December 11, 2009

New Research Archives Acquisitions List for October 2009 is now available.

December 3, 2009

As part of its Electronic Publications Initiative and with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) publication of:

November 20, 2009

New article by Norman Golb: Observations On The Bipolar Theory Of So-Called "Qumran Spellings"

November 19, 2009

The Oriental Institute Publications Office announces the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) publication of:

November 13, 2009

As part of its Electronic Publications Initiative and with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) publication of:

November 12, 2009

As part of its Electronic Publications Initiative and with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) publication of:

November 11, 2009

As part of its Electronic Publications Initiative and with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) publication of:

November 9, 2009

As part of its Electronic Publications Initiative and with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) publication of:

November 6, 2009

As part of its Electronic Publications Initiative and with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) publication of:

November 3, 2009

The Research Archives needs your help to maintain its position as the premier library for ancient Near Eastern studies in the Western Hemisphere. The Adopt-a-Journal Campaign is an opportunity to provide the library with its most valuable asset and demonstrate your commitment to the preservation of knowledge and learning for future generations of Oriental Institute members, scholars, students, and visitors.

October 29, 2009

New article by Robert K. Ritner: Reading the Coffin of Meresamun

October 21, 2009

New Research Archives Acquisitions List for September 2009 is now available.

October 15, 2009

The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago invites applications for the Oriental Institute’s Annual Post-Doctoral Scholar Conference program for the 2010-2011 academic year.

This is a twelve-month, non-renewable appointment. The Post-Doctoral Scholar will organize and conduct a two-day conference at the Oriental Institute on key comparatively oriented theoretical or methodological issues in the field of ancient studies (archaeological, text-based, and/or art historical avenues of research). We encourage cross-disciplinary proposals that deal with the ancient Near East (including Egypt) or that compare the Near East with other cultural areas. Applicants should take into consideration the research interests represented at the Oriental Institute. The conference will take place in early to mid March 2011. After the conference, the Post-Doctoral Scholar will work with publication staff to assemble and edit the proceedings for publication in the "Oriental Institute Seminars" series. The incumbent is also encouraged to pursue his or her own research while in residence and to interact with the Oriental Institute community.

Information on past Oriental Institute Annual symposia can be viewed at:
http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/symposia/

Qualifications: Ph.D. in a discipline relating to ancient studies must be complete at the time of appointment. Applicants should send:

  1. 5-page proposal outlining nature and structure of the conference (including names and paper topics of six to eight key participants who have agreed to make presentations, should the conference be funded)
  2. curriculum vitae
  3. 3 letters of reference (these may be sent under separate cover)

Electronic submissions are welcome. Deadline for completed applications is Friday, January 8th, 2010. Start date is September 1, 2010. Please send applications to:

Post-Doctoral Scholar Program
attn. Mariana Perlinac, Oriental Institute
University of Chicago
1155 East 58th St.
Chicago, IL 60637

Or via e-mail to: oi-administration@uchicago.edu

The University of Chicago is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer.

October 6, 2009

The 'Highlights From The Collection' web page for Ancient Egypt has been updated. Thirteen objects from the Oriental Institute Museum’s collection are described in detail, accompanied by twenty-two photographs.

September 30, 2009

New article by Norman Golb: The Messianic Pretender Solomon Ibn Al Ruji And His Son Menahem (The So-Called "David Alroy")

September 29, 2009

An Introduction and Guide to the Oriental Institute Research Archives is now available for download in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format.

September 25, 2009

New article by Norman Golb: The Autograph Memoirs Of Obadiah The Proselyte Of Oppido Lucano

September 15, 2009

As part of its Electronic Publications Initiative and with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) publication of:

September 15, 2009

New Research Archives Acquisitions List for August 2009 is now available.

September 10, 2009

New Research Archives Acquisitions List for July 2009 is now available.

September 3, 2009

As part of its Electronic Publications Initiative and with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) publication of:

September 1, 2009

The Oriental Institute’s return to Nubia in 2006 and 2007 for archaeological field work is detailed on our new Nubian Expedition pages. Between January and March 2007, the Oriental Institute joined internation teams in the 4th Cataract region in archaeological investigation of the area, an area that had, prior to the salvage project, received virtually no attention.

