If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. University of Chicago Oriental Institute scholars Chad Hill and Yorke Rowan deploy remotely piloted aircraft to study the remnants of Neolithic communities in modern-day Jordan. Video by UChicago Creative; drone footage courtesy of Chad Hill; music by Broke For Free. http://bit.ly/1TWHoQ0

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. University of Chicago Oriental Institute scholars Chad Hill and Yorke Rowan deploy remotely piloted aircraft to study the remnants of Neolithic communities in modern-day Jordan. Video by UChicago Creative; drone footage courtesy of Chad Hill; music by Broke For Free. http://bit.ly/1TWHoQ0

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. The archaeological heritage of the world’s first cities is a priceless, nonrenewable resource and is at greater risk now than at any other time in human history. Looting and armed conflict have taken their toll in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the Middle East, but the biggest threat to many archaeological sites is...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. Last month, the Art Institute of Chicago teamed up with radiologist Michael W. Vannier of the University of Chicago Medicine and Oriental Institute research associate Emily Teeter to study two of its mummies, Paankhenamun (c. 945–715 BC) and Wenuhotep (c. 300 BC). The team used state-of-the-art CT scan technology to examine the...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. Emily Teeter, manager of Special Exhibits at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, discusses the role Ancient Egyptian artifacts played in creating personal identities within society at the time. The lecture was given in conjunction with the museum's "Before the Pyramids: The Origins of Egyptian Civilization"...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. Emily Teeter, manager of Special Exhibits at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, discusses the role Ancient Egyptian artifacts played in creating personal identities within society at the time. The lecture was given in conjunction with the museum's "Before the Pyramids: The Origins of Egyptian Civilization"...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. Emily Teeter, Research Associate at the Oriental Institute and Curator of the "Before the Pyramids: The Origins of Egyptian Civilization" exhibit at the OI gave this talk to Oriental Institute Members during a special preview of the exhibit. The exhibit runs through December 31, 2011. For more about becoming a member of the OI...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. Emily Teeter, Research Associate at the Oriental Institute and Curator of the "Before the Pyramids: The Origins of Egyptian Civilization" exhibit at the OI gave this talk to Oriental Institute Members during a special preview of the exhibit. The exhibit runs through December 31, 2011. For more about becoming a member of the OI...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. The Oriental Institute's special exhibit, Pioneers to the Past: American Archaeologists in the Middle East, 1919-1920, raised important questions about the links between past civilizations and modern nations, the antiquities trade, and the role museums play in preserving the past. "Who Owns the Past?" will bring together...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. The Oriental Institute's special exhibit, Pioneers to the Past: American Archaeologists in the Middle East, 1919-1920, raised important questions about the links between past civilizations and modern nations, the antiquities trade, and the role museums play in preserving the past. "Who Owns the Past?" will bring together...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. Meluhha --the name for the Indus civilization found in Mesopotamian texts -- was an important source of exotic goods, many of which are preserved in the archaeological record of Mesopotamia. The movement of people and goods between these two regions established a pattern of interaction that continued in later periods and is still...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. A century ago, excavations at Bo'azköy uncovered cuneiform tablets and architectural remains that identified the site as ancient Hattusha, capital of the Hittite Empire. From about 1400 to 1200 BC, the Hittites ruled over a large empire extending from western Turkey to northern Syria. This lecture explores ongoing archaeological...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. A century ago, excavations at Bo'azköyuncovered cuneiform tablets and architectural remains that identified the site as ancient Hattusha, capital of the Hittite Empire. From about 1400 to 1200 BC, the Hittites ruled over a large empire extending from western Turkey to northern Syria. This lecture explores ongoing archaeological...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. In this lecture, journalist and author Nina Burleigh examines what Israeli authorities have called "the fraud of the century" -- a scheme to modify archaeological objects or create entirely new ones to make them appear to verify biblical characters or stories. Burleigh will discuss these characters, the scheme to defraud high-end...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. In this lecture, journalist and author Nina Burleigh examines what Israeli authorities have called "the fraud of the century" -- a scheme to modify archaeological objects or create entirely new ones to make them appear to verify biblical characters or stories. Burleigh will discuss these characters, the scheme to defraud high-end...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. Since the discovery in the 1930s of fantastic wall murals at Teleilat al-Ghassul, researchers have debated the reasons for the period's striking florescence of imagery, iconography, and representation and the accompanying new burial traditions, technological advances, and population expansion. This lecture touches upon new...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. Since the discovery in the 1930s of fantastic wall murals at Teleilat al-Ghassul, researchers have debated the reasons for the period's striking florescence of imagery, iconography, and representation and the accompanying new burial traditions, technological advances, and population expansion. This lecture touches upon new...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. From September 28, 2010 through March 6, 2011, a new exhibition at the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago will show visitors how scribes in the ancient Middle East invented writing, thus transforming prehistoric cultures into civilizations. Writing is one of humankind's greatest achievements. Writing took a...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. In 1986, a 2,000-year-old boat was discovered in Israel on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. The vessel is representative of the large fishing boats common on the ancient lake, and the type of boat used in the Gospels by the disciples of Jesus. It is also the type of boat used by the Jews in the brutal nautical Battle of Migdal in...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. Oriental Institute excavation in Syria tells story of culture that led to urban civilization in the ancient Middle East.

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. Pioneers to the Past: American Archaeologists in the Middle East, 1919-1920, will be on display at the Oriental Institute from January 12 through August 31, 2010. The exhibit follows Illinois native James Henry Breasted's daring travels through Egypt and Mesopotamia in the unstable aftermath of World War I. Breasted, a leading...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. The 1979 Revolution in Iran incited a long cessation of archaeological fieldwork. In 1995, the Oriental Institute was the first foreign institution to gain permission to resume archaeological activities through its Iran Prehistoric Project. In his lecture, Abbas Alizadeh traces the significance and evolution of the Oriental...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. Recent excavations at Tell Brak in northeast Syria have exposed a series of mass graves that were placed on the edge of Brak's Outer Town at its moment of maximum expansion in the mid-4th millennium BC. Within the site, there is evidence for the urban expansion, intensified industry, and an administrative hierarchy. Excavations...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to [email protected]. Recent excavations at Tell Brak in northeast Syria have exposed a series of mass graves that were placed on the edge of Brak's Outer Town at its moment of maximum expansion in the mid-4th millennium BC. Within the site, there is evidence for the urban expansion, intensified industry, and an administrative hierarchy. Excavations...