The Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East (HMANE, previously the Harvard Semitic Museum) is a museum founded in 1889. It moved into its present location at 6 Divinity Avenue in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

, in 1903.

Description

From the beginning, HMANE was the home of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, a departmental library, a repository for research collections, a public educational institute, and a center for archaeological exploration. Among the museum's early achievements were the first scientific excavations in

the Holy Land The Holy Land; Arabic: or is an area roughly located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River, traditionally synonymous both with the biblical Land of Israel and with the region of Palestine. The term "Holy L ...

(at

Samaria Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first- ...

in 1907–1912) and excavations at

Nuzi Nuzi (or Nuzu; Akkadian Gasur; modern Yorghan Tepe, Iraq) was an ancient Mesopotamian city southwest of the city of Arrapha (modern Kirkuk), located near the Tigris river. The site consists of one medium-sized multiperiod tell and two small s ...

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...

and Tell el-Khaleifeh in the

Sinai Sinai commonly refers to: * Sinai Peninsula, Egypt * Mount Sinai, a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt * Biblical Mount Sinai, the site in the Bible where Moses received the Law of God Sinai may also refer to: * Sinai, South Dakota, a place ...

, where the earliest alphabet was found. The museum's artifacts include

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...

cylinder seal A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch (2 to 3 cm) in length, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally ...

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

coin A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order t ...

cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sha ...

tablets, and Egyptian

mummy A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay fu ...

sarcophagi A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a cadaver, corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from ...

. Many are from museum-sponsored excavations in

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, and

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

. The museum holds plaster casts of the

Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III is a black limestone Assyrian sculpture with many scenes in bas-relief and inscriptions. It comes from Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), in northern Iraq, and commemorates the deeds of King Shalmaneser III (reigned 858� ...

, the

Laws of Hammurabi The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal text composed 1755–1750 BC. It is the longest, best-organised, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East. It is written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian, purportedly by Hammu ...

, and the Stele of Esarhaddon, as well as a full-scale model of an

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

Israelite The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan. The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...

house A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...

. The museum is dedicated to the use of these collections for the teaching, research, and publication of Near Eastern archaeology, history, and culture.

History

Architectural firm A. W. Longfellow broke ground on the present HMANE site on September 27, 1900. Construction was completed in spring of 1902, and the public portions of the museum were opened on February 5, 1903. The museum's facilities were repurposed during World War II, and it was closed to the public from August 1942 through April 1946. Twelve years later it was closed again to the public, lasting from 1958 through 1982. On October 14, 1970, a bomb was detonated on the third floor of the museum, which at that time housed the Center for International Affairs. The museum reopened in April 1982, and then Harvard President Derek Bok spoke at the reopening ceremony. In December 2012, Harvard announced a new consortium, the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture, whose members were the

Harvard Museum of Natural History The Harvard Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum housed in the University Museum Building, located on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It features 16 galleries with 12,000 speciments drawn from the col ...

, the Harvard Semitic Museum, the

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is a museum affiliated with Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1866, the Peabody Museum is one of the oldest and largest museums focusing on anthropological material, with ...

, and the

Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments Harvard University's Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments (CHSI), established 1948, is "one of the three largest university collections of its kind in the world". Waywiser, the online catalog of the collection, lists over 60% of the co ...

. In April 2020, Peter Der Manuelian, director of the museum, announced changing its name to the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East (HMANE), explaining that "The change is not a reaction to any particular event, but rather our attempt to reflect our core mission in clearer terms." He also announced a "virtual tour" of the museum's galleries, allowing visitors to view many artifacts in detail, even as the physical museum was temporarily closed due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

Functions

Exhibition and education

The museum (through the collaborative efforts of departmental faculty, curators, museum curatorial staff, and students) mounts exhibits, often in conjunction with university courses, which serve the university community and also attract the general public. The museum has an active public outreach program featuring tours for school groups and teacher training workshops. The museum also sponsors, either alone or in conjunction with other institutions, a number of public lectures each year. Through these educational efforts, the museum seeks to promote a wider understanding of the civilizations of the Near East and their great cultural legacies.

Teaching with the collection

The museum encourages Harvard University students and faculty to make use of the museum collections and facilities. Objects can be used for coursework, viewing assignments, research papers, senior theses, dissertations, and teaching displays. The basement seminar room is available for sections scheduled to view the collection.

Research and publication

The museum sponsors archaeological field research into the complex societies of the Near East, with special emphasis on those ancient cultures related to the world of the Bible. Each year more than 100 staff, students, and volunteers participate in the

Ashkelon Ashkelon or Ashqelon (; Hebrew: , , ; Philistine: ), also known as Ascalon (; Ancient Greek: , ; Arabic: , ), is a coastal city in the Southern District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with ...

Excavations (The

Leon Levy Leon Levy (September 13, 1925 – April 6, 2003)
April 8, 2003. was an American investor, Lawrence E. Stager, Dr. Daniel M. Master, and Dr. Adam Aja. The museum, through its Harvard Semitic Series and Harvard Semitic Monographs, publishes archaeological, historical, philological, and cultural studies of the Near East, many of which present the research of the department faculty and their students.

External links

Semitic Museum official site

Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard

References

{{authority control Harvard University museums Archaeological museums in Massachusetts Egyptological collections in the United States Museums of Ancient Near East in the United States Museums in Cambridge, Massachusetts Plaster cast collections Semitic studies University museums in Massachusetts Museums established in 1889 1889 establishments in Massachusetts Buildings and structures completed in 1902 Georgian Revival architecture in Massachusetts