Trip to the Oriental Institute and AOS meeting
Feb 15, 2011 16:14:20 GMT -5
Post by us4-he2-gal2 on Feb 15, 2011 16:14:20 GMT -5
Thread orientation: Pictures and musings on my brief trip to Chicago for the meeting of the mid-west AOS section
With this post I am sharing some pictures and details of my trip to Chicago - this is therefore a general topic which may interest some members, maybe those who haven't been out to a good oriental museum as of yet. The reason for the trip was mainly to attend the annual meeting of the mid-west AOS (American Oriental Society). Professor Frayne had invited me to go with him months ago, as even though I am a junior student, there really are quite few students even in the Near East department dedicated to Assyriology; and we get along quite well besides that.
The Oriental Institute in Chicago is of course an important institution for Assyriology and thanks to grants from rich patrons in the 1930's (I think it was Rockefeller?) was able to excavate extensively in Iraq. Their digs in the Diyala region are particularly famous. For the general OI page see here or for the OI museum page in particular, see here.
I was particularly exited to see the OI as I'd spent a summer doing their cuneiform by mail course .. So here are some selected photos from their collection
Arriving on the Chicago campus I was pleased by the style and archtecture of most of the buildings - often large cathedral like buildings with gothic arches carved in white stone and uniform red tile roofing. Of course the weather made it a bit difficult as the place was somehow colder than Toronto (hitting -20 plus wind chill at some point). The Oriental Institute itself is housed in spacious (but not huge) building of this same style, and contains collections of Mesopotamian and Egyptian material, mainly. The inside is warm and rustic looking with polished wood flooring and even a painted cealing in some ancient design or another - the entire display is well presented with very concise and informative explanations for most displays.
I was particularly impressed that there is actually no admittance fee only a "suggested donation" which is optional. This stands in contrast to the $30 entrance fee at the Royal Ontario Museum for example.. In any case I donated some Canadian money, which seemed to count (and was all I had on me).
Here we have a small tablet containing some of Uruinimgina's reform
This I thought was a very striking tablet, perhaps its black diorite? I forget what Frayne said was on it, some ED economic text maybe.
Here are some of the very recognizable Mesopotamian duck weights - I still don't know why they bothered with that shape 0_0
Here is Professor Frayne in front of the replica of the Law code of Hammurabi - I'd forgotten the real on was at the Louvre and on seeing a picture of this one the OI website determined to check and see if it was a replica or not. And of course - it was. Oh well fun any way.
Here are some (real) statues from the Diyala region - of course very iconic of Sumerian studies in general
This is one of the human headed bulls from Khorsabad which the OI team excavated long ago - very iconic and I was extremely impressed by the piece in person. Is is absolutely huge, though I don't have a scale in this picture.. you would be about as high as its leg (it's 16 feet tall). A person entering the palace and passing one of these would immediately be intimidated and humbled by the thing, contributed to the sense of it's actual presence.
______________________________________________
The AOS conferences itself/
As I mentioned the main reason for traveling to Chicago was to attend an mid-west AOS conference. The mid-west branch of the American Oriental Society is actually quite small, with many of the or important universities being from different branches of the US. The meeting this time was held at Bourbannais, a small town some distance from Chicago itself - one might suppose that the conference would include the Assyriologists from the U of Chicago itself such as Walter Farber, but they were absent for whatever reason.
Surprisingly, W.G. Lambert was scheduled to appear and read a paper, of course his is legendary in the field - however the weather was awful and I wasn't too surprised when they announced that due to healthy problem, he would be unable to make the trip - he is over 90 of course. However I did get to see Joann Scurlock, who actually organized the event, and hear her paper. I spoke to her afterwards, she is very enthusiastic about the subject material and I found she was generous and welcoming despite my status as a juniour student. I got a picture during her paper on Chaos creatures and Mesopotamian theology:
The conference dealt with the them of
Chicago, Oriental Institute and AOS Meeting
With this post I am sharing some pictures and details of my trip to Chicago - this is therefore a general topic which may interest some members, maybe those who haven't been out to a good oriental museum as of yet. The reason for the trip was mainly to attend the annual meeting of the mid-west AOS (American Oriental Society). Professor Frayne had invited me to go with him months ago, as even though I am a junior student, there really are quite few students even in the Near East department dedicated to Assyriology; and we get along quite well besides that.
The Oriental Institute in Chicago is of course an important institution for Assyriology and thanks to grants from rich patrons in the 1930's (I think it was Rockefeller?) was able to excavate extensively in Iraq. Their digs in the Diyala region are particularly famous. For the general OI page see here or for the OI museum page in particular, see here.
I was particularly exited to see the OI as I'd spent a summer doing their cuneiform by mail course .. So here are some selected photos from their collection
------- OI Mesopotamian Collection Photos -------
Arriving on the Chicago campus I was pleased by the style and archtecture of most of the buildings - often large cathedral like buildings with gothic arches carved in white stone and uniform red tile roofing. Of course the weather made it a bit difficult as the place was somehow colder than Toronto (hitting -20 plus wind chill at some point). The Oriental Institute itself is housed in spacious (but not huge) building of this same style, and contains collections of Mesopotamian and Egyptian material, mainly. The inside is warm and rustic looking with polished wood flooring and even a painted cealing in some ancient design or another - the entire display is well presented with very concise and informative explanations for most displays.
I was particularly impressed that there is actually no admittance fee only a "suggested donation" which is optional. This stands in contrast to the $30 entrance fee at the Royal Ontario Museum for example.. In any case I donated some Canadian money, which seemed to count (and was all I had on me).
Here we have a small tablet containing some of Uruinimgina's reform
This I thought was a very striking tablet, perhaps its black diorite? I forget what Frayne said was on it, some ED economic text maybe.
Here are some of the very recognizable Mesopotamian duck weights - I still don't know why they bothered with that shape 0_0
Here is Professor Frayne in front of the replica of the Law code of Hammurabi - I'd forgotten the real on was at the Louvre and on seeing a picture of this one the OI website determined to check and see if it was a replica or not. And of course - it was. Oh well fun any way.
Here are some (real) statues from the Diyala region - of course very iconic of Sumerian studies in general
This is one of the human headed bulls from Khorsabad which the OI team excavated long ago - very iconic and I was extremely impressed by the piece in person. Is is absolutely huge, though I don't have a scale in this picture.. you would be about as high as its leg (it's 16 feet tall). A person entering the palace and passing one of these would immediately be intimidated and humbled by the thing, contributed to the sense of it's actual presence.
______________________________________________
The AOS conferences itself/
As I mentioned the main reason for traveling to Chicago was to attend an mid-west AOS conference. The mid-west branch of the American Oriental Society is actually quite small, with many of the or important universities being from different branches of the US. The meeting this time was held at Bourbannais, a small town some distance from Chicago itself - one might suppose that the conference would include the Assyriologists from the U of Chicago itself such as Walter Farber, but they were absent for whatever reason.
Surprisingly, W.G. Lambert was scheduled to appear and read a paper, of course his is legendary in the field - however the weather was awful and I wasn't too surprised when they announced that due to healthy problem, he would be unable to make the trip - he is over 90 of course. However I did get to see Joann Scurlock, who actually organized the event, and hear her paper. I spoke to her afterwards, she is very enthusiastic about the subject material and I found she was generous and welcoming despite my status as a juniour student. I got a picture during her paper on Chaos creatures and Mesopotamian theology:
The conference dealt with the them of
You know in a community like this one I don't say this very often because the whole place is eccentric and freaky in its own way.. But it's freaky how you recognized that tablet 0_0