Oriental Institute Publications – serie

An imposing array of scholars have united to pay a debt of piety to the late C. W. McEwan, whose untimely death in 1950 forestalled the publication of his campaign at Tell Fakhariyah, which took place in 1940. That the important results obtained by McEwan have thus been rescued is greatly to the credit of the editor and director of the Oriental Institute, Carl H. Kraeling, and the architect R. C. Haines, who prepared for publication the highly competent but necessarily incomplete topographic and architectural data assembled in the field by the late Harold D. Hill.

The eminent geologists to whom this study of one of the most perplexing problems of Nile Valley structure is due have made an extremely significant contribution. Rising and falling lake levels within the Faiyum during relatively recent times, dynastic or at most Neolithic, have heretofore monopolized attention. The present writers have instead traced the geologic history of that region back beyond the origin of the Faiyum depression itself. The Nile Valley as a whole has been investigated as a background for this detailed study, and will itself be treated more at length in a later volume (see OIP 17, ed.). [From The New Past ,1931, p. 24].

The present volume concludes the series of studies in Arabic literary papyri as envisaged in the Preface to Volume I. The studies reveal a steadily accelerating literary activity in both the religious and secular fields throughout the Umayyad period. Poets and scholars in the various fields used concurrent oral and written transmission for the publication, transmission, and preservation of their literary products. The isnad, particularly in its multiple forms, was used to a much greater degree in the religious than in the secular fields. For poetry the family isnad took second place to that stemming from a poet's personal secretary, katib, or from his transmitter, rawi. A characteristically Arab approach and critical outlook mark Islamic literature of this period and of the early decades of Abbasid rule ... [From the Preface, p. v].

Ptolemais of the Libyan Pentapolis was founded in the second half of the third century B.C., probably early in the reign of Ptolemy III, on a site that had already been occupied for almost three centuries by the anonymous 'harbor at Barca.' Extensive remains of Ptolemais have always been visible and a careful plan of them was made by the Beechey brothers in 1822. Between 1935 and 1942 a number of sites including the Street of the Monuments, the Square of the Cisterns, the Palazzo delle Colonne, the Fortress Church, and the Tower Tomb were cleared and studied by the Italians under Professor Giacomo Caputo; and three more buildings, a villa of the early Roman period, a public building on the Street of the Monuments and the City Bath of the Byzantine period, were examined in detail by the Oriental Institute of Chicago under Professor Carl Kraeling between 1956 and 1958. The purpose of the present volume is twofold: to present detailed excavation reports on these last three buildings, and also to attempt a survey of Ptolemais as a whole on the basis of a thorough re-examination of the site carried out by the Institute. This was something well worth doing and generally speaking it has been well done. Even if some of the conclusions reached here must inevitably be regarded as provisional, we now have a broad and solid foundation on which future investigators can build, and for which they will be grateful. [From a review by D. E. L. Haynes in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 52 (1966) 195].

We now have Raymond Bowman's long awaited edition of the Aramaic texts from Persepolis, unearthed during the expedition by the University of Chicago under Erich F. Schmidt between 1936 and 1938. Bowman has assembled important data on the chronology of Persepolis during the first half of the fifth century B.C. from the personal names and official titles listed in the Aramaic texts. He shows acumen in attacking certain textual problems, and his commentary and introduction provide the scholar with information necessary for a proper understanding of this corpus of some two hundred brief, formulaic inscriptions written on various stone implements-mortars and pestles, plates and trays-found in the treasury at Persepolis. [From an article by Baruch A. Levine in the Journal of the American Oriental Society 92 (1972) 70-79].

At the end of the 19th century, during the first year of his commission to copy inscriptions for the proposed German-Egyptian dictionary, Professor James Henry Breasted wrote, "I am now laying plans to copy not merely the historical, but all the inscriptions of Egypt and publish them." It was not until 1924 that he was able to put his plan into action. The present volume completes the documentation of the reliefs and inscriptions on the buildings at Medinet Habu constructed and decorated during the reign of Ramses III. Its Eastern High Gate is a structure unique among the extant ancient buildings of Egypt.

