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The Oriental Institute (OI), established in 1919, is the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
's interdisciplinary research center for ancient
Near East The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
ern ("
Orient The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of '' Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the ...
") studies and
archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsc ...
museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make th ...
. It was founded for the university by professor James Henry Breasted with funds donated by
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. John Davison Rockefeller Jr. (January 29, 1874 – May 11, 1960) was an American financier and philanthropist, and the only son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. He was involved in the development of the vast office complex in ...
It conducts research on ancient civilizations throughout the Near East, including at its facility, Chicago House, in
Luxor, Egypt Luxor ( ar, الأقصر, al-ʾuqṣur, lit=the palaces) is a modern city in Upper (southern) Egypt which includes the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of ''Thebes''. Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open-a ...
. The institute publicly exhibits an extensive collection of artifacts related to ancient civilizations at its on-campus building in Hyde Park, Chicago. According to anthropologist William Parkinson of the
Field Museum The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational ...
, the OI's highly focused "near Eastern, or southwest Asian and Egyptian" collection is one of the finest in the world.


History

In the early 20th century, James Henry Breasted built up the collection of the university's Haskell Oriental Museum, which he oversaw along with his field work, and teaching duties. He dreamed, however, of establishing a research institute, “a laboratory for the study of the rise and development of civilization”, that would trace Western civilization to its roots in the ancient Middle East. As
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
came toward a close, Breasted sensed an opportunity to use his influence in the new political climate to create opportunities for access to archaeology sites and their study. He wrote to
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. John Davison Rockefeller Jr. (January 29, 1874 – May 11, 1960) was an American financier and philanthropist, and the only son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. He was involved in the development of the vast office complex in ...
, and proposed the foundation of what would become the Oriental Institute. Fundamental to the implementation of his plan was a research trip through the Middle East, which Breasted had optimistically suggested was ready to receive scholars again after the disturbances of the war. Breasted received a reply from Rockefeller pledging $50,000 over five years for the Oriental Institute. Rockefeller also assured University of Chicago president Harry Pratt Judson that he would pledge another $50,000 to the cause. The University of Chicago contributed additional support, and in May 1919 the Oriental Institute was founded. The institute is housed in an unusual
Art-Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
/
Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
building at the corner of 58th Street and University Avenue, which was designed by the architectural firm Mayers Murray & Phillip. Construction was completed in 1930, and the building was dedicated in 1931. In the 1990s, Tony Wilkinson, founded the 'Center for Ancient Middle Eastern Landscapes' based at the institute. Its role is to investigate the Middle East through landscape archaeology and the analysis of spatial data, including images from many decades of Middle Eastern aerial photography, and survey maps, as well as, modern satellite imagery.


Research and collection

The Museum of the Oriental Institute has artifacts from digs in
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
,
Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
,
Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
,
Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...
,
Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
, and
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. Notable works in the collection include the famous Megiddo Ivories; various treasures from Persepolis, the old Persian capital; a collection of Luristan Bronzes; a colossal 40-ton human-headed winged bull (or '' Lamassu'') from Khorsabad, the capital of Sargon II; and a monumental statue of King
Tutankhamun Tutankhamun (, egy, twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn), Egyptological pronunciation Tutankhamen () (), sometimes referred to as King Tut, was an Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule during the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ruled ...
. The museum has free admission, although visitors are encouraged to donate. The Oriental Institute is a center of active research on the ancient Near East. The building's upper floors contain a library, classrooms and faculty offices, and its gift shop, the Suq, also sells textbooks for the university's classes on Near Eastern studies. In addition to carrying out many digs in the
Fertile Crescent The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...
, OI scholars have made contributions to the understanding of the origins of human civilization. The term "Fertile Crescent" was coined by J. H. Breasted, the OI founder, who popularized the connection of the rise of civilization in the Near East with the development of European culture. In 2011, among other projects OI scholars completed publication of the 21-volume ''
Chicago Assyrian Dictionary The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (CAD) or The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago is a nine-decade project at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute to compile a dictionary of the Akkadian language an ...
'', a basic cultural reference work. The effort was begun in 1921 by J. H. Breasted, and continued by Edward Chiera and
Ignace Gelb Ignace Jay Gelb (October 14, 1907, Tarnau, Austria-Hungary (now Tarnów, Poland) - December 22, 1985, Chicago, Illinois) was a Polish-American ancient historian and Assyriologist who pioneered the scientific study of writing systems. Early li ...
, with the first volume published in 1956. Dr.
Erica Reiner Erica Reiner (4 August 1924 – 31 December 2005) was an American Assyriologist and author. From 1974, she was editor of the '' Chicago Assyrian Dictionary'', which was published in 21 volumes over 55 years, being completed in 2011 after her d ...
as editor-in-charge led the research teams for 44 years. She was succeeded by Dr. Martha T. Roth, dean of humanities at the university. Similar dictionaries are under way, including the ''
Chicago Hittite Dictionary The Chicago Hittite Dictionary (CHD) (The Hittite Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago) is a project at the University of Chicago Oriental Institute to create a comprehensive dictionary of the Hittite language. The proj ...
'' and the '' Chicago Demotic Dictionary''.


