Ray Johnson talks about the Khonsu Temple

Ray Johnson, Director of the Epigraphic Survey, talks about ARCE's work at the Khonsu Temple.




View it at YouTube

News: Joint Palestinian-American dig near Jericho

Joint Palestinian-American dig near Jericho yields clues about early Islamic culture

By William Harms

UChicgoNews 

October 26, 2011

Graduate student Michael Jennings sits on the bench of a gate discovered by a joint Oriental Institute-Palestinian team excavating Khirbet Al-Mafjar, a site near Jericho.

Photo by Don Whitcomb

As the Byzantine Empire was in decline, Islam began to dominate the Middle East, with a remarkable culture that showed a command of technology and an appreciation of art and decoration, research by archaeologists shows.

In order to study Islamic civilization in its earliest days, Donald Whitcomb, who directs the Islamic Archaeology project at the Oriental Institute, is undertaking a project with Palestinian colleagues to further excavate an early Islamic site north of Jericho that contains a palace, a bathhouse and what was probably a settlement to the north.

Whitcomb excavated the site at Khirbet Al-Mafjar last winter and will return in January as part of a joint archaeological project that will include Americans and Palestinians. The team already has uncovered a gate and a stairway that led to a residential town to the north, where the team uncovered an ornamental pool surrounded by white mosaic paving, glass vials, lamps and other artifacts...

See the chronicle of news about the Oriental Institute.

Oriental Institute Symposium 2012

The Oriental Institute has just announced the eighth in its annual symposia series:

Temple Topography, Ritual Practice, and Cosmic Symbolism in the Ancient World, organized by Deena Ragavan,
to be held March 2-3, 2012, in the Institute's Breasted Hall

Past symposia include

• 2011 Symposium—Iconoclasm and Text Destruction in the Ancient Near East and Beyond
• 2010 Symposium—Slaves and Households in the Near East
• 2009 Symposium—Science and Superstition: Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
• 2008 Symposium—Nomads, Tribes, and the State in the Ancient Near East: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives
• 2007 Symposium—Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond
• 2006 Symposium—Performing Death: Social Analyses of Funerary Traditions In The Ancient Mediterranean
• 2005 Symposium—Margins of writing, origins of cultures: Unofficial writing in the ancient Near East and beyond

And the 2004 proto-symposium Changing Social Identity with the Spread of Islam: Archaeological Perspectives

After the conference, the Fellow assembles and edits the proceedings for publication in the series  Oriental Institute Seminars (OIS),  each volume of which is available for sale or for download:

• OIS 7. Slaves and Households in the Near East. Edited by Laura Culbertson. 2011.
• OIS 6. Divination and Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World. Edited by Amar Annus. 2010.
• OIS 5. Nomads, Tribes, and the State in the Ancient Near East: Cross-disciplinary Perspective. Jeffrey Szuchman, ed. 2009.
  
• OIS 4. Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond Nicole Brisch, ed. 2008.
  
• OIS 3. Performing Death: Social Analyses of Funerary Traditions in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean Nicola Laneri, ed. 2007.
  
  
• OIS 2. Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures. (second printing) Seth L. Sanders, ed. 2007. 
  • Download PDF (original publication, 2006) original publication, 2006
  • Download PDF (second printing, 2007) second printing, 2007
• OIS 1. Changing Social Identity with the Spread of Islam: Archaeological Perspectives. Donald Whitcomb, ed. 2004.
  

In Their Spare Time

An interesting article in the October 24, 2011 Chicago Tribune (All the living room's a stage: For nearly 75 years, Hyde Park group has gathered to read plays) profiles The Thirty Seven Players, a Hyde Park play-reading group that has been meeting once a month since 1937.  Current partcipants include Emily Teeter and Kitty Picken.

Tell Edfu Blog

Tell Edfu - The 2011 Season

The site of Tell Edfu is located roughly halfway between Luxor and Aswan, Egypt. As the former capital of the 2nd Upper Egyptian nome, it has over 3000 years of history standing. The Tell Edfu Project, under the auspices of the Oriental Institute, aims to investigate the remains of this ancient city. 

Read more about The OI's Edfu Project.   And see the project website at Tell Edfu Project.



Entries for Edfu in Pleiades:

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Edfu

by thomase — last modified Sep 05, 2011 05:44 PM — Relevance: 100%

Apollonopolis Magna

The Ptolemaic temple to Horus at Edfu, and the nearby settlement. by J. Keenan — last modified Aug 02, 2011 05:57 PM — filed under: Horus — Relevance: 61%

The Temple of Horus

The center of the Edfu temple complex. by nnagy — last modified Jun 28, 2011 03:26 PM — Relevance: 60%