The second volume of The Excavations in the Plain of Antioch describes a series of excavations in the Syro-Palestinian region. The three sites included in the report are Catal Hueyuek, Tell al-Judaidah and Tell Tayinat, all situated in the central part of the Amuq valley around the city of Rihaniyyah.

This volume publishes all of the cuneiform tablets excavated at Tell Abu Salabikh in 1963 and 1965 with the exception of a very few fragments considered illegible. All other tablets are represented by a copy, by a photograph, or by both. Except for the copies of especially fragile tablets made in the field, preliminary copies were prepared from casts and photographs. Subsequently they were checked against the original tablets in the Iraq Museum.

A report on the excavation during the 1950s of an Early Dynastic Temple discovered in the northwestern part of the Religious Quarter of Nippur. The volume includes reports on the structural remains, the burials and the finds, such as pottery, tablets, seals, ornaments and figurines.

The present stately folio with its accompanying text (translating all the texts in the plates) is the first-fruits of 45 years of intermittent work by the redoubtable Chicago team, alongside their work at Medinet Habu and elsewhere in Karnak. In production and fidelity it worthily upholds the extremely high standards in recording and publishing ancient Egyptian monuments so justly associated with the Chicago epigraphic survey. The Preface (signed by Dr. Wente) contains distinctly more than the expected history of the project and acknowledgments. It incorporates also a valuable summary of some of the more significant results accruing from the full record of Herihor's work in the forecourt of the temple of Khons. As for scope, the present volume contains a record of all wall-surfaces inside that court, other than Herihor's stela and the two great doorways (with later decor), and of all the decorated columns but not the architraves. [From a review by K. A. Kitchen in Bibliotheca Orientalis 38 (1981) 301-02].

This volume completes the record of the forecourt and main hypostyle hall of the temple of Khons in Karnak, by the Chicago Epigraphic Survey. We now at last possess a full and accurate record of the works of Ramesses XI and Herihor there, plus a whole series of supplementary scenes and texts from the 21st Dynasty (Pinudjem I; Menkheperre), a text of Osorkon I, dedications by Nectanebo II, and texts and scenes of Ptolemy II, IV and IX, besides Alexander. Much of what appears here was earlier unpublished; what was known now appears in greatly enhanced form. ... The folio of plates is accompanied by a quarto booklet giving not only the list of plates and annotated translation of all texts, but also an informative preface by Dr. Kent Weeks, e.g., on the vicissitudes of royal and priestly features in the reliefs of Pinudjem I; he also indicates that this present volume (fruit of so many collaborators across the decades) was substantially the work of Dr. W. J. Murnane. A new and very welcome feature of the text-fascicle is its full glossary (in transliteration) of all texts in Vols. 1 and 2 of Khonsu. [From a review by K. A. Kitchen in Bibliotheca Orientalis 41 (1984) 84-85].

Robert J. Braidwood set out with his wife Linda in the spring of 1948 to explore the field evidence for the transition from hunter-gatherer way of life to sedentary food production in the region surrounding the Mesopotamian Plain. This initial work started many archaeologists thinking about how the processes that lay behind this fundamental change, and ultimately other transitions, could be documented archaeologically. His pioneering effort to introduce specialists from the geological and biological sciences into work on relevant problems in this transition brought about a new set of standards for fieldwork in the Near East and a new appreciation of the richness of the multidimensional archaeological record that can result from these studies. This volume is the final report on the Braidwoods' initial phase of exploration from 1948 to 1955 in the Chemchemal Valley and adjacent regions of Iraqi Kurdistan. In this sense it is a work that can be viewed as the result of a study begun at a transition within archaeology itself, from the goals and techniques of the period between the wars to the methods and purposes that characterize the discipline at present. Approximately half the volume is devoted to reports on the architecture and artifacts recovered during three seasons of work at Jarmo, the first early village site with aceramic levels excavated in the Near East. Substantial sections are also devoted to reports on the earlier aceramic site of Karim Shahir and the later (Halafian) site of Banahilk. [From a review by Arthur J. Jelinek in the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 265 (1987) 87-88].

