AFGHAN WAR RUGS
A CONSERVATION PROGRAM AT GORDION
IN SEARCH OF SAN PIETRO D’ASSO
ARCHAEOLOGY AND SHIPWRECKS
®
SPRING 2011VOLUME 53 , NUMBER 1
THE MAGAZINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY
WWW.PENN.MUSEUM/EXPEDITION
Expedition
www.museum.upenn.edu/expedition 1
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We welcome letters to the Editor.Please send them to: ExpeditionPenn Museum 3260 South StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19104-6324 Email: [email protected]
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features
AFGHAN WARS, ORIENTAL CARPETS, AND GLOBALIZATION
By Brian Spooner
RESURRECTING GORDION: PRESERVING TURKEY’S PHRYGIAN CAPITAL
By Frank G. Matero and C. Brian Rose
IN SEARCH OF SAN PIETRO D’ASSO
By Stefano Campana, Michelle Hobart, Richard Hodges, Adrianna de Svastich, and Jennifer McAuley
ARCHAEOMETRY AND SHIPWRECKS: A REVIEW ARTICLE
From Mine to Microscope: Advances in the Study of Ancient TechnologyBy James D. Muhly
departments
From the Editor
From the Director
From the Archives—Jim Thompson, the Thai Silk King
What in the World—Telmu and Petrui: A Rediscovered Romance?
From the Field—Guerilla Fashion: Textiles in Motion Push Change in Indian Art
Museum Mosaic—People, Places, Projects
on the cover: Detail from Afghan war rug shown on page 13. Amanullah Khan, depicted here, helped lead Afghanistan to independence in 1919. Photo by Textile Museum of Canada.
contentsspring 2011
V O L U M E 5 3 , N U M B E R 1
Expedition® (ISSN 0014-4738) is published three times a year by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 3260 South St., Philadelphia, PA 19104-6324. ©2011 University of Pennsylvania. All rights reserved. Expedition is a registered trademark of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. All editorial inquiries should be addressed to the Editor at the above address or by email to [email protected]. Subscription price: $35.00 per subscription per year. International subscribers: add $15.00 per subscription per year. Subscription, back issue, and advertising queries to Maureen Goldsmith at [email protected] or (215)898-4050. Subscription forms may be faxed to (215)573-9369. Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery.
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2 volume 53 , number 1 expedition
the williams director
Richard Hodges, Ph.D.
williams directors emeritus
Robert H. Dyson, Jr., Ph.D.Jeremy A. Sabloff, Ph.D.
deputy director
C. Brian Rose, Ph.D.
chief operating officer
Melissa P. Smith, CFA
chief of staff to the williams director
James R. Mathieu, Ph.D.
director of development
Amanda Mitchell-Boyask
mellon associate deputy director
Loa P. Traxler, Ph.D.
merle-smith director of community engagement
Jean Byrne
director of exhibitions
Kathleen Quinn
director of marketing and communications
Suzette Sherman
associate director for administration
Alan Waldt
expedition staff
editor
Jane Hickman, Ph.D.
associate editor
Jennifer Quick
assistant editor
Emily B. Toner
subscriptions manager
Maureen Goldsmith
editorial advisory board Fran Barg, Ph.D.Clark L. Erickson, Ph.D.James R. Mathieu, Ph.D.Naomi F. Miller, Ph.D.Janet M. Monge, Ph.D.Theodore G. Schurr, Ph.D.Robert L. Schuyler, Ph.D.
design
Anne Marie KaneImogen Designwww.imogendesign.com
printing
C&B Graphicswww.cnbgraphics.com
Over the last several decades, Afghanistan has suffered from
invasion, revolution, and civil war. Although we frequently
read about the suffering experienced by the Afghan people,
we rarely see firsthand the lasting impact of continuous con-
flict. Our first feature article focuses on one aspect of Afghan
culture that reflects its recent history: war rugs. These rugs will be featured in
Battleground: War Rugs from Afghanistan, a new exhibition which opens at the
Penn Museum on April 30, 2011. The 63 rugs in the exhibition do not depict
the traditional designs of oriental carpets; instead they include images of war—
tanks, fighter jets, helicopters, land mines, and guns.
The next two articles describe aspects of current archaeological projects asso-
ciated with the Penn Museum. Frank G. Matero and C. Brian Rose write on
efforts undertaken by Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, and
the University of Pennsylvania to develop and implement a preservation plan
for Gordion. This is followed by a two-part article on recent work in San Pietro
d’Asso, Italy; the first section chronicles the results of the 2010 excavation sea-
son, followed by a description of what it was like, from the perspective of Penn
undergraduates, to spend a month working and living in Tuscany. Our fourth
feature is a review article by Penn Professor Emeritus and former Editor of
Expedition, James D. Muhly. Jim reviews a recent festschrift published in honor
of Michael Tite and discusses current scholarship on copper oxhide ingots and
bronze artifacts discovered on shipwrecks off the coast of Turkey.
Several short articles are also included in this issue. In “From the Archives,”
Alessandro Pezzati describes the lives of two people associated with the Penn
Museum in the mid-20th century: Jim Thompson, the “Thai Silk King,” and his
friend and colleague, Elizabeth Lyons. Jean Turfa tells the unusual story behind
two clay urns in the Etruscan collection. And Lucy Fowler Williams describes
the intersection between Native American culture and contemporary fashion.
The Museum has had a busy winter, as evidenced by the expanded “Museum
Mosaic” section.
We are planning several special themed issues for the next two years: a
Summer 2011 issue on excavations in Italy, and 2012 issues that celebrate the
Museum’s 125th anniversary and a new exhibition on the Maya. As always, we
welcome your feedback on Expedition.
jane hickman, ph.d.Editor
welcome
From the Editor
FPO
www.penn.museum/expedition 3
Penn museum has long had
a part in revealing Afghan
archaeological history. In
1953, at Director Froelich
Rainey’s instigation, Rodney
Young, Curator of the Mediterranean
Section and Director of the Gordion exca-
vations, conducted excavations at the ancient city of Bactra,
modern-day Balkh. Young was drawn to the site because the
great city on the Oxus had featured in Alexander the Great’s
eastern adventures, before becoming the capital city of the
Euthydemids in Hellenistic times, and then, according to the
Romans, a fabulously rich place in the centuries after Christ.
Young’s excavations enabled him to phase the topographic
outlines of the city, which he concluded were “three times
as big as Gordion…and ten times as big as the mound of
Troy, a city…not entirely without reputation” (American
Journal of Archaeology 59 [1955]:267-276). Balkh-Bactra is
but one small glimpse of the extraordinary archaeology of
Afghanistan, a country that was for millennia an interface
between East and West.
The Afghan war rugs from the Textile Museum of Canada,
featured in the Penn Museum’s new exhibition Battleground:
War Rugs from Afghanistan (April 30–July 31, 2011), affirm
the axiomatic place of this troubled country as a bridge
between East and West, but from the standpoint of our era.
These extraordinary rugs tell an indigenous story through
their vivid and harrowing iconography of invasions over the
past 30 years. What was once an uncomfortable story for
British colonial forces in the earlier 20th century has become
in modern times uncomfortable for first the Soviet Union,
then, since 2001, for the coalition of NATO countries now
entangled in a complicated struggle. These exquisite objects
invite us to reflect, of course, on this struggle, but our greater
hope is that this exhibition, like Rodney Young’s excavations,
will encourage our audiences to consider the extraordinary
history and culture of this country. Iconographically—as I
believe all visitors to this exhibition will agree—these war rugs
are masterpieces by peoples who have for the most part been
“without history” (i.e. unable to comment themselves in writ-
ten texts) but continue to play an important role in on-going
East-West relations.
richard hodges, ph.d.The Williams Director
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by richard
hodges
from the director
Froelich Rainey (on camelback) in Afghanistan, 1952. UPM Image # 48652
Penn Museum and Afghanistan
4 volume 53 , number 1 expedition
from the archives
Younger generations may
not know Jim Thompson
(1906–1967?), but in the
1950s and 1960s he was
famous throughout the
world as Thailand’s “Silk King,” and as
an arbiter of international taste. Born
of a wealthy Delaware family, Thompson graduated from
Princeton and attended the University of Pennsylvania School
of Architecture. Though he never completed his degree, he
became an architect nonetheless, designing houses as well as
landscapes and interiors. By his mid-thirties, however, he had
grown dissatisfied with his life as a carefree bachelor and had
begun to alienate his family with his increasingly liberal politi-
cal views. World War II prompted him to quit his job and
enlist. He traveled to North Africa, Italy, and France before
being sent to Thailand.
Thailand was never colonized, and, though ostensibly
an ally of Japan during the war, it did not participate in
the fighting and suffered little damage. Upon his arrival,
Thompson was immediately enchanted by the country’s
unique character and by the city of Bangkok, with its peo-
ple and their art. He also saw business opportunities. His
passion was taken by Thai silk, a local tradition he helped
revive, creating a demand all over the world. He formed
the Thai Silk Company in 1951 and, with a keen sense
of color and indefatigable salesmanship, became extremely
successful. His creations became famous—worn by celeb-
rities and socialites—and were even used in the 1956 film
The King and I. In addition to silk, Thompson’s passions
included collecting antiquities from temples and caves
around the country, and the house he built to display them
and entertain his constant stream of guests. That house is now
a museum.
by alessandro
pezzati
Buddhist priests blessed Jim Thompson’s Thai house in Bangkok, 1959. UPM Image # 194079.
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Jim Thompson, the Thai Silk King
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Jim thompson and elizabeth (lisa) lyons were friends and colleagues in Thailand. Lisa Lyons’ manuscript collection, available in the Museum Archives, includes a number of her writings, such as an unpublished murder mystery called The Bangkok Case, and a set of reminiscences of her time in Thailand. The following are excerpts from “Cockatoo,” about Jim Thompson’s inseparable companion.
Fascinated by the tameness of such a large bird, but a little frightened by those strong claws and especially of that Turkish scimitar beak, I gingerly held out my arm. Jim lifted him with both hands and set him on my wrist; he…climbed up to my shoulder and slowly ran his beak over my ear and cheek, pressing his head to mine. I wasn’t sure I liked it. Not that the feathered caress was unpleasant, but I thought it an unnatural way for a bird to act. As far as I knew there were only two kinds of birds, wild ones singing in the trees, and canaries in cages, and both would flee or go into hysterics if you came close to them. But this bunch of feathers on my shoulder was actually nuzzling me like a puppy.
Cockatoo talked a great deal, sometimes clearly verbal phrases in an unknown tongue, but mostly a chuckling, twittering stream of sound that was such a parody of the hundreds of dinner conversations we had known…
Suddenly the bird hopped from the chair onto the table, ran a few steps and flapped to the window. Horrified that he was going to take off into the night and be lost, we scrambled after him, but in the time it took us to get out of our chairs he had turned around, lifted his tail and defecated into the garden.
Cocky became a great social prize as a guest and was invited all over town. He and Jim looked like a couple out of a Cocteau film as they came into a room, the man in a black dinner jacket, the white bird on his shoulder, blue eyes and little round black ones on the same level, both heads turning to the welcoming hosts. By and large, Cocky’s party manners were perfect although it was well to see that he was close to an open window since he did hate to leave good company even for a moment; and you had to watch that he didn’t steal nips of liquor after dinner…And I must admit that he had a low taste for practical jokes. Let there be someone in the room with a phobia about birds and he would sense it. He would ruin the poor woman’s evening simply by keeping his eyes fixed on her and giving a menacing, maniacal chuckle every time she looked his way. Or, when everyone’s attention was diverted he would sneak along the back of chairs and then quietly wait by the victim’s shoulder until she turned around…and shrieked.
Jim Thompson with his frequent companion, Cockatoo. UPM Image # 194077.
Excerpts from “Cockatoo” by Elizabeth Lyons (1980s)
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In 1955, Thompson met Elizabeth Lyons, an art historian
from Michigan who had studied at Columbia University,
with stints in Paris and Brussels. At the time of their meet-
ing, Lyons had been appointed cultural attaché at the U.S.
State Department, touring an exhibition of modern American
Art around South and Southeast Asia and acting as a cultural
ambassador in the region. When she originally applied for the
job, she had not been considered a serious candidate, since the
State Department wanted a man. But as no men applied, it was
she who was selected.
Lisa Lyons and Jim Thompson became fast friends, and
were also briefly lovers. They shared an intense interest in the
art of Southeast Asia. Lyons planned to write a monograph
on Thai painting, as she continued to lecture for the State
Department in the ensuing years. She also curated exhibitions,
worked on an archaeological survey of Thailand, and assisted
with the opening of the new National Museum in Bangkok
in 1967, as well as in planning provincial museums. It was in
part through the efforts of Thompson and Lyons that art from
Southeast Asia is much more highly prized today.
In 1967, Thompson disappeared
suddenly while visiting friends in the
Cameron Highlands of Malaysia, a
mountainous region covered by intrac-
table jungle. Search parties set out to
look for him—including 325 Malaysian
police, British soldiers on leave, 30
aboriginal trackers, and a number of
psychics, including Peter Hurkos, who
had helped with the Boston Strangler
case. Thompson was never found.
