 East Meets West tympanum, designed in 1931 by sculptorUlric Ellerhusen | |
 | |
Former name | The Oriental Institute (OI) |
|---|---|
| Established | May 1919; 106 years ago (1919-05) |
| Location | 1155 E 58th Street Chicago, Illinois, USA |
| Coordinates | 41°47′22″N87°35′52″W / 41.78944°N 87.59778°W /41.78944; -87.59778 |
| Type | Archaeology; languages |
| Owner | University of Chicago |
| Website | isac |
TheInstitute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia and North Africa (ISAC),[1] formerly known asthe Oriental Institute (OI), is a research institute and museum of theUniversity of Chicago, located inHyde Park, Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Established in May 1919, the institute was founded by Egyptologist and professorJames Henry Breasted with funds donated byJohn D. Rockefeller Jr. It conducts research on ancient civilizations throughout the Near East, including at its facility, Chicago House, inLuxor, Egypt. The institute also publicly exhibits an extensive collection of artifacts related to ancient civilizations and archaeological discoveries at its on-campus building in Hyde Park, Chicago. According to anthropologist William Parkinson of theField Museum of Natural History, the institute's highly focused "near Eastern, or southwest Asian and Egyptian" collection is one of the finest in the world.[2]
In the early 20th century,James Henry Breasted built up the collection of the university's Haskell Oriental Museum, which he oversaw along with his field work, and teaching duties. He dreamed, however, of establishing a research institute, "a laboratory for the study of the rise and development of civilization," that would trace Western civilization to its roots in the ancient Middle East.[3]
AsWorld War I came toward a close, Breasted sensed an opportunity to use his influence in the new political climate to create opportunities for access to archaeology sites and their study. He wrote toJohn D. Rockefeller Jr., and proposed the foundation of what would become the Oriental Institute. Fundamental to the implementation of his plan was a research trip through the Middle East, which Breasted had optimistically suggested was ready to receive scholars again after the disturbances of the war. Breasted received a reply from Rockefeller pledging $50,000 over five years for the Oriental Institute. Rockefeller also assured University of Chicago president Harry Pratt Judson that he would pledge another $50,000 to the cause. The University of Chicago contributed additional support, and in May 1919 the Oriental Institute was founded.[4]
The institute is housed in aGothic Revival building at the corner of 58th Street and University Avenue, which was designed by the architectural firmMayers Murray & Phillip. Starting in 1996, the building was expanded and renovated, a process which took several years. The structure'sLudowici tile roof was fully replaced and repaired between 2000 and 2001, and the Institute allowed 250 of the 15,000 Ludowici tiles to be inscribed with messages in ancient languages to help raise funds for the effort.[5]
Construction was completed in 1930, and the building was dedicated in 1931.[6][full citation needed] German American sculptorUlric Ellerhusen designed the tympanum, titledEast Meets West. Figures from the East include a lion,Zoser,Hammurabi,Thutmose III,Ashurbanipal,Darius the Great andChosroes; the West is portrayed by a bison andHerodotus,Alexander the Great,Julius Caesar, acrusader, an excavator, and an archeologist.[6]
In the 1990s,Tony Wilkinson, founded the 'Center for Ancient Middle Eastern Landscapes' based at the institute.[7] Its role is to investigate the Middle East throughlandscape archaeology and the analysis ofspatial data, including images from many decades of Middle Eastern aerial photography, and survey maps, as well as, modern satellite imagery.[8]
In the 2010s, multiple organizations within the United States began reconsidering the use of the word "Oriental," as some scholars felt the word was alienating and that it had changed in popular meaning.[9] In March 2023, University of Chicago administrators announced they would be changing the name of the Oriental Institute. Interim director Theo van den Hout said, "[The Oriental Institute] name has caused confusion, often contributing to the perception that our work is focused onEast Asia, rather thanWest Asia andNorth Africa. Additionally, the word "oriental" has developed a pejorative connotation in modern English."[10] In April 2023, the organization's name changed from the "Oriental Institute" to the "Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia and North Africa", abbreviated as ISAC.[1] The institute's new logo features alotus flower, which is found in ancient Assyrian, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian art, as well as being a decorative motif on the ISAC building.[11]
The ISAC Museum has artifacts from digs inEgypt,Israel,Syria,Turkey,Iraq, andIran. Notable works in the collection include the famousMegiddo Ivories; various treasures fromPersepolis, the oldPersian capital; a collection ofLuristan Bronzes; a colossal 40-tonLamassu fromKhorsabad, the capital ofSargon II; and a monumental statue of KingTutankhamun. The museum has free admission, although visitors are encouraged to donate.[12]
The Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia & North Africa is a center of active research on the ancient Near East. The building's upper floors contain a library, classrooms and faculty offices, and its gift shop, the Suq, also sells textbooks for the university's classes on Near Eastern studies. In addition to carrying out many digs in theFertile Crescent, institute scholars have made contributions to the understanding of the origins of human civilization. The term "Fertile Crescent" was coined by J. H. Breasted,[1] who popularized the connection of the rise of civilization in the Near East with the development of European culture.[citation needed]
In 2011, among other projects institute scholars completed publication of the 21-volumeChicago Assyrian Dictionary, a basic cultural reference work. The effort was begun in 1921 by J. H. Breasted, and continued by Edward Chiera andIgnace Gelb, with the first volume published in 1956.Erica Reiner as editor-in-charge led the research teams for 44 years. She was succeeded by Martha T. Roth, dean of humanities at the university. Similar dictionaries are under way, including theChicago Hittite Dictionary and theChicago Demotic Dictionary.
The Institute oversees the work of Chicago House inLuxor, Egypt. The Egyptian facility, established in 1924, performs the Epigraphic Survey, which documents and researches the historical sites in Luxor. It also manages conservation at various sites.[13]
In 2006, the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures was the center of a controversy when a United States federal court lawsuit sought to seize and auction a valuable collection of ancient Persian tablets held by the museum. The proceeds were to compensate the victims of a1997 bombing in Ben Yehuda Street, Jerusalem, an attack which the United States claimed was funded by Iran. The ruling threatened sale of an invaluable collection of ancient clay tablets, held by the Oriental Institute since the 1930s, but owned by Iran. TheAchaemenid (orPersepolis[14]) clay tablets were loaned for study to theUniversity of Chicago in 1937.[15] They were uncovered in Persepolis, Iran by American archaeologists from the university in 1933 and are legally the property of theNational Museum of Iran and Iran'sMinistry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts.[16][17] The artifacts were loaned for study based on the understanding that they would be returned to Iran, which the Oriental Institute had done in batches over the years.[14] The tablets, fromPersepolis, the capital of theAchaemenid Empire, date to about500 BCE.[14][15][16]
The tablets give a view of daily life, itemizing such elements as the daily rations of barley given to workers in nearby regions of the empire. The tablets were sent to the capital to provide a record of what they were paying workers.[16]Gil Stein, former director of the Oriental Institute, said that details largely concern food for people on diplomatic or military missions.[14] Each tablet is about half the size of a deck ofplaying cards and has characters of a dialect ofElamite, anextinct language understood by perhaps a dozen scholars in the world.[14]
Stein described the tablets as providing "the first chance to hear the Persians speaking of their own empire".[14] Charles Jones, Research Associate and Librarian at the Oriental Institute and tablet expert, compared them to "credit card receipts".[15] Most current knowledge about the ancient Persian empire comes from the accounts of others, most famously the Greek storytellerHerodotus.[14] Stein added: "It's valuable because it's a group of tablets, thousands of them from the same archive. It's like the same filing cabinet. They're very, very valuable scientifically."[14] The Oriental Institute has been returning them to Iran in small batches.[15][16][17] Since the 1930s, the Oriental Institute had returned several hundred tablets and fragments to Iran and were preparing another shipment when the legal action began.[14] An appeals court later overturned the order of seizure,[18] and in 2018, theSupreme Court of the United States affirmedthe subsequent ruling that the collection cannot be taken from the Oriental Institute to satisfy the judgment.[19]
The Institute's research on the tablets and what they say about life in Persepolis continued and was featured in the documentary seriesAncient Megacities in 2024.[20]
| No. | Name | From | To |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | James Henry Breasted | July 1, 1919 | December 2, 1935 |
| acting | John Albert Wilson | January 14, 1936 | June 30, 1936 |
| 2 | July 1, 1936 | November 30, 1946 | |
| acting | Harold Hayden Nelson | 1942 | 1943 |
| 3 | Thorkild Peter Rudolph Jacobsen | December 1, 1946 | January 31, 1950 |
| 4 | Carl Hermann Kraeling | February 1, 1950 | June 30, 1960 |
| acting | John Albert Wilson | July 1, 1960 | June 30, 1961 |
| acting | Emery Thomas Filbey | July 1, 1961 | May 31, 1962 |
| 5 | Robert McCormick Adams | May 4, 1962 | June 30, 1968 |
| 6 | George Robert Hughes | July 1, 1968 | June 30, 1972 |
| 7 | John Anthony Brinkman | July 1, 1972 | June 30, 1981 |
| 8 | Robert McCormick Adams[a] | July 1, 1981 | June 30, 1983 |
| 9 | Janet Helen Johnson | July 1, 1983 | September 30, 1989 |
| 10 | William Marvin Sumner | October 1, 1989 | September 30, 1997 |
| 11 | Gene B. Gragg | October 1, 1997 | June 30, 2002 |
| 12 | Gil Stein | July 1, 2002 | June 30, 2017 |
| 13 | Christopher Woods | July 1, 2017 | April 30, 2021 |
| 14[b] interim | Theo Van Den Hout[c] | April 1, 2021 | August 31, 2023 |
| 15 | Timothy P. Harrison | September 1, 2023 | incumbent |
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