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Notification of 15th February 2024

New Book release by Adelheid Otto: ENTRE LES FLEUVES - III

A. Otto/N. Ziegler (eds.) Buchcover_Entre-les-Fleuves2023
Entre les fleuves – III
On the Way in Upper Mesopotamia. Travels, Routes and Environment as a Basis for the Reconstruction of Historical Geography.
Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient, Band 30

Format: 21 x 29,7 cm — Hardcover
Volume: 252 pages

ISBN: 978-3-935012-64-5
Price: 59,00 €
© PeWe-Verlag 2023

Link for further information




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LRZ-Newsletter 9/2023 dated 14th December 2023

https://www.lrz.de/presse/ereignisse/2023-12-10-Sin-Nadas-House/

How wealthy people lived 4000 years ago

16 rooms on two floors, sophisticated sewage installations and even a bathroom with a lowered drain: together with archaeologists from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the LRZ has has visualised and reconstructed in virtual realityan ancient Babylonian villa dating from around 2000 BC.

Sin-Nada_2

From the excavation to the model: The photo (below right) of the excavation site in Ur was the basis for the photogrammetry model (below centre)
as well as the model of the ground floor and the entire house (above). Photo: LMU/LRZ

First, a rather narrow corridor with grey, roughcast walls leads into a hall, from which a kitchen with two ovens and a bathroom with a lower drain behind an extra wall can be reached. Some rooms are flooded with sunlight through the courtyard at the centre of the villa. "This house seems so normal, but it was built around 1850 BC in the city of Ur and is over 4,000 years old," says Adelheid Otto, professor of archaeology and director of the Institute of Near Eastern Archaeology at Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich. "At that time, people in Bavaria or Central Europe were still living in caves or on trees, but in Ur there were already fully paved baths with separate toilets".

The comparatively high rooms with dark grey, roughly plastered walls look real, but were digitally reconstructed at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) and set up in virtual reality (VR). "Virtual reality is something new that we can now use in our subject for teaching and research," says Otto. "With digital models, we can also make our findings accessible to the public and visualise ways of life. There is so much we can learn from the past. The villa of Sîn-nada, the guardian of the Ningal Temple in Ur, not only reveals an advanced civilisation in which men and women could read and write, lived very hygienically and ate a healthy diet, but also demonstrates the longevity and contemporary benefits of earthen building: "Clay bricks keep houses cool, and most of them have survived for more than 4,000 years," explains Otto.

Modelling from photos, sketches and plans

For two years, LRZ experts from the Centre for Visualisation and Virtual Reality (V2C) worked with the archaeologists to digitally reconstruct Sîn-nada's villa. At first glance, the rooms appear cramped, but those who experience the rooms in VR quickly realise that Sîn-nada lived in spacious, stately conditions with his wife Nuṭṭuptum, who taught, fattened sheep and brewed beer. "The house had 16 rooms on two floors and a total area of 236 square metres," explains Dr. Berthold Einwag, who coordinated the digitisation project. "We know from letters and other evidence that the house was lavishly furnished and that sacrificial rituals were performed here for the temple community.

Photos, sketches and plan drawings that Otto and Einwag's team were able to collect during two excavations in 2017 and 2019 helped with the digitisation. Ur is located in southern Iraq and was discovered and partially excavated by British archaeologist Leonard Woolley in the 1920s. "In the past, excavations were carried out differently to today. In those days, you had two scientists and 400 workers, and they paid little attention to where things were and had no interest in the use of the houses, their furnishings and their way of life," Otto explains. "But that's exactly what we were interested in, exploring every millimetre of the villa, documenting exactly where the remains of walls, doors and the collapse of the upper floor were and, of course, looking for fragments, inscriptions, seals and rubbish". With each detail, the picture of the villa and the way of life on the southern walled enclosure of Ur became more precise and varied, and the realisation grew that rich people with large households tended to live around the temple of Nigal. Sîn-nada, for example, travelled widely, and his wife supervised many servants and looked after visitors to the temple.

Designing a historic building in exchange

"We developed the digital reconstruction with the LRZ in a constant back-and-forth process," says Einwag. Images and floor plans formed the basis for an initial 3D model using photogrammetry. "We had only vague clues about the structure of the building and couldn't interpret all the images of the excavation site accurately, so we had to keep asking questions and clarifying our work with the team of archaeologists," adds Kristian Weinand, then a student at the LRZ and now a 3D artist. "We calculated a 3D model from the photos using Autodesk ReCap software, which gave us a more precise idea of the house and the site". The villa was then rendered step by step using Blender software to create textures for the walls, floors and lighting. Finally, Unreal Engine 5 was used to translate this detailed model into VR. "The result was a render video and a VR application for the LRZ CAVE," says Dr Thomas Odaker. "This in turn can be used to derive applications for use with head-mounted displays, while the villa and its surroundings can be brought to life with images of people and objects." This would make it easier to assess the spatial and dimensional relationships in the villa and to visualise the way of life documented in letters and other evidence. "The digital model can now be demonstrated," says archaeologist Otto, "but it's certainly not a final product, we want to and should develop it further - at least the virtual tour of the house should be set to music or written down". However, sponsors and supporters are needed to fund this project, which would be possible thanks to the many finds and documents from the excavation. "Students will be able to work with the model using head-mounted displays," says Otto, "and we will be able to clarify working hypotheses in the digital model - for example, about the lighting conditions in the rooms, the number of windows, the position of doors, but also about life in this villa" (vs/ssc, LRZ)

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Announcement of 22nd November 2023

Alterations to the Colloquium Programme on the Ancient Near East

  • The lecture by Prof. Suzanne Herbordt (Leipzig) on 21st November has to be cancelled
  • Fiammetta Gori (LMU) holds her lecture instead on 21st November
  • Prof. emer. Michael Roaf (LMU) will give an lecture on 28th November about: "The measurement of Sargon’s name and the astroglyphs of Esarhaddon and Sargon II".

