Before Virtual Reality: Visualising Ancient Sumerian Luxury in the Great Depression
Lead Research Organisation:
University College London
Department Name: History
Abstract
This project's starting point is a collection of 67 watercolours (and associated correspondence) showing several 100 objectsfrom the famous 'Royal Cemetery' of ancient Ur, excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley (1880-1960) in southern Iraq in 1922-34. The archaeological illustrator Mary Louise Baker (1872-1972) painted them for his two-volume excavation report. They are now owned by Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG), part of Birmingham Museums Trust. It is difficult to recapture, nearly 90 years later, the worldwide impact of Woolley's discoveries of the 4500-year-old 'Royal Cemetery' at Ur, supposed birthplace of the biblical patriarch Abraham. In 1927-8, just as public interest was beginning to fade in Carter's opening of pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb five years earlier, this ancient city in the newly created British Mandate of Iraq started to yield finds that were just as spectacular. Woolley's team uncovered a sequence of vaulted tombs whose elite occupants, accompanied by their retainers, had gone to their deaths adorned with jewellery and equipped for an energetic afterlife with an astonishing range of beautiful objects made with expensive imported materials. In advance of the development of reliable colour photography, he engaged Baker, then employed by dig co-sponsor University of Pennsylvania Museum, to document the richly coloured finds for publication, including his wife Katharine Woolley's famous but controversial reconstruction of the headdress of Queen Pu-abi. Baker's vivid, technically accurate watercolour images were widely reproduced in academic and popular publications alike. They chimed perfectly with the flapper aesthetic of the interwar period, and probably influenced it. Yet powerful and resonant as these images are, they have never been subject to academic study.
The CDA project will thus explore the production and reception of Baker's watercolours from several different angles. First, it will investigate how Baker's work built on, or responded to, the prior archaeological visualisation strategies of Leonard and Katharine Woolley, as well as Baker herself. Second, it will explore the ways in which Baker's watercolours were deployed in publications and museum displays in Britain, the United States, and further afield. This part of the project will seek to understand the relationship between objects in their archaeological context, text and image technologies such as photography, technical drawing and watercolour in a cross-section of books and exhibitions. Third, the project will situate Baker's aesthetic within the wider visual culture of the time. Images of ancient Sumerian luxury tapped very effectively into decadent flapper culture of the late 1920s. In 1929, the Wall Street Crash precipitated a plunge into worldwide economic depression. How did public responses to Baker and Woolley's work change in these new circumstances: was it ever more important to escape into a fantastical luxurious past, or were ancient symbols of wealth now repudiated?
At UCL's History Department, student Hélène Maloigne will benefit from Robson's expertise in ancient Iraq and the history of its archaeology, and can call on specialists in interwar America. Robson also holds a related CDA with the British Museum, Woolley's other co-sponsor. The two projects will be mutually supportive.
At BMAG, Maloigne will help to catalogue Baker's watercolours, and participate in a programme of public engagement that will inform their display and public presentation. Components will include an online presence, as well as community engagement and learning. Birmingham has the most diverse and the youngest population of any city in Europe, including migrants from Iraq. BMAG aims to provide a space in which diverse communities can explain themselves to and learn about each other. The study of ancient civilisations, and their contribution to the present through different strands of
heritage, is an important part of this strategy.
The CDA project will thus explore the production and reception of Baker's watercolours from several different angles. First, it will investigate how Baker's work built on, or responded to, the prior archaeological visualisation strategies of Leonard and Katharine Woolley, as well as Baker herself. Second, it will explore the ways in which Baker's watercolours were deployed in publications and museum displays in Britain, the United States, and further afield. This part of the project will seek to understand the relationship between objects in their archaeological context, text and image technologies such as photography, technical drawing and watercolour in a cross-section of books and exhibitions. Third, the project will situate Baker's aesthetic within the wider visual culture of the time. Images of ancient Sumerian luxury tapped very effectively into decadent flapper culture of the late 1920s. In 1929, the Wall Street Crash precipitated a plunge into worldwide economic depression. How did public responses to Baker and Woolley's work change in these new circumstances: was it ever more important to escape into a fantastical luxurious past, or were ancient symbols of wealth now repudiated?
