Visitors can enjoy a wonderful survey of most important geographic regions in the ancient Near East with the opening of “Empires in the Fertile Crescent: Ancient Assyria, Anatolia and Israel,” the newest galleries at the University’s Oriental Institute Museum.
The galleries showcase artifacts that illustrate the power of these ancient civilizations, including sculptural representations of tributes demanded by kings of ancient Assyria, and some sources of continual fascination, such as a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls—one of the few examples in the United States.
The galleries also contain artifacts connected with the beginning of two important eras, the Bronze Age and the later Iron Age, as well as artifacts from Megiddo, a site that is figuratively connected with the end of all eras—the site referred to in the Bible as Armageddon.
James Henry Breasted, the founder of the Oriental Institute, coined the term “Fertile Crescent” for the region that extends from the fertile plains of Mesopotamia, across the Taurus Mountains of Anatolia, and down the Mediterranean coast to Israel and Palestine. The galleries include objects from 6000 to 600 B.C. from ancient Assyria, Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), Syria and Israel/Palestine, which were part of the Fertile Crescent. For more information.
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