From Babylon to Berlin: ANES Museum Tour of Europe: Louvre: Near Eastern and Egyptian Day

The first half of today was spent in the Louvre Museum. Originally a fortress built by the French King Philip II in the high middle ages, it became a fabulous, ornate, and extensive place for the French royalty in subsequent periods. Today it is the world's largest museum, and several days could not do it justice. With our program's particular interest, we divided its ancient holdings into two days, and today we covered the Ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian collections.

Use of photograph policy: non-commercial re-use is authorized, provided the source and author are acknowledged. See http://www.louvre.fr/en/legal-information-and-terms-use. All photos here are Eric Huntsman © 2017 for educational purposes only.

This is just the ground floor. There are also ancient artifacts and works of art on the second floor and some in the basement. Today we visited the Near Eastern (yellow) and Egyptian (teal) antiquities.

The Near Eastern collection has considerably more objects from ancient Sumeria than the British Museum did. It had a similar collection of Akkadian (early Babylonian), Assyrian, and Neo-Babylonian artifacts, but the larger space in the Louvre allowed for perhaps better presentation.

Sumeria

Just as a reminder: the Sumerians were one of the earliest civilizations. They founded developed city-states in southern Mesopotamia (now Iraq) and developed the first writing system, cuneiform.

Public domain. Wikimedia Commons.

Assyria

For Assyria, the Louvre houses some marvelous reliefs from Sargon II's palace in Khorasbad. Some of our students were particularly impressed with this winged lion's calves . . .

Public domain. Wikimedia Commons.

Babylon, especially under Hammurabi

The Old Babylonian Empire was largely the creation of the Akkadian king Hammurabi, who is most famous for his law code, which has interesting parallels to the Israelite Law of Moses. It was received from either Marduk, the storm god of Babylon, or the sun, and was given to his people.

Public domain. Wikimedia Commons.

Persia

Public domain. Wikimedia Commons

These are reliefs from Darius' great palace at Persepolis. What is amazing about the bull-capital is that this is just the capital . . . the shaft of the column would have extended much below them and there were dozens of these!

Egypt

I am ashamed to face my Egyptologist colleagues . . . we really did go through these galleries, and my students found almost everything on their checklist . . . but while I have plenty of photos, I will need to post many of them later when I have more time and my internet is not so sketchy (WiFi keeps cutting out here in our hotel). But here is a taste:

Oh, and one other piece of art . . .

Whiled we were here in the Louvre primarily to see the ancient collection, how could we not see a few other well-known items. So we slipped upstairs to see that painting, surrounded her her usual throng . . .

Relaxing for a nice meal on a Parisian afternoon

The students scattered after we were finished with the Louvre for the day, off in different directions to see more traditional sites, explore, and take boat rides on the Seine. Jake, Scott, and I had a "boys afternoon out," finding a nice traditional restaurant and eating outside to feel, and taste, the local color.

Yes, the dish in the upper right is escargot. It is a bit of a tradition for me in Paris, right Paul McGuire? Here is a close-up, followed by a step-by-step sequence of shots showing their consumption.

ANES Museum Tour of Europe

Saturday, June 10, 2017

Louvre: Near Eastern and Egyptian Day

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