Cuneiform Library at Cornell University

Friday, September 13, 2019

Cuneiform Library at Cornell University

The Jonathan and Jeannette Rosen Cuneiform Tablet Collection, including both the library and the conservation laboratory, is permanently closed effective June 30, 2019.

In the 20 years the cuneiform tablet collection was at Cornell, it was studied by dozens of scholars and has led to over 3 dozen books and articles, with more in press. We thank all who made this effort possible, including the many students, volunteers, researchers, and staff who worked diligently to conserve and document these tablets for future generations. We also thank the Rosen Foundation, whose generous support made it all possible.

Through the combined efforts of the Department of Near Eastern Studies, the Cornell University Library and the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) at UCLA the substantial collection of cuneiform tablets in the Jonathan and Jeannette Rosen Ancient Near Eastern Seminar in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University is in the process of being made available as an online data set.

David I. Owen, the Bernard and Jane Schapiro Professor of Ancient Near Eastern and Judaic Studies in the Department of Near Eastern Studies and Curator of Tablet Collections, together with Oya Rieger of the Cornell University Library were instrumental in initiating this project and its collaboration with the CDLI. It is through their efforts that these significant materials are being made available to scholars, students and the interested public alike in the form of digitized images and transliterations.

The catalogue was initiated by Nicole Brisch, Rosen Foundation Post-doctoral Faculty Associate in the Near Eastern Studies department from 2004-2006 and subsequently augmented and revised by Alhena Gadotti, Lance Allred, and Alexandra Kleinerman Rosen Foundation Post-doctoral Faculty Associates from 2006-2011. Lisa Kinney-Bajwa, Rosen Foundation Conservator and Photographer, and her successors, Laura W. Johnson-Kelly and Jeffrey R. Zorn , were instrumental in conserving and cleaning the tablets as well as making detailed and highly specified, enhanced, digital images of the tablets in "le technique Owen" (ammonium chloride method) since 2003. The website was designed by Melissa Kuo, with programming support from James Reidy, and the Library's Digital Consulting and Production Services group.