Many explanations were given for his
disappearance, including theories that
he was kidnapped by Communists,
killed during a CIA mission, or eaten by
a tiger. No one could explain, though,
why he left the cottage without taking
his cigarettes or his pills for gallstone
pain. The mystery was compounded
after his sister was murdered in her
house in Delaware six months later by
an unknown assailant.
The discovery of the site of Ban
Chiang brought Lyons to the Penn
Museum as Assistant Curator of the
Asian Section in 1968, a year after Thompson’s disappear-
ance. She then spent five years (1971–1975) administering the
Ford Foundation program in Southeast Asian art and archae-
ology. She later returned to the Penn Museum as Keeper
of the Asian Section Collections in 1976. She co-curated
the Buddhism exhibition as it appears today and eventually
donated her own collection, which included some pieces
given to her by Thompson, to the Museum. Her papers,
including her unfinished monograph on Thai painting, a
stash of letters from Thompson, and a number of reminis-
cences from her Thailand days, are now available in the Penn
Museum Archives.
In his letters to Lyons, Thompson writes most of all about
traveling around Thailand to collect antiquities and the prob-
lems arising from the building of his grand house. Though the
disappearance of the “Thai Silk King” remains shrouded in
mystery, these records reveal something about his passion for
Southeast Asian art and the history of his collections.
alessandro pezzati is the Senior Archivist at the Museum.
Elizabeth (Lisa) Lyons appeared on Japanese television to discuss Asian art, 1956. UPM Image # 194047.
Some rare evidence for social
change in ancient Etruria
reposes in the Penn Museum’s
Mediterranean Section, in two
large ovoid urns inscribed with
Etruscan names. Even empty, the vases tell
an unusual story about life in Etruria during
the Roman takeover (ca. 350–100 BC). The Iron Age tradition
of using the family’s water jars for burials was a comforting
reminder of the way ancestors had lived. Both pottery shape
and the incised lettering on the urns may be traced to 2nd to
early 1st century BC Tarquinia, the great maritime city north
of Rome. The names on the vases tell us more. The inscrip-
tions read caes∙v∙v∙telmu (“Vel Caes Telmu, freedman of Vel”)
and petrui telmus (“Petrui [wife] of Telmu”).
Caes is the Etruscan version of an old Latin name, Gaius,
and V. stands for Vel, a favorite Etruscan given name. The
formula V.V.—an abbreviation of Vel Velus or “Vel, son of
Vel”—is similar to the Roman formula for manumission, or
the freeing of one’s slaves. The freed slave took his master’s
name and received a business, farm, or other type of invest-
ment to sustain himself and his future family. In Roman law
(patterned on Etruscan law) the freed person had limited civil
rights, but his or her children would be citizens. One hotly
disputed right was legal marriage with free-born citizens. In
some cities, freed persons could co-habit, but their children
could not inherit the family’s hard-earned property. In 264/3
BC, Volsinii (the modern city of Orvieto) was destroyed by a
war over these rights.
Em
ily T
oner
(map
), P
enn
Mus
eum
what in the world
by jean
macintosh
turfa
Telmu and Petrui: A Rediscovered Romance?
www.penn.museum/expedition 7
Left, this map shows the Italian region of Tarquinia in ancient Etruria, where urns that once contained the remains of a married couple —Telmu and Petrui—were found. Right, Urn of Telmu, MS 3428; H. 37.6 cm. 2nd to 1st century BC, UPM Image # 5117.
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The former slave Vel Caes imitated the gentry by creating
for himself a new family name, “Telmu,” formed from his old
Greek slave name. Etruscan language does not use the let-
ter “O,” so the famous Greek name Telamon (father of the
strongman Ajax and uncle of Achilles) was changed to Telmu.
One may wonder if this was a deliberate choice of name for
a brawny slave of Greek origin. If so, Telmu’s hard physical
labor clearly paid off in his freedom.
The second urn has a shorter inscription, an abbreviation
completed as Petrui Telmus puia or “Petrui, Telmu’s wife.”
This Etruscan woman took her husband’s new surname, at a
time when aristocratic women usually added their husband’s
name to their maiden name. Presumably Petrui was a com-
moner who had not used a surname before. If she had been
enslaved, we would expect to see her master’s name: “Petrui,
freedwoman of X, wife of Y.” There is no record of any slave or
freedwoman called Petrui appearing in epitaphs, so our Petrui
was likely a freeborn Etruscan woman who married a former
slave. The couple’s urns are not the random acquisitions of
poor people. Also, the “occupants” of the urns—and the chil-
dren who buried them—were literate, thus a cut above the
ordinary. So we may assume that Telmu and Petrui had suc-
ceeded in life and were not embarrassed by Telmu’s original
entry into Etruscan society as a slave. After all, with the wars in
Italy and Rome’s foreign conquests, thousands of people must
have seen their lives change dramatically during this time.
Another curious condition has been preserved: when man
and wife were cremated and buried, each vase was wrapped
in cloth that was pulled over the rim, then tucked inside and
tamped in place with a bowl sealed with a coating of lime.
The patterns of the folds and fibers of the cloth are replicated
in raised patterns on the surfaces. Only slight discoloration
remains on Telmu’s urn, which was scrubbed vigorously by a
19th century dealer. Petrui’s urn bears ample traces of a min-
eralized textile: a fossil-like deposit that preserves the form of
disintegrated cloth, in this case a simple cover or a garment
woven of finely spun thread of linen or wool.
During the Iron Age (8th to 7th centuries BC), as Etruscan
society grew stratified—with ruling elite, urban common
classes, and slaves—citizens were often buried in urns that
were “dressed” with helmets, clothing, or jewelry. The fam-
ily of Telmu and Petrui, the former slave and his freeborn
Etruscan wife, seems to have emulated the tradition of their
betters in dressing the urns for their final rest.
jean macintosh turfa is a Rodney S. Young Fellow in the Mediterranean Section of the Penn Museum. She is author of Catalogue of the Etruscan Gallery of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Left, Urn of Petrui, wife of Telmu, MS 1124; H. 31.9 cm. 2nd to 1st century BC, UPM Image # 151986. Above, detail showing mineralized textile impression on the surface of Petrui’s urn, MS 1124. UPM Image # 151976.
8 volume 53 , number 1 expedition
www.penn.museum/expedition 9
Julie
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Patricia michaels is not
new to fashion, but she
is new to Santa Fe’s cele-
brated Southwest Indian
Art Market, a proving
ground for Native American artists,
which takes place in August of each
year. Michaels made her mark at last year’s 88th show with
“Weathered Text: No Trespassing by the Taos War Chief,”
a stunning, provocative non-traditional piece that took first
prize in the textile class. The meticulously tailored jacket made
of hand-painted silk and velvet, in hues of purple, blue, and
reddish brown, stood out among the more familiar Navajo
rugs and embroidered Pueblo mantas. It surprised and
inspired judges and audience alike in its ability to transcend
familiar concepts of Indian art.
Michaels is from Taos Pueblo, a Native American com-
munity and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in northern New
Mexico. She speaks the Tiwa language fluently and is immersed
in the traditions and values of her Pueblo culture. This year
Michaels joins her community in celebrating the 40th anniver-
sary of the return of Taos’ sacred Blue Lake and surrounding
lands, the successful result of a 64-year struggle with the U.S.
Government to reclaim religious freedom and protection of
sacred places. I spoke with her during Market, and she offered
the following words:
At Taos, the way we live allows us to see that the envi-ronment is always changing, and we are always adapt-ing to those changes. We truly do live with nature, and this fundamental idea is alive in my work. To create “Weathered Text: No Trespassing by the Taos War Chief” I took a photograph of a No Trespassing sign, a manmade thing. Nature had found its way to alter and affect and destroy the text of the sign. In addition to the rust and weather-beaten qualities, hunters had shot at the sign, frustrated they could not hunt on our land. Here we see that the nature of human beings is to destroy and fight. As an artist I do not do that.
Patricia Michaels’ interest in bringing change to Indian art
is part of her activism and ongoing contribution as an America
Indian. In her own words:
from the field
textiles in motion
push change in
indian art
by lucy fowler
williams
Guerilla Fashion
Patricia Michaels’ woman’s jacket entitled “Weathered Text: No Trespassing by the Taos War Chief” won first prize in the Textile Classification at the 2010 Santa Fe Southwest Indian Art Market.
Patricia Michaels
10 volume 53 , number 1 expedition
Native Americans are too often equated with a few ideas and images, such as sitting on a buffalo robe or smoking an Indian pipe. But native people are so much more than that. So much thought goes into how we live our lives and how we preserve our culture. Those are the moments I want my work to be about. We are perceived as still living like the famous photographs by Ansel Adams or Joseph Sharp or a mannequin of a Native American with a panoramic prairie in the back-ground. We are so much more than those romantic images. When I do my work I try to represent those other moments or little vignettes or scenarios of the richness of our culture. Mother Nature is so strong, and that gives me strength in my design work. As a female, I want to show the nurturing side along with the strength of women. Silk is a natural, soft, beautiful and delicate fabric, yet it is the strongest fabric there is. This is why I use it in my work.
Michaels grew up in Santa Fe where she trained at the
Institute of American Indian Art. She studied fashion design
at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and worked
in collections at the Field Museum. She apprenticed with
the Santa Fe Opera where she learned to design clothes that
move with the body, and lived in Italy for two years where
she trained with an Italian designer to learn sophisticated
construction techniques. Most recently, Patricia has worked
with the Kellogg Foundation to support indigenous fashion
designers in Santa Fe and South Africa.
Her newest line for Fall 2010, which debuted at New York
City’s Fashion Week, takes the bald eagle as its central theme.
Symbols of strength and connection to the spirit world,
eagle feathers play a role in many Native American and
Pueblo religious practices. On the runway, her printed feather
images on silk layer and cascade in empire dress forms, and
her stunning eagle feather cape evokes the majestic bird’s
wingspan in flight.
The fashion industry is always changing as it defines and
responds to current trends. Patricia Michaels has deliberately
chosen the artistic medium of fashion as a metaphor that embod-
ies a fundamental Pueblo cultural theme of movement. For hun-
dreds of years, basic tenants of Pueblo cosmology, religion, and
art have emphasized movement, change, and the breath of life.
After receiving her award, Michaels initiated a classic “guerilla
fashion show” to make a statement and to encourage change
in Indian art. Her entourage of 18 tall and slender black-haired
models donned her jacket and some of her other clothing designs
and literally stormed the Santa Fe Plaza en parade. In motion on
the runway, whether in Santa Fe, at her home studio in Taos, or
in New York City’s fashion houses, Michaels’ designs embody
her message that Native Americans have always had to embrace
change in order to survive. In so doing, she wants to encourage
Pueblo arts that thrive and change. That creative energy is her
sanctuary. Art and fashion express her creativity; she is not going
to let others trespass into her world.
Additional award winners in the Textile Division included
Diné artists D.Y. Begay, Alberta Henderson, Charlene
Laughing, Mona Laughing, TaNibaa Naataanii, Barbara
Ornelas, Michael Ornelas, Sierra Teller Ornelas, and Penny
Singer; Pueblo embroiderer Isabel Gonzales; and Haida fash-
ion designer Dorothy Grant.
lucy fowler williams is the Jeremy A. Sabloff Keeper of American Collections at the Penn Museum. A specialist in tex-tiles, she served as one of three textile judges at the 2010 Santa Fe Indian Art Market. Williams is working on Native American Voices, a new exhibition at the Penn Museum.
Julie
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Taos Pueblo fashion designer Patricia Michaels put her award-winning designs into motion on the streets of Santa Fe at this year’s Southwest Indian Art Market in a classic “guerilla fashion show” to boost change and support of Indian art. Her jacket is worn by the model on the right.
Afghan Wars, Oriental Carpets, and Globalizationby brian spooner
The afghan war rugs on
exhibit at the Penn Museum
from April 30 to July 31, 2011,
raise a number of interest-
ing questions—about carpets,
Afghanistan, and the way the world as a whole
is changing. These rugs, which come in a vari-
ety of sizes and qualities, derive from a tradi-
tion of oriental carpet-weaving that began to
attract the attention of Western rug collectors
in the late 19th century. Unlike the classic
museum pieces that were produced on vertical
looms in the cities of western Asia for use in
palaces and grand houses, war rugs came from
horizontal looms in small tribal communities
of Turkmen and Baloch in the areas of central
Asia on either side of the northern border of
Afghanistan—tribal communities that were
incorporated into the Russian Empire in the
19th century.
The craft of carpet weaving suffered seri-
ous disruption in the 1930s as a result of
Soviet reorganization of these areas, which
led some weavers to migrate into Afghanistan,
where the craft revived and expanded through
the 1970s. As the rug market grew, so did
the purview of Western rug connoisseur-
ship, which led the international trade. As the
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a This war rug depicts the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989. In the upper left corner, Soviet war machines and helicopters depart from the country while the rest of the landscape remains littered with weaponry (T2008.1.40, 79 cm x 60 cm).
interest of collectors moved down-market, it turned by
degrees to different types of tribal rugs. When the demand for
Baloch rugs began to rise in the 1970s, production spread to
other parts of Afghanistan, including cities, and to Pakistan
and eastern Iran.
Some Baloch weavers adapted both to changes in local
conditions and to the changing international market, in which
novelty carried a premium. New designs began to appear,
inspired by the violence of the civil war that began after the
revolution in 1978.
