news
How tech has impacted archaeologists’ hunt for long-lost civilizations
2020
From 3D modeling to digital satellite mapping to machine learning, archaeologists are integrating modern technology into their discovery of long-lost civilizations. Gil Stein, professor of near-Eastern archaeology at the University of Chicago, said that archaeology is a field that’s exceptionally quick to adapt to new ways of using technology.
Shattered Buddhist statues restored with help from the OI
2020
UChicago institute helps reassemble ancient, rare Afghan art from first to 6th centuries that was destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. OI researchers, along with Afghan colleagues, are painstakingly cleaning, sorting and reassembling statues from the more than 7,500 fragments left behind, which museum employees swept up and saved in trunks in the basement.
Long Island News12 for Preservation Long Island's Endangered Historic Places
Art installation inside Mansueto Library dome transforms OI’s ancient figures
2019
During a visit to the University of Chicago, visual artist Ann Hamilton became enamored with the Oriental Institute’s collection of stone and ceramic figures—ancient but timeless, inanimate but strangely alive. To celebrate the OI’s 100th anniversary, she has transformed those figures into a public installation inside one of the campus’ most iconic structures.
Burned buildings reveal sacking of ancient Turkish city 3,500 years ago
2019
More than 3,500 years ago, a rising kingdom called the Hittite Empire was expanding, testing the limits of its strength. It would soon destroy Babylon, but first, its army sacked and burned a city nestled in the mountains of modern-day Turkey called Sam’al—located on a major route of trade between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean Sea. The charred ruins from that fateful day were uncovered for the first time in millennia by during an excavation by the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute.
OI marks 100 years of discovery in ancient Middle East
2019
The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago was founded in 1919, and over the course of the next 100 years, it has changed how humans understand their own history through groundbreaking work in archaeology, linguistics, and historical and literary analysis—work that continues today in Chicago and across the Middle East.
Sarah Newman - New UCAN Faculty Member
2019
UCAN welcomes Sarah Newman (PhD Brown University) as a new member of the Anthropology faculty, beginning in fall 2019. Sarah is a Mesoamerican archaeologist with a focus on the ancient Maya. Her research examines multiple forms of human-environmental interaction, including monumental anthropogenic landscapes, changes in the cultural and historical constructions of the concept of “waste”, and the nature of human-animal relationships.
New Students
2019
UCAN is pleased to report that both of the archaeology graduate students to whom offers of admission were made by the Anthropology Department have accepted. We look forward to welcoming Dominik Lucas and Resham Tessa Redmond in the fall or 2019.
Archaeology Hiring in Anthropology
2018
The Department of Anthropology is seeking candidates for a new tenure track Assistant Professor position in Environmental Archaeology. Please see the job ad at https://tinyurl.com/y8gaw4mf. Online applications must be submitted by October 15, 2018.
Shannon Dawdy Film
2018
Shannon Dawdy is producing a new experimental documentary film project, My Star, My Dust, that asks: How are funeral practices changing and what does this say about the beliefs and values of the living? "In the U.S. today, death practices are changing rapidly, and creatively. The growing popularity of cremation has led to a proliferation of new things to do with ashes – incorporating them into artificial reefs, making them into synthetic diamonds, mixing them into paintings, or blending them into a vinyl record...."
New Students
2018
UCAN is happy to announce that, once again, all four of the archaeology students who were offered admission to the Anthropology PhD program have accepted to join us. We look forward to welcoming Alice Diaz Chauvigne, Nicole Grigg, Siyun Guo, and Daniel Hansen to campus in Fall 2018.
2018 -- The archaeological excavation of an ancient Egyptian city at Tell Edfu in southern Egypt, led by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, has discovered well-preserved settlement remains dating to an important turning point in ancient Egyptian history, when the pharaohs began to renew interest in the provincial regions in the far south of their kingdom.
