Syllabus 1:  
HA 522
Spring 1996
Professor Holly Pittman
Wednesday 10-12 pm
Jaffe 201
 
Office Hours:	Thursday 3:15-5  by appointment sign up in Jaffe Art 
History Office 
Room 204:	3405 Woodland Walk
Telephone:	 898-3251
email hpittman@mail.sas.upenn.edu






			

			Royal Cemetery:  Making an Exhibition

The University of Pennsylvania Museum has in its collections a large 
number of artifacts from the Royal Cemetery at Ur.  This cemetery is the 
most spectacular of any found in the ancient Near East.  The burials were 
made sometime around 2500 B.C. and they remained undistrubed until they 
were excavated in the 1920's by Sir Leonard Woolley in a joint expedition 
between the British Museum and the University of Pennnyslvania.  In this 
seminar we will study both the graves themselves and the the works of art 
and artifacts that were found in the Royal Cemetery. 
We will study them in as testimony of the long lost civilization of the 
City States of Ancient Sumer interpreting them in light of their broader 
cultural context.  This seminar will be the foundation out of which an 
exhibition of will be organized.  Members of the seminar will be 
encouraged to consider ways to present this fascinating material to a 
wider public. 



Class schedule:


1:  	January 17:  	Introduction:  

2: 	January 24:      Visit to the Gallery
			Required reading to be discussed in class:
			Moorey, P.R.S "What Do We Know about the People 
Buried in the Royal 			Cemetery", Expedition 26,(1977):24-40.

3: 	January 31:  	lecture by Donald P. Hansen  		
  			Art and archaeology of Early Dynastic Sumer
			Section of Early Dynastic Period.  Chronologies 
in Old World Archaeology 			pp.
			Hansen, Donald P. "The Fantastic World of 
Sumerian Art: Seal 				Impressions from Ancient 
Lagash," in ed. by Ann C. Farkas, Prudence O. 			Harper, 
and Evelyn B. Harrison, Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and 			
Medieval Worlds, Philipp von Zabern, Mainz, 1987, pp. 53-63.


4:	February 7: 	lecture by Richard Zettler and Steve Tinney
			The Society and the Political Structure of Early 
Dynastic Sumer
			Postgate, N.  Early Mesopotamia, Society and 
			Steinkeller, Anchor Bible chapter on third millennium


5:	February 14:  	DESCRIPTIONS OF Paradigmatic Burials:
			PuAbi
			Mes Kalam Dug
			Death Pit:




Student Reports:

6:	February 21:	Report: 	Setting of the Cemetery in 
relation to the rest of Ur 	
7:	February 28:  	Report: 	What is distinctive about the 
Burial practices.   
					History of inhumanation in Sumer.
8:	March 6:  	Report:  	Trade 
9:	March 20:  	Report:	Ritual practice or burial of Puabi and others.
10:	March 27: 	Report:	Cylinder Seals 
11:	April 3: 	Report:	Ram 
12:	April 10:	Report:	Jewellry
13:	April 17:	Report:	Harp 

14:	April 24:	Finale


 
Selected Readings on the Early Dynastic Period

Frankfort, Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient chpt. 2 pp. 39-82.

Moortgat, The Art of Ancient Mesopotamia, chpt 1, pp. 18-45.

Groenewegen-Frankfort, Arrest and Movement, book 2, chpt 2

Roaf, Atlas 78-95.

Winter, Irene J. "After the Battle is Over: The Stele of the Vultures and 
the Beginning of Historical Narrative in the Art of the Ancient Near 
East," in Pictorical Narrative in Antiquity and the Middle Ages ed. by 
Herbert L. Kessler and Marianna Shreve Simpson. Studies in the History of 
Art vol. 16 1985. pp. 11-32.

Jacobsen, Treasures of Darkness, chpt. 3-4

Chronologies in Old World Archaeology section on Early Dynastic period 

Jacobsen, T. "Primitive Democracy in Ancient Mesopotamia," Journal of 
Near Eastern Studies 2 (1943), pp. 159-172

Jacobsen, T. "Early Political Development in Mesopotamia," Zeitschrift 
für Assyriologie, 52 1957 pp. 91-140. 

Moorey, P.R.S "What Do We Know about the People Buried in the Royal 
Cemetery", Expedition 26,(1977):24-40.

Hansen, D.P. "Some Early Dynastic I Sealings from Nippur," in Studies 
Presented to G.M.A. Hanfmann (Harvard University, Fogg Art Museum 
Monographs in Art and Archaeology 2), Mainz, 1971, pp. 47 ff.

Hansen, D.P. and G. Dales, "The Temple of Inanna, Queen of Heaven, at 
Nippur," Archaeology 15 (1962): 75-84.

Moorey, P.R.S. 'Some Aspects of Incised Drawing and Mosaic in the Early 
Dynastic Period," Iraq 29 (1967), pp. 97-116.

Cooper, Jerrold, "Mesopotamian Historical Consciousness and the 
Production of Monumental Art in the Third Millennium B.C." in ed. Ann C. 
Gunter Investigating Artistic Environments pp. 39-51.

