The Archaeology of the past...DILMUN Arabian Peninsula AAM
Benjamin Potter, whose mother is also in the field have published articles together -- gave, with his colleague a great presentation on the collection housed in the Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley, --which has been closed since my arrival last year, as after my commitment to the University of Pennsylvania Archaeology Museum, including being one of its sponsored NEH lecturerers on art and culture in Mongolia, China and Tibet...I am happy to hear the galleries will reopen in 2016.
In the interim, the research team is reviewing the 3500 items of the collection of Peter Cornwall, whose family was from Ross, California(where my godson and his wife live). His father Pierre Cornwell, was one of the first trustees of the University of California, Berkeley, and was a prime mover in the building of Sacramento. PC the son was deaf. But he was educated at Andover, then University of Toronto and Oxford University, and finally a Phd at Harvard University. He got very interested in Saudi Arabia and got a permit from them along with Standard Oil of California and its major works there, to excavate ruins, but lacked the funds. Hearst finally provided the funds to ship 3500 items back to UCB. Dilmun, a Second Millennisum BCE polity that interacted with Bronze Age Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley civilizations, was first identified by a young Harvard graduate student, Peter Cornwallk in 1941. His excavations focussed on the large burial features that were conspicuously arranged across the ialnd of Bahrain, leading him to recover sevearl sketletons and objects with which they wree buried. Their findings tell us what all this reveals about beliefs on death and the after life among the ancient societies of today's Bahrain. Robert McDonald who worked and travelled with Standard Oil, California joined him. For some reason, he did not visit Thaj, a major site featured in the current exhibition, the Roads of Arabia, organized by the Smithsonian for its US tour. Many of the sites visited were destroyed by the creation of all the oil refineries.
Cornwell lived out his days in Monte Verde, Rome, close to the Academy of Rome. He died of alcoholism at age 59, Cirrosis of the liver. He was creamated and buried near Stanford University. There is not much documentation, ie diaries or drawings from the site, and they are hoping these will materialize in family records, eventually.
Alexis Boutin, his colleague and team member at Sonoma State University ..is a bioarchaeologist who studies ancient Middle Eastern Societies( wonder how that differs from an anthropologist?) and does individual case studies and facial reconstruction with a specialist who does the forensic aspects. Alexis can determine the age at death, the health and diet, sex, and habitual actions...She gives us examples of a teenage boy and an elderly man. In the Peter Cornwell collection, there are 34 people; 24% are female and 76% are male. There is a fetus(3%), an infant (6%), children 9%, , adults(6%), and young adults(23%). Adults(35-50) 32%, and older adults (9%) Skeletal bone does not reveal cause of death. Fluoride poisioning is one identifiable cause. I think I will spare you all the details, but it was quite fascinating!
I know Dilmun, because it is where Mesopotamian kings harvested timber and sent it to their kingdoms. My article on trees in the Near East which was published in Transoxiana, an art journal orientalis in Rio de Janerio has the details. Once the illiterate kings stopped being warriors and conquest, they settled and built gardens, and libraries. ,
In the interim, the research team is reviewing the 3500 items of the collection of Peter Cornwall, whose family was from Ross, California(where my godson and his wife live). His father Pierre Cornwell, was one of the first trustees of the University of California, Berkeley, and was a prime mover in the building of Sacramento. PC the son was deaf. But he was educated at Andover, then University of Toronto and Oxford University, and finally a Phd at Harvard University. He got very interested in Saudi Arabia and got a permit from them along with Standard Oil of California and its major works there, to excavate ruins, but lacked the funds. Hearst finally provided the funds to ship 3500 items back to UCB. Dilmun, a Second Millennisum BCE polity that interacted with Bronze Age Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley civilizations, was first identified by a young Harvard graduate student, Peter Cornwallk in 1941. His excavations focussed on the large burial features that were conspicuously arranged across the ialnd of Bahrain, leading him to recover sevearl sketletons and objects with which they wree buried. Their findings tell us what all this reveals about beliefs on death and the after life among the ancient societies of today's Bahrain. Robert McDonald who worked and travelled with Standard Oil, California joined him. For some reason, he did not visit Thaj, a major site featured in the current exhibition, the Roads of Arabia, organized by the Smithsonian for its US tour. Many of the sites visited were destroyed by the creation of all the oil refineries.
Cornwell lived out his days in Monte Verde, Rome, close to the Academy of Rome. He died of alcoholism at age 59, Cirrosis of the liver. He was creamated and buried near Stanford University. There is not much documentation, ie diaries or drawings from the site, and they are hoping these will materialize in family records, eventually.
Alexis Boutin, his colleague and team member at Sonoma State University ..is a bioarchaeologist who studies ancient Middle Eastern Societies( wonder how that differs from an anthropologist?) and does individual case studies and facial reconstruction with a specialist who does the forensic aspects. Alexis can determine the age at death, the health and diet, sex, and habitual actions...She gives us examples of a teenage boy and an elderly man. In the Peter Cornwell collection, there are 34 people; 24% are female and 76% are male. There is a fetus(3%), an infant (6%), children 9%, , adults(6%), and young adults(23%). Adults(35-50) 32%, and older adults (9%) Skeletal bone does not reveal cause of death. Fluoride poisioning is one identifiable cause. I think I will spare you all the details, but it was quite fascinating!
I know Dilmun, because it is where Mesopotamian kings harvested timber and sent it to their kingdoms. My article on trees in the Near East which was published in Transoxiana, an art journal orientalis in Rio de Janerio has the details. Once the illiterate kings stopped being warriors and conquest, they settled and built gardens, and libraries. ,
Comments
Post a Comment