Zwischen Ausgrabung und Ausslellung: Beilrdge zur Archaologie Vorderasiens.

• Author: Beckman, Gary

Zwischen Ausgrabung und Ausslellung: Beilrdge zur Archaologie Vorderasiens. Festschrift fur Lutz Martin. Edited by NADJA CHOLIDIS, ELISABETH KATZY, and SABINA KULEMANN-OSSEN. Marru, vol. 9. Munster: ZAPHON, 2020. Pp. xxii + 598, illus. [euro]130.

Lutz Martin has had a distinguished career in the archaeology of the ancient Near East: as an exhibit designer and administrator at the Vorderasiatisches (Pergamon) Museum in Berlin and as an excavator at Tell Knedig and Tell Halaf in Syria, the latter dig unfortunately cut short in 2010 by the outbreak of the civil war in that nation. Perhaps his most notable achievement has been his successful leadership of the project to reassemble the remains of the sculptures once held in Max von Oppenheim's private museum, blasted into smithereens by allied bombers during World War II. This remarkable accomplishment--on which see Moritz Schneider's contribution to this collection--led to his appointment in 2006 as Curator of the Max Freiherr von Oppenheim-Stiftung.

The volume under review, which marks his retirement from active museum service, presents forty-one essays (thirty-seven in German, four in English) contributed by his friends and colleagues, on the most varied archaeological and museological topics, but with a natural preponderance of pieces on the history of the Berlin Museum and on excavations in Syria, particularly Tell Halaf (seven studies).

It is not feasible to discuss each of these many essays in a short review, so I will first list the sites touched upon by various contributors--whether considering some aspect of their archaeology or artifact(s) yielded by them--and refer the reader to the book's on-line Table of Contents for further particulars: https://www.zaphon.de/epages/83179382.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/83179382/Products/%22ISBN%20978-3-96327-108-3%22.

Abydos (Egypt)--Robert Kuhn

Assur--Helen Gries and Katharina Schmidt; Alexander E. Sollee

Babylon--Berndt Muller-Neuhof

Bogazkoy/Hattusa--Daniel Meyer

Tell Brak--Dietrich Surenhagen

Tell Feheriya--Dominik Bonatz

Habur region--Sanina Kulemann-Ossen

Tell Halaf--Moritz Schneider; Jorg Becker; Gabriele Elsen-Novak and Mirko Novak; Mohamad Fakhro; Elisabeth Katzy; Winfried Orthmann; Uwe Sievertsen; Nadja Cholidis

Hamath--Karin Bartl and Massoud Badawi

Marhk (Iran)--Joachim Bretschneider

Tell Munbaqa--Dittmar Machule

Nimrud/Kalhu--David Kertai

Palmyra--Herbert Niehr

Tell Sheikh Hamad - Friederike Bachmann

Uruk--Barbara Helwing

I will now...