Two Lyres from Ur
By (author) Maude De Schauensee
Hardback (Published)
(July 2002)
ISBN: 9780924171888
5.47 x 8.46 inches
Price: $29.95
On back order
Chronicles the history, conservation, and reconservation of two spectacular lyres discovered at Ur in the Great Death Pit of the Royal Cemetery during the 1928-29 season. A comprehensive analysis within the economic, historical, and sociological context of mid-third millennium Mesopotamia. Includes photographs, CAT-scans, X-rays, and color plates.
During the 1928-29 season at Ur, in the Great Death Pit of the Royal Cemetery, C. Leonard Woolley discovered two spectacular musical instruments-a silver Boat-shaped Lyre and a magnificent lyre with the head of a bull made of gold sheet and a lapis lazuli beard. This book chronicles their history, conservation, and reconservation. While little was known about mid-third millennium Mesopotamian archaeology early last century, it was clear that the Sumerians had developed a vigorous trade in luxury goods, with an economy that necessitated a highly structured government whose leaders could command rich and elaborate graves that included a full panoply of musical instruments. In meticulous detail, using both traditional methods and new X-ray and electronic imaging investigative techniques, Maude de Schauensee probes and analyzes the construction of the two lyres held by the University Museum while providing an economic, historical, and sociological context in which to better understand them. She examines the decorative motifs along with the materials and the techniques of the builders of these instruments. The illustrations-10 pieces of line art, 25 photographs, 6 CAT-scans, 5 X-rays, and 24 color plates-supply additional details. This book presents new information and conservation descriptions for the first time. Musicologists, art historians, Near East scholars and archaeologists, and general readers will find this book’s new analysis of the instruments of an ancient culture of significant interest.
Maude de Schauensee served as Keeper, later the Fowler/Van Santvoord Keeper, of the Near Eastern Collections at the Penn Museum. She participated in six field seasons of The Hasanlu Project (1959-1974) and the 1967 field season of the University of Chicago at Selenkehiye, Syria. She serves as Associate Editor of the Hasanlu Publications. Her publications include Two Lyres from Ur (2003), Peoples and Crafts in Period IVB at Hasanlu, Iran (2011) for which she wrote two chapters and served as volume editor, and articles on material from the Period IVB levels at Hasanlu. Jennifer Swerida is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Kennesaw State University and a Consulting Scholar of the Penn Museum. She is also Co-Director of the Bat Archaeological Project (Sultanate of Oman) and Assistant Director of the Nax.ivan Archaeological Project (Nax.ivan, Azerbaijan). Her research interests center on identity formation and alternative forms of social complexity in the Ancient Near East.
- By (author) Maude De Schauensee
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