This two-volume account of archaeological investigations in central and eastern Luristan reflects work carried out over 50 years in the remote area of western Iran, north of the Zagros Mountains. Included are excavation reports on the Chalcolithic site of Kamtarlan and on an Iron Age shrine on the slopes og Surkh Dum-I-Luri mountain.

This two volume set offers the first complete edition of the ancient 'kudurrus' (Uruk III-Sargonic land grant contracts) combined with detailed discussion of the social and legal aspects of the documents. All 57 'kudurrus' are presented as photographs with transliterations, translations and full critical apparatus.

The ninth published volume of twelve, presenting the whole work off the Oriental Institute's Iraq Expedition in the Diyala region. This volume focuses on Ishchali (usually identified as ancient Neribtum), which belonged to the independent kingdom of Eshnunna. The bulk of the report is devoted to the Kititum Temple.

This is a report on a detailed survey conducted within an area of 100 km2 along the south (left) bank of the River Euphrates (Firat Nehri) in southeastern Turkey. The survey provided a fourteen period sequence of settlement covering a span of 8,000 years. Population growth during the late Chalcolithic and the mid-late Early Bronze Age appears to have resulted in the gradual removal of woodland from the area. During the latter peak, a network of nodal settlements developed within cultivable lowlands, and formed part of a moderately well-integrated hierarchy of villages and small towns. Following a late Bronze Age-early Iron Age decline in visible remains of settlement, population again increased during the Seleucid-Hellenistic Period to reach a peak in the late Roman-early Byzantine times. By this time, all cultivable land was under either extensive or intensive cultivation and the limestone uplands probably formed rough pasture. There followed, during the seventh-tenth centuries AD, a remarkable decline in remains of sedentary occupation, which only recovered slightly in the Medieval period. Several hundred years of poorly documented settlement followed which culminated in the establishment, probably by the nineteenth century, of the modern network of settlements. A substantial growth in total cultivated area appears to have resulted from large-scale mechanization during the twentieth century.

Until recently, the lower Euphrates basin in southeastern Turkey had remained closed to research. The region was virtually unexplored, an archaeological terra incognita. This situation was particularly regrettable since downstream in northern Syria recent archaeological work along the Euphrates basin had demonstrated beyond doubt the historical importance of the area. A dramatic change occurred in the second half of the 1970s as a result of the announcement of plans by the Turkish government to build two additional dams on the Euphrates river as part of its long-term development program for southeastern Anatolia, the Güneydo©u Anadolu Projesi. This allowed comprehensive surveys to be made of the areas and sites to be destroyed by the reservoirs of the dams in question, the Karakaya and Karababa (now Atatürk) dams, and ultimately for the start of an international archaeological salvage effort within the reservoir areas. As part of this effort a number of Turkish and foreign expeditions were fielded, and as a result of their work a much clearer picture than was heretofore possible of the archaeological history of an important region of the northern periphery of the Fertile Crescent has begun to emerge.It is in this context that the Chicago Euphrates Archaeological Project of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago should be understood. It conducted excavations at one of the threatened sites, Kurban Höyük, and carried out surveys of its immediate environs. The site is located in the lower portion of the Karababa reservoir area and is one of several sites that hold the key for understanding the archaeological sequence of the lower portion of the Euphrates basin in southeastern Turkey.

The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus is one of the most important documents in the history of science, and one of the oldest known scientific treatises surviving from ancient Egypt. It includes, for example, an early word for "brain", and the surgeon repeatedly, because of his scientific interest in the observable facts, discusses cases of injured men whom he has no hope of saving. Volume 1 contains a historical introduction to the document, followed by translation and commentary. Volume 2 contains collotype facsimiles of the Papyrus, which originally was in a continuous roll but has now been cut into columns of text.

As the first of the final reports related to the current program of research at Nippur, this volume is crucial for understanding the Kassite assemblage at Nippur, especially for ceramics. This monograph emends and expands the assemblage that appeared in preliminary reports and details the construction and rebuildings of a large Kassite private house near the western city wall (Area WC-1), which furnished information on Kassite architectural practice as well as unanticipated patterning in intramural burials. Cuneiform texts, though mostly fragmentary and almost all from secondary contexts, allow some suggestions on the occupants of the sequence of houses and their activities. The plates include photographs of all the texts. An introductory chapter reconsiders the evidence for the correct orientation of the famous "Kassite" city map. Faunal reports are given in the appendices.

