New Research on Old Collections in Southwest Asian Archaeology

Contents

List of Figures 

List of Tables  

Preface – St John Simpson

Chapter 1: Introduction – Mette Bangsborg Thuesen & Giulia Russo

SECTION I: UNDERSTANDING THE PRODUCTION AND USE-LIFE OF OBJECTS IN MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

Chapter 2: Writing the biography of artefacts retired in museums. A methodological approach to the study of Mesopotamian statuary – Imane Achouche

Chapter 3: A multidisciplinary approach to the study of zoomorphic figurines from Ur – Enrica Inversi

Chapter 4: Gaining clarity from old glass: Some surprising results from heritage collections at the British Museum – Charlotte Nash-Pye

SECTION II: RE-ASSESSING OLD DOCUMENTATION AND PERSPECTIVES ON ARCHIVAL AND COLLECTION PRACTICES

Chapter 5: Plain yet significant: The making of a new typology of unglazed pottery from Takht-e Suleiman – Mette Bangsborg Thuesen

Chapter 6: New approaches to old stratigraphy: The Sequence-of-Events analysis – Georg Cyrus

Chapter 7: ‘Basements with insatiable appetites’ - Archaeological collections, museum storerooms, and sustainability – Giulia Russo

About the Author

Mette Bangsborg Thuesen is a project curator in the Middle East Department at the British Museum. She earned her PhD from Freie Universität Berlin, focusing on pottery traditions and daily life in Late Antiquity. She has contributed to various archival and digitisation projects and carried out archaeological fieldwork across West Asia.

Giulia Russo holds a PhD in the Archaeology of Southwest Asia from the Freie Universität Berlin. She specializes in pottery-making practices in Mesopotamia during the Chalcolithic period. Her fieldwork experience spans Asia, Africa, and Europe. From 2022 to 2023, she worked as a curatorial assistant at Berlin’s Vorderasiatisches Museum.