Word: exhibit
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...article offered a few facts that actually don't appear in the exhibit, except perhaps to a visitor fluent in Hurrian. It included the Paula Jones-like detail that the mayor "used government agents to bring Humerelli [the woman in question] to 'the trysting place.'" And it mentioned an article in the current issue of the Biblical Archaeology Review that identifies the leader of the 1920s expeditions that unearthed the tablets. His name was Richard F.S. Starr...
...most intriguing was the article's suggestion that one could view this exhibit as a sort of secret key to the present and the future. In the report, the curator calls Humerelli the "Monica of the day." He explains that the people of Nuzi were "throwing the book at a corrupt, a criminally corrupt, mayor" and says the museum was "keenly aware of a certain bitter irony." The article's ending makes the connection between the two scandals explicit: "So what happened to Kushshi-harbe, the alleged philandering leader of Nuzi? No tipoff to Clinton's fate there. The cuneiform...
Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Before, the Semitic Museum was just a repository of large fiberglass statues and 3,000-year-old broken plates. But with this exhibit, it has become a vision of the future cast into the past, a concrete reason why history matters. Naturally, I had to stop by and see the secrets of Nuzi for myself...
When I actually visited the exhibit, however, I quickly realized that the Kushshi-harbe scandal comprises no more than a single displayed tablet--just a few inches tall--and a corresponding plaque. The exhibit, planned well before Clinton's troubles came to light, does not emphasize or explain the scandal in any more detail than it gives to the construction of toilet plumbing in Nuzi--the artifacts of which, also on display, are far larger and quite well-preserved...
...rest of the exhibit shows scraps of writing exercises by Mittani students, contracts between shepherds, court records from civil cases, stone weights, beaded jewelry, ritual objects and a heck of a lot of broken plates. It's a neat display. The work that went into it is impressive. It's exciting to know that we can learn such things about lives so distant from our own. But if you're looking for the lessons of history, the Semitic Museum's message might not be one you'd expect...