Wednesday, November 19, 2025 @ 6:00 pm-8:00 pm

Lecture

The Princess and the “Key”: Archaeology in Ancient Mesopotamia

Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid 

This talk will look at a curious collection of objects at the centre of my new book, Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History. These objects were found in the palace of a princess named Ennigaldi-Nanna in the city of Ur dated to the 6th century BCE. There, objects from much earlier eras were found on the Neo-Babylonian layer of the palace, supposedly in a single room, together with a “key” that unlocked the meaning of the collection — a cylindrical clay tablet that described another object in the room and noted that it was there “for viewing”. C. Leonard Woolley, the lead excavator at Ur for most of the seasons, called that cylindrical tablet the earliest known museum label, and hence the key to the meaning of the collection of objects as an ancient museum. However, these claims can and should be called into question, as there are problems with the excavation records, and other explanations for the collection. However, one thing it does offer is insights into ancient interest in an even more ancient past, and possibly even some attempts at early archaeology.

Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Wolfson College, where she specialises in the languages and history of ancient Mesopotamia. She completed her BA from Columbia University in Philosophy, and after a single day of learning about cuneiform texts at a summer school, decided to pursue the subject with a Master’s degree and eventually a Doctoral degree at the University of Oxford. Although she still carries out academic work, her real passion lies in bringing the history of ancient Mesopotamia to wider audiences, and her new book, Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History, offers a window onto the region’s history in an accessible way. She is from Saudi Arabia, where she also grew up, and now lives in Oxfordshire with her family.