to ISAC" (September 9, 2024)
- Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago's fall arts and gallery season highlights (September 22, 2024)
This exhibition is supported by a generous grant from the Women’s Board of the University of Chicago, ISAC Museum visitors, and ISAC members.
This exhibition has been curated by Emily Teeter, J. Brett McClain, and Catherine Witt, and organized by the ISAC Museum Susan Allison, Rob Bain, Denise Browning, Laura D’Alessandro, Anne Flannery, Marc Maillot, Helen McDonald, Kiersten Neumann, Josh Tulisiak, and Alison Whyte.
Photographs have been supplied by Keli Alberts, Ahmed Bozghol, Frank Helmholz, W. Raymond Johnson, Yarko Kobylecky, Owen Murray, Dominique Navarro, and Amanda Tetreault. Special thanks are due to Epigraphic Survey photographer/archivist Susan Lezon.
Additional thanks to Dr. Anthony Marks and the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago for the loan of archival images, and to Johannes Weninger for the loan of his paintings, which are displayed near the Persian Gallery and complement the exhibition.
Epigraphic Survey team members, including epigraphers, artists, and their assistants, documenting scenes on the north wall of the temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu, 1927 (ISAC Museum Archives P. 14686/N. 10883).
