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Tell Asmar Hoard
The Tell Asmar Hoard ( Early Dynastic I-II, ca. 2900–2550 BC) are a collection of twelve statues unearthed in 1933 at Eshnunna (modern Tell Asmar) in the Diyala Governorate of Iraq. Despite subsequent finds at this site and others throughout the greater Mesopotamian area, they remain the definitive example of the abstract style of Early Dynastic temple sculpture (2900 BC–2350 BC). Discovery In the late 1920s antique dealers in Baghdad were acquiring large quantities of unusual, high quality artifacts from the desert east of the Diyala River, just north of its confluence with the Tigris.Karen L. Wilson, ''Excavations in the Diyala Region'', i''Art Of The First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus'' ed. Joan Aruz (New York and London: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University Press, 2003), 58. In 1929 the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago obtained a concession to excavate the area. James Henry Breasted (1865–1935), the f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sumer
Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of civilization in the world, along with ancient Egypt, Elam, the Caral-Supe civilization, Mesoamerica, the Indus Valley civilisation, and ancient China. Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Sumerian farmers grew an abundance of grain and other crops, the surplus from which enabled them to form urban settlements. Proto-writing dates back before 3000 BC. The earliest texts come from the cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr, and date to between c. 3500 and c. 3000 BC. Name The term "Sumer" (Sumerian: or , Akkadian: ) is the name given to the language spoken by the "Sumerians", the ancient non-Semitic-speaking inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia, by their successors the East Semitic-speaking Akkadians. The Sumerians ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oriental Institute, Chicago
The Oriental Institute (OI), established in 1919, is the University of Chicago's interdisciplinary research center for ancient Near Eastern ("Orient") studies and archaeology museum. It was founded for the university by professor James Henry Breasted with funds donated by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. It conducts research on ancient civilizations throughout the Near East, including at its facility, Chicago House, in Luxor, Egypt. 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 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 establish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1933 Archaeological Discoveries
Events January * January 11 – Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand. * January 17 – The United States Congress votes in favour of Philippines independence, against the wishes of U.S. President Herbert Hoover. * January 28 – " Pakistan Declaration": Choudhry Rahmat Ali publishes (in Cambridge, UK) a pamphlet entitled ''Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever?'', in which he calls for the creation of a Muslim state in northwest India that he calls " Pakstan"; this influences the Pakistan Movement. * January 30 ** National Socialist German Workers Party leader Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany by President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg. ** Édouard Daladier forms a government in France in succession to Joseph Paul-Boncour. He is succeeded on October 26 by Albert Sarraut and on November 26 by Camille Chautemps. February * February 1 – Adolf Hitler gives his "Proclamation to the G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Effigy
An effigy is an often life-size sculptural representation of a specific person, or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certain traditions around New Year, Carnival and Easter. In European cultures, effigies were in the past also used for punishment in formal justice, when the perpetrator could not be apprehended, and in popular justice practices of social shaming and exclusion. Additionally, "effigy" is used for certain traditional forms of sculpture, namely tomb effigies, funeral effigies and coin effigies. There is a large overlap and exchange between the ephemeral forms of effigies. Traditional holiday effigies are often politically charged, for instance, when the generalised figures Año Viejo (the Old Year) or Judas in Latin America are substituted by the effigy of a despised politician. Traditional forms are also borrowed for political protests. In India, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lapis Lazuli
Lapis lazuli (; ), or lapis for short, is a deep-blue metamorphic rock used as a semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense color. As early as the 7th millennium BC, lapis lazuli was mined in the Sar-i Sang mines,David Bomford and Ashok Roy, ''A Closer Look- Colour'' (2009), National Gallery Company, London, () in Shortugai, and in other mines in Badakhshan province in northeast Afghanistan. Lapis lazuli artifacts, dated to 7570 BC, have been found at Bhirrana, which is the oldest site of Indus Valley civilisation. Lapis was highly valued by the Indus Valley Civilisation (7570–1900 BC). Lapis beads have been found at Neolithic burials in Mehrgarh, the Caucasus, and as far away as Mauritania. It was used in the funeral mask of Tutankhamun (1341–1323 BC). By the end of the Middle Ages, lapis lazuli began to be exported to Europe, where it was ground into powder and made into ultramarine, the finest and most expensive of all blue pigments ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rectangle
