Any consideration of the Iranian plateau must include the important site of Hasanlu in northern Iran. The Museum carried out excavations from 1956 through 1977. A major aspect of the research focused on the Iron Age settlement. This fortified town was attacked around 800 B.C. The attack and accompanying fire caused the rapid collapse of public buildings. Thus, the site provides a unique opportunity to examine a wide range of objects and materials still in the contexts in which they were stored. University Museum Monograph, 50

This volume of collected essays brings together for the first time the range of Winter’s pioneering studies related to Neo-Assyrian relief sculpture and seals, Phoenician and Syrian ivory and bronze production, and inter-polity connections across the various cultures of first millennium B.C.E. from the Aegean to Iran. Consistent threads are an emphasis on the potential for art historical analysis to yield ‘history’ in the broadest sense; the importance of making the theoretical frame of interpretation explicit; and the necessity of textual evidence being brought to bear upon elements of formal analysis and archaeological context. "These beautifully produced volumes bring together essays written over a 35-year period, creating a whole that is much more than the sum of its parts...No library should be without this impressive collection." J.C. Exum

A report on the small but unique assemblage of ivory objects that were discovered between 1957 and 1974 in northwestern Iran and all date prior to 800 BC when the site was sacked.

Hasanlu V provides archaeologists with a new, more accurate chronology of Hasanlu, the largest and arguably the most important archaeological site in the Gadar River Valley of northwestern Iran. This revised chronology introduces Hasanlu Periods VIa, V, and IVc for the first time. Based on new findings, the report overturns current constructions of the origins of the archaeological culture in Hasanlu, which sought to link the Monochrome Burnished Ware Horizon (formerly known as the Early Western Grey Ware Horizon) to the migration of new peoples into western Iran in the later second millennium B.C. Hasanlu V shows instead that the Monochrome Burnished Ware Horizon developed gradually from indigenous traditions. This reappraisal has important implications for our understanding of Indo-Iranian migrations into the Zagros region.

Although Quiriguá and its magnificent carved monuments have been recorded and studied by scholars over the past century, little archaeological data were available until recently. From 1973 through 1979, the University Museum sponsored investigations at this major lowland Maya site in eastern Guatemala. The aims of the work were to document a basic chronology, to determine the nature and pattern of structures, and to test hypotheses concerning the origins, location, and demise of Quiriguá. University Museum Monograph, 37

Before Writing gives a new perspective on the evolution of communication. It points out that when writing began in Mesopotamia it was not, as previously thought, a sudden and spontaneous invention. Instead, it was the outgrowth of many thousands of years' worth of experience at manipulating symbols. In Volume I: From Counting to Cuneiform, Denise Schmandt-Besserat describes how in about 8000 B.C., coinciding with the rise of agriculture, a system of counters, or tokens, appeared in the Near East. These tokens—small, geometrically shaped objects made of clay—represented various units of goods and were used to count and account for them. The token system was a breakthrough in data processing and communication that ultimately led to the invention of writing about 3100 B.C. Through a study of archaeological and epigraphic evidence, Schmandt-Besserat traces how the Sumerian cuneiform script, the first writing system, emerged from a counting device. In Volume II: A Catalog of Near Eastern Tokens, Schmandt-Besserat presents the primary data on which she bases her theories. These data consist of several thousand tokens, catalogued by country, archaeological site, and token types and subtypes. The information also includes the chronology, stratigraphy, museum ownership, accession or field number, references to previous publications, material, and size of the artifacts. Line drawings and photographs illustrate the various token types.

The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has had a long-standing interest in the archaeology of Iran. In 1956, Robert H. Dyson, Jr., began excavations south of Lake Urmia at the large mounded site of Hasanlu. Although the results of these excavations await final publication, the Hasanlu Special Studies series—of which this monograph is the fourth volume—describes and analyzes specific aspects of technology, style, and iconography. This volume describes a group of ongoing research projects, most of which provide new information on Iron Age technology. A theme that runs through these studies is the degree to which ancient workers varied the composition of their products to create desirable colors and textures. The book begins with a description of the wooden furniture fragments along with fittings and decorative elements for furniture. It presents the first detailed description of the charred textiles, and places these textiles in their archaeological contexts, suggesting the roles that textiles may have played in daily life. Later chapters assess the significance of Hasanlu in the history of glassmaking, describe the archaeometallurgy of the Hasanlu IVB bronzes, and present a catalog of the bladed weapons. Also, the book presents the evidence for deliberate violence against individuals as indicated by their skeletal injuries and the results of a project undertaken to determine whether DNA could be used to obtain a better understanding of the population history at Hasanlu.