Cartoons of pastoral life were replaced by a bricolage of war-
related icons: soldiers (Soviet, American, Afghan), AK-47s, heli-
copter gunships, tanks, mujahedeen, and maps of Afghanistan.
The resulting war rugs tell us much not only about the oriental
carpet industry and its evolving market, but also about Afghan
society today and the way globalization is changing it.
a brief history of oriental carpets
Carpet-weaving began at least two and a half millennia ago,
probably in central Asia. The earliest rug that has come
down to us in any form was excavated at Pazyryk in the Altai
Mountains of southern Siberia, preserved in ice in the tomb of
a Scythian prince. This woolen rug, which has over 200 knots
to the square inch, is dated to the period immediately follow-
ing the Achaemenian Empire (550–330 BC), suggesting royal
patronage. We know the Achaemenians borrowed designs
from the Assyrian Empire, with the craft of making carpets
perhaps nurtured for generations in royal workshops. Textual
evidence indicates that production continued at a high level of
patronage under the Sasanian Empire (AD 224–651), through
the Arab conquest and the emergence of Islamic civilization in
the 7th century AD, down to the present time.
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In a rural bazaar, Afghan men look at various oriental rugs. (Daulatabad, Afghanistan, August 1972)
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Afghanistan’s War Experience
Afghanistan entered history in 1747. Nadir Shah, the Iranian ruler of the region, had been assassinated in Meshed (now northeastern Iran). One of his Afghan generals launched a new Afghan Empire from Qandahar (now
southern Afghanistan), taking advantage of the decline of the Mughal Empire in India. When emissaries from the British Imperial Government in Calcutta first arrived in the area in 1809, the Afghan Empire was the largest and strongest polity in the region, extending from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea and including Kashmir. But then Afghanistan became sandwiched between the expanding British and Russian (later Soviet) Empires, isolated from the rest of the world. When the British withdrew from India in 1947, Afghanistan emerged with a seat in the U.N. But a period of accelerat-ing social and political change ended in 1978 in a revolution led by Soviet-trained Afghan Air Force officers, who installed a Soviet-style communist regime. Resistance was spontaneous. Civil war has continued since that time, exacerbated by the Soviet invasion in 1979. Millions fled the countryside to seek a new livelihood in the cities and in refugee camps across the borders of neighboring countries.
The Soviet army withdrew in 1989, but the disruption to the country’s political structure resulted in further civil war which was finally brought under control by the rise of the Taliban (students of religious schools). The Taliban were welcomed at first, but their regime soon became oppressive and was terminated in November 2001 by the American-led NATO response to 9/11. Since then the entire Afghan population of over 20 million may have suffered more from domestic warfare and its modern technology than any other country since World War II. Meanwhile, the continu-ing American and NATO military presence has met with increasing resistance in the form of guerilla activity, and Afghanistan, barely known by many in the West before, appears constantly in our newspaper headlines.
Top, the words at the center of this war rug translate as “Ghazi Amanullah Khan.” Amanullah Khan (1892–1960), portrayed here, helped lead Afghanistan to independence in 1919 and served as the Emir of Afghanistan for ten years (1919–1929) (T2008.1.99, 85 cm x 58 cm). Middle, Ahmad Shah Massoud, a prominent Afghan military leader during the Soviet conflict, is shown at the center of this rug (T2008.1.70, 148 cm x 95 cm). Right, over a red map of Afghanistan are four landmine victims, three adults and a child, with their arms and legs destroyed (T2008.1.56, 72 cm x 96 cm).
www.penn.museum/expedition 13
Carpets from Constantinople (modern Istanbul) began to
appear in Western Europe through Venetian trade by the 13th
century, as we know from contemporary paintings. Since peo-
ple in medieval Europe ate at tables rather than on the floor,
they used the carpets as tablecloths (as shown in the paint-
ings), not as floor coverings. Today the earliest extant carpets
(apart from the Pazyryk find) are Ottoman and appear to date
from the 15th century. It was not until the 19th century, how-
ever, that the European market discovered tribal rugs.
Carpets are textiles, and textiles have been one of the most
important traded commodities in world history, despite geo-
graphical differences in the fibers used. This craft has pros-
pered in a variety of social settings, including isolated com-
munities of pastoral nomads, small village oases, agricultural
communities in the hinterland of urban market centers, and
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Left, this Persian rug, woven around 1920, features a World War I biplane. It is the only known depiction of a warplane in an oriental rug prior to the 1980s (T2008.1.58, 117 cm x 86 cm). Above, the traditional floral patterns of oriental rugs are here transformed into images of Soviet Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters, tanks, fighter jets, and hand grenades (L2008.352, 203 cm x 119 cm). Page 15: Left, this war rug shows an assortment of helicopters, rocket launchers, tanks, and grenades, along with the red outline of Afghanistan (T2008.1.46, 153 cm x 112 cm). Right, at the center of this rug is a butterfly surrounded by weapons. It likely refers to the highly explosive “butterfly landmine,” which can be found at the bottom (T2008.1.13, 90 cm x 63 cm).
urban workshops. Central Asian carpet production ben-
efited from the early availability of wool from domesticated
sheep. There are various types of rugs, including exquisite
large carpets, often with figurative designs, for use in palaces
or estates—like those on permanent display at the Philadel-
phia Museum of Art—as well as humble prayer rugs with geo-
metrical designs indicating the direction of prayer. Typical
designs include gardens, hunting scenes, animals, jewelry,
and, in prayer rugs, an Islamic prayer niche or mihrab. In their
modern form, these carpets represent the continuation of a
sophisticated pre-industrial technology.
War rugs are a new genre of oriental carpet; they symbol-
ize the changing awareness of ordinary men and women in
one of the poorest parts of the modern world, which has just
recently been caught up in a variety of globalizing processes.
Unfortunately, the civil war in Afghanistan has prevented us
from studying how these rugs are produced. Do they come
from the initiative of the weavers themselves, or of middlemen
on the lookout for new markets? Tracing the origin of any
particular oriental carpet has always been difficult. Each rug
passes through a chain of intermediaries from the producer
to the consumer. Each intermediary knows only his own
particular sources and market opportunities, and cannot pro-
vide information about connections or motivations further
up or down the chain. Traditionally, the weaver has known
nothing about the international market, and the international
consumer has had no connection to the weaver. With the
appearance of war rugs, this is changing, as weavers respond
to the market.
The earliest war rugs appear to have been designed to
attract Soviet tourists, but were later adapted for the general
market, and especially the American military, which arrived
in 2001. The basic, and probably original, style of war rug is
Baloch, a variety that has generally been produced on a smaller
scale, with figurative rather than geometrical designs. But
more recent examples of war rugs are Turkmen in quality and
weave, and may be financed on a larger scale. Connoisseurs
classify and evaluate carpets in terms of imputed age, prov-
enance, the quality of materials (including dyes and col-
ors), the design, the “handle” (feel or pliability), condition,
www.penn.museum/expedition 15
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How to Make A Rug
We use the words carpet or rug for any floor covering, especially one with pile: that is, an evenly cut surface
consisting of densely packed projecting threads, which are the ends of knots. Rugs are woven on looms made of stout wood. Most of the best rugs are made entirely from wool—a fiber that was abundant historically only in Central Asia. Neither cotton nor silk were available in the early days of the industry. When these fibers became available later they were incorporated, but only to a small extent, more for purposes of color and design than for the quality of the fibers.
When sheep are sheared, the wool is carded and spun into three different qualities of thread: for the warp, the weft, and the knots that make the pile. The threads spun for each function are so different, even when they origi-nate from the same animal, that non-specialists have difficulty in recognizing them all as the same fiber. For example, the warp thread, which is spun from the longest wool fibers, is as strong as other available non-woolen threads. The wool must then be dyed, often with the use of local plants such as madder, a Eurasian herb. All these materials are well within the reach of an isolated nomadic community, as well as urban workshops.
In the weaving process the ends of the warp threads are left to form a fringe at either end of the finished product. The webbing at the beginning and end of the weaving is often simple weft on warp, but may be elaborated by one or another of a number of flat-weave techniques, such as embroidery. The body of the carpet is made by tying rows of knots, one- or two-ply, around pairs of warp threads. Two basic types of knot are used in Afghanistan and the surrounding area, only one of which (the least common) is a true knot; the purpose is not the knot itself but the two protruding ends that form the pile.
After each line of knots, one or more weft threads are woven across the loom before the next row of knots. A good-quality carpet may have as many as 400 or more knots per square inch, though a carpet with no more than 100 may still be considered excellent on the basis of other criteria. In order to achieve the desired degree of tightness and evenness of weave, and density of knots, after every few rows of knots, the weaver beats the weft threads and the pile back toward her with a comb-like implement, the teeth of which fit over the warp threads. This action also has the effect not only of tightening the pile but of making it incline permanently in one direction, toward the end the weaver started from. For this reason, throughout the life of a fine carpet, light strikes the ends of the knots at a different angle according to the position of the viewer; in the case of some types of wool, and especially of silk, this makes the colors appear different from various angles. The design of the rug is in the color-patterning of the knots that form the pile. Designs have been traditional within families and tribal communities. As the weaving progresses, after every few inches the ends of the knots are sheared to even out the pile of the carpet at the desired height, which varies from less than 5 mm to 10 mm or more. The closer the ends of the knots are cut to the level of the weft-warp fabric, the finer the eventual product. The higher the number of knots per square inch, the less pliable is the rug. William Irons, an anthropologist who worked among Yomut Turkmen in Iran between the late 1960s and the mid 1970s, calculated that one woman could weave roughly one square foot in a day of heavy weaving, about 12 hours at the loom. Cheap labor has always been the key to the carpet industry—a factor that casts doubt on its future.
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An Afghan woman and young girl work together to weave an oriental rug (Qala Nau, Afghanistan, July 1972).
fineness, and evenness of weave. War rugs in general do not
rank highly on these criteria.
Since the rug trade began to grow several centuries ago,
interest in this quintessential oriental furnishing has perco-
lated down from the original aristocratic consumers, through
various levels of the middle class in the 19th century, to an
even broader circulation in the late 20th century. Interest has
also expanded beyond the early museum pieces into the larger
array of folk production from widely distributed rural com-
munities throughout Central Asia. Turkmen tribes in western
Central Asia—between northern Afghanistan and the Aral
Sea—led this expansion, but the work of other Turkic tribes
soon became known, as well as that of non-Turkic tribes that
lived among them. Although the Baloch produced rugs that
were less refined than those of the Turkmen, collectors still
found them interesting and worth buying.
As the age of collecting evolved in the late 19th century,
connoisseurship developed in Europe and America. By the
second half of the 20th century, rug societies were formed, and
rug journals were launched, such as Hali in Germany
in 1978 and the Oriental Rug Review
in America in 1981 (see websites at
the end of this article). Oriental car-
pets became a standard stock item in
Western department stores. Rug con-
noisseurship became the search for
authenticity. But increasing instability
and warfare has changed the market, the
trade, and the collecting community. The
interesting question now is: how will con-
noisseurship accommodate the success
of the new genre of war rugs? The market
for the new rugs, mostly priced between
$200 and $1000, has expanded to include
a variety of new customers who might not
have become interested in oriental rugs per
se. Finally, under globalization, the producer
has come into a much closer market rela-
tionship than was possible earlier—with a
new type of consumer.
emergence of war rugs
Afghan war rugs receive a very different sort of attention
today compared to Turkmen and Baloch rugs of earlier
periods. Consumers are interested in the novelty of the war
motifs found on the rugs. Afghan war rugs come from vari-
ous parts of the country: from Taimani Baloch in Farah prov-
ince in the west, from Baghlan in the north, and more recently
from Pashtuns in the south. The more expensive carpets are
still from Turkmen communities, mainly in the north. Local
dealers indicate that most of the weaving is done by women,
but men create the designs. A wide range of sophistication
in design, workmanship, and size suggests that a large pro-
portion of the production probably originates from refugee
camps in northern Pakistan.
While the inspiration for this new genre of rug began in
1978, market interest in war rugs grew slowly. In 1988 an Italian
rug dealer, Luca Brancati, opened an exhibition of 80
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The text at the top of this rug reads “Afghanistan Welcome to Peshawar,” suggesting that it might have been woven by Afghan refugees in or near the city of Peshawar in Pakistan (T2008.1.23, 77 cm x 61 cm).
www.penn.museum/expedition 17
Afghan war rugs in Turin. These rugs were inspired by the
Soviet occupation and were billed as Russian-Afghan War
Carpets. In 1989, the exhibit traveled to the United States.
Other similar exhibits followed in Europe and America.
Oriental carpets had entered a new arena. The interest they
attracted was very different from that of the oriental car-
pets of the past. Some saw them as protest art, some as
tourist art. How else could we explain the sudden replace-
ment of traditional designs with tanks, helicopter gunships,
kalashnikovs, occupation maps, Soviet soldiers, and GIs?
Although we do not know if this is the case, the idea that
ordinary people in Afghanistan were protesting against war
through their carpet weaving was appealing to consumers.
