Institute of Archaeology

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Giorgio Buccellati

PROFESSOR EMERITUS

Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1965

Office: Fowler A311
Phone: 310-825-3760
Fax: 310-206-9630
E-mail: buccella@ucla.edu

Mailing Address:

Cotsen Institute of Archaeology
308 Charles E Young Dr. North
A210 Fowler Building/Box 951510
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1510

Personal Homepage

Class Websites

UCLA Appointments

Institutional history. History of religion. Historiography. Linguistics. Archaeology.

Research Interests

Political institutions and the growth of the state in ancient Siro-Mesopotamia. – The religious experience in ancient Mesopotamia and its structural contrast with biblical religion. – Ethnic integration in ancient Syro-Mesopotamia in the third and second millennium BC, with particular reference to Amorites and Hurrians. – The archaeological and philological dimension of ancient historiography. – Staging the Past.

Links
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
Cotsen Institute of Archaeology
IIMAS–The International Institute for Mesopotamian Area Studies

Research Summary

Current Excavations at Tell Mozan, the site of ancient Urkesh. This ancient city is known as one of the major political centers in the third millennium, and also as the holy city of Hurrian mythology. To be able now to identify it with the actual archaeological site of Tell Mozan means that Urkesh is a real city which is at the same time the stage for mythical action. Conversely, every other find from Mozan can be placed within a much more specific cultural perspective. Urkesh as the religious stage of myth and Urkesh as the political seat of power are, at the same time, Mozan as this particular, concrete mound of our archaeological landscape. The evidence for identification of the site has been put together through a painstaking study of more than 600 seal impressions, almost 200 of which were inscribed in cuneiform. The seals were used to guarantee the contents of containers that are stored in what appears to have been the royal storehouse of ancient Urkesh.

Additional Links

Near Eastern Archaeology Magazine Cover

Article: A Channel to the Underworld in Syria

Urkesh Website

Backdirt Article: Beyond Clay and Beyond Paper

Article in Le Monde de la Bible

Grants

Archaeological Excavations at Tell Mozan/Urkesh
The Modern Face of an Ancient City
Digital Analysis of the texts of Ebla

Awards

1999: UCLA Faculty Research Lecturer
2011: Archaeological Institute of America Best Practices in Site Preservation

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Featured Publication

The Construction of Value

Scholars from Aristotle to Marx and beyond have been fascinated by the question of what constitutes value. The Construction of Value in the Ancient World makes a significant contribution to this ongoing inquiry, bringing together in one comprehensive volume the perspectives of leading anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, linguists, philologists, and sociologists on how value was created, defined, and expressed in a number of ancient societies around the world. Based on the basic premise that value is a social construct defined by the cultural context in which it is situated, the volume explores four overarching but closely interrelated themes: place value, body value, object value, and number value. The questions raised and addressed are of central importance to archaeologists studying ancient civilizations: How can we understand the value that might have been accorded to materials, objects, people, places, and patterns of action by those who produced or used the things that compose the human material record? Taken as a whole, the contributions to this volume demonstrate how the concept of value lies at the intersection of individual and collective tastes, desires, sentiments, and attitudes that inform the ways people select, or give priority to, one thing over another.

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