Cooper, Jerrold, Reconstructing History from Ancient Inscriptions: The 
Lagash Umma Border Conflict Sources from the Ancient Near East, vol 2 
fascicle 1 Malibu, 1983.

Hansen, Donald P. "The Fantastic World of Sumerian Art: Seal Impressions 
from Ancient Lagash," in ed. by Ann C. Farkas, Prudence O. Harper, and 
Evelyn B. Harrison, Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and Medieval 
Worlds, Philipp von Zabern, Mainz, 1987, pp. 53-63.

Site Reports of Ur Excavations:

Legrain, L. Ur Excavations, vol. X:  Seal Cylinders, London, 	1951.

Nissen, H.J. Zur Datierung des Königsfriedhofes von Ur, Bonn, 	1966.

Pollock, S., "Chronology of the Royal Cemetery of Ur," Iraq 47 	(1985), 
pp. 129-158.

Woolley, C.L. 'Excavations at Ur," Antiquaries Journal 3 (1923)  to 13 
(1934) reprinted in Excavations at Ur, London, 1954.

Woolley, C.L. Ur Excavations vol. 2, The Royal Cemetery, London and 
Philadlephia 1934 b)

Woolley, C.L. Ur of the Chaldees. revised and updated edition of Sir 
Leonard Woolley's Excavations at Ur


Basic Books on the Art and the History of the Ancient Near East.  Will be 
on reserve in the University Museum Library


Frankfort, H. The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient, 4rd revised 
edition, Pelican History of Art, 1970.  

Groenewegen-Frankfort, H. Arrest and Movement: An Essay On Space and Time 
in the Representational Art of the Ancient Near East. The University of 
Chicago Press, Chicago, 1951.

Knapp, Bernard, The History and Culture of Ancient Western Asia and 
Egypt,  Berkeley, 1988. 

Moortgat, A. The Art of Ancient Mesopotamia: The Classical Art of the 
Near East. Phaidon, London and New York, 1969. 

Roaf, Michael, Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the ancient Near East. 
Oxford, 1990.  

Orthmann, W. Der Alte Orient, Propyläen Kunstgeschichte, vol. 14, Berlin, 
1975. (primarily for photographs)

Strommenger, E. and M. Hirmer, 5000 Years of the Art of Mesopotamia 
(primarily for photographs) Abrams.

Other Basic Books:
on reserve in University of Pennsylvania Museum Library

Adams, Robert McC. The Heartland of Cities. Chicago, 1981.

Adams Robert McC. and H.J. Nissen, The Uruk Countryside, Chicago 1972.

Amiet, P.  La glyptique méspotamienne archaïque rev. ed. Paris, 1980.

Black, Jeremey and Anthony Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient 
Mesopotamia  Oxford, 1990.

Cambridge Ancient History vols. 1-3.

Collon, D. First Impressions: Cylinder Seals in the Ancient Near East. 
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1987.

Crawford, Harriet, Sumer and the Sumerians, Oxford, 1991.

Dalley, Stephanie, Myths of Mesopotamia, Oxford, 1989.

Ehrich, R. ed. Chronologies in Old World Archaeology, 3rd edition, 
Chicago. 1993.

Frankfort, H. Cylinder Seals, London, 1939.

Frankfort, H. Kingship and the Gods, University of Chicago Press, 1948. 

Hallo, W.W. and W.K. Simpson, The Ancient Near East: A History Harcourt 
Brace Jovanovich, Inc, New York, 1971.

Jacobsen, T. Treasures of Darkness, A History of Mesopotamian Religion. 
Yale University Press, 1976.

Knapp, A. Bernard. The History and Culture of Ancient Western Asia and 
Egypt, The Dorsey Press, Belmont, California, 1988

Kramer, S.N.  The Sumerians, Their History, Culture and Character, The 
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1963.

Lloyd, S. The Archaeology of Mesopotamia from the Old Stone Age to the 
Persian Conquest rev. ed. 1984, Thames and Hudson, 1984. 

Matthiae, P. An Empire Rediscovered trans Christopher Holme, London 1980

Mellaart, J.N. The Neolithic of the Near East, Charles Scribner's Sons, 
New York, 1975. 

Nissen, Hans J. The Early History of the Ancient Near East, trans. 
Elizabeth Lutzeier with Kenneth J. Northcott. University of Chicago 
Press, Chicago and London, 1988 (translation  of Grundzüge einer 
Geschichte der Frühzeit des Vorderen Orients, Berlin, 1983)

Spycket, A.  La statuaire du proche Orient, Paris, 1987.

Oppenheim, Leo, Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization 
revised edition completed by Erica Reiner. University of Chicago Press, 
Chicago, 1977.

Porada, E. Corpus of Ancient Near Eastern Seals in North American 
Collections I, the Pierpont Morgan Library Collection (The Bollingen 
Series, vol. 14, Washington, 1948. 

Postgate, J.N. Early Mesopotamia. 1992.

Pritchard, J.B. ed. Ancient Near Eastern Test relating to the Old 
Testament Princeton, 1969.

Redman, Charles The Rise of Civilization: From Early Farmers to Urban 
Society in the Ancient Near East. W.H. Freeman and Company, San 
Francisco, 1978.