OI Museum Explorer's Guide

MUSEUM EXPLORER’S GUIDE CAN YOU FIND ALL THESE ARTIFACTS?

Whisper your wishes to the ARE YOU READY Make up your own gods at the Hearing ear stela, rules for this Game a tiny tablet inscribed with TO BEGIN A JOURNEY of 58 holes—no one 10 ears that Egyptians used knows how to play it! as a direct line to the gods.

Statue of King Egyptians played board games Tutankhamun just like we do. Check out King Tut’s favorite game, Senet, , and an ancient set of dice. 10 000 Discover the ancient resting place of this Monumental Lamps Take a look at head of a ruler. an ancestor of our modern day receipts,

Persian Clay envelopes Megiddo Egyptian Gallery Gallery with tokens. YEARS Gallery IN THE MAKING? Double-protome Relief of Nefermaat column capital Anatolian Syro-Anatolian and Itet Gallery Nubian Have you ever wondered how humans started living together? hieroglyphs Gallery Breasted Hall How did people build cities and empires? How did they understand Assyrian Courtyard Empire (Auditorium) Gallery the world and their place in it? How did they work, live, and play Gallery for Special together, and why did they ﬁ ght? Exhibits Qustul incense burner The Oriental Institute (OI) Museum of the University of Chicago holds over 350,000 artifacts, excavated mainly by OI archaeologists. Khorsabad Court Mesopotamian Gallery Lobby In these artifacts from thousands of years ago, you might see a few See why the demon Pazuzu Suq Gift Shop things that remind you of your own life. Use this guide to explore had a face our galleries, and learn more about the ﬁ rst civilizations and how only a mother could love. they relate to us today.

Lamassu Cuneiform

What key di erence WHO ARE is there between ARCHAEOLOGISTS? this Nubian ba statue and the ba birds of Archaeologists are scientists who study people ancient Egypt? of the past using artifacts, written languages, Spot the di erence in this One of the oldest Arabic Relief of Assyrian dignitaries; and the environment. Lots of archaeologists paper manuscripts, this copy see if you can ﬁ nd evidence work in this building! of A Thousand Nights is the of some ancient erasing. earliest version of what is known today as A Thousand WHAT’S AN ARTIFACT? and One Nights. Investigate why these wide- An artifact is anything made, modiﬁ ed, or eyed Statues are found buried used by a human. The Museum is full of them! beneath temples. MESOPOTAMIA ASSYRIA

ARE YOU READY It’s around 3200 BC, and What was the lamassu for? there’s a lot to keep track of in THIS LAMASSU The lamassu stood at the door TO BEGIN A JOURNEY of the throneroom and protected Mesopotamia’s cities! Goods are HASN’T LET HIS the palace by keeping evil away. , being ,bought and sold, people 5 200 5are working200 and need to be paid, GUARD DOWN , and workers need to be organized. What animals make up the 10 000 YEARS AGO lamassu? This lamassu has YEARSPeople started using pictures AGO to PEOPLE USED PEOPLE USED I N NEARLY a human head, bird wings, communicate and keep track of and the body and ears of a things. They wrote in wet clay bull. The lamassu was thought YEARS using a stylus cut from a reed, to have the best characteristics IN THE MAKING? PICTURES PICTUREScreating triangle-shaped marks. of each animal. TO COMMUNICATE. TO COMMUNICATE. , We call this writing cuneiform, 3 000 meaning “wedge-shaped.” What kind of crown is that? HOW CRAZY IS THAT The lamassu wears a cylinder- shaped crown decorated with Drawing all these pictures took YEARS. rosettes (fl owers), feathers, and ?!? a long time (and some talent!). three pairs of horns. Horned crowns What do you see happening to were only worn by divine beings cuneiform writing over time? How did the lamassu get to the Museum? in Mesopotamia. The more horns, The lamassu was found in twelve pieces and weighs about the more powerful—making our 40 tons! It took three months to bring it to the Museum lamassu a mighty gatekeeper. Oldest (3000 BC) Newest (600 BC) using trucks, boats, and trains. The wall behind the lamassu was built after the sculpture was installed! HEAD ? What does this writing WHY DOES THE say? The writing on SYMBOL FOR “BREAD” the front of the BREAD LOOK LIKE A BOWL? lamassu describes King Sargon II’s The symbol for bread came from building of a new the symbol for rations. Check out capital city and his The more people wrote, the more they wanted the nearby bevel-rimmed bowl, accomplishments. to say! They combined symbols to show more which may have been used to pass There is also text on the back of the lamassu. complex ideas, like eating or getting paid in grain: out grain as payment to workers. Who would have read this writing? The lamassu would have been set up TO EAT against a wall, so only the gods would be able to read this hidden text. They also had to write down abstract ideas—like “life,” “write,” or “belief”—that are di cult to show with a symbol. Luckily, many words in Sumerian sound the same! So, they could use the symbol of a word that is easy to picture to also mean another more abstract word that sounds the same. How many legs can FIND EXAMPLES OF EARLY This is called the rebus principle. you count? From the WRITING IN THE WRITING AREA. side, the lamassu looks like it’s walking, but from • What did people fi rst write down? the front, it looks like it’s standing still. To achieve • When were letters, histories, and poetry SAR: cuneiform for TI: cuneiform for both looks, the lamassu fi rst written? Can you guess why? “garden,” also used to “arrow,” also used to has fi ve legs! • What types of things do you like to write? write “to write.” write “life.”

