Excavated. Accumulated. Exhibited.

The exhibition tells three interwoven stories.

It provides information about early excavations carried out by the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) in the Mesopotamian city of Nippur (now in Iraq), which were funded by wealthy American benefactors and brought together researchers, adventurers, and devout Bible scholars.

It recounts the rise and fall of the German Assyriologist Hermann Hilprecht, who had been conducting research at Penn since 1886 and who – in the view of many colleagues in America – misappropriated valuable artefacts from Nippur.

Finally, the exhibition describes the circumstances under which the ‘Frau Professor Hilprecht Collection of Babylonian Antiquities’ came into the possession of the Thuringian State University of Jena in 1926.

Who was Hermann Vol(l)rath Hilprecht?

Hermann Hilprecht (born 1859 in Hohenerxleben, died in Philadelphia in 1925) studied theology, Oriental languages, and law in Leipzig.

There, in 1883, he obtained his doctorate under Friedrich Delitzsch – the pioneer of German Assyriology – with a study on the “Freibrief Nebukadnezar’s I“.

In 1885, Hilprecht moved to the USA in the hope of better career prospects. At the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, the well-educated scholar was appointed Professor of Assyriology in 1886, with the task of establishing the discipline in the USA.

Why Mesopotamia?

In the 19th century, Western scholars began to question the extent to which the stories in the Bible corresponded to historical reality.

In search of the settings of the Old Testament, they travelled to Mesopotamia. The first major excavations in Babylon, Nineveh, and Ur were led by Europeans. From the 1880s onwards, American expeditions also set out for the region.

The researchers deciphered ancient languages, discovered forgotten cultures and realised that stories familiar from the Bible, such as that of the Flood, had already been told in ancient Mesopotamia. The scholars brought a great many of the recovered treasures back to Europe and America.

The key figures

John Punnett Peters (1852–1921): clergyman, biblical scholar, at times professor of Semitic languages at the University of Pennsylvania, leader of the first excavation campaign in Nippur.

John Dyneley Prince (1868–1945): philologist, research assistant and secretary to Peters; later pursued a career as a Republican politician and diplomat.

John Henry Haynes (1849–1910): teacher, photographer, administrator of the first and leader of the second and third Penn excavation campaigns in Nippur.

Cassandria Artella Haynes, née Smith (dates of birth and death unknown): wife of John H. Haynes, who accompanied her husband to Nippur during the fourth excavation campaign.

Hermann Hilprecht (1859–1925): clergyman, professor of Assyriology at the University of Pennsylvania, academic expert during the first Nippur expedition and “scientific director“ of the fourth.

Ida C. Hilprecht, née Haufe-Jentzsch von Raden (d. 1902): first wife of Hermann Hilprecht; the ‘Frau Professor Hilprecht Collection of Babylonian Antiquities’ was named in her honour.

Edward White Clark (1828–1904): senior partner at the investment bank W. Clark & Partner, an influential patron of the Penn and a supporter of the early Nippur expeditions.

William Pepper (1843–1898): doctor and physician; Chancellor of the Penn between 1881 and 1894.

Along with numerous other staff members.

About this translation:
This English version was created by students as part of the project. As a small-scale initiative, the translations were produced in-house and have not undergone professional language editing. We appreciate your understanding.