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The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009
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The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

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Page 1: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past

February 26, 2009

Page 2: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past”

Faulkner, Requiem for a nun

Page 3: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

How is memory sustained and (re-)configured?

ritual performances, festivals, commemorations(gatherings)

construction activity, building practice(technological knowledge)

oral traditions, oral culture, storytelling, desire

archiving, collecting, hoarding, digital storing, back-up (museums, mementoes, computing)

production of texts, annals, inscriptionswriting of official histories

visual representations, imaging, imagining

mapping the world: located, site-specific practices(topographies of remembrance)also known as “worlding of the world”

Page 4: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

What is an archive?

Page 5: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

The Cairo Geniza Documents About 200,000 medieval and later manuscripts on vellum and paper that were found in the genizah or store room of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, Cairo, the Basatin cemetery east of Old Cairo, and a number of old documents that were bought in Cairo in the later 19th century. Mostly written in Arabic using Hebrew Script and belonging to the Jewish community of Cairo, the date of the documents range from 870 AD to 1880. Includes religious writings, court documents, legal writings and the correspondence of the local Jewish community.

Page 6: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

A genizah is a storage room where copies of respected texts with scribal errors or physical damaged, or unusable documents, are kept until they can be ritually buried. The dark, sealed, room in the arid Egyptian climate contributed to the preservation of the documents, the earliest of which may go back to the eighth and ninth centuries.

The Genizah: secret place, archive

Friedberg Genizah Project

Page 7: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina (completed 2002)

Design: Snøhetta, a Norwegian architectural office

Page 8: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Library of Alexandriainitially organized by Demetrius of Phaleron, a student of Aristotle under the reign of Ptolemy Soter.Charged with collecting all the world's knowledge.

Page 9: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Materiality of the text: textual records as objects of memory, texts as artifacts

Page 10: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

archival practices/record keepingas a memory practice

as creative rethinking of the past

Records continuum: that enhances unbroken chains ofmaterial-textual documentation of the past

Legal evidence-bearing institution?

Life cyclical model of archival practice:cultural biography of records

from birth, active use, “retirement” and destruction(a wobbly model)

Records may take on new meanings as authentic artifacts of the past

what is an archive?

Page 11: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

The authority of the archive

archive, memory, history- an ambivalent relationship

Page 12: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Archives, memory, history: becoming the sucjects of the state

Page 13: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Atlas Group Archive Type A Files Fakhouri Notebook 38

(Walid Ra’ad)

Page 14: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Atlas Group Archive Type A Files Fakhouri Notebook 38 (Walid Ra’ad)

Page 15: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Atlas Group Archive Type A Files Fakhouri Notebook 38 (Walid Ra’ad)

Page 16: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

In a nutshellMesopotamian archival tradition

Page 17: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Examples of Uruk IV (above, excavation no. W 7227,a) and Uruk III (below, no. W 14804,a) tablets

uruk/warka: first tablets from the storehouses of Inanna.

Page 18: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Cuneiform writing on clay tablet using a stylus that has a wedge shaped (cuneiform) tip.

Page 19: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.
Page 20: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Mesopotamian urban institutions:

• Temple, not just a site of veneration, •but more as the “wealthy neighbor”

Palace, not the residence of the king but socio-economic/politcal instutution

Page 21: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Wall plaque- Ur-Nanše and family. Limestone w/ cuneiform inscriptionGirsu (modern Tello), Southern IraqEarly Dynastic IIIA 2550-2400 BC

Page 22: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.
Page 23: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Tell Asmarancient EshnunnaDiyala River valleycity plan with excavated buildings

Page 24: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.
Page 25: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

The Third Dynasty of Ur

Conventional (high) chronology:2119-2004 BC.

Low Chronology2055-1940 BC

Kings:Utu-hegal 2055-2048 BC (low chr.)Ur-Namma 2047-2030 BCShulgi 2029-1982 BCAmar Sin 1981-1973 BCShu Sin 1972-1964 BCIbbi Sin 1963-1940 BC

The king as builder:Foundation figurine of Ur-Namma

Page 26: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.
Page 27: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.
Page 28: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Ebla, North SyriaArchives of the ThirdMillennium Settlement

Page 29: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Mesopotamian practices of rememberingand the building as a repository of history,an archive

Akkadian words of bodily orientation and the sense of time

warku: back, futurepanu: front, past

Page 30: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Mesopotamian archival practices and intellectual history

scribal schoolsexercise tablets

scribal practices:copying, adopting, re-adoptingolder/historical/ancient texts

The scribes [(dub-sar)] of the various institutions —“palace, temple, schools” were apparently quite influential on the survival and the state of preservation of certain literary compositions by means of their “process of sifting through and selecting materials” for their school curriculum, and their editing practices were often driven by ideological motivations of their royal patrons, particularly in the case of the so-called royal hymns and other court literature.

Page 31: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Cuneiform tablet inscribed with omensOld Babylonian, about 1900-1600 BCFrom Sippar, southern Iraq

LettersLiterary texts, epic poetry

lamentationsAdministrative textsLexical listsContracts, land grants,

sale documents,Law codesRoyal annalistic texts

(historical documents)Ritual texts, omen literature,

(divination)

Page 32: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Nabonidus Cylinder from Ur (556-539) describes how he repaired the ziggurat called E-lugal-galga-sisa, which belonged to the temple of Sin in Ur, called Egišnugal.

Page 33: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

Clay model of a sheep's liverOld Babylonian, about 1900-1600 BCFrom Sippar, southern Iraq

Page 34: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

When the house is on fire and the children are gone

Ur-Utu’s house and archivein Sippar-Amnanum (Tell ed Der)17th c. BC

Ur-Utu was a landholder and the “kalamahhum-priest of Annunitum”(chief lamentation priest)

the house 225 m2

was excavated in mid 1970s by Belgian archaeologists

ca 2000 tablets burnt with the house

Page 35: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

In 1975 the house was fully exposed. In four rooms to the northwest tablets were found, many belonging to distinct "archives," which were sealed by the fire that destroyed the building.

Altogether about 2,000 documents were found in the "house of Ur-Utu," mainly dating to the last phase of occupation (IIIb), Ur-Utu's house renovation.

Some tablets were, however, archived in distinct groups for several hundred years. 1283 texts have been dated.

Most of these tablets in this large house were found in room 22 (which could have served as a [sealed] storeroom), to the northwest of the central court, while the rooms 17 and 18 (forming one large residential room in phase IIId, but apparently not communicating with each other in IIIb) contained "archived" material....

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Topographies of remembrance

Page 37: The idea of the archive and... Babylonian archaeologists of the Mesopotamian past February 26, 2009.

the aesthetics and authority of the archive:Writing Mesopotamian history through archives

historiographical operation thatprioritizes particular kinds of knowledge practices

memory and archive: particular memory-practices of scribes andarchive-keepers of the cuneiform tradition