Robert McCormick Adams, 1926-2018
It is with great sadness that we report that renowned archaeologist Robert McCormick Adams passed away on January 27, 2018. Bob Adams was a former UChicago alumnus, professor of anthropology, director of the Oriental Institute, Dean of Social Sciences, and Provost of the University, as well as Director of the Smithsonian Institution. He was a distinguished and highly influential scholar and an academic leader. Links to an obituary describing his wide ranging accomplishments and a filmed interview are available by clicking on the button and his photo, respectively. A memorial service will be held on May 12 at 11:00 AM in Breasted Hall, Oriental Institute.
New Students
2017
UCAN is pleased to announce that all four of the archaeology students to whom admission was offered in the Anthropology PhD Program have accepted to join us, and NELC will have three new archaeology doctoral students as well. We look forward to welcoming Rachel George, William McCollum, Kelsey Rooney, and Philip Watson to Anthropology, and Raghda El-Behaedi, Emma Kerr, and Charles Wilson to NELC in Fall 2017.
Karl W. Butzer, 1934-2016
Karl Butzer, who was a member of the UChicago Anthropology faculty from 1966-1984, died on May 4, 2016 at the age of 81. Butzer was an extremely influential archaeologist, geographer, and geologist who was instrumental in developing the fields of geoarchaeology and environmental archaeology while at UChicago. He was a highly decorated scholar, winning prestigious awards from archaeological, geological, and geographical societies, including the Fryxell Medal of the Society of American Archaeology. After his two decades on the faculty of the University of Chicago, he also taught at the University of Texas.
Leslie Freeman, 1935-2012
Leslie Freeman, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at UChicago and renowned archaeologist of Paleolithic Spain, died on December 14, 2012. Les received his BA and PhD degrees at the University of Chicago and was a member of the faculty from 1965 until his retirement in 2000. He was a crucial pillar of the archaeology program in anthropology for several decades, eventually helping to shape its expansion and reconfiguration away from paleoanthropology in the 1990s. His innovative research program in Spain was an influential model of international collaboration.
William M. Sumner, 1928-2011
William Sumner, archaeologist of ancient Iran and Director of the Oriental Institute from 1989-1997, died July 7, 2011 at the age of 82. Known especially for his research on the Elamite civilization and the roots of the Persian empire, he undertook major transformations of the Oriental Institute during his term as Director.
F. Clark Howell, 1925-2007
F. Clark Howell, the renowned paleolithic archaeologist and physical anthropologist, died on March 10, 2007 at the age of 81. Clark received his PhD from the University of Chicago and spent 25 years on the faculty of the Anthropology Department before moving to UC Berkeley in 1970. He is known for highly influential research projects in Spain and Africa that greatly expanded understanding of early human culture and biological evolution. He was also a pioneer in the use of the potassium-argon dating technique in archaeology and made great efforts to bring the results of scientific research to a popular audience.
Robert J. Braidwood, 1907-2003
Robert Braidwood, Professor Emeritus in the Oriental Institute and the Department of Anthropology at UChicago, died on January 15, 2003, at the age of 95. Bob was a pioneering and enormously influential figure in the prehistoric archaeology of the Near East. Working always in partnership with his archaeologist wife, Linda, he was an early advocate of integrating scientific specialists into archaeological fieldwork, had a seminal influence in the development of field survey methods, and excavated a large number of famous sites, among many other contributions. He first came to the Oriental Institute in 1933 (hired by James Henry Breasted), and was still coming in to the OI to work in his 90s. After a lifetime of collaboration, Linda died a few hours after Robert, at the age of 93.
Linda S. Braidwood, 1909-2003
Linda Schreiber Braidwood, the longtime collaborator and wife of Robert Braidwood, died on January 15, 2003. Linda earned an MA from the University of Chicago in 1946, and became a research associate of the Oriental Institute in 1947. The Braidwoods married in 1937, after a joint expedition to the Amuq Valley in Syria, and they worked together on a series of famous excavation and publication projects over the following 65 years.
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