Category Archives: Archaeology and Antiquities

Style in the Dawn of Civilization

Archaeology and Antiquities, Gender and Sexuality, Iraq


Belt made of lapis lazuli, gold and carnelian worn by Queen Pu-abi, who was buried in the Royal Tombs of Ur.

The frenzy caused by New York Fashion Week and red-carpet style at the Oscars may give the impression that contemporary society is particularly clothes-obsessed, but the research of Aubrey Baadsgaard, an anthropology doctoral student at Penn, shows that the concept of fashion is as old as human history itself. Baadsgaard is writing her dissertation on how clothing and ornamentation both reflected and helped construct gender and gender roles in ancient Mesopotamia during the Early Dynastic Period (circa 2900 – 2100 B.C.), considered to be one of the ‘cradles of civilization.’

For the rest of this article, with pictures, click here.

Tenure Affirmed, not Bulldozed

Anthropology/Sociology, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Archaeology and Antiquities, Ethics

[Note: The recent tenure case of Dr. Nadia Abu el-Haj generated a great deal of heat in the blogosphere, but I am pleased to report that she was granted tenure based on the internal reviews and despite the external attempts to bulldoze her voice out of the academy. I had reported on this case in a post here on September 13. The details are provided in a blog item by Richard Silverstein, which I include here to bring closure to this case.]

by Richard Silverstein, Tikkun Olam, November 2, 2007

The long, arduous journey of Nadia Abu El-Haj, Barnard professor of anthropology, to tenure is finally over. The Columbia administration has approved Barnard’s recommendation and she will become tenured faculty on approval of both institutions’ boards of trustees. Thanks to Sol Salbe for noting the JTA report on this from earlier today. However, a Jewish journalist friend of mine has pointed out a typical JTA error in the copy for the story:

El-Haj is the author of “Facts on the Ground,” a book that attacks the Israeli archaeological establishment for fabricating material used to legitimize Israeli policies.

My friend called this sentence:

a complete and utter distortion of the book, which, of course, the journalist, whoever he/she might be, has not read. What he/she has read is Paula Stern’s petition or Gabrielle Berkner’s New York Sun story. On deadline, people [just] WRITE STUFF. It’s a pity The Sun gets to set the template.

Continue reading Tenure Affirmed, not Bulldozed →

Picture Iraq in 1925

Archaeology and Antiquities, Architecture, Iraq, Photography, Teaching Resources


A Street in Baghdad, photo by A. Kerim, 1925.

Can you picture a Baghdad street without damage from the ongoing war in which shrapnel and broken glass draw the blood or ordinary Iraqis of all persuasions? One way is to return to the past more than 80 years ago to the year before the Baghdad Museum was created. The website Iraq Museum International has a number of interesting pages on the archaeological and pictoral history of Iraq. One of these is an online exposition of 72 sepiatone photographs taken by A. Kerim in 1925, published by the Hasso Brothers in Baghdad and printed by Rotophot A.G. in Berlin. These photographs are currently in the Harvard Semitic Museum Photographic Archives. The photographs cover all aspects of life, architecture and daily life and are well worth looking at or using in a classroom.

Tenure Crashers Gone Wrong

Anthropology/Sociology, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Archaeology and Antiquities

In a previous post I commented on the media-made controversy over the tenure case of anthropologist Nadia Abu El-Haj at Barnard College. In noting a pingback to my post on another blog, I discovered that those who would try to interrupt the tenure process at Barnard have gone even further into the wrong territory. The “Deny Abu El Haj Tenure Committee” has created a website using Prof. Abu El-Haj’s name (http://www.nadiaabuelhaj.com/) in order to attack her. The url has even been copyrighted. For a group that claims to be interested in restoring “honor” to Barnard, it appears any means justifies their tenure crashing end. I am not a lawyer (as my salary would well document), but this site seems a prime case for a libel suit. How can a group copyright a person’s name for a website and use that to attack? Forget the bulldozer, this is what the bull drops on the ground and it sure doesn’t smell like a fact.

