A Glimpse of John Punnett Peters
John P. Peters (1852-1921) devoted considerable energy, determination and leadership to creating support for American involvement in archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia. After securing sponsorship from the University of Pennsylvania and initial funding from the Babylonian Exploration Fund, he faced the daunting tasks of negotiating with the ruling Turkish government and maintaining local Arab tribal cooperation with his archaeological explorations of the massive site of Nufar, ancient Nippur.
Here is a photograph of Peters standing beside the Director of the Ottoman Imperial Museum. The tablets and other artifacts found by Peters and his team at Nippur were divided between the Ottoman Turkish authorities for their Museum and Peters for the newly established University Museum in Philadelphia.
An excellent photograph of John Peters, from files of the Yale Babylonian Collection, is reproduced by Bruce Kuklick, Puritans in Babylon: The Ancient Near East and American Intellectual Life, 1880-1930, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996, p. 96.
This photograph is taken from John Punnett Peters, Nippur or Explorations and Adventures on the Euphrates: The Narrative of the University of Pennsylvania Expedition to Babylonia in the Years 1888-1890, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1897, Volume II, p. 8.
Click on these links to navigate our site:
- To return to the excerpts by John Peters, go to the Earth-Moving Room.
- To help visualize the location and layout of Nippur, take a look at our Map Room.
- To learn more about ancient Nippur, discover the resources in the Reading Room, or study the bigger picture of cuneiform culture at the Reading Room's Cultural Annex.
- To get an overview of ancient Nippur, visit the Broad Vista Room.
- To find the most official point of view from the great king, enter the Royal Display Room.
- To gather information on professional life and specialization at Nippur, check out the Professional Room.
- After you have wandered through the rooms of Dubsar's abode, try your hand at the Nippur Quiz. JavaScript required.
- Return to the home page of Dubsar, the Cuneiform Scribe.
This page was edited on 17 January 1999. If you have cuneiform questions or comments, please email Dubsar, the Cuneiform Scribe. If I do not respond promptly, the vendor supplying Fortune City's email service may be eating your mail for lunch. In that case, you can give a shout over to Dubsar's Sand Dune to get my attention. Thanks! � 1998 Erasmus Compositor, P.O. Box 25958, Baltimore, MD 21224.