Museums and the Ancient Middle East

Geoff Emberling is Associate Research Scientist at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan. He has done curatorial work for most of his career, first as Assistant Curator in the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, then as Museum Director and Chief Curator at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. He has also developed exhibits as consulting curator at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, and most recently at the Detroit Institute of Arts. He is also a field archaeologist who has directed projects in Syria and Sudan. Lucas P. Petit is curator of the Near Eastern Department at the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities. He curated several successful blockbuster exhibitions including "Petra. Wonder in the Desert" (2013-14) and "Nineveh. Heart of an Ancient Empire" (2017-18), and was responsible for renewing the permanent Middle Eastern galleries. He has had positions at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main, and at Leiden University. He has been involved in various archaeological fieldwork projects throughout Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Currently, he co-directs the excavations at Tell Damiyah in Jordan.

Part One: Introductory



Chapter 1 Curating the Ancient Middle East



Geoff Emberling and Lucas Petit



Chapter 2 Museum Displays and the Creation of the Ancient Middle East: A View from the Ashmolean and the British Museum



Paul Collins



Chapter 3 Ancient "Art" in the White Cube? Or How Contemporary Art Creates Ancient "Art"



Pedro Azara and Marc Marín



Part Two: Perspectives from National Museums



Chapter 4 170 Years of Curatorial Practices and Audiences at the Louvre: Exhibiting Ancient Middle Eastern Antiquities from 1847 to 2017



Ariane Thomas



Chapter 5 Gallery 55 at the British Museum: Mesopotamia 1500-539 BC



Irving Finkel and Alexandra Fletcher



Chapter 6 Unlocking Architectures—Communicating Cultures: Ancient Middle Eastern Worlds in the Vorderasiatisches Museum



Lutz Martin



Chapter 7 And Now for Something Completely Different: The Renewal of the Ancient Middle Eastern Gallery in the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities



Lucas P. Petit



Chapter 8 The Jordan Museum: Storyteller of Land and People



Yosha Alamri and Jihad Kafafi



Part Three: Perspectives from Art Museums



Chapter 9 Exhibiting Interaction: Displaying the Arts of the Ancient Middle East in their Broader Context



Joan Aruz and Yelena Rakic



Chapter 10 Negotiations in Museum Practice: A Reinstalled Gallery of Ancient Middle Eastern Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts



Swarupa Anila and Geoff Emberling



Chapter 11 An Archaeological Exhibition without Archaeology? Joan Miró Looks at Mesopotamian Masterpieces



Pedro Azara and Marc Marín



Part Four: Perspectives from University Museums



Chapter 12 Between visuality and context: Presenting Archaeological Narratives at the Oriental Institute



John D.M. Green



Chapter 13 The Middle East Gallery at the Penn Museum: A Curator’s Reflections on Challenges and Opportunities



Holly Pittman



Chapter 14 The Archaeological Museum of the American University of Beirut and Its Educational Role: A Case Study



Leila Badre



Chapter 15 Beyond Display: Curriculum and Community Engagement with Ancient Middle Eastern Collections in a University Museum



Andrew Jamieson and Annelies Van de Ven



Commentary



Chapter 16 Exhibiting Ancient Middle Eastern Art in America



Peter Lacovara