98827_ExplorerGuide.indd 4 9/3/19 9:34 AM EGYPT

CAN YOU FIND HIS DEATH REMAINS HOW TO READ THE THESE COMMON HIEROGLYPHIC PHRASES WHERE PICTURES A MYSTERY. A MYSTERY. IN THE GALLERY? See if you can ﬁ nd the objects ARE WORTH A NINE-YEAR-OLD WITH ANCIENT in the gallery that some of these signs are based on. A THOUSAND A BEARD? A BEAR4 D? WRITING O N THE WORDS . SOLVED SOLVED. WALL An o ering that the king gives King Tut ruled from age nine or ten until his death 1 Hieroglyphs were only one of the writing systems (Hint: Start with our cover mummy, at age eighteen. How did he have a beard? He Meresamun—ancient Egyptians believed used in ancient Egypt! Hieratic, Demotic, and Coptic hieroglyphs were essential to helping didn’t! Look closely at this statue and you can see were all used at various times for everyday writing, while the dead live1 on in the afterlife!) that this beard is shown strapped to Tut’s chin. hieroglyphs were used for monumental inscriptions— Pharaohs wore false beards to imitate Osiris, important and permanent carvings and paintings found the god of the afterlife. Even female pharaohs, in tombs, temples, and palaces. such as Hatshepsut, were shown with false beards. Ancient Egyptians called hieroglyphs “the god’s words” Writing and believed that the writing had been given to them by What is King Tut holding? This remains the god of wisdom, Thoth. Egyptians believed that things 2 a mystery. Some believe that King Tut is holding the base of a crook and ﬂ ail, written in hieroglyphs would be magically made to happen symbols of kingship, or two scrolls, or rolls of over and over again. cloth. Others believe that the cylinders are 5 2 ways to show empty space while preventing Because hieroglyphs are pictures, Given life the hands from breaking, similar to they could be written right-to-left,

the strips of stone behind Tut’s Take a look at the hieroglyphs on the back 1 beard and behind his left leg. of this statue. Can you ﬁ nd these cartouches? left-to-right, and top-to-bottom A cartouche is an oval symbol used to (but never bottom-to-top!). magically protect a pharaoh’s name. They were arranged to be beautiful, Whose small feet are Living Horus not easy to read. Symbols would also 3 these? These feet belonged to a statue of King Tut’s wife, be rearranged to put the gods’ names Ankhesenamun [ANK-es-en-AH- at the top of an inscription. 1 mun], which was lost in ancient Hieroglyphs symbolized 1 times. Tut’s wife is shown smaller both sounds and ideas, than he is because this statue was and included only Bread (each symbol shows made for Tut’s temple. Since Tut was a di erent kind of bread!) the most important person at his consonants. own temple, he was shown much Tut’s throne name, Tut’s birth name, larger than his wife. Her small size RESTORATION QUESTION Neb Kheperu Ra Tutankhamun is no slight, though—that she is This statue was restored when it was brought shown with Tut indicates that If you can’t, it’s because they aren’t there! to the OI almost one hundred years ago, ? she was still important. Tut died before this statue was finished. meaning that things that were broken or missing Names were added to statues last, since names were put back together to look like what we know Water (Hint: Look at paintings!) 1 were so important to ancient Egyptians and gave or think they would have looked like in ancient The cobra on King Tut’s statues their power. The next pharaoh, Aye, 3 Egypt. Today, museums don’t usually restore 4 crown is called a had his name put on the statue when he took objects in this way. How would your experience uraeus [yoo-RAY-us]. the throne. The pharaoh after him, Horemheb, of this statue change if it were left unrestored? It was a symbol of protection had Aye’s name removed and his own name Do you think we should restore ancient objects and royal power. inscribed, which is the name you see today. or leave them how they were found? Folded cloth

