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From Ur to VR: The Oriental Institute Online
From: University of Chicago
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 hether you want to read about the ancient holy city of Nippur in southern Iraq or learn an ancient Egyptian spell for preventing food poisoning, you need go no farther than the Oriental Institute's website (www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/). The institute, at the University of Chicago, has for a century been a pioneer in the archaeology, philology and history of early Near Eastern civilizations. |
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| A photograph from the 1933-4 expedition to Khorsabad, Iraq. Excavation of Gate A in the citadel of King Sargon II (721-705 BCE). | |
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The comprehensive website takes you through the institute's collections and includes many photographs of expeditions conducted in the first part of the twentieth century. Quicktime VR movies of the Oriental Institute's galleries let you "virtually" stand in the museum and look at the Assyrian, Mesopotamian, Persian and Egyptian galleries. |
The website is more than a showcase of historical photographs, maps and pretty pictures of Egyptian jewelry, however. It is a useful research tool for the amateur archaeologist or student of the ancient Near East. Informative articles, many of which first appeared in the institute's News and Notes newsletter, accompany photos of excavations conducted throughout the Near East. Photographs have descriptive captions and can be ordered from the Oriental Institute. |
ANE, an electronic discussion list for researchers and students dedicated to Ancient Near East topics, is open, unmoderated and archived. Abzu is an experimental guide that attempts to index the rapid growth in information and distributed data on Ancient Near East topics. And a substantial recommended-books list on Ancient Near East topics encourages students to do further reading. |
Until January 21, 2001, the institute is hosting a special traveling exhibit, "Treasures From the Royal Tombs of Ur," organized by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, which has attracted capacity crowds. Some images from the exhibit and descriptions are on the website. |
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