Even though Afghan war rugs did not please connoisseurs,
they gradually began to attract attention among a new audi-
ence interested in images of war. The representation of war
in art has a long history. War scenes were painted in medieval
Persian miniatures in representation both of classical themes
and, under the Mughal Empire, in praise of the current royal
victor. But none of the three Anglo-Afghan wars (1839, 1871,
and 1919) was represented in rug design. Now, however, glo-
balization has brought a broader awareness of world affairs to
the rural weaver. Even as early as 1973, Turkmen weavers who
visited the Penn Museum for an exhibition of Afghan carpets
offered to weave a rug with a portrait of President Nixon in
the center field. We settled at the time for a small rug with the
Penn Museum logo.
Afghan war rugs represent the first effort of Afghan weavers
to cater directly to an international market. They are looking
for ways to earn a living. According to the International Trade
Center (affiliated with the U.N.), close to two million hand-
made rugs reach the international market every year from
the Afghanistan region. The market is saturated, at least with
the quality of rug an ordinary weaver can make. Weavers are
innovating in order to get an edge on the competition in the
international market.
Afghans make war rugs because of their continuing experi-
ence with war. Their reaction to that experience has changed
as they have been caught up more and more in the interna-
tional economy and the globalizing processes which war has
brought to them, undermining their sense of local identity,
and the relationships that they relied upon in day-to-day life:
family, kinship, gender, village, and tribe. Afghans are looking
for new opportunities. They thought to use a representation of
what the outside world brought to them as a way of finding a
place in the outside world that has taken them over.
Why do we buy these rugs? Most who buy war rugs are
not traditional ruggists. War rugs constitute a new product,
and those who purchase them constitute a new clientele.
These rugs challenge us, because they would not be produced,
and would not appeal to us today in the way they do, if it
were not for the divergence of East and West over the past
300 years. Past identities are being renegotiated.
This is not the first time that textiles have led social change.
Apart from providing one of the earliest commodities of long-
distance trade, the textile industry led the industrial revolu-
tion, and more recently the rise of multi-nationals. Now tex-
tiles are changing the way ordinary Afghans interact with the
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This manuscript page, dated to 1530, includes a miniature with a typical Persian battle-scene (14.5 x 23.4 cm).
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www.penn.museum/expedition 19
In 1989, the Soviet army withdrew from Afghanistan after ten years of conflict, leaving President Muhammad Najibullah in charge. He is depicted here as a Soviet puppet under a hammer and sickle. In the lower right corner, refugees are shown fleeing the country as a decade of civil war broke out (T2008.1.10, 102 cm x 69 cm).
world around them, enabling them to cross the boundaries
that have isolated them from the modern world over the past
century. At the same time, this new genre is breaking down
the boundaries that have separated the carpet industry from
other sectors of the Afghan economy, and carpet design from
other art forms.
On a broader geographical stage the rugs illustrate the
changing social organization of trade and economic entrepre-
neurship in marginalized communities, and how the impact
of globalization on poorer parts of the world is disrupting
traditional practices and encouraging rural communities to
scramble to catch up with the changing world around them.
By exhibiting these rugs, the Penn Museum shows also how
the role of museums is changing—displaying a new type of
material, a century or so after large public museums first pro-
vided a window onto the material culture of the world beyond
our experience.
brian spooner is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and Curator for Near East Ethnology at the Penn Museum. He has worked in Afghanistan since 1963 on rug weaving and other traditional technolo-gies. Dr. Spooner curated a 1973 exhibition of Afghan carpets at the Penn Museum.
For Further Reading
Bonyhady, Tim, and Nigel Lendon. The Rugs of War. Canberra: Australian National University School of Art Gallery, 2003.
Mascelloni, Enrico. War Rugs: The Nightmare of Modernism. Milano: Skira, 2009.
Spooner, Brian. “Weavers and Dealers: The Authenticity of an Oriental Carpet.” In The Social Life of Things, edited by Arjun Appadurai, pp. 195-235, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Websites
Hali (rug journal): www.hali.com
Oriental Rug Review: no longer published, but old issues available at www.rugreview.com
Textile Museum of Canada: www.textilemuseum.ca/apps/index.cfm?page=exhibition.detail&exhId=271
www.spongobongo.com/warguide.htm
warrug.com
20 volume 53 , number 1 expedition
Penn Museum thanks the Textile Museum of Canada for providing images of war rugs included in this article. Text describing each rug was adapted from material provided by the Textile Museum. Special thanks are due to Roxane Shaughnessy, Curator, Collections & Access.
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This war rug highlights the global landscape of modern warfare, including references to the Pentagon and the date of September 11th on a computer monitor (T2008.1.110, 86 cm x 58 cm).
www.penn.museum/expedition 21
Resurrecting GordionPreserving Turkey’s Phrygian Capitalby frank g. matero and c. brian rose
Archaeology and heritage conservation
have become important partners in the exca-
vation, preservation, and display of archaeo-
logical sites around the world. With rare
exception, most archaeological sites are cre-
ated through excavation, and they become “heritage” through
a complex process of study, intervention, and visitation that
involves a number of disciplines beyond archaeology. It is
largely tourism that drives the need to expose and display sites,
which shifts the priorities of archaeological research to man-
aging deterioration (as a result of exposure) and interpreting
buildings, features, and site histories. Input from the archae-
ologist, conservator, and design professional at the beginning
of a project determines the success or failure of how a site is
ultimately preserved, interpreted, and exhibited.
Beyond this, many archaeological sites have special mean-
ing to the local residents, who have claimed these places as
part of their cultural and/or ethnic heritage long before the
first shovelful of earth has been removed for scientific study.
A new conservation program for the Phrygian capital of
Gordion, well known in antiquity as well as today for its asso-
ciations with King Midas and Alexander the Great, will safe-
guard the extensive yet rapidly deteriorating remains of this
great citadel and transform it into a vibrant component of the
region’s economy and identity.
gordion—a turkish treasure
Located in central Turkey, approximately 70 km southwest
of Ankara, Gordion was the center of the Phrygian kingdom
that ruled much of Asia Minor during the early first millen-
nium BCE. It was also one of the most important cultural
and political centers of the ancient world. Located at the
intersection of the great empires to the east (Assyrians,
Babylonians, Hittites)
and the west (Greeks,
Romans), it occupied
a strategic position
on nearly all trade
routes that linked the
Mediterranean with
the Near East. The
city became especially
prominent shortly
after the Phrygians
settled there in the
12th century BCE,
and it continued to
be a military and commercial center even after the Persian
conquests in the mid-6th century BCE. During the 3rd cen-
tury BCE, the city was settled by the Celts, whose practice of
human sacrifice is documented by new skeletal discoveries.
Excavations at Gordion have been conducted by the
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology since 1950, and have revealed at least ten occu-
pation levels spanning a period of nearly 3,000 years. The
Early Phrygian (ca. 950–800 BCE) palaces and public build-
ings were built primarily of timber and mudbrick on stone
foundations, and they contain the earliest known examples
of geometric pebble mosaics, the patterns of which suggest
that the artists were experts in weaving and textile design. The
citadel was surrounded by massive stone fortifications whose
early gate is one of the most complete to survive from that
period in the ancient Near East, along with sections of stone
fortification walls. The site’s destruction in 800 BCE is one of
the few in Asia Minor that can be precisely dated, and Gordion
therefore serves as an anchor for the chronology of the eastern
Mediterranean during the early first millennium BCE.
Em
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TURKEY
Gordion is located in central Turkey.
22 volume 53 , number 1 expedition
Famous Rulers at Gordion
As the political and cultural capital of the Phrygians, Gordion was one of the most important sites in the ancient Near East, but it is more commonly remembered as the power center of
kings Gordias and Midas (allegedly of the “Golden Touch”), and as the location of an intricate knot that was cut by Alexander the Great.
Our information regarding the former king is limited: an oracle had reportedly informed the inhabitants of Gordion that they should acclaim as king a man who entered the city on an ox-cart, and Gordias or his son Midas was the first to do this, thereby earning the right to rule. The ox-cart—and the knotted bark attached to it—was subse-quently enshrined within the citadel as an object of reverence.
So much for the legend; but Midas was actually an historical char-acter whose career (ca. 740–700 BCE) is described in contemporary writing. Greek and Roman authors indicate that he married the daughter of the ruler of the Greek city of Kyme and was the first non-Greek to have made a dedication at the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi.
The most important references to Midas are in the Assyrian Annals, where he is referred to as Mita of Mushki. During the last quarter of the 8th century BCE, Phrygian control extended over much of central Asia Minor, and Midas’s support against the Assyrians was increasingly sought by cities in the Upper Euphrates region. Tumulus MM, the largest tomb at Gordion, was once regarded as the tomb of Midas himself, but it is more likely to have been built by Midas at the beginning of his reign to honor his predecessor. The mound was nev-ertheless just as much a monument to Midas himself in that it was the largest burial mound in Asia Minor, and would remain so until the construction of the tomb of the Lydian king Alyattes at Sardis nearly 200 years later.
Meanwhile, the famous ox-cart continued to be venerated within the city long after the Phrygian kingdom had come to an end, and acquired yet another layer of meaning: an oracle prophesied that who-ever untied the intricate bark knot attached to the cart would become ruler of Asia. When Alexander the Great arrived at the city in 333 BCE, he sliced through the knot when his attempts to untie it were unsuccessful, thereby, in a sense, fulfilling the prophecy. This force-ful action still remains as a common expression in English, wherein “cutting the Gordian knot” refers to decisively solving a seemingly intractable problem.
Surrounding the citadel is a rolling landscape
dominated by almost 100 elite tombs (tumuli),
most of which date between 900 and 500 BCE.
The largest of these tumuli, 300 m in diameter
and 53 m in height, has been identified as the
tomb of Gordias (ca. 740 BCE), the eponymous
founder of the city and the father of the legend-
ary King Midas (ca. 740–700 BCE). The tomb
chamber, approximately 5 by 6 m, lay 40 m
below the surface, and it represents the earliest
known intact wooden structure in the world.
Inside, the tomb contained intricate inlaid
wooden furniture, bronze vessels, and textile
bedding with patterns of purple and brown dyes,
subsequently analyzed by the Penn Museum’s
Applied Science Center for Archaeology.
Since the initial opening of the site in 1950,
modest site preservation has protected the
extensive architectural remains from destruc-
tion. In 2006 a new program of site conserva-
tion was launched integrating documentation,
analysis, intervention, and interpretation of
the citadel and its surrounding landscape. The
Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism now
holds foreign archaeologists responsible for the
sites that their institutions have excavated, and
the Penn Museum has responded through a
new and aggressive program of site conserva-
tion, research, and maintenance.
a plan for conservation
In 2007, the Architectural Conservation
Laboratory of Penn’s School of Design, under
Professor Frank Matero, completed a five-year
Conservation and Management Plan for the
Gordion citadel. The plan and its implementa-
tion represent Penn Museum’s renewed com-
mitment to the conservation of the site and
vicinity, recognizing the role of Gordion in
any program of sustainable development of the
region’s cultural heritage in central Turkey. The
current project is based on an integrated and
phased program of academic research, site con-
servation, regional survey, and heritage training.
www.penn.museum/expedition 23
Pen
n M
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ordi
on A
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Arc
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onse
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Labo
rato
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otto
m)
Gordion’s ancient citadel mound is a dis-
tinctive presence on the central Anatolian
horizon, representing three millennia of
human occupation. The mass and contour
of its constructed form, together with associ-
ated mound features representing the lower
town and outer fortifications nearby, define
the ancient Phrygian capital. Since 1950
the citadel mound has been transformed
through excavation, which also resulted in
the creation of large spoil heaps along its
outer slopes. Removal of these deposits to
both restore the mound profile and stabi-
lize erosion as backfill for eroded excavation
scarps and trenches will do much to rein-
state Gordion’s largest and most character-
istic feature. Also critical to the stabilization
A
B C
D
E
The ancient landscape of Gordion consists of a dominating citadel mound (a) surrounded by a settlement (b), secondary fortifications (c), and a royal cemetery of tumuli including the “Midas Mound” MM (d), as well as the village of Yassıhöyük (e), 1950.
Site plan of phased conservation activities over the next five years.
Arc
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Labo
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24 volume 53 , number 1 expedition
of the mound as well as the surrounding tumuli
will be the implementation of a re-vegetation
and land-use plan under development by the
Museum’s Dr. Naomi Miller and partners from
Middle East Technical University.
The perception of any settlement depends on
the relationship of its parts; however, it is in the
architectural details that the buildings, fortifica-
tion walls, enclosed and open spaces, and paved
areas of Gordion are readily discernible and
understood. Gordion possessed all these fea-
tures in a brilliant composition of urban design
which is currently illegible due to deterioration
and a variety of past presentation approaches.
In order to re-establish the architectural form
and structural stability of the buildings, a range
of techniques—including selective reburial, sta-
bilization, restoration, and partial reconstruc-
tion—have been implemented simultaneously.