1 SYRO-ANATOLIA MEGIDDO

FROM THE DAWN OF Megiddo is an ancient site HIEROGLYPHS: in Israel where people lived WHERE PICTURES CIVILIZATION for thousands of years. It’s legendary for its eight TO THE END OF IT. TO THE END OF IT. ARE WORTH millennia of human activity and for being the site of the “Uwa,” meaning ox A THOUSAND I N NEARLYor cow, or “u” next-to-last battle between MEGIDDO sound from uwa MEGIDDO good and evil known as IS FAMOUS FOR BOTH. IS FAMOUS FOR BOTH. Armageddon. (Armageddon is the Greek name for Megiddo.) WORDS Over time, people built on the 3,000 ruins left behind by previous ? groups, forming a man-made mp look l a la ike ht in hill that archaeologists call TAKE A LOOK g th i e m f WHAT ARE ANATOLIAN HIEROGLYPHS? t u a tell. When archaeologists AT THE LAMPS a t . u h r YEARS e Anatolian hieroglyphs are a type of writing that W excavate a tell, they look at ON DISPLAY ? was created in ancient Turkey. These hieroglyphs the site’s stratigraphy—all the How have they changed began as pictographic symbols, where a picture “Tarkasna,” meaning di erent layers of stuff left donkey or mule, over time? What has represented a speciﬁ c word. behind. Each layer shows a or “ta” sound stayed the same? from tarkasna di erent part of the history In the sixteenth century BC, the hieroglyphs evolved of this site. to include phonetization [fo-NET-ta-ZAY-shun], where pictures could also represent sounds, similar By studying the stratigraphy

to the English alphabet. These sounds were based STRATIGRAPHY MEGIDDO OF of a site, archaeologists can FUTURE? amp l s a l ook e lik look at how things changed on Luwian and Hittite languages. do e t to a d TODAY? h a over time. W y ? These hieroglyphs were often used for monumental “Lala,” meaning IRON AGE LAMP inscriptions, and they were read throughout Anatolia. tongue, or “la” Worshippers and travelers, not just the upper classes, sound from lala could see and read many of the signs.

LATE BRONZE AGE LAMP

“Miu,” meaning four, USE THE “WRITING IN SYRO- or “mi” sound from miu ANATOLIA” EXHIBIT TO FIND FAMILIAR SIGNS IN THIS MIDDLE BRONZE AGE LAMP FRAGMENT OF A THRONE.

• Can you ﬁ nd one tall triangle (city) or two tall triangles (country)?

• Look for body parts. Can you ﬁ nd hands and feet, or a hand holding What is a clay lamp, anyway? a dagger (strong)? EARLY BRONZE AGE LAMP Clay lamps were used for light. The basin was filled with oil, • Look for other familiar symbols. and a wick was laid in the oil with What might they represent? one end on the spout. The wick Can you ﬁ nd anything in the gallery was lit like a candle. that looks like these symbols? PERSIA NUBIA

HISTORY HAS MANY Persepolis was a great city HISTORY HAS MANY Many groups of people THE EMPIRE of the mighty Achaemenid lived in ancient Nubia, Persian empire, the largest ﬁ rst bringing pottery to STORYTELLERS, WHERE STORYTELLERS, empire ever to exist at that the area and living as SOME O F WHOM ANCIENT SOME O F WHOM time, over 2,500 years ago. hunters and herdsmen, ARCHITECTURE Despite its military and then becoming farmers AREN’T EVEN WAS (AND STILL IS) WRITINGpolitical power, the architec- AREN’T EVEN and famous archers. ture of the palaces and halls They traded with, lived with, at Persepolis emphasized the and sometimes ruled their . welcoming, inclusive nature . neighbors to the north— HUMAN of the empire. Many of the HUMAN the Egyptians—and created WALLartistic details show the empire’s beautiful pottery and other KING respect for the cultural diversity goods, many decorated of its peoples. with patterns and animals.

Persepolis was famously sacked The missing horns and ears and burned by Alexander may have been made of TAKE A LOOK AROUND the Great in 330 BC, but many gilded wood or solid gold. monuments, like this column THE NUBIAN GALLERY This fl at space would have with double-bull capital, Can you fi nd the artifacts held a massive wooden roof were preserved. these animals belong to? beam. While the column Check them o as you go! stands just under 3 m today, the real column would have This feline creature is been 16.5–19.5 m tall (that’s from an artifact famous at least three of our King for showing an early Tut statues stacked on top relationship between of each other!). Nubia and Egypt. Many of the columns at Persepolis were topped by capitals that included bull protomes (the front halves of the bulls). This type of double- protome capital is typical of Achaemenid architecture. This crocodile adorned an important warrior’s possession. This cow and calf may have The fl ower-like capital symbolized the power of someone of palm fronds and who had passed away. leaves was inspired by Egyptian art.

The ﬂ uted column was made in a Greek Ionian style. WHAT STYLES AND These cartoonish creatures ANIMALS WOULD YOU can be found on playfully INCLUDE IN YOUR PALACE? decorated Meroitic pottery. Find this cow among many others Draw your own double protome capital above. on a beautifully decorated bowl. MUSEUM INFORMATION

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Photo credits: Burning Clay Lamp by Arne Hückelheim—own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/ w/index.php?curid=12395926. All other images courtesy of the Oriental Institute.

How many ﬁ fth graders would it take to weigh as much as the lamassu? (Around 1,066 of them!)

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