This latest in the series of publications of the field work of the Epigraphic Survey is certainly the crowning achievement of the seventy years the Oriental Institute's artists and epigraphers have labored at the walls of the temples and tombs of Luxor, recording the inscriptions and reliefs in facsimile for posterity. Not only is The Festival Procession of Opet the Survey's largest volume to date, it is also the most sophisticated in terms of the finesse of the rendering of the facsimile drawings with indications of the different types of man-made and environmental damage suffered by the complicated surviving Luxor Temple Colonnade Hall reliefs indicated in minute details - which must have taken countless hours of inking by the many Survey artists (eighteen by actual count) who worked six months in the field each year recording the Opet Festival reliefs from 1974 to 1992. [From a book brief in KMT 5:4 (1994/95) 86]. The portfolio of large drawings is accompanied by a text booklet, which has a list of plates, transliterations and translations of the texts, commentary and glossary.

Bir Umm Fawakhir 3 is the last of the final reports on the archaeological surveys and excavations at the Byzantine site of Bir Umm Fawakhir in the central Eastern Desert of Egypt; it remains the only intensively studied ancient Egyptian gold-mining operation, and one of very few completely mapped towns of the era. Along with other recent excavations and surveys, it demonstrates the Byzantine empire's continuing activities in the Eastern Desert, not abandonment, as had long been believed. Four survey seasons, in 1992, 1993, 1996, and 1997, succeeded in dating the site to the fifth- and sixth-century Coptic/Byzantine period, mapping in detail the main settlement and one of the fourteen outlying settlements, and determining that it was a gold-mining operation. The goals of the 1999 excavations and the 2001 study season reported in this volume were to answer questions about the site and its occupants that surveys alone could not address, primarily the history of occupation of the site and the status of its occupants. The 1999 excavations of a sample of the houses and middens were undertaken to provide more information about the occupants and their well-being or lack thereof. Two houses, two middens, and one single-room outbuilding were excavated. Like the earlier Roman-period stone quarries in the desert, the miners seem to have worked intermittently and abandoned, or nearly so, the sitebetween mining campaigns. The pottery study extends the corpora published with previous seasons, and the chapter on small finds discusses the wine jar dockets (dipinti), coins, jewelry, emeralds, metal, glass, and other objects. Analysis of the faunal material during the 2001 study season supports the picture of a town well provided with meat, not only sheep and goats but also an unusual amount of beef. The volume is rounded out by an archaeobotanical study and the conservators' reports, including the construction of a barricade at the entrance to the site to help preserve it. A final chapter summarizes what can now be said about life and work at ancient Bir Umm Fawakhir.

Standing at the heart of Karnak Temple, the Great Hypostyle Hall is a forest of 134 giant sandstone columns enclosed by massive walls. Sety I built the Great Hypostyle Hall ca. 1300 BCE and decorated the northern wing with exquisite bas reliefs. After his death, his successor Ramesses II completed the southern wing mostly in sunk relief. This volume provides full translation, epigraphic analysis, and photographic documentation of the elaborate wall reliefs inside the Hall. This vast trove of ritual art and texts attest to the richness and vitality of Egyptian civilization at the height of its imperial power. The present volume builds upon and serves as a companion to an earlier volume of drawings of the wall scenes made by Harold H. Nelson in the 1950s and edited for publication by William J. Murnane in 1981.Volume 1, Part 2 452pp; Volume 1, Part 3 (figures and plates) 328pp.