At UCL's History Department, student Hélène Maloigne will benefit from Robson's expertise in ancient Iraq and the history of its archaeology, and can call on specialists in interwar America. Robson also holds a related CDA with the British Museum, Woolley's other co-sponsor. The two projects will be mutually supportive.
At BMAG, Maloigne will help to catalogue Baker's watercolours, and participate in a programme of public engagement that will inform their display and public presentation. Components will include an online presence, as well as community engagement and learning. Birmingham has the most diverse and the youngest population of any city in Europe, including migrants from Iraq. BMAG aims to provide a space in which diverse communities can explain themselves to and learn about each other. The study of ancient civilisations, and their contribution to the present through different strands of
heritage, is an important part of this strategy.
People |
ORCID iD |
Eleanor Robson (Primary Supervisor) | |
Helene Maloigne (Student) |
Description | NACBS Stern Grant |
Amount | $500 (USD) |
Organisation | North American Conference on British Studies |
Sector | Learned Society |
Start | 11/2019 |
End | 11/2019 |
Description | Royal Historical Society Conference Travel Grant |
Amount | £400 (GBP) |
Organisation | Royal Historical Society |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 11/2019 |
End | 11/2019 |
Description | Birmingham Museums Trust |
Organisation | Birmingham Museums Trust |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | My research explores a set of drawings and illustrations held in the collection and archive of Birmingham Museum Trust. |
Collaborator Contribution | Placing these illustrations of archaeological objects in their historical and disciplinary context will help research into the development of archaeology as a discipline, the use of illustration for archaeology but also the use of illustrations, photographs and other types of visual imagery within archaeological publishing. Birmingham Museums Trust will benefit from this research by the better understanding of an important part of their collection. |
Impact | See above |
Start Year | 2016 |
Description | City Lit teaching |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Three courses at City LIt 8 weeks course on archaeology in the Ottoman Empire 2 one-off events on archaeology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.citylit.ac.uk/courses/the-politics-of-archaeology-the-age-of-empires-1840-1914 |
Description | Histories of Archaeology Network blog post |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | Blog post about experiences as archaeologist. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://harngroup.wordpress.com/ |
Description | International Association for Media and History blog post |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | Blog post about an archive visit to the News UK archival facility to view issues of The Times relating to my research of the interwar period. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | http://iamhist.net/2019/06/times-news-uk-archives/ |
Description | Museum Lecture |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Giving two public lectures at the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery during the Ancient Civilizations Week. Abstract: Jewels, Graves and Scholars: Illustrating the Royal Tombs of Ur The Royal Tombs of the ancient city of Ur (southern Iraq) produced some of the visually and technically most striking objects of archaeological discovery. Comparable to the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, Sir Leonard Woolley's excavations (1922 -1934) not only added significantly to our knowledge of ancient Mesopotamia but captivated all levels of interwar society with their evocation of Biblical Ur of the Chaldees. While the objects from the Royal Tombs are now in the National Museum of Iraq, the British Museum and the Penn Museum (Philadelphia) the original drawings from the excavation by the American illustrator Marie-Louise Baker were donated to Birmingham Museums by Sir Leonard in the 1950s. This talk will explore the history of the excavation, archaeological illustration and how Woolley used the images in his scholarly and popular publications. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Series 'Academic and Popular Reception of the Ancient Near East' for the London Centre for the Ancient Near East |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Series 'Academic and Popular Reception of the Ancient Near East' for the London Centre for the Ancient Near East Speakers: Professor Christina Riggs - Department of Art History and World Art Studies, University of East Anglia, and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford Dr Juliette Desplat - The National Archives Babette Schnitzlein - Independent Researcher Dr Felix Wiedemann - Freie Universität Berlin Dr Mirjam Brusius - German Historical Institute, London |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |