Herzfeld at Samarra

The Smithsonian Institution's Collections Search Center announced on their blog this morning the launch of a new

Samarra Resource Page

Ernst Herzfeld’s archaeological excavation of Samarra  will mark its 100th anniversary in 2011.  To honor the occasion, the  Freer|Sackler Archives has created the Samarra Resource Page that  collates collections online content, social media content, and related  scholarly content, to provide an easy central resource for all of the  Herzfeld paper materials and products.  Preservation, digitization, and  cataloging have been made possible by the Leon Levy Foundation.

Above Image: Excavation of Sāmarrāʼ (Iraq): View of the Qaṣr al-ʿĀshiq towards the North, 1911-1913 [graphic]. 

And see also  AWOL's entry Ernst Herzfeld Papers

Samarra in Pleiades http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/894082

Invitation: 2011 Meeting of the Forum for Classics, Libraries, and Scholarly Communication

The Forum for Classics, Libraries, and Scholarly Communication (FCLSC) will meet during the APA/AIA meetings on Saturday January 8th from 9:00-10:30 a.m. in the Marriott Riverwalk’s Valero Room

The Forum brings together people interested in the intersection between  classical studies, libraries, and scholarly communication, in order to  promote timely exchange of information and ideas. Members also collaborate on projects of mutual concern. As an officially affiliated  group of the American Philological  Association, the Forum aims to support initiatives of  the APA relating to libraries and scholarly communication.

This year's meeting will include a progress report on the joint FCLSC/LC project to match e-text to LC bibliographic records, discussion of the CLIR report Rome Wasn’t Digitized in a Day :  Buidling a Cyberinfrastructure for Digital Classics, by Alison Bebeu,  Perseus Project, and other business.

FCLSC welcomes any and all who are interested.

Open Access Database: Animal Mummies

See now here.

Ernst Herzfeld Papers

[First posted 8/10/10. Updated 1/3/11:  See today's notice of updates on Ernst Herzfeld Online Resources by Rachael Cristine Woody on the Smithsonian blog]

Ernst Herzfeld Papers, 1899-1962 at the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System

"Ernst Emil Herzfeld (1879-1948) was an orientalist whose many talents led him to explore all phases of Near Eastern culture, from the prehistoric period to Islamic times and from linguistics and religion to art and architecture." [Margaret Cool Root, 1976: "The Herzfeld Archive of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 11, pp. 119-124."]


The Papers primarly relate to Herzfeld's work in Western Asia between 1903 and 1947, chiefly in Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria, and particularly to his excavations at Samarra, Pasargadae, and Persepolis, and also in Sistan. Much of the research material he accumulated during this time was used in preparation for his nearly two hundred books, articles, and lectures.

And see the finding aid: Ernst Herzfeld: An Inventory of His Papers at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives 

From the SIRIS blog:

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Ernst Herzfeld's Excavation of Samarra - Online!

Series 7: Records of Samarra Expeditions is now fully digitized, cataloged and online thanks to funding from the Leon Levy Foundation, and cataloger extraordinaire: Xavier Courouble!  Below is a description of the Ernst Herzfeld's Samarra materials written by Thomas Leiston, as well as a final report by Xavier, documenting his cataloging efforts for a project of this scope.

Ernst Herzfeld Papers, Series 7: Records of Samarra Expeditions, 1906-1945: Field notes 186 items : drawings, sketches, sketchbooks, correspondence, notebooks, photographs, blueprints, notes, diaries, prints, journals (accounts), publications, articles, clippings, rubbings.

"Two campaigns of excavation at Samarra in Iraq, carried out by Ernst Herzfeld on behalf of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin between the years 1911 and 1913 mark the beginning of large-scale archaeological research on Islamic antiquities. During this time, Herzfeld was supported for brief periods by the swiss architect Samuel Guyer, Commander von Ludloff, various technical assistants, and finally Friedrich Sarre, who was the director of the Islamic department at the museum and initiator of the expedition. For most of the time, however, all tasks that today would be divided among a team of archaeologists rested solely on Herzfeld's shoulders: coordinating hundreds of workmen at various sites, measuring buildings, drawing architecture and objects, and cataloging finds, but also negociating with local authorities who were often uncooperative."

"Still working at a time when the success of a venture such as the Samarra expedition was measured by its spectacular finds in both architecture and precious objects, the immense responsibility for bringing this expedition through the unexplored territories of Islamic archaeology to a successful conclusion presented an enormous physical and psychological challenge. In an effort that from the perspective of modern archaeology must be called Herculean, he excavated and examined nineteen sites [Great Mosque of al-Mutawakkil, Congregational Mosque of Madinat al-Mutawakkiliyya, Shiite Shrine Complex, Qubbat al-Ṣulaibiyya; palaces of Balkuwārā, Ṣūr ʿĪṣā, and the Qaṣr al-ʿĀshiq; the Cemetery at Shabbat al-Hawā; Mausoleum of Imām al-Dūr; Tall al-ʿAlīq; Ḥarba Bridge and finally the residential architecture at al-Quraina, al-Qāṭūn, al-Jubairiyya, and west of Ṣūr ʿĪṣā, and the baths] and collected a stupendous corpus of material, one that in many respects still forms the foundation for our knowledge of the city of Samarra and ʾAbbāsid art in the 3rd/9th centuries. What is astonishing is that Herzfeld himself considered his achievements during the first campaign in Samarra to be merely a dress rehearsal for the more ambitious second campaign which focused on the Dār al-Khilāfa." [Leisten, Tomas, 2003: "Excavation of Samarra, v. I. Architecture : Final report of the first campaign 1910-1912. Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz am Rhein, 2003. Preface, p.IX."]...

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all AWOL's readers on the web, on email and feed readers, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

Thank you very much for your support and interest in this project.  Please keep the suggestions and comments coming in the comments below or directly to me.

And please visit our new sister project: Access to Mideast and Islamic Resources (AMIR)

Open Access Journal: vis-à-vis: Explorations in Anthropology

vis-à-vis: Explorations in Anthropology

vis-à-vis: Explorations in Anthropology is an academic forum dedicated to publishing graduate student work from any of the anthropology sub-fields. The journal is published exclusively in online form and all articles published since 2008 are available under a Creative Commons license. Our aim is to recognize outstanding scholarly works within and beyond the University of Toronto. vis-á-vis welcomes submissions from graduate students and faculty affiliated with recognized institutions in Canada. Submissions may include research articles and book reviews.

List of Open Access Journals in Ancient Studies

News from CDLI: Arizona State Museum cuneiform collection in CDLI

Arizona State Museum cuneiform collection in CDLI 

The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, in partnership with the Arizona State Museum (ASM) in Tucson, Arizona--established in 1893 by the Arizona Territorial Legislature, the ASM  is the oldest and largest anthropology museum in the American Southwest--is pleased to announce the addition of new digital content to its web offerings. 

 

In early December of this year, UCLA staff member Jared Wolfe scanned 117 ASM tablets, and further processed the tablet surface images according to CDLI's "fat-cross" standards. The majority of the text artifacts in the collection were published in hand copy and transliteration by David I. Owen & Ewa Wasilewska ten years ago (JCS 52, 7-53); earlier publications are, with this effort, complemented with an additional 20 heretofore unpublished texts. The entire ASM collection can be accessed here. We note that during his stay in Tucson, Mr. Wolfe was kindly given imaging access to the small private collection of Prof. Anne Kilmer; the five texts, published in part by Daniel Foxvog in 1993-1994 (ASJ 15, 79 and JCS 46, 11), may be viewed here.

 

This imaging and image processing was made possible by funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and is part of the on-going mission of CDLI to ensure the long-term digital preservation of ancient insc-riptions on cuneiform tablets, and, in furtherance of cuneiform research, to provide free global access to all available text artifact data. 

 

For the CDLI and the ASM: 

Robert K. Englund, UCLA

Michael Jacobs, Archaeological Collections Curator, ASM