August 10, 2009

As part of its ELECTRONIC PUBLICATIONS ON-LINE, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces an additional letter, W, for the Chicago Demotic Dictionary, edited by Janet H. Johnson. This document is available as an Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) file.

July 31, 2009

As part of its ELECTRONIC PUBLICATIONS ON-LINE, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces an additional letter, H with a dot, for the Chicago Demotic Dictionary, edited by Janet H. Johnson. This document is available as an Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) file.

July 21, 2009

Audio tours of the Oriental Institute Museum galleries are now available for free download so that you can use your own iPod or other MP3 player to take any or all of our special tours. Current tours are 'Highlights of the Collection of the Oriental Institute,' a tour of 'The Ancient Near East in the Time of Tutankhamun,' and a special 'Ancient Egypt for Kids' tour.

July 15, 2009

New Research Archives Acquisitions List for June 2009 is now available.

June 30, 2009

The Oriental Institute Publications Office announces a new print and Adobe Portable Document Format (pdf) publication:

OIP 134. The Archaeology and Geography of Ancient Transcaucasian Societies, Volume 1: The Foundations of Research and Regional Survey in the Tsaghkahovit Plain, Armenia. Adam T. Smith, Ruben S. Badalyan, Pavel Avetisyan. With contributions by Alan Greene and Leah Minc. 2009.

Until recently, the South Caucasus was a virtual terra incognita on Western archaeological maps of southwest Asia. The conspicuous absence of marked places - of site names, toponyms, and topography - gave the impression of a region distant, unknown, and vacant. The Joint American-Armenian Project for the Archaeology and Geography of Ancient Transcaucasian Societies (Project ArAGATS) was founded in 1998 to explore this terrain. Our investigations were guided by two overarching goals: to illuminate the social and political transformations central to the region’s unique (pre)history and to explore the broader intellectual implications of collaboration between the rich archaeological traditions of Armenia (former U.S.S.R.) and the United States.

This volume provides the first encompassing report on the ongoing studies of Project ArAGATS, detailing the general context of contemporary archaeological research in the South Caucasus as well as the specific context of our regional investigations in the Tsaghkahovit Plain of central Armenia. The book opens with detailed examinations of the history of archaeology in the South Caucasus, the theoretical problems that currently orient archaeological research, and a comprehensive reevaluation of the material bases for regional chronology and periodization.

The work then provides the complete results of our regional investigations in the Tsaghkahovit Plain, including the findings of the first systematic pedestrian survey ever conducted in the Caucasus. Thanks to the results presented in this volume, and Project ArAGATS’s ongoing excavations in the area, the Tsaghkahovit Plain is today the best-known archaeological region in the South Caucasus. The present volume thus provides archaeologists with both an orientation to the prehistory of the South Caucasus and the complete findings of the first phase of Project ArAGATS’s field investigations.

June 25, 2009

As part of its Electronic Publications Initiative and with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) publication of:

June 17, 2009

A database of Late Old Babylonian personal names derived from cuneiform texts chiefly dating to the reigns of the last three kings of the First Dynasty of Babylon, 1683-1595 B.C., is now available.

Version 1 indexes 13,573 unique attestations of personal names from almost 3,000 texts, including 4,678 entries from around 700 unpublished texts.

June 16, 2009

New article by Norman Golb: On the Jerusalem Origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Oriental Institute Reserach Archives announces these new acquisitions for March 2009, April 2009, and May 2009.

June 15, 2009

As part of its Electronic Publications Initiative and with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) publication of:

June 8, 2009

As part of its Electronic Publications Initiative and with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) publication of:

May 29, 2009

Oriental Institute Annual Reports for 2005-2006, 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 are now available. Individual Project pages have updated links to their respective articles in these two publications as well.

May 13, 2009

Oriental Institute Annual Reports for 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 are now available. Individual Project pages have updated links to their respective articles in these two publications as well.