Chicago House

The Institute oversees the work of Chicago House in
Luxor, Egypt Luxor ( ar, الأقصر, al-ʾuqṣur, lit=the palaces) is a modern city in Upper (southern) Egypt which includes the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of ''Thebes''. Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open-a ...
. The Egyptian facility, established in 1924, performs the Epigraphic Survey, which documents and researches the historical sites in Luxor. It also manages conservation at various sites.


Persian tablets lawsuit

In 2006, the Oriental Institute was the center of a controversy when a U.S. federal court lawsuit sought to seize and auction a valuable collection of ancient Persian tablets held by the museum. The proceeds were to compensate the victims of a 1997 bombing in Ben Yehuda Street, Jerusalem, an attack which the United States claimed was funded by Iran. The ruling threatened sale of an invaluable collection of ancient clay tablets, held by the Oriental Institute since the 1930s, but owned by Iran. The
Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, wikt:𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an History of Iran#Classical antiquity, ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Bas ...
(or Persepolis) clay tablets were loaned for study to the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
in 1937. They were uncovered in Persepolis, Iran by Chicago archaeologists in 1933 and are legally the property of the National Museum of Iran and the Iran's Cultural Heritage Organization. The artifacts were loaned for study based on the understanding that they would be returned to Iran, which the OI had done in batches over the years. The tablets, from Persepolis, the capital of the
Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...
, date to about 500 BCE. The tablets give a view of daily life, itemizing such elements as the daily rations of barley given to workers in nearby regions of the empire. The tablets were sent to the capital to provide a record of what they were paying workers. Gil Stein, former director of the Oriental Institute, said that details largely concern food for people on diplomatic or military missions. Each tablet is about half the size of a deck of
playing card A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a f ...
s and has characters of a dialect of Elamite, an
extinct language An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers, especially if the language has no living descendants. In contrast, a dead language is one that is no longer the native language of any community, even if it is still in use, l ...
understood by perhaps a dozen scholars in the world. Stein described the tablets as providing "the first chance to hear the Persians speaking of their own empire". Charles Jones, Research Associate and Librarian at the Oriental Institute and tablet expert, compared them to "credit card receipts". Most current knowledge about the ancient Persian empire comes from the accounts of others, most famously the Greek storyteller
Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...
. Stein added: "It's valuable because it's a group of tablets, thousands of them from the same archive. It's like the same filing cabinet. They're very, very valuable scientifically." The Oriental Institute had been returning them to Iran in small batches. Since the 1930s, the institute had returned several hundred tablets and fragments to Iran and were preparing another shipment when the legal action began. An appeals court later overturned the order, and in 2018, the
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
affirmed the subsequent ruling that the collection cannot be taken from the Oriental Institute to satisfy the judgment.


Directors

List of directors: * 1919–1935: James Henry Breasted; inaugural director * 1936–1946: John A. Wilson * 1950–1960: Carl Hermann Kraeling * 1962–1968: Robert McCormick Adams Jr. * 1968–1972: George R. Hughes * 1972–1981: John A. Brinkman * 1981–1983: Robert McCormick Adams Jr. (second term) * 1983–1989: Janet H. Johnson * 1989–1997: William Marvin Sumner * 1997–2002: Gene B. Gragg * 2002–2017: Gil Stein * 2017–2021: Christopher Woods * 2021–present: Theo Van Den Hout (Interim Director)https://www.facebook.com/OrientalInstitute/photos/a.10151241555369486/10158974002584486/?type=3


See also

* Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 54 * Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 69 * Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 72 * Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 75


Gallery

File:Man-bull uc oriental institute capital 01.JPG, Reconstructed headstone from Persepolis File:UC Oriental Institute early Persian 05.JPG, Prehistoric objects File:UC Oriental Institute Persian collection item 05.JPG, Standard weight of the Achaemenid period File:UC Oriental Institute Persian collection item 03.JPG, Golden winged lion File:Persian relief oriental institute Chicago.jpg, The engrave of a lion on a wall in Persepolis File:Tutankhamun oriental institute Chicago.jpg, A statue of
Tutankhamun Tutankhamun (, egy, twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn), Egyptological pronunciation Tutankhamen () (), sometimes referred to as King Tut, was an Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule during the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ruled ...
from ancient Egypt


References


External links

*
The Oriental Institute in Google Cultural InstituteAbzu
– A guide to open access material of the Ancient Near East

maintained by Dr. Clemens Reichel documenting artifacts stolen from the Iraq Museum in April 2003
Persepolis Fortification Archive ProjectThe Oriental Institute: Fragments for a History of an Institution. A collaborative project intended to focus ideas and thoughts on the history of the Oriental Institute of The University of Chicago
{{authority control 1919 establishments in Illinois Ancient Near East organizations Archaeological museums in Illinois Art museums and galleries in Chicago Oriental Institute Hyde Park, Chicago Museums established in 1919 Museums of Ancient Near East in the United States Oriental studies University museums in Illinois University of Chicago Research institutes of the University of Chicago