Terracottas in the Yale Babylonian Collection

Abstract

Since 2018 1 I have been studying for publication a little-known group of Mesopotamian terracottas held in the Yale Babylonian Collection of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, with the permission of the curator Agnete Wisti-Lassen. 2 A selection of these terracottas had already been published in 1930 by Elisabeth van Buren in a book that listed the Near Eastern terracottas of the most important European and American museums. 3 While the Yale collection was included, the encyclopedic nature of the book did not allow for in-depth analysis of its objects, nor did it allow for complete photographic documentation. Since then, other terracottas also have entered the collection that have never been published. But more importantly, a century of archaeological reflection and new methodological analyses require a rethinking for the publication of this material. This is the goal of my research program, which is funded by CNRS 4 for the most part and by my laboratory, funded by the Collège de France, the CNRS, and the École Pratique des Hautes Études. However, my goal is not simply to publish a catalogue with synthetic chapters. Rather, the aim is to renew coroplastic research for the ancient Near East. I intend to show how the study of the neglected areas of the terracotta object-the back and the sides-contributes to a better understanding of the object itself, how it was produced, and how it was handled. This catalogue is also a "manifesto." Indeed, research into Syro-Mesopotamian terracottas has not taken into account the 'revolution' that has occurred in coroplastic studies relative to the Greek world. 5 In the domain of the ancient Near East recent studies on terracottas are few and mostly are limited to publishing objects discovered in excavations. But this study also is an appeal in general for the publication of museum collections, in re-contextualizing material that arrived in museums without provenience and context, which is important for other similar materials. It also is necessary to understand how the objects arrived in museums. Reconstructing this recent history of the object is important because it is part of it. Terracottas in the Yale Babylonian Collection Les Carnets de l'ACoSt, 23 | 2023 ABSTRACTSThis article presents a publication project concerning the terracottas in the Yale Babylonian Collection that began in 2018, suspended by the pandemic, and resumed in 2022. After defining the difficulties and the methodology, it presents an overview of the study and concludes by describing the publication plan.