Architectural form and building fabric are cur-
rently being interpreted according to a set of
guidelines that carefully mediate between the
reestablishment of the overall plan and the pres-
ervation of architectural fabric. “Authenticity”
here becomes a relative term that must find a
balance in protecting future archaeological
value while exposing and displaying ancient
structures for viewing. Examination of the
excavation photographs from the 1950s and
60s reveals a site very different from the current
landscape. Many buildings and enclosure walls
were readily discernible; constructed of stone
and mudbrick with evidence of heavy timber
framing, they stood in some cases over 1 m in
height. Pavements of stone, cobble, mosaic, and
plaster clearly differentiated interior and exte-
rior spaces. Although years of prolonged expo-
sure degraded these materials (mudbrick) and
construction techniques (rubble-core masonry
walls), some features such as the stone pave-
ments and megaron walls (see below) were sub-
sequently reburied for protection. Currently,
various presentation techniques are under
Above, aerial view of Gordion citadel, 2010. Below, visitor circuit with new stone steps, railings, and wayside pavilion design, 2009.
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development to reveal and display walls and
pavements by excavation, capping, encapsula-
tion, and replication. Each of these techniques
will be tested, and their application to a particu-
lar building or area will depend on the archaeo-
logical significance of the feature, its condition,
and its contribution to the plan.
Excavation deep within the citadel mound
has revealed the ancient Phrygian capital prior
to destruction (ca. 800 BCE), and has created a
unique situation for viewing. Visitors ascend the
mound at the entrance gate, and from the top
have an extraordinary view into the city and out
across the landscape. This remains one of the
site’s most compelling aspects and is currently
threatened by the instability of both the eroding
scarps and the poorly delineated trail and barri-
ers. A circuit atop the perimeter of the mound
allows visitors a 360 degree view of the citadel
and surrounding landscape, which is now being
augmented by 12 covered pavilions designed by
PennDesign professor Lindsay Falck, with cor-
responding signage describing relevant build-
ings, features, and history.
The recent building and site condition
survey has identified the potential for seri-
ous deterioration and structural collapse of a
number of important structures, including the
Early Phrygian gate, the Middle Phrygian walls,
the Terrace Building, and numerous mega-
rons. These and other buildings and archi-
tectural features are currently the focus of the
Gordion conservation program, which includes
research into the construction techniques of the
Phrygians, informed by 3D laser imaging, and
material analyses.
The Gate (ca. 900 BCE)The citadel gate, a massive and nearly complete
stone structure of enormous architectural and
historical importance, is of the highest priority.
Recent engineering assessments have identified
the gate displacement and open wall tops to be
Above, comparative post-excavation site weathering, view looking east: a) 1957 and b) 2009. Below, laser image of the citadel gate and surrounding area, 2009.
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Gate entrance showing Early and Middle Phrygian masonry and trenched later Phrygian fill, view looking west (a) and east (b), 2010.
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a serious safety issue to the excavators and the visiting pub-
lic as well as a risk to the integrity of the structure. Centuries
of seismic activity and crushing from the superimposed later
Middle Phrygian gate have caused instability in the masonry
that now must be temporarily shored and structurally moni-
tored for movement while test stabilization methods are mod-
eled. Vegetative “soft” caps have been installed as a creative,
low-impact method to protect the gate tops based on green
roof technology and last year’s field experiments.
The WallsThe Early and Middle Phrygian stone walls are a critical com-
ponent of the citadel’s delineation and evolution over time,
and are among the largest architectural remains still standing.
The polychromatic effect of the multi-colored stone blocks
reveals the Phrygians’ love of color; however, the many dif-
ferent types of stone display a range of deterioration, and their
superimposition over earlier walls has led to instability and
collapse. Temporary shoring, structural reintegration, and
consolidation are all needed to restore large sections of the
standing walls.
The Terrace BuildingThe linear eight-room Terrace Building was a complex of
workshops and storage rooms for weaving, food processing,
and other activities. The surviving stone walls, nearly com-
plete in plan, require extensive stabilization using an innova-
tive interior “corset” of stainless steel cables and pins. Once
features such as storage bins and hearths have been reinstated,
the visitor will be afforded a glimpse into the famed produc-
tion sector of the Early Phrygian citadel.
The MegaronsThe principal megarons flanking the Terrace Building plat-
form were civic elite buildings, most likely richly ornamented
on both the exterior and interior. At the time of excavation
significant wall remains of stone, mudbrick, and timber clearly
attested to their construction methods. Of unparalleled sig-
nificance was the discovery in Megaron 2 of the earliest known
complete pebble mosaic, which features both exquisite design
and execution. Reburied for temporary protection, these
buildings now need to be re-excavated, their walls stabilized,
and floor features conserved and reinstated. Of particular
interest and importance is the conservation and restoration of
the pebble mosaic, currently in the Gordion Museum, that is
now funded by the J. M. Kaplan Fund.
planning and heritage training
For many years, archaeological fieldwork at Gordion has ben-
efited from the involvement of numerous academic institu-
tions. More recently, site conservation has benefited from the
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Installation of vegetative “soft” caps on north gate complex: (a) existing concrete cap prior to intervention, (b) “soft” cap protection layer, (c) capillary break layer, (d) filter layer, (e) completed “soft” caps, (f) view looking east of completed north gate “soft” wall caps, 2010.
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Work Continues at Gordion
A joint project under the auspices of the Penn Museum and the Architectural Conservation Laboratory of the School of
Design at the University of Pennsylvania is currently underway to implement a conservation program for Gordion. This
project addresses the long-overdue need to put into effect an integrated program of emergency stabilization, building
conservation, and interpretation, including a visitor circuit and wayside stations for the Gordion citadel. This proposed work
is the direct result of a preliminary conservation planning study by the University of Pennsylvania and Middle East Technical
University on the great citadel and within the surrounding landscape. The project is unique in its integrated approach, which
involves the simultaneous collaboration of archaeology, ethnography, conservation, and design. Previous funding for this work
supported the current conservation plan. Sponsorship is now urgently needed to begin implementation of the more critical needs
related to the collapse of the great Phrygian gate and defensive walls. Overseeing the project are Frank Matero (Penn School of
Design) and Brian Rose (Penn School of Arts and Sciences). Current funding for the Gordion Citadel Conservation Project
comes from the 1984 Foundation, Global Heritage Fund Preservation Foundation, the J. M. Kaplan Fund, the Storer Foundation,
and the Selz Foundation.
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Terrace Building (TB2), demonstration of various wall masonry conservation techniques: (a) before treatment, (b) stone replacement, (c) drilling for adhesive repair, (d) structural retrofitting, (e) wall capping, (f) after treatment, 2009. Below, documentation of the current display of lifted Megaron 2 mosaic at the Gordion Museum, 2010.
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participation of students from the University of Pennsylvania
and Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara.
The number of visitors is likely to increase as the site conser-
vation program accelerates, and in time, Gordion will consti-
tute a substantial income-generating tourist and educational
market as required by national and regional authorities. The
new Gordion project has also begun to assess the economic
and social values of developing the site for tourism through
collateral research underway by the Faculty of Architecture
at Middle East Technical University and the Penn Museum.
Both programs will provide opportunities for training local
and American conservators and heritage specialists.
As recommended by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and
Tourism, a Conservation Management Plan for Gordion
and its environs is being developed by an interdisciplinary ¸
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team from METU under Professor Evin Erder and Dr. Ayse
Gürsan-Salzmann. In 2007, a GIS database was generated for
Gordion and its near environs. Using the cumulative ethno-
graphic information as a guideline, the project is surveying
and documenting all values—archaeological, architectural,
historical, economic, socio-cultural, and ecological—within
a 40 km2 area of Gordion in order to create a vision and
policies for sustainable development and conservation of the
area. In 2008–2009 the focus of the fieldwork was to survey
Yassıhöyük, a nearby village with strong ties to Gordion, and
the first step was taken toward the systematic recording and
analysis of rural communities within the 1st and 3rd degree
protected zones at Gordion.
Three thousand years after its founding and only 60 years
after its excavation by archaeologists from the University of
Pennsylvania, ancient Gordion will slowly reveal itself, as
a multi-disciplinary team of academics and professionals
together with local authorities and residents contemplate the
past and future of King Midas’s legendary city.
frank g. matero is Professor of Architecture and Historic Preservation, and founder and director of the Architectural Conservation Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania.
c. brian rose is the James B. Pritchard Professor of Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania, Deputy Director of the Penn Museum, and co-director of the Gordion excavations.
Frank G. Matero and C. Brian Rose.
Megaron 2 during excavation and discovery of pebble mosaic pavement, 1956.
In Search of San Pietro d’Assoby stefano campana, michelle hobart, and richard hodges
The via cassia was one of the main arteries con-
necting Rome to its northwest provinces. It crossed
the rolling hills of Tuscany, passing by way of Siena,
before veering towards the river Arno and then
northwards. With the transformation of Rome into
a holy city in medieval times, the Cassia became the Via Francigena
(the Franks’ way), possibly the most important highway in
Christendom. Along it, pilgrims and travelers toiled towards the
eternal city. It is no coincidence, then, that as early as the 7th cen-
tury, monasteries were established to support and, indeed, exploit
this traffic.
Until recently these monastic houses were poorly known.
Instead, archaeologists had concentrated upon understanding the
transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages from the standpoint
of rural settlement, charting the beginnings of Tuscany’s iconic
30 volume 53 , number 1 expedition
Students excavate the foundations of an early medieval tower, overlooking the scenic Val d’Asso. Right, Sigeric the Serious, the Archbishop of Canterbury, traveled the Via Francigena to and from Rome. This map shows Sigeric’s itinerary in the 10th century.
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hilltop towns. But with new excavations beside the river Arno
at San Genesio—where a monastic community has recently
been excavated—and a comparable investigation beside the
river Asso at Pava, the first evidence of the ecclesiastical world
close to the Cassia has come to light. Additionally, 12th cen-
tury monastic communities, like the abbey at Sant’Antimo,
with its distinctive francophone Romanesque architecture,
flourished close to this celebrated pilgrim route. During a sur-
vey of the territory of Montalcino, the discovery of a putative
hilltop monastery at San Pietro d’Asso—a monastery founded,
according to an 8th century source, by a mid-7th century
Lombard king—appeared to be geographically at odds with
these other monasteries and an altogether intriguing settle-
ment. The Penn Museum excavation in July 2010, supported
by the University of Siena and the Comune of Montalcino, set
out to establish exactly what this hilltop site was.
the hilltop
Sherds of early medieval pottery, including the distinctive
green-glazed Forum Ware, were found close to a knoll at the
north end of the hill, on which traces of a small mortared
stone building were just visible above the surface. Were these
elements of the early medieval monastery mentioned in an AD
714 dispute between the bishops of Arezzo and Siena? If so,
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This silver coin was found near the hilltop. It was minted by Conrad II, founder of the Germanic Salian Dynasty (1027–1039).
An aerial view of the hilltop of San Pietro d’Asso was photographed by a robot drone.
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Pen
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where were the potsherds belonging to later phases of settle-
ments, leading up until the time San Pietro was taken over
by neighboring Sant’Antimo in the late 12th century? Were
other buildings—either post-built or of pisé (essentially clay
walls), following the early medieval vernacular tradition—
somehow concealed in the main body of the long narrow
hilltop? Excavations on the knoll and on the main body of
the hill soon revealed an entirely different story. Absolutely
nothing was found in the main body of the hilltop. Only
on the knoll was there any occupation, and this was not
monastic in the strict sense. A tower with a north-south axis
measuring 5.10 m by 3.56 m was built to a height of sev-
eral courses, and then altered entirely. The second phase of
the tower was exactly twice the size of the first, but like the
first, it was aborted after reaching less than 0.6 m high. An
unstratified silver denier found close by, minted by Conrad
II of Germany (1027–1039), indicated that this foreclosure
occurred early in the 11th century, a date confirmed by the
sherds of cooking pots associated with the small builders’
yard on the south side of the tower. It soon became clear that
the monastery of San Pietro d’Asso, ascribed to the 7th cen-
tury Lombard King Aripert, was most definitely not located
on the hilltop.
the farmhouse church
Occupying a terrace immediately below the hilltop, over-
looking the flood plain of the river Asso, is an abandoned
farmhouse. This 19th century building incorporated an
earlier Romanesque church, the south aisle of which stands
almost to eaves’ height; this was employed until recently as a
stable. Clearance followed by limited excavations around the
apsidal end of the building showed that in the Romanesque
era the church had possessed three apses. The southern and
central apses were of a distinctive Romanesque ashlar con-
struction, while the earliest (pre-Romanesque) northern
apse was constructed with roughhewn rubble, similar in
many respects to the early chapel at nearby Sant’Antimo,
and not unlike the construction of the hilltop tower. In front
of this earliest apse was a simple cemetery where we uncov-
ered four shallow graves. From unstratified levels in this
area came an early medieval copper alloy tag, lending plau-
sible weight to the proposition that the Romanesque church
had an early medieval precursor. Surveys of the farmhouse
revealed remains of other well-preserved buildings of the
Romanesque era immediately south of the church, while the
central nave, in a reduced form, was retained as a simple cha-
pel that was used until comparatively recently. A geophysical
survey of the terrace that the farmhouse occupies indicated
the presence of major buildings, with some walls plainly evi-
dent. Traces of skeletal remains on the far northeast edge of
the terrace also suggested the presence of a cemetery.
It is most likely that this was a Romanesque monastic
church that owed its origins to an early medieval founda-
tion. The rich architecture in the surviving details reflects the
wealth of connections and support such a pilgrimage church
might have enjoyed before its star was eclipsed by its neigh-
bor, Sant’Antimo.
future research
This season established that the monastery of San Pietro
d’Asso occupied a terrace close to the river, not unlike the
broadly contemporary churches at Pava and Sant’Antimo.