Part One: TextPart Two: Catalog and PlatesThis set of two volumes presents the final report of the four archaeological campaigns carried out by the Oriental Institute at the site of Chatal Hoyuk in the Amuq (currently Hatay, Turkey) under the directorship of Ian McEwan and Robert Braidwood, more than eighty years after their field operations. The excavation's documents (daily journals, original drawings, photos, lists of objects, and letters) stored in the Oriental Institute Archives, as well as the approximately 13,000 small finds and pottery sherds from the site currently kept at the Oriental Institute Museum, provided the necessary dataset for the analysis presented here. This dataset allowed the author to reconstruct the life of a village which survived the political turmoil in the period from the Late Bronze Age to the end of the Iron Age (16th-6th centuries bc). If Chatal Hoyuk was during the Late Bronze Age a village in the provincial part of a large empire (Hittite), it became a large independent town in a small but powerful new political entity (Walistin) during the Iron Age I and II, before being conquered by the Assyrian Empire. In this extended publication of small finds and pottery, many previously unpublished materials are made available to both general readers and scholars for the first time. The material culture discussed and analyzed here offers the chance to trace changes and continuity in the site's domestic activities, to point out shifts in cultural contacts over a long period of time, and to monitor the construction of a new community identity.198 plates, 125 figures, 7 tables

This study of a thirteenth-century dwelling on Egypt's Red Sea Coast draws on multiple lines of evidence--including texts excavated at the site--to reconstruct a history of the structure and the people who dwelt within. The inhabitants participated in Nile Valley-Red Sea-Indian Ocean trade, transported Ḥāǧǧ pilgrims, sent grain to Mecca and Medina, and wrote sermons and amulets for the local faithful. These activities are detailed in the documents and fleshed out in the botanical, faunal, artifact, and stratigraphic evidence from the University of Chicago's excavations (1978-82). This compound eventually consisted of two houses and a row of storerooms and became the centre of mercantile activity at Quseir al-Qadim. Over time, as the number of named individuals who received shipping notes addressed to the "warehouse of Abū Mufarij" increased, living rooms and storerooms were added to accommodate this expansion of commerce. While most merchants were dealing in textiles, dates, and grains, additional commodities traded included perfumes, gemstone-decorated textiles, resist-dyed textiles, and porcelains. Specialist studies by Steven Goodman on the avian faunal remains and Wilma Wetterstrom on the macrobotanical finds reveal that the compound's occupants enjoyed a diet of chicken and Nile Valley produce such as grapes and watermelon, and they were supplemented by high-priced imports: nuts and fruits from around the Mediterranean, along with medicinal plants from as far away as India, indicate the wealth and status of this family of merchants. The evidence from this small portion of Quseir al-Qadim yields a rich local story that is a microcosm of Nile Valley-Red Sea-Indian Ocean trade under the last Ayyubid sultans of Egypt.

The city on the Kerkenes Dag in the high plateau of central Turkey was a new Iron Age capital, very probably Pteria. Founded in the later seventh century BC, the city was put to the torch in the mid sixth century and then abandoned. Between 1999 and 2011 what we have called the Cappadocia Gate, one of the seven city gates that pierce the 7 km of strong stone defenses, was excavated in its entirety. This volume documents as fully as possible the results of those excavations, and includes a seven-page summary in Turkish.The location of the gate and its architecture are discussed and illustrated, with a chapter devoted to its partial restoration. Cultic installations within the gate structure include a built stepped monument with semi-iconic idol, an aniconic stela, and graffiti representing similar stones. Sculpture set up at the back of the gate comprised many fragments of a life-sized statue supported by a plinth bearing adorsed sphinxes carved in relief. The remains of two human victims of the destruction are examined, as are animal bones that perhaps provide evidence of meals consumed by builders of the gate. A final chapter attempts to place these remarkable discoveries in a wider context. The gate plan and the cultic installations and sculpture set up inside the gate appear to be entirely Phrygian. Combined with evidence of Paleo-Phrygian inscription and graffiti already published (OIP 135), this volume sheds dramatic new and unexpected evidence for the power, wealth, and sophistication of an eastward expansion of Phrygia. The brief existence, hardly more than 100 years, together with the excellent stratigraphic context of the destruction level, provide an unparalleled window onto the first half of the sixth century BC on the Anatolian Plateau.

