Ur Notebook Scan -- 1924 - Box: 7 Folder: 2 - Page: 066a | Ur Notebook Scan -- 1924 - Box: 7 Folde
| Omeka Title: | PA-CU-B07-F002-066a-1924.jpg |
| Omeka ID: | 4424 |
| Transcription: | Nov 8, 1924 Ur JunctionDear Dr. Gordon,I have been so crowded the first few days here, that I delayed writing. I just received a clipping sent by Miss McHugh, that brings me back to the Museum at once. Dear business: a fine piece of advertising, for which I want to express my best thanks! I left Beyrouth to \"shoot across the desert by day and night in a Cadillac car with 5 people inside and all the luggage tied in the outside. One hour stop in Damascus for lunch. You know the desert by experience and I will not expatiate on it. It is really a unique impression of silent immense nothingness, with a wonderful display of colors, and just a thrill when you[page 2]realize how absolutely lost you may be in stoney sandy plains. Baghdad is not a dream, but a busy Eastern city striving for civilization and full of intrigues. All is mud and mud and mud. I received a most gracious welcome from our queen of Sheba: Miss G.B. I went two days ahead of Woolley and [?Limell?] and put up at the Maude Hotel, the only and very best of the lace. I duly called on Mayor Wilson and on the American consul and was well received. I saw the French consul. Everyone here seems to be infected with the archaeological disease. In a short time the antiquities dealers began to visit and pursue me right in my bed room, talking about Prof. Clay and Mr. Thureau Dangin, and P [?Dhorme?] among the last visitors and heavy buyers. But I have no funds and no inclinations to buy. The only things I wish to buy |
| Media Title: | Ur Notebook Scan -- 1924 - Box: 7 Folder: 2 - Page: 066a |
| Page Number: | 066a |
| Project: | CU |
| Date: | 1924 |
| Author: | Leon Legrain |
| Penn Archival Box Number: | 7 |
| Penn Archival Folder Number: | 2 |
| Crowdsource Tags: | handwritten, Legrain |
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| People | Full Name | Biography |
|---|---|---|
| Leon Legrain | Father Legrain was born in France, ordained as a priest there in 1904, and studied at the Catholic University of Lille and at the Collegium Appolinare in Rome. Assyriology professor at the Catholic Institute in Paris until WWI, he was then an interpreter in the war. He became curator of the Babylonian Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum in 1920 and retired in 1952. A specialist in cuneiform, he was the epigraphist at Ur during the 1924-25 and 1925-26 field seasons. He published widely on texts and engraved seals, both in his time before the Penn Museum and after. He published seals and sealings from Ur (Ur Excavations volume 10), some of the tablets (Ur Excavations Texts volume 3) and was slated to publish a volume on the figurines from the site. His research and even an unpublished catalogue for this volume are in archives at the Penn Museum and now available on this website. Even after his two years at the site of Ur, Legrain played an integral role in the excavations. Not only did he research, publish, and display artifacts in the Penn Museum, but he was also the Museum's representative in the division of objects from Ur conducted almost every year in London. Legrain's letters about this process are very interesting, often in a more personal tone than Woolley's. In fact, many of his colleagues declared that Legrain was particularly entertaining and jovial, if cynical. His photographs at Ur are some of the only images we have of daily life, with many pictures of local Iraqis. |
- 1 Person