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Announcement of 6th November 2023

Two more new publications of the MAAO-series:

  • Volume 9 "Weights and Measures as a Window on Ancient Near Eastern Societies" by Adelheid Otto + Grégory Chambon (eds.)
  • Volume 10 "Tell el-Yahudiyeh Ware in the Northern Levant" by Samar Shammas

  cover maao9           maao10 cover

   further information                                        further information

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Announcement of 20th July 2023

New publication of the MAAO-series: Volume 8 "Der Wettergott im Bild"
by Albert Dietz

MAAO-8_1_Cover

More Information

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Announcement of 20th February 2023

New Exhibition of  the Institute of NEA:
„Altorientalische Keramik. Von der Ausgrabung in die Vitrine.“

In the foyer of the 4th floor in the Historicum 
you will find a new show case on:

Graphik_AusstellungADietz 20230210

("Ancient Near Eastern Pottery.
From Excavation to Exhibition")

With the help of sherds from the excavations at Isin (Iraq), you can track the path pottery has to tread from the moment of its discovery until its arrival at the museum .

The exhibition was realised within the framework of the seminar
„Scherben bringen Glück! Mesopotamische Keramik von der Ausgrabung bis ins Museum“
in the winter term of 2022/23 under the supervision of Dr. Albert Dietz.

The show case was designed by the following students:
Dennis Busch, Cyrill Dankwardt, Moritz Kellerer, Michaela Klein,
Elena Sher, Moses Simon Montalvo, and Marco Wolf.

We are looking forward to your visit!


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Notification of 8th February 2023

Donations for the Eearth Quake Victims in the Syrian-Turkish Border Region

The president of the association "SyrienHilfe e.V.", Karsten Malige, asks for donations.
In the very area that has been hit hardest - but which does not receive any help from the Assad regime - the association has numerous assistants, who can and want to help, but who urgently need money.

Those of you who are able to help are welcome to donate to "SyrienHilfe e.V.":

VR-Bank in Mittelbaden eG
IBAN: DE80 6656 2300 0012 1220 12
BIC: GENODE61IFF

SyrienHilfe e.V., Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 25, 76461 Muggensturm; Telephone: +49 7222 3852590

Humanitarian help for Syria: www.syrienhilfe.org
Information also on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Syrienhilfe
or with betterplace: www.betterplace.org/p12586

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

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Announcement of 24th November 2022

Symposium in honour of Dr. Ursula Calmeyer-Seidl

on Friday, 2nd December 2022, from 1pm - 7.30 pm in the main building of LMU, room no. A022

under the direction of Prof. Adelheid Otto und Prof. Walther Sallaberger

Programme und further Information

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Announcement of 18th October 2022

Invitation
to a scientific lecture on the occasion of the termination of the habilitation of
Dr. Kai Kaniuth

in Near Eastern Archaeology
on Tuesday, 8th November 2022, at 6pm c. t., room no. A 021
„Ein Imperium an seinen Grenzen. Neue Forschungen zur Achämeniden-Zeit im Südkaukasus.“

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Announcement of 19th July 2021

New Project KALAM within the framework of the Initiative „Global Challenges - Integrating Diverse Perspectives on Heritage and Change“

Das Institut für Vorderasiatische Archäologie der LMU startet unter Leitung von Adelheid Otto ein neues internationales Projekt mit mit dem Ziel, gefährdete archäologische Landschaften im Irak und in Usbekistan zu schützen. In diesen Ländern sind ausgedehnte Gebiete mit Tausenden Kulturerbestätten infolge von Raubgrabungen, Siedlungsbau, Landwirtschaft und Staudammbauten akut gefährdet. Das Projekt „KALAM. Analysis, protection and development of archaeological landscapes in Iraq and Uzbekistan through ICTs and community-based approaches“ wird auf Basis einer Kooperation auf Augenhöhe mit Archäologenkollegen in Iraq, Usbekistan und Italien durchgeführt. Es hat zum Ziel, die archäologischen Stätten zu dokumentieren und in Zusammenarbeit mit der Bevölkerung vor Ort nachhaltige Methoden zum Schutz zu entwickeln.

Es wird von der internationalen Initiative „Global Challenges - Integrating Diverse Perspectives on Heritage and Change“ gefördert, zu der sich die VolkswagenStiftung, die Compagnia di San Paolo in Italien und der Riksbankens Jubileumsfond in Schweden zusammengeschlossen haben, und wurde als eines von acht internationalen Projekten ausgewählt.

The correspondent press release you will find here:

https://www.lmu.de/de/newsroom/news-und-events/news/lmu-startet-projekt-zum-schutz-des-kulturellen-erbes-in-irak-und-usbekistan.html

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