The archaeological exhibit Writings Out of Time: The University of Arizona's Cuneiform Collection showcases the Arizona State Museum's extraordinary and unexpected holdings in Near Eastern antiquities. It will be open to the public from Sept. 14, Dec. 18, 2009, in the Special Collections Library.

A special series of lectures on the theme The Roots of Literacy in the Ancient Near East will take place throughout the fall. Lecturers include faculty from The University of Arizona and scholars from around the country. This free exhibit and lecture series, open to the campus and the community, furthers The University of Arizona's strategic plan of Expanding Our Vision, Deepening Our Roots by providing a glimpse of a rarely seen collection and offers a broader insight into Tucson and The University of Arizona's early history.

With its focus on The Roots of Literacy in the Ancient Near East, the exhibit and a fall lecture series will illuminate some of the world's first methods of writing. The displays of cuneiform tablets - primarily records of business transactions - are from half a dozen sites in southern Iraq. The tablets date from 2100-1800 BCE and are unquestionably the oldest archive of literary materials in the State of Arizona.

Other objects in Writings Out of Time include engraved cylinder and stamp seals from Iraq and Egypt, pieces of papyrus with hieroglyphic writing, and Imperial Roman-era Egyptian lamps signed by their makers. One piece, a unique stone slab with a bas-relief carving, comes from the palace of the great Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (668-627 BCE) in Nineveh, northern Iraq.

All these artifacts and more were purchased by - or donated to - the Arizona State Museum in the first half of the 20th century, by luminaries including the renowned collector and adventurer J. Edgar Banks, The University of Arizona founder Selim M. Franklin, and Arizona State Museum and Department of Anthropology founder, Byron Cummings.

Writings Out of Time Fall Lecture Series