Two new exhibits -- one featuring Near Eastern antiquities from Yale's collections and another showing how some of those items were discovered -- are now on view at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
The first exhibit, "Treasures from the Babylonian Collection," features 225 items from the library's collections (as well as two from the Peabody Museum of Natural History) that were discovered in Mesopotamia and other locales in the ancient Near East. The second exhibit, "Yankees in Eden: Yale and the Near East, 1750-1950," highlights Yale archaeological excavations in the region over two centuries.
The opening of the two exhibits celebrates the recent completion of a project to catalogue the Babylonian Collection in the library's automated data base. The work was funded by a series of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The opening also coincided with the XLVeme Recontre Assyriologique Internationale, held July 9-10 at Yale (see related story in Campus Notes).
The items on display in "Treasures from the Babylonian Collection" represent just a fraction of the more than 40,000 items in the Yale archive. The exhibit is divided into 18 different sections, including "Law and Society in the Ancient Near East," "Love, Sex and the Family" and "The Biblical Connection."
Highlights of the exhibit include a mathematical exercise tablet dating from the 18th century B.C., which calculates the square root of 2 to three sexagesimal places with almost-modern precision; three collections of recipes, which represent the world's oldest known "cookbooks"; and a Sumerian poem known today as "The Exaltation of Inanna" by princess, priestess, prophet and poet Enheduanna, which makes the document the first known work by a non-anonymous author.
"Treasures from the Babylonian Collection" was assembled by Ulla Kasten, museum editor of the collection. The display is on view on the library's main floor. A catalogue of the exhibit is available from the Beinecke Library, or from the Yale Babylonian Collection, Rm. 324 in Sterling Memorial Library, 120 High St.
"Yankees in Eden" draws on correspondence, photographs and other memorabilia in Yale's archives to reconstruct the University's involvement in the excavation, publication and dissemination of Near Eastern antiquities from 1750 to 1950. The display was organized by Benjamin R. Foster, professor of Assyriology and former chair of the department of Near Eastern languages and civilizations, who is currently working on a book studying the history of American involvement in this enterprise. The exhibit is on view on the library's first floor.
The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, 121 Wall St., is open for exhibition viewing 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday during July. The library will be closed on Saturdays in August and on Monday, Sept. 7 (Labor Day). For information, call 432-2977.
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