Daniel Martin Varisco

Bulldozing the [Arti]Facts

Anthropology/Sociology, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Archaeology and Antiquities, Journalism and Media, Orientalism

As an individual in Academe who has already achieved the career-defining rite of pedagogical passage known as “tenure,” the issue of a fellow scholar potentially being denied tenure in a highly politicized media campaign becomes an issue of concern. I am not so puffed up to think that tenure status is ipso facto a mark of praiseworthy expertise. There are far too many examples out there of professors who are not any better for having been collegially granted a life sentence or who drop out of publishing and professional sight once they are “in.” Some use the bestowed honor to promote their own partisan views at the expense of teaching others by example to enhance critical thinking. But one thing that I do find sacred about the status is that it is necessarily judged in the local academic context. If one’s peers and administrative lords agree that a certain professor deserves tenure, then so be it. It is not as though a pope is being elected to shepherd the whole flock. Outside interference is indeed interference, especially when the deliberated judgments of a range of responsible individuals at a major college are being challenged.

One current case at Barnard College has hit the media, a rarity except when an outside group has a strong partisan bias. This is the case of Nadia Abu El-Haj, who teaches anthropology. Continue reading Bulldozing the [Arti]Facts →

Egyptian Cosmology and the Grand Canyon

Archaeology and Antiquities, Egypt


[Isis Temple of the Grand Canyon]

In mid August, this year, I traveled to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. I was stunned by the views of spectacular buttes and rises, some of which are named after Egyptian gods, goddesses and kings such as “Isis,” “Osiris,” “Horus,” “Set” and “Cheops” (the Pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid of Egypt). This exposure triggered substantial questions concerning the relationship between ancient Egyptian culture and Native Americans inhabiting the Grand Canyon recognizing that anthropological and historical studies of archaic cosmologies of ancient societies are still open for further development. I found a very interesting article on the subject of “Ancient Egyptian Treasures in the Grand Canyon: Suppressed Archeological Information and Metaphysical Paradox?” written by Barry McEwen in which he refers to an article written by David Hatcher Childress who reveals deep concern about the Smithsonian Institution cover up of important findings of G.E. Kinkaid and Professor S.A. Jordan. To quote Childress, “Perhaps the most amazing suppression of all is the excavation of an Egyptian tomb by the Smithsonian itself in Arizona. A lengthy front page story of the PHOENIX GAZETTE on 5 April 1909… gave a highly detailed report of the discovery and excavation of a rock-cut vault by an expedition led by a Professor S. A. Jordan of the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian, however, claims to have absolutely no knowledge of the discovery or its discoverers.” Continue reading Egyptian Cosmology and the Grand Canyon →

At a Tomb in Abydos

Archaeology and Antiquities, Egypt, Poetry

Temple at Abydos

by Augustus Wight Bomberger

How little hath life changed, O ancient King!
This fan so delicate and bracelet rare,
These dainty, jeweled trinkets for the hair,
Were thine own gifts, I know, and thine this ring.
And Bener-Ab, thy daughter, “Sweet of Heart,”
Who wore them once, was precious of a truth
And dear to thee in all her winsome youth,
Unspotted from the world, unspoiled of art:
So dear that thou at times didst reckon less
Thy royal sceptre than her soft caress;
Yet for that cause wert all the more a king,
Five thousand years ago when thou didst reign
In great Abydos — city of the plain.
And now — ah me, how close these symbols bring
Thy soul to mine across the vast of years – Continue reading At a Tomb in Abydos →

In and Out of Aden

Aden, Archaeology and Antiquities, Books You Should Read, Islamic Economics, Islamic Texts, Rasulids, Travel, Yemen

[The following is an excerpt from a recently published historical analysis of the Yemeni port of Aden in the 13th and 14th centuries by Roxani Margariti (Emory University), who reconstructs port life vividly through archival records in the Cairo Genizeh, relevant Arabic texts and archaeological research. This is a fascinating look at one of the most important medieval ports in the Red Sea/Indian Ocean trading network that ultimately linked Europe with the Far East before Portuguese galleons changed the complex equation of global trade.]

by Roxani Eleni Margariti

In the current era of giant container ships, GPS, and e-commerce, a single vessel can carry forty-eight hundred trailer-sized containers of merchandize from Bremen, Germany, to Elizabeth, New Jersey, in a single voyage. The exact position of a ship is knowable at the push of a button and the blink of any eye, and one can place an order one minute and have confirmation of its receipt in the next. It is therefore difficult to grasp the medieval dimensions of dimensions and time. A respectably sized medieval Arab ship held the equivalent of about two trailer-sized containers. Continue reading In and Out of Aden →