May 11, 2009

As part of its Electronic Publications Initiative and with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) publication of:

May 1, 2009

As part of its Electronic Publications Initiative and with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) publication of:

April 27, 2009

As part of its Electronic Publications Initiative and with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) publication of:

April 21, 2009

The Oriental Institute announces a new online resource: "Oriental Institute Demotic Ostraca Online (O.I.D.O.O.)" Project.

The project is being undertaken by Foy Scalf, Oriental Institute Reserach Archivist, and Jacqueline Jay, Assistant Professor of History, Eastern Kentucky University.

The Oriental Institute Museum houses a large collection of nearly 900 Demotic ostraca, pottery sherds upon which ancient scribes recorded a wide variety of text types. The vast majority of the corpus concerns economic matters and consists of receipts, contracts, memos, and lists, but there is a small selection of other genres such as votive and astrological texts. With few exceptions, the material derives from the environs of Thebes and over half of the collection derives from the Oriental Institute excavations at Medinet Habu. It is the project's aim to make available all of the Demotic ostraca in this collection, both published and unpublished, to scholars worldwide in a format that will allow for complex searching and sorting criteria as well as quick and easy updating.

April 17, 2009

Audio/Video recordings of some past Member's Event Lectures are available here.

Additional lectures will be added periodically. Lectures are recorded and distributed with the permission of the presenter.

April 6, 2009

A formal description of the Oriental Institute's Electronic Publications Initiative is now available.

Publication of research is a central tenet of the mission of the Oriental Institute. Of equal importance is the widespread accessibility of the Institute's publications to scholars and interested individuals throughout the world. Towards that end, on October 27, 2004, the Oriental Institute established the Electronic Publications Initiative (EPI), by which all publications of the Oriental Institute are simultaneously published both in print and electronically on the Internet, electronic distribution is complimentary, and older titles are to be scanned and distributed on the Internet as funding and time permit.

March 16, 2009

The Oriental Institute Publications Office announces a new print publication:

For decades, scholars have struggled to understand the complex relationship between pastoral nomadic tribes and sedentary peoples of the Near East. The Oriental Institute's fourth annual post-doc seminar (March 7-8, 2008), Nomads, Tribes, and the State in the Ancient Near East, brought together archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists to discuss new approaches to enduring questions in the study of nomadic peoples, tribes, and states of the past: What social or political bonds link tribes and states? Could nomadic tribes exhibit elements of urbanism or social hierarchies? How can the tools of historical, archaeological, and ethnographic research be integrated to build a dynamic picture of the social landscape of the Near East? This volume presents a range of data and theoretical perspectives from a variety of regions and periods, including prehistoric Iran, ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, seventh-century Arabia, and nineteenth-century Jordan.

As part of its Electronic Publications Initiative, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) publication of:

The Oriental Institute Reserach Archives announces these new acquisitions for January 2009 and February 2009.

February 13, 2009

The monthly Oriental Institute e-Newsletter can now be subscribed to from the footer area of every page on the Institute’s website, including this What’s New page!

February 11, 2009

The 2009 version of John A. Brinkman”s “Mesopotamian Directory” is now available for download, in Adobe PDF format:

January 27, 2009

The Oriental Institute Publications Office announces a new print publication:

  • OIMP 29. The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt. Edited by Emily Teeter and Janet H. Johnson. 2009.

    This companion volume and catalog to the exhibit that opens on February 9, 2009, traces the life of Meresamun whose mummy, dating to about 800 B.C., is one of the highlights of the Oriental Institute’s Museum. The text introduces the historical and cultural setting of Egypt during her time. Essays and artifacts examine the role of music and of musicians in Egyptian temple cults, their training, and the types of musical instruments that Meresamun would have used. The life of Meresamun outside the temple is explored, with emphasis upon her social and legal status, what other professions were available to her, and what home life was like. The study of the life of this individual is augmented by forensic evidence obtained with the newest generation of CT scanners that sheds light on Meresamun’s life and death.

As part of its Electronic Publications Initiative, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) publication of: