Before Virtual Reality: Visualising Ancient Sumerian Luxury in the Great Depression

这个项目的出发点是67件水彩画（以及相关的信件），展示了来自著名的古代乌尔“皇家墓地”的100件物品，由伦纳德·伍利爵士（1880-1960）于1922年至1934年在伊拉克南部发掘。考古插画家玛丽·路易斯·贝克（1872-1972）为他的两卷发掘报告绘制了这些壁画。它们现在归伯明翰博物馆和艺术画廊（BMAG）所有，这是伯明翰博物馆信托基金的一部分。近90年后，伍利在乌尔发现了一座有4500年历史的“皇家墓地”，这里被认为是圣经族长亚伯拉罕的出生地，这一发现对世界的影响很难重现。1927年至1928年，就在公众对五年前卡特打开图坦卡蒙法老陵墓的兴趣开始消退之际，这座位于新成立的英国伊拉克托管下的古城开始产生同样惊人的发现。伍利的团队发现了一系列的拱形坟墓，这些坟墓里的精英在他们的随从的陪同下，在死前装饰着珠宝，并为充满活力的来世装备了一系列惊人的美丽物品，这些物品是用昂贵的进口材料制成的。在可靠的彩色摄影技术发展之前，他聘请了贝克，然后受雇于挖掘的联合赞助者宾夕法尼亚大学博物馆，记录丰富的彩色发现以供出版，包括他的妻子凯瑟琳·伍利著名但有争议的普阿比女王头饰的重建。贝克的生动，技术上准确的水彩画被广泛复制在学术和流行出版物。它们与两次世界大战期间的轻佻审美完美契合，并可能对其产生了影响。然而，尽管这些图像具有强大的感染力和共鸣，但它们从未成为学术研究的对象。因此，CDA项目将从几个不同的角度探索贝克的水彩画的制作和接受。首先，它将调查贝克的工作是如何建立或回应伦纳德和凯瑟琳伍利以及贝克本人之前的考古可视化策略的。其次，它将探索贝克的水彩画在英国、美国和更远的地方的出版物和博物馆展出的方式。该项目的这一部分将试图理解文物在其考古背景下、文本和图像技术之间的关系，如摄影、技术绘画和水彩在书籍和展览的横截面中。第三，该项目将把贝克的美学置于当时更广泛的视觉文化中。古代苏美尔人的奢华形象非常有效地融入了20世纪20年代末颓废的轻佻文化。1929年，华尔街股灾引发了全球经济大萧条。在这种新环境下，公众对贝克和伍利作品的反应发生了怎样的变化：是逃避到梦幻般的奢华过去更重要，还是古老的财富象征现在被否定了？在伦敦大学学院历史系，学生h<s:1> l<e:1>·马洛涅将受益于罗布森在古伊拉克及其考古历史方面的专业知识，并可以向两次世界大战之间的美国专家请教。罗布森还与大英博物馆（Woolley的另一个共同赞助者）拥有相关的CDA。这两个项目将相互支持。在BMAG， Maloigne将帮助贝克的水彩画编目，并参与公众参与计划，为他们的展示和公开展示提供信息。组成部分将包括在线存在，以及社区参与和学习。伯明翰拥有欧洲所有城市中最多样化和最年轻的人口，其中包括来自伊拉克的移民。BMAG旨在提供一个空间，在这个空间中，不同的社区可以相互解释和学习。对古代文明的研究，以及它们通过不同种类的遗产对现在的贡献，是这一战略的重要组成部分。

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 ofheritage, is an important part of this strategy.