AN IMPRESSIVE NEW EXHIBIT AT THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE:

Oriental Institute to feature ancient, global society in new exhibition: Empires in the Fertile Crescent
By William Harms
News Office (University of Chicago Chronicle)

Visitors will get a rare look at one of the most important geographic regions in the ancient Near East beginning Saturday, Jan. 29, with the opening of �Empires in the Fertile Crescent: Ancient Assyria, Anatolia and Israel,� the newest galleries at the University�s Oriental Institute Museum.

The galleries showcase artifacts that illustrate the power of these ancient civilizations, including sculptural representations of tributes demanded by kings of ancient Assyria, and some sources of continual fascination, such as a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls�one of the few examples in the United States.

The galleries also contain artifacts connected with the beginning of two important eras, the Bronze Age and the later Iron Age, as well as artifacts from Megiddo, a site that is figuratively connected with the end of all eras�the site referred to in the Bible as Armageddon.

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