End Date: Saturday, March 30, 2024
Administrative tablet in clay envelope with seal impressions. King Shulgi of Ur, 2094-2047 BCE. MMA 67.34.1
In 1967, Museum Director Frank C. Hibben donated a small collection of inscribed clay tablets to the UNM Anthropology Museum (now the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology). These tablets, dating between 4100 and 1600 years ago, come from Mesopotamia in modern Southwest Asia, home to the world’s first cities, states, and writing systems.
Since their decipherment in the 1850s, tablets inscribed in cuneiform (wedge-shaped) script have provided insights into the economic, social, and religious lives of ancient Mesopotamians. They have also circulated around the world—as a result of colonial era archaeological expeditions, looting, and rampant site destruction fueled by terrorism, war, and economic desperation.
This exhibition highlights the eight cuneiform tablets in the Maxwell Museum collections and our attempts to uncover their journey to Albuquerque. It explores what such artifacts, once removed from their archaeological context, can – and cannot – teach us about the Mesopotamian past. It also explores the past and present legacies of the removal and destruction of cultural heritage and current efforts toward the restoration and restitution of archaeological heritage in the Middle East and far beyond.
End Date: Wednesday, January 31, 2024
In July 2022, a group of distinguished Pueblo artists and knowledge holders came to the Maxwell Museum to view a selection of Pueblo baskets from the museum’s collections. This group was composed of Louie García (Tiwa/Piro Pueblo), Christopher Lewis (Zuni), Jilli M. Oyenque (Ohkay Owingeh), Paul Tosa (Jemez Pueblo), Madeline Tosa (Jemez Pueblo), and Brian Vallo (Acoma Pueblo). Accompanying them was anthropologist and UNM alumnus, Dr. Bruce Bernstein.
The group generously shared knowledge about the varied techniques, uses, and meanings embedded within these baskets, and together, with museum staff and guest co-curator Dr. Bernstein, they agreed to co-curate an exhibition presenting these rarely seen objects to the public. The result is "We Were Basket Makers Before We Were Pueblo People: Pueblo Baskets in Context" which is housed in the Alfonso Ortiz Center Gathering Space of the Museum.
Like the fibers that make up these intricate baskets themselves, the voices of the co-curators are independent powerful strands of understanding that come together to offer us a greater appreciation of the artwork and its signficance. Come see the exhibit which will be on display through January 2024, in conjuction with our other temporary exhibit on baskets, "Conversing with the Land: Native North American Baskets of the Maxwell Museum Collections."
This exhibit is in part sponsored by the Alfonso Ortiz Center for Intercultural Studies.
End Date: Wednesday, January 31, 2024
Find the labels for all of the baskets in the exhibition here.