Unlike Pava, it outlasted the early Middle Ages and thrived
into the 12th century, before being subsumed under
Sant’Antimo. Like Sant’Antimo it embarked upon estab-
lishing its own borgo or village, with a fortified tower—the
quintessential hallmark of new towns at this time. But unlike
Castelnuovo dell’Abate, above Sant’Antimo, which thrives
today, the castle above San Pietro d’Asso was never finished.
Why this was the case, as the monastery was on the eve of
its zenith in the Romanesque era, remains intriguing and
unknown. This unexpected story will compel us to look more
closely at the overall history of ecclesiastical power alongside
the Via Cassia, and of course sets the scene for exploring
what the first monastery at San Pietro d’Asso looked like.
stefano campana is Associate Professor in Landscape Archaeology at the University of Siena.
michelle hobart is Adjunct Professor of Medieval Archaeology at Cooper Union in New York.
richard hodges is Williams Director of the Penn Museum, and Director of the Institute of World Archaeology, UEA, Norwich, England.
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Led by Richard Hodges, Stefano Campana, and Michelle Hobart, 14 undergraduates joined the excavations at San Pietro d’Asso in July 2010. Two of these students reflect on their experiences in field school and time spent in the Italian countryside.
Our adventures began the moment
our plane touched down on Italian soil.
Getting to Rome was only the first step—
we soon realized that many roads do not
have names, and our trip quickly turned
into a navigational nightmare. One of many close calls
occurred when the stick shift broke in our van, causing it to
roll down a steep hill towards a sharp drop-off. Thankfully,
we all made it unscathed to Montalcino, the picturesque
hilltop town we would be calling home for the next month.
Any fears we had about living in Italy swiftly dissolved
as we drove through the medieval town: worn cobblestones
lined the winding streets, flowers and vines hung from
brightly painted windowsills, and the central bell tower rose
into the sky. The view from the town into the Tuscan coun-
tryside below was beyond stunning, with endless green and
gold hills that seemed to ebb and flow like the sea. As we
settled into our accommodations at the local elementary
school, we soon realized that our living situation would not
be as wondrous as the rest of our surroundings. We slept on
cots in classrooms, shared a single mirror, and had to trek
down the street wrapped tightly in our towels to gain access
to the communal showers. Yet without the luxury of pri-
vacy, we quickly became friends, and unanimously agreed
that the charm and history of Montalcino more than made
up for any passing discomfort.
Every morning we stumbled from our cots at dawn to
the local café, hoping that a frothy cappuccino and warm
cornetto (Italian croissant) would fortify us for a day of dig-
ging. We spent each day at San Pietro d’Asso hard at work;
A Month in Montalcinoby adrianna de svastich and jennifer mcauley
34 volume 53 , number 1 expedition
The central bell tower in Montalcino is the highest structure in the small town.
the group was divided between the medieval church
and the hilltop, where we unearthed a monastic
watchtower from the same period. Following a deli-
cious lunch of fruit, Italian bread, and prosciutto at
the site, we were ready to venture back to Montalcino
and looked forward to the prospect of a shower and
an afternoon siesta.
After a hard day of digging, we would explore the
town: the piazza, the cafés, the gelaterias, and the
shop windows brimming with bottles of Brunello
wine. We came to know the town’s elderly gentlemen
who would chat on park benches while their wives
aired laundry from open windows. We practiced our
Italian with the locals who worked in the shops and
restaurants, and even learned how to prepare a tradi-
tional Italian meal from our cooks at the school. The
smell of fresh pasta, smoky prosciutto, and Tuscan
wine seemed to swirl through the air. Even though
we were often caught up in the hectic atmosphere
of the dig, somewhere along the way we learned to
slow down and enjoy the simple pleasure found in
new friends, good food, and great wine. We expected
to work hard and learn about medieval churches.
However, we never anticipated just how much we
would learn about the vibrant Tuscan culture.
adrianna de svastich and jennifer mcau-ley excavated at San Pietro d’Asso during the summer of 2010. They are undergraduates in the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Left top, Dr. Michelle Hobart shows student Adena Wayne how to piece together pottery sherds. Left bot-tom, students of the Penn archaeology field school gath-er for a group photograph at the abbey of Sant’Antimo, Montalcino, Siena.
Jennifer McAuley and Adrianna de Svastich.
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36 volume 53 , number 1 expedition
The volume from mine to microscope rep-
resents an important collection of articles by
colleagues and former students of Michael
(“Mike”) Tite and is a fitting tribute to the
work of a superb scholar who also happens to
be a most humane individual and a wonderful colleague. The
distinguished career of Tite reads very much like the history of
the field of archaeometry in the second half of the 20th cen-
tury. A BSc in physics (Oxford 1960) led to a DPhil (Oxford
Research Laboratory 1965), under the supervision of Martin
Aitken. After teaching at the University of Essex, Mike became
Keeper of the British Museum Research Laboratory (1975–
1989) and then, in 1989, was appointed the Edward Hall
Professor of Archaeological Science at the Oxford Research
Laboratory (1989–2004), replacing his mentor, Martin
Aitken. He also took over as editor of Archaeometry, the lead-
ing journal in the field of archaeological science. It is not pos-
sible to imagine the progress made in this field of research in
the United Kingdom apart from the career of Mike Tite. Many
of the essays in this volume go back to research conducted by
the authors for the DPhil degree, done under the supervision
of Professor Tite.
Tite’s early interest in thermoluminescence dating (TL)
soon led to a long-standing interest in the use of the scan-
ning electron microscope (SEM), involving work with Yannis
Maniatis, one of his former students. Maniatis went on to
From Mine to Microscope: Advances in the Study of Ancient Technology edited by Andrew J. Shortland, Ian C. Freestone, and Thilo Rehren (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2009). 230 pp., numerous black and white photographs and drawings, $120.00, ISBN 978-1-84217-259-9.
Mike Tite doing fieldwork in the Western Desert of Egypt.
Archaeometry and ShipwrecksA Review Article by james d. muhly
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play a major role in the development of
the Laboratory of Archaeometry at the
Institute of Materials Science, part of
Greece’s National Centre of Scientific
Research known as Demokritos. Tite
greatly expanded the importance of
archaeometry in the UK, and Maniatis
did the same for Greece. To the best
of my knowledge these two scholars
are still working together on several
important research projects.
It is appropriate here to call atten-
tion to the crucial role played by the
Penn Museum (then the University Museum) in the devel-
opment of American research in archaeological science. In
1953, Elizabeth Ralph was hired by the Museum as a Research
Associate. She worked in the development of carbon-14 dat-
ing, a radiometric method used to date organic materials from
archaeological sites. When Museum Director Froelich Rainey
created the Museum Applied Science Center of Archaeology
(MASCA) in 1961, the discipline of archaeometry had not yet
come into being. The important research carried out by Beth
Ralph as Associate Director of MASCA (1961–1982)—includ-
ing the use of the proton magnetometer in the search for ancient
Sybaris (1961–1968) and the C-14 dating of organic samples
from Museum excavations in Egypt and Mesopotamia—
quickly established the importance of MASCA in an exciting
new approach to archaeological research.
Ralph had spent six weeks studying radiocarbon dating
with Willard Libby at the University of Chicago, and the labo-
ratory she subsequently established at the University Museum
The C-14 laboratory at MASCA, 1959. Research assistant Robert Stuckenrath points out a combustion tube to Dr. Alfred Kidder II, then Associate Director of the Penn Museum. UPM Image # 63181
was the first one in the world devoted to the radiomet-
ric dating of archaeological materials. Two factors were
important in making all this possible: a crucial grant
from the National Science Foundation and the sup-
port of the then president of the University, Gaylord
Harnwell, who was himself a physicist.
When it became clear that radiocarbon dates had to
be “calibrated” because of variations in the production
of atmospheric carbon 14, Ralph went to work with
Henry Michael, a pioneer in the field of dendrochro-
nology. Michael was able to provide the exact dates
used to create a calibration curve for radiocarbon dates
over a period of some 7,000 years. The result was the
publication, in the MASCA Newsletter for 1973, of the
famous “MASCA calibration curve,” quickly adopted
by scholars all over the world. The career of Mike Tite,
especially his work in radiocarbon dating, would not
have been possible without the pioneering research
conducted by MASCA.
In order to give some indication of the riches to be
found in the volume under review, we can look at work
being done on objects made of clay, glass, and metal.
Work on ancient ceramics has become an essential part
of current research in archaeometry. Yannis Maniatis
has provided an excellent, detailed summary of what
has been learned about the use of fired clay over the
past 9,000 years. He argues that “the manufacture of
this new material constitutes undoubtedly the first tech-
nological revolution in human history” (pp. 11-12). For
anyone seeking an understanding of what such research
is all about, this essay by Maniatis is the place to begin.
The production of glass came much later, long
after work in materials such as frit and faience. It was
not until the mid-second millennium BC that glass
technology developed in Syria, Mesopotamia, and
Egypt; the development of that technology seems to
have stimulated the contemporary practice of glazing
ceramics, but only in Syria and Mesopotamia, accord-
ing to the essay by S. Paynter (pp. 93-108). In Egypt the
practice of glazing ceramics did not develop until the
1st century BC. There seems to be a basic technologi-
cal explanation for these differences. In Mesopotamia
and Syria both glass and glazed ceramics were made
of alkali-fluxed materials, whereas when Egypt finally
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Above, Beth Ralph with combustion tube and equipment used in the process of converting organic material to carbon for dating, 1959. UPM Image # 90945. Below, Beth Ralph with an Olmec Head, 1971. The head was discovered by Ralph and her team during a Cesium Magnetometer Survey at San Lorenzo, Mexico, in 1969. UPM Image # 180670
started to glaze ceramics, it made use of a lead-based technol-
ogy (pp. 93-94). The reason for this lies in the types of clay that
were locally available.
In the 14th century BC, however, the Egyptians were
already producing master works in glass, especially the famous
glass model of a tilapia fish from Amarna, certainly one of the
best-known (and most photographed) objects of glass before
the Roman period. Found during the British excavations at
Amarna in 1921, it is now one of the prized possessions of the
British Museum (see essay by A. Shortland, pp. 109-14). The
actual technology of glass production is studied in a fine essay
by J. Henderson (pp. 129-38).
Bronze Age glass studies represent a “hot” research topic
right now. There are two main reasons for this. The first is
the recent discovery, at the Egyptian Delta site of Qantir-
Piramesses, of the only known Bronze Age primary glass pro-
duction site. The evidence for this has now been presented in a
magnificent publication by E. B. Pusch and Th. Rehren (2007,
see full citation at end of article). This two-volume work intro-
duces a new era in the study of Bronze Age glass but is too
recent to be included in From Mine to Microscope, a volume
long delayed in production.
The second reason concerns recent analytical work on the
large number of cobalt blue glass ingots within the cargo of
the Uluburun shipwreck. It has now been established that this
raw glass, known as cullet, was produced in Egypt (see C. M.
Jackson and P. T. Nicholson, 2010). There are also a number
of cobalt blue glass beads from Mycenaean Greece. As these
beads were certainly of local Mycenaean manufacture, they
must have been made of raw glass imported from Egypt, as
indicated by the analysis of several of these beads (see M. S.
Walton, et al., 2009). This certainly implies that at least some
of the blue glass from the Uluburun shipwreck was destined
for markets in Mycenaean Greece. What does this tell us about
the nature of the Uluburun ship itself?
the conundrum of the shipwrecks’ cargos
When the Turkish government asked Froelich Rainey, back
in 1958, if the University Museum had someone who could
excavate what seemed to be an important shipwreck recently
discovered off the southern coast of Turkey, Rainey did not
hesitate to accept the offer. He then told George Bass, a young
graduate student in Classical Archaeology at the University,
that he was to be in charge of the project. Lack of diving
experience was no excuse; the YMCA was offering lessons in
scuba diving, using their swimming pool. This was the begin-
ning of Bass’ remarkable career in nautical archaeology, first
at Penn and then at Texas A & M University (see article by
George Bass in Expedition 49(2):36-44).
Bass’ skill in fundraising was instrumental in the creation
of a magnificent facility in Bodrum, Turkey, from which it
was possible to organize a series of important excavations of
shipwrecks from all periods, but all in Turkish waters. The
1960 excavation of the Late Bronze Age Cape Gelidonya
www.penn.museum/expedition 39
© T
rust
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of t
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useu
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op),
Ulu
buru
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ojec
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A (b
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The earliest intact glass ingots of a disc shape found at the Uluburun shipwreck, Turkey. Chemical analyses have revealed the use of cobalt (on left) and copper (on right) as coloring agents.
Glass bottle in the form of a fish from el-Amarna, Egypt, 18th Dynasty (ca. 1390–1336 BC). Length 14.5 cm.
shipwreck was a pioneering effort, carried out by a group of
enthusiastic amateurs. By the early 1980s, with the discovery
of a new Bronze Age shipwreck in much deeper water, the
field of nautical archaeology had developed in remarkable
ways, due mainly to the work centered in Bodrum and carried
out by what is now known as INA, the Institute of Nautical
Archaeology.