In Euclidean plane geometry, a rectangle is a quadrilateral with four right angles. It can also be defined as: an equiangular quadrilateral, since equiangular means that all of its angles are equal (360°/4 = 90°); or a parallelogram containing a right angle. A rectangle with four sides of equal length is a '' square''. The term " oblong" is occasionally used to refer to a non- square rectangle. A rectangle with vertices ''ABCD'' would be denoted as . The word rectangle comes from the Latin ''rectangulus'', which is a combination of ''rectus'' (as an adjective, right, proper) and ''angulus'' (angle). A crossed rectangle is a crossed (self-intersecting) quadrilateral which consists of two opposite sides of a rectangle along with the two diagonals (therefore only two sides are parallel). It is a special case of an antiparallelogram, and its angles are not right angles and not all equal, though opposite angles are equal. Other geometries, such as spherical, elliptic, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abu (god)
Abu was a Mesopotamian god. His character is poorly understood, though it is assumed he might have been associated with vegetation and with snakes. He was often paired with the deity ''Gu2-la2'', initially regarded as distinct from Gula, but later conflated with her. Name and character The reading of the second sign in the name ''Ab-u2'' is uncertain, and in addition to Abu, the second proposed reading of the name is Abba. According to Jeremiah Peterson, the former option is supported by the partial etymology assigned to this theonym in the myth ''Enki and Ninmah'', ''lugal u2'', "lord of the plants." It might be either an example of scribal wordplay or an invented scholarly etymology for his name. As pointed out by Gianni Marchesi, for the assumed pun on the name to work, it would have to end in the phoneme ''u''. Dina Katz translates Abu's name as "father plant." However, it is generally assumed the theonym is unrelated to Akkadian ''abum'', "father." Abu's character is poorly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ishchali
Tell Ishchali (also Iščāli or Šaǧālī) an archaeological site in Diyala Province (Iraq). It is thought to be ancient Nerebtum or Kiti and was part of the city-state of Eshnunna. It was occupied during the Old Babylonian period. Ancient name At first, the site of Ishchali was thought to be Khafajah. Upon discovery there of a date formula that read "year that king Ishme-Bali built the great wall of Nerebtum", that designation became popular. Currently, scholarly opinion is split between Nerebtum and Kiti as the result of many tablets from the temple of Inanna of Kiti being analyzed. The name of Sadlas has also been proposed. A number of bricks of Ipiq-Adad II were found in the Kitium temple inscribed with: History of archaeological research Items from illegal excavations at Ishchali began appearing on the open market in the 1920s, including many clay tablets. To pre-empt this activity, the Iraq expedition of the Oriental Institute of Chicago conducted two seasons of excavati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tell Agrab
Tell Agrab (or Aqrab) is a tell or settlement mound southeast of Eshnunna in the Diyala region of Iraq. History Tell Agrab was occupied during the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic periods through the Akkadian and Larsa periods. It was during the Early Dynastic period that monumental building occurred, including the Shara Temple. There is no evidence that it was occupied after the end of the third millennium BC. Archaeology The site of Tell Agrab is encompassed by a rectangle with a height of around . Though it had been subject to illegal digging earlier, the site was officially excavated in 1936 and 1937 by a team from the Oriental Institute of Chicago which was also working at Eshnunna, Khafajah and Tell Ishchali during that time. The dig was led by Seton Lloyd. The primary excavation effort was on the large Early Dynastic temple, which was formerly believed to be dedicated to Shara based on a bowl inscription. However, subsequent research revealed that it belonged to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tell Asmar
Eshnunna (modern Tell Asmar in Diyala Governorate, Iraq) was an ancient Sumerian (and later Akkadian) city and city-state in central Mesopotamia 12.6 miles northwest of Tell Agrab and 15 miles northwest of Tell Ishchali. Although situated in the Diyala Valley north-west of Sumer proper, the city nonetheless belonged securely within the Sumerian cultural milieu. It is sometimes, in archaeological papers, called Ashnunnak or Tuplias,. The tutelary deity of the city was Tishpak (Tišpak) (having replaced Ninazu) though other gods, including Sin, Adad, and Inanna of Kititum were also worshiped there. The personal goddess of the rulers were Belet-Šuḫnir and Belet-Terraban. History Early Bronze Inhabited since the Jemdet Nasr period, around 3000 BC, Eshnunna was a major city during the Early Dynastic period of Mesopotamia. It is known, from cuneiform records and excavations, that the city was occupied in the Akkadian period though its extent was noticeably less than it reac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khafajah
Khafajah or Khafaje (Arabic: خفاجة; ancient Tutub, Arabic: توتوب) is an archaeological site in Diyala Province (Iraq). It was part of the city-state of Eshnunna. The site lies east of Baghdad and southwest of Eshnunna. History of archaeological research Khafajah was excavated for 7 seasons in the early 1930s primarily by an Oriental Institute of Chicago team led by Henri Frankfort with Thorkild Jacobsen and Pinhas Delougaz. For two seasons, the site was worked by a joint team of the American Schools of Oriental Research and the University of Pennsylvania. Khafajah and its environment Khafajah lies on the Diyala River, a tributary of the Tigris. The site consists of four mounds, labeled A through D. The main one, Mound A, extends back as far as the Uruk period and contained an oval temple, a temple of the god Sin, and a temple of Nintu. The Dur-Samsuiluna fort was found on mounds B and C. Mound D contained private homes and a temple for the god Sin where the archive t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
