Unsolved Mysteries
Have You Seen These Collections?
The following collections belong either to institutions that have closed or institutions for which I have found no current evidence that cuneiform is still on their campus. Do you know anything about any of these collections? Use the form on the contact page to share any relevant information.
Tougaloo College
The Jackson Advocate of Mississippi reported on March 14, 1953 that a set of Babylonian tablets were given to Tougaloo College by President Harold C. Warren. Information regarding the location of these tablets appears to stop with this newspaper article.
Closed Colleges
The following institutions are no longer active and the location of their cuneiform collection has yet to be determined:
Chancellor University (OH) closed its doors on August 25, 2013. It was previously known as Dyke College. In 1983 and 1985, Marc Cooper published selections of the Dyke College tablets. These publications are currently listed under Myers University in Ohio. There is an active Myers University and an inactive Myers University. It is unclear which of these institutions took over the cuneiform collection and whether the collection still remains.
Phillips University (OK) closed in 1998. In 1989, Piotr Steinkeller published a cuneiform tablet from this collection. It is not clear where the tablet ended up after the school closed.
St. Gregory's University (OK) closed at the end of 2017. The CDLI notes multiple cuneiform objects in this collection. it is not clear where these objects ended up after the school closed.
Stanford Department of Classics
Tom B. Jones and John W. Snyder in their 1961 publication, Sumerian Economic Texts from the Third Ur Dynasty place 6 tablets in the Department of Classics at Stanford University. Are they still there? Do they remain separate from those in Special Collections or in the Cantor Center?
Union Presbyterian Seminary
The Presbyterian of the South of Georgia reported on December 24, 1913 that the Union Theological Seminary in Virginia received a collection of 16 cuneiform tablets from one of its alumni. The Union Theological Seminary was founded in 1812 as the theological department of Hampden-Sydney College near Farmville, Virginia. The seminary moved to its current site in Richmond, Virginia in 1898. In 2009, the school changed its name to the Union Presbyterian Seminary to distinguish it from the Union Theological Seminary in New York.
Hampden-Syndey College is represented in this project with its own collection of cuneiform. Is this the same collection that was reported as being donated to the seminary in 1913?
Tandy Institute of Archaeology and Museum
The Tandy Institute for Archaeology and Museum at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (TX) closed its doors in 2020 as a result of layoffs and cuts to the archaeology program. Its cuneiform collection was housed in the Tandy Institute. Reporting on the closure notes that many faculty members found a home at Lanier Theological, while many students transferred to Lipscomb University. Information on the movement of SWBTS's collections remains scarce.