Old habits die hard: Writing the excavation and dispersal history of Nimrud. Issue 2 (3rd July 2017)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Old habits die hard: Writing the excavation and dispersal history of Nimrud. Issue 2 (3rd July 2017)
- Main Title:
- Old habits die hard: Writing the excavation and dispersal history of Nimrud
- Authors:
- Robson, Eleanor
- Abstract:
- ABSTRACT: The archaeological site of Nimrud in northern Iraq is triply famous in the history of Middle Eastern fieldwork: first as one of the places where young explorer Austen Henry Layard uncovered the physical remains of the Biblical city of 'Nineveh' in the 1840s; then as the setting for Max Mallowan and Agatha Christie's large-scale project to uncover the Assyrian city of Kalhu in the 1940s and 50s; and most recently, as one of the high-profile targets of ISIS' cultural heritage destruction in the region in early 2015. In 2013–15 I ran an AHRC-funded research project on the history of excavations at Nimrud, the dispersal of finds from the site to museums, and the histories that have been written from that evidence for a website (http://oracc.org/nimrud ). One major aim was to provide open-licensed material for re-use by museums holding Nimrud artefacts in their collections, but which do not have specialist curatorial staff to research and explain them. In writing that material it proved surprisingly hard to move away from the well-worn anecdotes of popular narratives that constructed unreliable object habits: heroic Layard's derring-do in discovering Biblical, imperial monuments; doughty Agatha's improvised cleaning of the Nimrud ivories with her face-cream; ISIS's barbaric mission to destroy civilisation. In this paper, I explore the strategies we developed to write a deeper history of the site and its finds, and reflect on our relative successes and failures.
- Is Part Of:
- Museum history journal. Volume 10:Issue 2(2017:Jul.)
- Journal:
- Museum history journal
- Issue:
- Volume 10:Issue 2(2017:Jul.)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 10, Issue 2 (2017)
- Year:
- 2017
- Volume:
- 10
- Issue:
- 2
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2017-0010-0002-0000
- Page Start:
- 217
- Page End:
- 232
- Publication Date:
- 2017-07-03
- Subjects:
- Assyria -- Iraq -- Nimrud -- archaeology -- Austen Henry Layard -- Agatha Christie -- ISIS
Museums -- History -- Periodicals
Museum techniques -- History -- Periodicals
069.09 - Journal URLs:
- http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/mhj ↗
http://www.tandfonline.com/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1080/19369816.2017.1328913 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 1936-9824
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 2793.xml