Oriental Institute, University of Chicago

Founded in 1896 as the Haskell Oriental Museum on the campus of the University of Chicago, the Oriental Institute Museum focuses on the ancient civilizations of the Middle East.   Unlike many other museums who purchase objects in their collections, the vast majority of objects at the Oriental Institute Museum are artifacts recovered during Insitute-sponsored excavations.  Currently the museum has eight field projects in Egypt, Iran, Sudan, Syria and Turkey with particular research emphasis on ancient urbanism, the origins of food production and village life during the Neolithic period.  The museum features collections and exhibits from the early Holocene (about 10,000 years ago) through the Medieval Period with a concentration on the period from the 3rd - 1st millenium BCE.

The institute's collections are organized into galleries featuring the civilizations of Mesopotamia, Assyria, Syro-Anatolia, Meggido, Egypt, Nubia and Persia.   Considered the keystone of the museum, the Khorsabad Court, that opened to the public in 2003, displays monumental friezes from the palace of Assyrian King Sargon II who ruled from 722 - 705 BCE.

Sargon's palace at Dur-Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad) was built between 717 and 706 BCE then abandoned after King Sargon's death in 705 BCE.  Excavators, beginning with the French in the 19th century, discovered Khorsabad contained unique stylistic innovations and extensive records of its construction that have proved invaluable in understanding Assyrian building methods and technologies.  The Oriental Institute resumed excavations in 1928 and recovered over 1,000 relief slabs and fragments from the palace site.  It distributed monumental sculptured slabs from the palace to the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad, the Louvre in Paris, and the British Museum in London.

The Oriental Institute houses over 30,000 Egyptian artifacts.  The initial Egyptian collection was donated by collector James Henry Breasted, who purchased the objects between 1894 and 1935.  Additional items were added by the Egypt Exploration Fund (now Society) and the British School of Archaeology in Egypt.  Then the Institute began a New Kingdom excavation at Medinet Habu in 1926 and added thousands more.  A colossal statue of King Tutankhamun inscribed with the name Horemheb, found by Institute excavators in Thebes, dominates the gallery.

Equally imposing, a colossal bull from the Hundred-Column Throne Hall in Persepolis watches over the Persian Gallery.  The bull was discovered during the Institute's excavations of Persepolis in the 1930s.  In addition to an extensive selection of items from the Achaemenid Period, the museum includes objects from 119 burials explored at the site of Tepe Giyan in Iran during 1931 and 1932.

The museum has a well stocked gift shop called "The Suq" that offers not only a diverse selection of books and DVDs but personal items like reproductions of the gold roundels depicting snarling winged Achaemenid lions featured in their Persian galleries.

Although the museum does not have a cafe, Tudor Hall, the student food court, is just a short walk away and welcomes visitors.

Upcoming exhibits include:  'Earliest Egypt' (Fall 2010), 'New Light on Earliest Kush' (Spring 2011), and the 'Lost Kingdom of Urartu' (Fall 2011).

The museum is open Tuesday - Saturday, 10 am - 6 pm and Sunday, noon - 6 pm.  Photography, including flash, is allowed. 

You may tour the museum virtually online as well.

Images

Put your Flickr photos of this object into the Heritage Key group, and tag them with heritagesite-5458, to see them here!