This new shipwreck, designated first as the Kas wreck and
then as the Uluburun shipwreck, electrified the archaeologi-
cal world because of its amazingly rich cargo. The important
thing is that both ships were carrying cargo that included
ingots of copper and of tin. There is now general agreement
that the Uluburun ship, dating to ca. 1300 BC, was carrying
a cargo meant as a gift for a king, whereas the cargo of the
Gelidonya ship, dating to ca. 1200 BC, was to be seen as the
stock-in-trade of a sailing smithy.
These are the conclusions of Zofia A.
Stos. There is no doubt that her contribu-
tion has to be seen as the most important
article in this volume in honor of Mike
Tite (pp. 163-80). Furthermore, it has to
be evaluated within the context of two
other contributions to this volume, by A.
M. Pollard (pp. 181-89) and by Noël H.
Gale (pp. 191-96). All three contributions
deal with the highly controversial subject
of establishing metal provenance based
upon the results of lead isotope analysis
(LIA). They, in turn, hark back to a semi-
nal essay by our honoree (“In defence
of lead isotope analysis,” Antiquity 70
[1996]: 959-62). It is the LIA of the cop-
per ingots from both shipwrecks that
has propelled the study of the Gelidonya
and Uluburun shipwrecks into the fore-
front of current research in Bronze Age
Mediterranean archaeology.
When George Bass put out his final
publication of the Cape Gelidonya ship-
wreck, in 1967, he was already very much
aware of the special importance of the
curious “oxhide”-shaped ingots included
in the cargo of the wreck. Within the fol-
lowing forty-some years that importance
has escalated dramatically. The Gelidonya ship was carrying
a cargo of 34 complete copper oxhide ingots, plus numerous
fragments, and a small number of very corroded tin ingots.
This was, at the time, the largest assemblage of such ingots
ever discovered. The Uluburun ship, on the other hand,
had a cargo that included 360 copper ingots and 160 tin
ingots, weighing in total some 12 tons. This was a cargo
of raw metal unlike anything ever seen before in Bronze
Age archaeology. Hardly surprising that the discovery of
the Uluburun shipwreck has totally revised all thinking
regarding the scope of the Late Bronze Age metals trade in the
eastern Mediterranean.
The copper used to make the oxhide ingots, and also the
associated bun ingots, seems to have come from several cop-
per mines on the island of Cyprus, a country long famous as
a source of copper for the ancient world. No one really knows
Pen
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40 volume 53 , number 1 expedition
Nautical archaeologist takes notes underwater, using a grid system to record finds, at the site of Cape Gelidonya, Turkey, 1960–1961. UPM Image # 148806
¸
Above, at the end of the excavation at the Cape Gelidonya shipwreck, workers loaded copper ingots onto a dinghy to be delivered eventually to Bodrum. Below left, archaeologist C. Peachy is shown restoring and consolidating damaged ingots at the Uluburun shipwreck using an underwater curing epoxy and plaster. Below right, two women hold a typical copper ingot of “oxhide” shape from the Uluburun shipwreck.
Cap
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elid
onya
pro
ject
, IN
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www.penn.museum/expedition 41
Lavrion Copper
T hanks to a recent paper by N. H. Gale, M. Kayafa, and Z. A. Stos-Gale, it has now become necessary to re-evaluate the question of copper from Lavrion. Published in 2009, their paper from the Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Archaeometallurgy in Europe, held in Aquileia, Italy, in June of 2007, entitled
“Further evidence for Bronze Age production of copper from ores in the Lavrion ore district, Attica, Greece,” presents, for the first time, very convincing geological evidence for the existence of massive copper deposits in the Lavrion area, especially in the region known as Kamariza. In the oral presentation of this paper, in Aquileia, the authors showed many wonderful color photographs of some of these deposits. Most of this new evidence comes from a special issue of a German periodical called Lapis (vol. 24, nos. 7-8 for July-August 1999), devoted to “Lavrion, Griechenland.”
Problems remain, including the lack of extensive deposits of copper-smelting slag and the absence of any archaeo-logical evidence for Late Bronze Age mining activity, but Lavrion is an area where mining activity, especially for silver-bearing lead ores, has been carried out from the fourth millennium BC down into the early 20th century AD. All traces of Bronze Age mining and smelting activity could well have been destroyed or buried by later workings in the area. The authors of this paper also claim that there are now 11 ingots made of Lavrion copper, including 3 from LM IB Mochlos, 3 from the Uluburun shipwreck, and 3 from the Cape Gelidonya shipwreck. The problem is that none of these ingots are in the characteristic oxhide shape; they tend to be either so-called bun or slab ingots. The two slab ingots from Tiryns are actually made of high-tin bronze and must represent material destined to be cast in object form. It is still true, therefore, that there are no oxhide ingots made of Lavrion copper. Nevertheless, serious attention must now be given to the existence of massive deposits of copper ore, still to be found at present-day Lavrion.
42 volume 53 , number 1 expedition
Noë
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and
Zofia
A. S
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Gal
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Above, Noël H. Gale, Zofia A. Stos-Gale, and Stavros Papastavros (IGME) were shown copper deposits underground in 1987 in the Christiana region (Kamareza, Lavrion) by an old mining engineer of the Compagnie Française des Mines du Laurium, who used his old acetylene lamp to illuminate the copper ores (azurite and malachite) in the walls of the gallery.
where the tin came from; its origin remains one of the
great enigmas of the Bronze Age world. Sources as far
away as Central Asia are now being seriously considered,
but more for the Early Bronze Age than for later periods.
Stos deals not only with the LIA of the ingots but also
that of the bronze artifacts from both shipwrecks, and this
is where everything starts to get complicated and contro-
versial. First of all, copper oxhide ingots are known from
contexts far beyond the cargo of the two shipwrecks.
They have been found all over the Mediterranean world,
including Cyprus, Crete, Greece (mainland and islands),
South Italy, Sicily (including the island of Lipari),
Sardinia, Corsica, and the south coast of France. Such
ingots, whole or in fragments, have also been found in
Germany, the western shore of the Black Sea, on the coast
of southeastern Turkey, in Egypt, and even at the site of
the Kassite capital Dur-Kurigalzu, near Babylon. A frag-
ment was found at the site of Emporio on the island of
Chios, just opposite the Turkish mainland. They have
not been found in the northeastern Aegean (Samothrace,
Limnos, Lesbos, the Troad) or along the Aegean coast of
Anatolia (Panaz Tepe, Liman Tepe, Çesme), and there
must be a reason for this.
In almost all cases copper oxhide ingots have been
found at coastal sites, clearly implying a distribution
via maritime trade. The Uluburun and Cape Gelidonya
shipwrecks clearly document such a trade, but a crucial
question remains unanswered: how frequently did such
voyages take place? It would be nice to be able to answer
that question. Clearly we are dealing here with interna-
tional trade on a grand, probably unprecedented scale.
Zofia Stos regards the Late Bronze Age as representing
“the earliest European industrial network” (p. 163). The
vast majority of these oxhide ingots do seem to be made
of Cypriot copper, even those from Sardinia, an island
with its own copper deposits. This use of Cypriot cop-
per started early, at least by the late 16th century BC, as
demonstrated by the recent finds from the Cretan site of
Mochlos.
Almost all the artifacts from Late Bronze Age sites in
the Aegean, on the other hand, seem to be made not of
Cypriot copper but of what the Gales have long identified
as copper from Lavrion (southern Attica) or even cop-
per from the Taurus Mountains in southeastern Turkey.
So what happened to all the Cypriot copper? Where did
it go? What was it used for? Many attempts have been
made to answer these questions, most recently by Stos
(pp. 176-77), but as yet, no convincing explanation has
been proposed.
The very existence of so-called Lavrion copper has
been called into question. Lavrion was, in ancient times,
famous as a source of lead and silver. The existence of the
Athenian Empire, in the 5th century BC, was based upon
the wealth derived from the silver mines of Lavrion. No
ancient author ever refers to Lavrion as a source of copper.
Moreover, if large amounts of copper were being smelted
from Lavrion ores in the Late Bronze Age, then where are
the inevitable heaps of copper-smelting slag? Nothing of
the sort has ever been found at Lavrion. In other words,
there seems to be a major disconnect between analytical
interpretation and archaeological evidence. We now have
hundreds of analyzed ingots and hundreds of analyzed
artifacts, but the two bodies of evidence seem to exist in
separate worlds of reality. No one ever imagined, follow-
ing some 30 years of very intensive analytical, geological,
and archaeological research, that we would find ourselves
at such an impasse.
The cargo of the Uluburun ship provides an excellent
example of the problems outlined above. The copper
ingots seem to be made of Cypriot copper but most of
the bronze tools and weapons are said to be made of cop-
per from the Taurus Mountains (Stos, pp. 172-73). Here
is a ship carrying a cargo of copper and tin ingots, the
raw materials for making bronze, but the bronze artifacts
from the wreck were made from an unrelated type of
copper. Why? What did the captain of the Uluburun ship
plan to do with his metal cargo? Such Cypriot copper, on
the basis of present interpretations of the LIA evidence,
does not seem to have been used by the metalworkers of
Minoan Crete or Mycenaean Greece.
Were the ingots destined to serve as a royal gift, a form
of royal gift exchange, but, for some reason, never meant
for actual use? Such a proposal seems too bizarre to be
taken seriously. The cobalt blue glass ingots seem to have
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44 volume 53 , number 1 expedition
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served, at least in part, as raw material for the Mycenaean
glass industry. Why not a useful purpose for the copper and
tin ingots? The earlier metal hoard from Late Minoan IB
Mochlos (ca. 1525–1450 BC) shows the same pattern: ingots
of Cypriot copper but artifacts of Lavrion and Taurus copper
(Stos, pp. 173, 176). The cargo of the Cape Gelidonya, on the
other hand, presents a very different pattern, with both the
ingots and the artifacts made of Cypriot copper? Why?
What then are we to make of these two remarkable ship-
wrecks? They are obviously very different in character, and
one of the explanations must be found in the difference in
date. The Uluburun cargo, ca. 1300 BC, has to be seen within
the context of the wealth of Mycenaean Greece in the 14th
century BC. This is a merchant ship, most likely of Cypriot
origin, on a voyage destined for ports on the Greek main-
land, especially the Argolid. I see the Uluburun ship as rep-
resenting the activities of a rich merchant, probably residing
at Enkomi. His business was based upon his ability to sup-
ply the wealthy princes of Mycenaean Greece with necessary
raw materials, thus making possible their opulent life style.
The ill-fated voyage—that has provided archaeologists with
a lifetime of material for research—must have been but one
of many. The copper and tin ingots must have served as raw
material for the Mycenaean bronze industry, however one is
to explain the seemingly contradictory results of LIA.
The Cape Gelidonya ship, dating to ca. 1200 BC, con-
tained a crew of itinerant metalworkers. Unlike the
Uluburun ship, the Gelidonya ship was carrying a cargo of
raw materials, together with a magnificent collection of met-
alworking tools, all to be put to practical use. With the col-
lapse of the Mycenaean palaces, in the late 13th century BC,
the palatial workshops went out of existence. Knowledge
of metalworking skills was in serious decline on the Greek
mainland, but not in Cyprus. There, metalworking skills
continued to flourish during the course of the 12th century
BC, as confirmed by such masterpieces of bronze casting as
the Horned God and the Ingot God, both from Late Cypriot
IIIB Enkomi.
As new markets for metalwork opened up across the
eastern Mediterranean, the Cypriot craftsmen seized the
initiative. The Gelidonya ship has to be seen within such a
context: itinerant Cypriot metalworkers sailing from port
to port, carrying their own raw materials and metalwork-
ing tools with them in order to supply the local inhabitants
who no longer possessed the skills necessary to fulfill their
own needs.
The interpretation of the Cape Gelidonya and Uluburun
shipwrecks given here is by no means an orthodox one. It is
very different from that proposed by George Bass himself,
over the past 40 years. It does, I would argue, satisfy both the
archaeological and analytical evidence and reflects the grow-
ing recognition of the importance of Cyprus in the interna-
tional world of the eastern Mediterranean during the Late
Bronze Age. Everyone who has dealt with the complexities
and ambiguities inherent in lead isotope analysis, including
Mike Tite and the contributors to From Mine to Microscope,
will appreciate that we are still a long way from final state-
ments on almost all the issues that make the scholarship of
this period such a challenge. These are exactly the types of
problems to which Mike Tite has devoted a long and illustri-
ous career.
james d. muhly is Professor Emeritus of Ancient History in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania, and former Director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. From 1973 to 1978, Professor Muhly was Editor of Expedition.
For Further Reading
Jackson, C. M., and P. T. Nicholson. “The Provenance of Some Glass Ingots from the Uluburun Shipwreck.” Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010): 295-301.
Pusch, Edgar B., and Thilo Rehren. Hochtemperatur-Technologie in der Ramses-Stadt: Rubenglass für den Pharao, Parts 1 and 2. Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 2007 (Die Grabungen des Pelizaeus-Museums Hildesheim in Qantir–Pi-Ramesse, Vol. 6).
Walton, M. S., et al. “Evidence for the Trade of Mesopotamian and Egyptian Glass to Mycenaean Greece.” Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009): 1496-1503.
