Nippur Monograph

FAIN: RZ-50902-08

University of Chicago (Chicago, IL 60637-5418)
McGuire Gibson (Project Director: November 2007 to June 2012)

The preparation for publication of six volumes documenting and interpreting the excavations at the Mesopotamian sites of Nippur and Abu Salabikh in Iraq. (36 months)

This proposal seeks funding to prepare for publication the five remaining archaeological monographs on Nippur, the religious center of Mesopotamia, and one on the related site of Abu Salabikh. This backlog in publishing has accumulated in part due to the death of some of the authors (e.g., R. C. Haines). In other cases, career changes dictated different archaeological projects (George Dales, Donald P. Hansen) or the abandonment of archaeology (D. McCown). For staff members who have taken on the Nippur excavations since 1972, continuing commitments to teaching and new field research have meant that publications fell steadily behind. But because a number of the scholars who are collaborating in this project are retired or are nearing retirement, and their teaching or curatorial duties are reduced or have ended, there is a window of opportunity to complete these volumes, but the work must be done efficiently and with dispatch.