New Book from the Oriental Institute: Bismaya: Recovering the Lost City of Adab

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

New Book from the Oriental Institute: Bismaya: Recovering the Lost City of Adab

OIP 138.

Bismaya: Recovering the Lost City of Adab

Karen Wilson,
with Jacob Lauinger, Monica Louise Phillips, Benjamin Studevent-Hickman, and Aage Westenholz.

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An expedition from the University of Chicago excavated the site of Bismaya (ancient Adab) from December 24, 1903, until late June 1905. The excavations were directed first by Edgar J. Banks and then, briefly, by Victor S. Persons. Over 1,000 artifacts, many of them early cuneiform documents, were sent to Chicago, where they are now housed in the Oriental Institute Museum.
The results of the Bismaya excavations were never properly published, and most of the material was never published at all. Banks wrote a lively and highly readable popular account, Bismya, or the Lost City of Adab, that appeared in 1912 and gave the impression that his field methods were considerably less than satisfactory. However, that was not the case. Banks kept a careful field diary, complete with highly accurate sketches, and sent detailed weekly reports, lavishly illustrated with his own drawings, back to Chicago. These materials show that he excavated a mid-third-millennium BC temple and discovered some of the world’ s first historical inscriptions incised on stone vessels dedicated in that structure. He also uncovered residences of the late Early Dynastic period, two Akkadian administrative centers, and a palace of the Isin Larsa/Old Babylonian period.
This monograph presents this large and significant corpus of unpublished material and includes analyses of stratigraphy, architecture, sculpture, cylinder seals, metalwork, and pottery, and discussions of chronology, the succession of the first kings of Adab, and administrative practices during the third millennium BC.
Table Of Contents:

Chapter 1. A Note on the Sources

Chapter 2. Early Exploration

Chapter 3. The University of Chicago Expedition to Bismaya and “the Oldest Statue in the World”

Chapter 4. The Site, the City, and the City Wall

Chapter 5. Mound I — “The Palace”: A Palace of the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian Period

Chapter 6. Mound II — “The Cemetery”: Residence(s) of the Late Early Dynastic Period and Remains of the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian Period

Chapter 7. Mound III — “The Semitic Quarter”: An Akkadian Administrative and Light Industrial Complex

Chapter 8. Mound IV — “The Library”: An Administrative Center During the Reign of Sharkalisharri

Chapter 9. Mound V — “The Temple”: A Series of Temples of the Third Millennium B.C.

Chapter 10. Mound X — Residences of the Akkadian Period?

Chapter 11. The Remaining Mounds

Chapter 12. Objects Whose Findspots Could Not Be Determined

Chapter 13. Objects Purchased by the Expedition

Chapter 14. Archaeology and the History of Bismaya

Appendix A. Early Dynastic Tablets from Adab in the Collection of the Oriental Institute Museum. Monica Louise Phillips

Appendix B. The Ur III Administrative Tablets from Adab in the Collection of the Oriental Institute Museum. Benjamin Studevent-Hickman

Appendix C. The Old Babylonian Tablets from Adab in the Collection of the Oriental Institute Museum. Jacob Lauinger

Appendix D. A7447 — The Inscription. Aage Westenholz

Appendix E. Objects from Bismaya Now in the Collection of the Eski Sark Museum, Istanbul

Appendix F. List of Objects by Oriental Institute Museum Number

Appendix G. Bibliography of Works by Edgar J. Banks

Plates

Oriental Institute Publications 138

Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2012

Pp. xxx + 194; 47 figures, 113 plates, 13 tables

$80.00