Professor James D. Muhly
www.penn.museum/expedition 45
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PENN MUSEUM HOSTS INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON DIGITIZING ARTIFACTS AND DOCUMENTATION FROM SIR LEONARD WOOLLEY’S ExCAVATIONS AT UR
Representatives from the Penn, British, and Iraq National
museums gathered in Philadelphia on January 26 and 27, 2011,
at a workshop made possible by the Leon Levy Foundation, to
discuss digitizing the more than 21,000 objects excavated at
Ur by Sir Leonard Woolley in the 1920s and 30s. The goal of
the joint project is to eventually make the entire collection,
currently housed among the three museums, available to the
public online. A second key project goal is digitization of the
documentation of the excavation, including Woolley’s field
notes, architectural plans, and reports, which not only tell us
what he was excavating at a particular point in time, but also
give us insight into his initial interpretation of his discoveries
and his evolving understanding of what he was doing.
Iraq’s Ancient Past, the Penn Museum’s long-term exhibi-
tion showcasing objects from Ur, will reopen April 30, 2011,
on the third floor of the West Wing following renovations and
the installation of climate control in the gallery as part of the
West Wing Renovation Project.
GRANT FROM 1956 OTTO HAAS TRUST ENABLES ExPANSION OF MUSEUM’S CONSERVATION PROGRAM
A generous grant from the 1956 Otto Haas Charitable Trust
has made possible the expansion of the Penn Museum’s
Conservation staff. Nina Owczarek recently joined the
Museum’s Conservation Lab as Assistant Conservator. Nina
graduated from New York University’s program in Art
Conservation in 2005. Since then she has undertaken several
project-based contracts with museums in the U.S. as well as
one contract in Morocco. Nina worked previously at the Penn
Museum from January to November 2009, treating objects
for the Painted Metaphors and Iraq’s Ancient Past exhibi-
tions. Nina’s arrival marks the beginning of the Conservation
Department’s planned expansion. In the fall of 2011, two
interns will join the Conservation staff to spend an academic
year getting practical experience in a museum setting. These
internships are the latest installment of the Department’s dis-
tinguished history in conservation education. Conservation’s
expansion will enable the Museum to better fulfill our stra-
tegic goal of being a world-class museum that stewards and
exhibits its collections to contemporary international museo-
logical standards.
museum mosaic
People, Places, Projects
Front row, left to right: Philippe de Montebello, Special Advisor, Leon Levy Foundation; Judith Dobrzynski, Senior Consultant, Leon Levy Foundation; Donny George, Visiting Professor, SUNY Stony Brook and former General Director, National Museum of Iraq; C. Brian Rose, Deputy Director, Penn Museum; Sarah Collins, Assistant Keeper, Early Mesopotamia Collections, The British Museum; Shelby White, Trustee, Leon Levy Foundation; Ali Khadim Ghanim, Inspector for Ur Province, Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage; John Collins, Keeper of the Middle East Collections, The British Museum. Back row, left to right: Richard Zettler, Associate Curator-in-Charge, Near East Section, Penn Museum; William Hafford, Consulting Scholar, Penn Museum; Stephen Tinney, Associate Curator-in-Charge, Babylonian Section, Penn Museum; Alessandro Pezzati, Senior Archivist, Penn Museum; John Bernstein, President and CFO, Leon Levy Foundation; Richard Hodges, Williams Director, Penn Museum; Abdulamir Hamdani, doctoral candidate, SUNY Stony Brook, former Director of Antiquities, Dhiqar Province, Iraq.
NEW ARCHAEOLOGICAL CERAMICS LAB OPENS
A new ceramics laboratory opened in January 2011, funded by
Dr. Charles K. Williams II as part of the Penn Museum’s West
Wing Renovation Project. This lab launches the Museum’s
commitment to a new suite of conservation and archaeologi-
cal laboratories. The ceramics lab will support the University
of Pennsylvania’s archaeological curricula as well as research
programs of in-house and visiting archaeologists. The catalyst
for the creation of the ceramics lab was the Ban Chiang Project’s
Year of Ceramics, part of a four-year Luce Foundation grant to
the Penn Museum to strengthen collaborative archaeological
research in Southeast Asia. During the Spring 2011 semester,
the lab is being used for a Penn seminar course, Introduction
to Archaeological Ceramics, co-taught by Dr. Marie-Claude
Boileau (visiting post-doctoral scholar, Penn Museum), Dr.
Tom Tartaron (Assistant Professor, Classical Studies), and
Dr. Joyce White (Director, Ban Chiang Project, and Associate
Curator for Asia). Penn graduate students were the first to
use the lab to perform petrographic and other archaeometric
analyses on Ban Chiang pottery. Petrography is a core analyti-
cal technique whereby the minerals in thin sections of pottery
vessels can be optically identified using a polarizing micro-
scope. This kind of sophisticated study assists archaeologists
in determining manufacturing processes as well as trade pat-
terns of ancient societies.
Concurrently, the lab is supporting the special study of Ban
Chiang ceramics on loan from the Thai government since the
Museum’s excavations in the 1970s and the analysis of Middle
Bronze Age pottery from the sites of Kirrha and Orchomenos,
Greece, by Dr. Tom Tartaron and Dr. Marie-Claude Boileau.
ExHIBITIONS OPEN IN RENOVATED AND CLIMATE-CONTROLLED GALLERIES THANKS TO WEST WING RENOVATION PROJECT
Thanks to leadership support from A. Bruce and Margaret
Mainwaring and Dr. Charles K. Williams II, and with gener-
ous additional support from Barbara and Michael J. Kowalski,
the Frederick J. Manning Family, Diane von Schlegell Levy
and Robert M. Levy, and the 1956 Otto Haas Charitable Trust,
the three exhibitions currently or soon to be on display in the
Museum’s West Wing—Secrets of the Silk Road, Battleground:
War Rugs from Afghanistan, and Iraq’s Ancient Past—will open
in newly refurbished and climate-controlled galleries. The first
phase of the West Wing Renovation Project also included the
creation of a teaching laboratory for ceramic petrography. Later
phases will add a state-of-the-art suite of conservation labs
and workspaces, several additional teaching and research labs,
and the restoration of the historic and architecturally unique
Widener Lecture Hall, which will return to its original func-
tion as an academic or public event space after several decades
of use as a behind-the-scenes preparation area for exhibitions.
The addition of climate control throughout the wing, together
with replacement of the windows with historically accurate but
airtight and energy-efficient versions, will significantly enhance
the Penn Museum visitor experience and provide greater pro-
tection and stability for the artifacts on display.
46 volume 53 , number 1 expedition
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Be
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ornDr. Marie-Claude Boileau (left) and student Griselle Rodriguez-Gonzalez
examining ceramic thin sections using the ceramic lab’s new polarizing microscope. Dr. Boileau is team leader for the study of Ban Chiang archaeological ceramics during the Year of Ceramics.
www.penn.museum/expedition 47
The West Wing Renovation Project is designed by Samuel
Anderson Architects of New York City, noted for their
work in museums and libraries, with a specialty in conser-
vation labs, with general contract management by Hunter
Roberts Construction Group; mechanical design by McClure
Engineering of St. Louis, MO; structural engineering by
Severud Associates of New York City; lighting design by
Jeffrey Nash Lighting Design of New York City; and project
management by the University of Pennsylvania’s Facilities and
Real Estate Services.
GENEROUS UNDERWRITERS SUPPORT SeCretS of the Silk road AND RELATED PROGRAMMING
When Secrets of the Silk Road opened at the Penn Museum
in February 2011, it was thanks to the hard work of an enor-
mous number of people and generous support from a wide
range of individuals, corporations, educational centers,
foundations, and media sponsors. Penn Museum grate-
fully acknowledges exhibition support from the E. Rhodes
and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation; A. Bruce and Margaret
Mainwaring; Lois and Robert M. Baylis; the Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania; the Selz Foundation; Cummins Catherwood,
Jr. and Susan W. Catherwood; Alexandra and Eric J.
Schoenberg, Ph.D.; Tiffany & Co.; Winnie Chin and Michael
Feng; Gretchen R. Hall, Ph.D.; Host Hotels and Resorts;
and Titan. Media partnership support was provided by NBC
10 and the Philadelphia Inquirer/philly.com. Penn Museum
extends thanks also to Annette Merle-Smith for underwrit-
ing educational materials associated with Secrets of the Silk
Road, and to PNC Foundation, Subaru of America, and
the Wachovia-Wells Fargo Foundation for supporting the
“Sponsor a School Group” program and making it possible
for more than 600 inner city public school children to see
Secrets of the Silk Road and experience related educational
programming free of charge. The international sympo-
sium “Reconfiguring the Silk Road: New Research on East-
West Exchange in Antiquity,” held at the Penn Museum on
March 19, 2011, was made possible by generous underwrit-
ing from the Henry Luce Foundation and the University of
Pennsylvania’s Center for Ancient Studies.
VOICES FROM INDIAN COUNTRY
With support from the Annenberg Foundation, the Penn
Museum is developing a new exhibition entitled Native
American Voices. In preparation, exhibition curator Lucy
Fowler Williams is working together with a host of native spe-
cialists from across the country to identify important issues in
Indian country today and to relate these to the Museum’s out-
standing collections from this diverse region. She is working
particularly closely with Hopi journalist Patty Talahongva and
her Phoenix-based film crew to record video interviews with
native artists, scholars, and activists. The team has worked in
New Mexico, Alaska, and Washington, D.C.
museum mosaic
Native american Voices exhibition curator Lucy Fowler Williams and film crew with Tlingit wood carver Tommy Joseph (center), at Sitka, Alaska’s National Historical Totem Pole Park. The Park was established in 1904 to remember the 1804 Battle of Sitka, a major armed resistance by the Tlingit people to Russian colonization. Joseph carved the pole in the background, which was raised in 2004 to honor the tlingit kiks.ádi clan and celebrate the battle’s 200th anniversary.
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48 volume 53 , number 1 expedition
ANNUAL WELCOMING RECEPTION AT THE PENN MUSEUM
The 41st Welcoming Reception for International Students
and Scholars hosted by the Penn Museum’s International
Classroom program was an astounding success, attended
by more than 1,200 international guests from 104 countries
as far flung as Moldova, Tanzania, Uruguay, and Senegal.
Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter, Penn Museum’s
Williams Director Richard Hodges, and several officials
from consulates in Philadelphia and New York took part in
the event. The reception included the volunteer efforts of 30
students from the Philadelphia High School for Girls, dance
performances by Penn and LaSalle students, and the gener-
ous donation of refreshments from program volunteers and
supporters Josephine Klein and Nada Miller. The goals of the
Reception are to welcome international students and schol-
ars to the Philadelphia area and help them network by bring-
ing together 65 colleges, universities, and international pro-
grams, as well as hundreds of volunteers, performers, museum
staff, and city and state officials. The Reception is considered
a national model among international educators and is the
only city-wide event of its kind. Students from the University
of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, Widener University,
Philadelphia University, the University of Sciences, the
Art Institute of Philadelphia, and as far as away as Bucknell
University came to experience the festivities and make friends
from around the world.
CARTIFACTS: INFORMAL LEARNING IN THE PENN MUSEUM’S GALLERIES
Touch, ask, explore: these are the main goals of the
Community Engagement Department’s newest educational
initiative, Cartifacts.
Cartifacts is an in-gallery, hands-on experience for all Penn
Museum visitors. Each day from 12 pm to 3 pm, one or more
carts are offered in the Museum’s galleries. Current topics
include “Daily Life in Ancient Rome,” “Mummification in
Ancient Egypt,” and “Textiles.” Trained facilitators engage
visitors in conversation related to a cart’s theme and its accom-
panying objects. All objects can be handled by visitors who
can experience writing with a wax tablet and stylus, opening a
canopic jar to find a facsimile of a corresponding organ inside,
making thread with a drop spindle, and much more. During
the Secrets of the Silk Road exhibition, Cartifacts is tailored to
show connections between the Silk Road and the Museum’s
long-term galleries. Stop by the Penn Museum to try them out
for yourself!
museum mosaic
Mayor Michael A. Nutter (second from right) with Williams Director Richard Hodges (right), and Penn Museum Program Manager of Outreach Prema Deshmukh (in sari), with international guests.
The Cartifact experience is now available in Museum galleries from 12 to 3 pm every day.
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call toll free: 1-800-537-5487www.penn.museum
ORIGINS OF AGRICULTURE IN WESTERN CENTRAL ASIAAn Environmental-Archaeological StudyDavid R. Harris
Archaeologist David R. Harris addresses questions of when, how, and why agriculture and settled village life began east of the Caspian Sea. The book describes and assesses evidence from archaeological investigations in Turkmenistan and adjacent parts of Iran, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan in relation to present and past environmental conditions and genetic and archaeological data on the ancestry of the crops and domestic animals of the Neolithic period. It includes accounts of previous research on the prehistoric archaeology of the region and reports the results of a recent environmental-archaeological project undertaken by British, Russian, and Turkmen archaeologists in Turkmenistan, principally at the early Neolithic site of Jeitun (Djeitun) on the southern edge of the Karakum desert.
2010 | 328 pages | 8 1/2 x 11 | 102 illus. | Cloth | $65.00
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