The Archive of Thotsutmis, Son of Panouphis presents for the first time one of the largest collections of Demotic ostraca to have been discovered intact by archaeologists in the twentieth century. They were excavated at the site of Deir el-Bahari, on the west bank of the Nile, opposite the city of Luxor, Egypt. Rarely have such deposits been found in situ. Excavated by Ambrose Lansing on behalf of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1915-16, the integrity and context of this find are critical to the proper understanding of the texts it contained. Through the publication and analysis of this archive of Demotic and Greek texts recorded on ostraca, the authors reconstruct the microhistory of Thotsutmis, son of Panouphis, and his family, who worked in Egypt on the west bank of Thebes as priests in the mortuary industry during the early Ptolemaic Period in the third century BC. The forty-two ostraca published in this volume provide a rare opportunity to explore the intersections between an intact ancient archive of private administrative documents and the larger social and legal contexts into which they fit. What the reconstructed microhistory reveals is an ancient family striving to make it among the wealthy and connected social network of Theban choachytes and pastophoroi, while they simultaneously navigated the bureaucratic maze of taxes, fees, receipts and legal procedures of the Ptolemaic state.

In the winter of 1978, an extensive archaeological campaign was launched in the Hamrin Basin area in the east-central part of Iraq to salvage many archaeological sites before their flooding, due to the construction of a large dam. This volume documents the excavations carried out in two of the sites-Tell Abada and Tell Rashid-dating back to the Ubaid period in the fifth millennium BC. The first site (Tell Abada) is of particular importance; it is an almost complete village with three occupational levels unearthed. Several residential houses and buildings with distinctive architectural features are exposed. Industrial workshops dedicated to the manufacture of pottery vessels are present. Of express interest was the first-time discovery of pottery-making equipment, notably the potter's wheel. An equally exciting discovery is the presence of many fire installations dedicated to pottery vessels' burning. The pottery products are enormous, varied, and richly decorated, reflecting aesthetic features and agility. The presence of the pottery in a very well stratified sequence enhances our understanding of Ubaid pottery, clarifies its chronological classifications, and establishes cultural links with other Ubaid sites in the region. Among other remarkable discoveries are many infant burial urns, granaries, water ducts, and proto-tablets. The varied aspects of the cultural material revealed throughout the excavations provides significant insight into daily life, settlement patterns, craft specialization, religious practices, and socioeconomic status, and sheds new light on the Ubaid period in general in Mesopotamia.

The city on the Kerkenes Dağ in the high plateau of central Turkey was a new Iron Age capital, very probably Pteria. Founded in the later seventh century BC, the city was put to the torch in the mid-sixth century and then abandoned. Excavations at what we have identified as the Palatial Complex were conducted between 1999 and 2005. The stone glacis supporting the Fortified Structure at the eastern end of the complex was revealed in its entirety while the greater portion of the Monumental Entrance was uncovered. Portions of buildings within the complex were also excavated, notably one-half of the heavily burned Ashlar Building, one corner of the Audience Hall, and parts of other structures. This volume documents as fully as possible the results of those excavations with the exception of sculpture, some bearing Paleo-Phrygian inscription, already published (OIP 135). The location of the complex, its development from foundation to destruction, and its architecture are discussed and illustrated. Within the Monumental Entrance were extraordinary, unexpected, semi-iconic stone idols, and other embellishments that include stone blocks with bolsters, bases for large freestanding wooden columns, and stone plinths. Extensive use was made of iron in combination with timber-framed façades and large double-leafed doors. Objects of gold, silver, copper alloys, and iron attest to former splendor. Organization of the volume is roughly chronological, beginning with the Fortified Structure, and concluding with the Monumental Entrance. Presentation of material culture is organized with an emphasis on context. Specialist chapters report on alphabetic and nonalphabetic graffiti and masons' marks, animal bones among which was found the jawbone of a dolphin, and a Byzantine-period burial. This volume provides further dramatic and surprising new evidence for the power, wealth, and sophistication of an eastward expansion of Phrygian culture exemplified by architecture, cultic imagery, Paleo-Phrygian inscriptions and graffiti, pottery, and artifacts. The brief existence of this extraordinary city, hardly more than one hundred years, together with the excellent stratigraphic context provided by the destruction level, offer an unparalleled window onto the first half of the sixth century BC on the Anatolian Plateau.

Nearly twenty-eight years after the completion of the first five seasons at the Chogha Mish site in Iran, the first of the final reports is now available. The site turned out to be highly significant for the wide range of protoliterate and prehistoric artifacts found there. These volumes examine and lavishly illustrate the excavations and finds.