Burkholder Near East research documents to be available at Binghamton University

Materials compiled by the late Grace Burkholder, a teacher and amateur archaeologist, will soon be available to researchers through Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections.

Grace Burkholder became famous in the field of Near Eastern archaeology for discoveries she made while serving as a teacher in ARAMCO oil camps during the 1950s and ?60s in Saudi Arabia. She found pottery from the fifth millennium B.C. that proved Mesopotamian Ubaid culture extended farther into the Arabian desert than had been known, Professor Reinhard Bernbeck said.

The materials donated to Special Collections include maps, drawings, letters, books, photographs and slides. Bernbeck?s lab is serving as a staging area while the materials are catalogued and examined.
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Archaeologist claims Pythons worshipped 70,000 years ago

World-Science.Net:

An ar­chae­ol­o­gist claims to have found evi­dence of what may have been man­kind?s ear­li­est rit­u­als: wor­ship of the py­thon, 70,000 years ago in Af­rica.

Un­til now, schol­ars have large­ly held that the first ri­t­u­als oc­curred over 40,000 years ago in Eu­rope, ac­cord­ing to Shei­la Coul­son of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Os­lo in Nor­way.

Coul­son ar­gues that an­cient wor­ship­pers saw the like­ness of a py­thon in this rock, and pock­marked it to mim­ic snake skin. (Full image here. Pho­to: Shei­la Coul­son)

Coul­son said she turned up ev­i­dence of the py­thon cer­e­mo­n­ies while stu­dy­ing the or­i­gin of the San peo­ple of Nga­mi­land, a sparse­ly in­hab­it­ed part of north­west­ern Bot­swa­na.

?Our find means that hu­mans were more or­ga­n­ised and had the ca­pac­i­ty for ab­s­tract think­ing? much ear­li­er than pre­vi­ously as­sumed, she said.

Coulson said she found the ev­i­dence while seek­ing Mid­dle Stone Age ar­ti­facts in the Ka­la­ha­ri De­s­ert?s Tso­di­lo Hills, an iso­lat­ed clus­ter of small peaks with the world?s larg­est con­cen­tra­tion of rock paint­ings.

The hills are still sa­cred to the San, who call them the ?Moun­tains of the Gods? and the ?Rock that Whis­pers.?

San mythology holds that man­kind de­scended from the py­thon. An­cient, ar­id stream­beds around the hills are said to have been made by the snake as it cir­cled, cease­less­ly seek­ing wa­ter. Coul­son said her find shows lo­cal peo­ple had a spe­cif­ic place for py­thon-re­lated rit­u­als: a small cave on the hills? north­ern side, so se­clud­ed and hard-to-ac­cess that it was was un­known to ar­chae­ol­o­gy un­til the past de­cade.

The spear­heads were de­scribed as par­ti­cu­lar­ly beau­ti­ful, and as brought to the site from hun­d­reds of kilo­me­ters away. (Pho­to: Shei­la Coul­son)

When she en­tered it this sum­mer with three mas­ter?s stu­dents, they no­ticed a rock re­sem­bling a huge py­thon?s head, she said.

The six-meter-long by two-meter-tall (20 feet by 6.6 feet) stone bore more than 300 dents that she ar­gues are man-made.

?You could see the mouth and eyes of the snake. It looked like a real py­thon. The play of sun­light over the in­den­ta­tions gave them the ap­pear­ance of snake skin. At night, the fire­light gave one the feel­ing that the snake was ac­tu­al­ly mov­ing.?

There was no sign of re­cent work on the rock; its sur­face was heav­i­ly worn, she said.

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Ancient Egyptian Magic featured in new exhibit at the Walters Art Museum

I wish I had time to go back to Baltimore. I totally agree with this article that says The Walters Art Museum contains one of the finest collections of ancient art in the world.

Check out my Flickr image set of their collection:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44124324682@N01/sets/34519/


ArtDaily.com: The Walters Art Museum presents the exhibit Daily Magic in Ancient Egypt through November 18, 2007. Magic played an important role in religions of the ancient world. Amulets in particular were believed to posess great power to bring protection, health, luck, and even immortality through their images and symbols. This small exhibition will feature 46 amulets, scarabs, figurines, and ritual objects associated with this belief in the power of magic in ancient Egypt.

The art and history of the ancient world comes alive in one of the Walters Art Museum?s best-loved collections, which comprises amazing treasures from ancient Egypt, Nubia, Greece, Rome, Etruria, and the Near East. The Walters? collection is one of the largest and finest assemblages of ancient art in the United States.

Statuary, reliefs, stelae, funerary objects, jewelry, and objects from daily life, dating from prehistoric to Roman Egypt (5th millennium BC? 4th century AD ), can be found in the museum's collection of ancient Egyptian art. Among the most impressive pieces are two monumental 3,000-pound statues of the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet, sarcophagi, an intact mummy still in its elaborate wrappings, as well as images of private individuals and kings and impressive jewelry.

The ancient Near Eastern collection represents the art of ancient Mesopotamia, Persia, the Levant, Syria, and Anatolia and covers a period of 2,500 years, beginning around 3000 BC with the rise of Mesopotamian civilization. Among the outstanding works in the collection are the 9th-century BC alabaster reliefs from the palace of Ashurnasirpal II.

The outstanding collection of ancient Greek art illustrates the history and culture of Greece from the Cycladic to the Hellenistic period (ca. 3rd millennium?1st century BC). It ranges from engraved gemstones to exceptional vases and marble statues. Among the dazzling jewelry in the ancient treasury are the extraordinary Olbia bracelets, which are encrusted with multicolored gemstones.

The most treasured objects in the collection of ancient Roman art at the Walters are the seven sarcophagi from the tomb of the prominent Licinian and Calpurnian families in Rome. The intricate marble carvings, depicting mythological scenes, rank them among the finest ancient Roman sarcophagi in the world. Exquisite Etruscan bronzes and Roman portraits, including powerful depictions of the emperors Augustus and Marcus Aurelius, are further highlights of the collection. If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!