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Leon Legrain Near East Section records
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Held at: University of Pennsylvania: Penn Museum Archives [Contact Us]3260 South Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6324
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the University of Pennsylvania: Penn Museum Archives. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
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Leon Legrian was born June 16, 1878 in Landrecies, France. He studied at the Catholic University of Lille and received his doctorate in theology from the Collegium Appolinare in Rome. He was ordained a priest in 1904. Legrain did graduate work at the School of Semitic Languages of the Catholic Institute of Paris, and studied ancient Near Eastern languages at the Sorbonne under the eminent Assyriologist Father Jean-Vincent Scheil. His dissertation "The Times of the Kings of Ur," won him the Brodin Prize in 1912. Legrain was appointed Professor of Assyriology and Ethiopian at the Catholic University of Paris. He assisted at the French expedition in Susa, Persia. During the First World War he served as an army interpreter with both the American and French divisions. In 1920 he was appointed Curator of the Babylonian Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, succeeding Stephen Langdon, who had resigned in 1918. A specialist in Sumerian cuneiform, Legrain was the University Museum's representative during the joint expedition with the British Museum at the excavation of Ur, Iraq in 1924-25 and 1925-26, where he served as epigrapher. Throughout his life he published extensively on cuneiform texts and engraved seals. His work on Sumerian cuneiform contributed to the later development of the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary, begun in 1974 by Ake Sjoberg and Earl Leichty. As Curator of the Babylonian Section he was responsible for museum publications and exhibitions. He also supervised the division of objects from the Ur excavations with the British Museum. In 1926 Legrain received the honorary degree of Doctor of Science from the University of Pennsylvania and in 1929 he was appointed Clark Professor of Assyriology. In 1937 he was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor from the French government. Legrain served as Curator of the Babylonian Section until 1948, after which he officially retired, but remained active as Curator Emeritus. He was succeeded in the Babylonian Section by Samuel N. Kramer, Curator of Tablet Collections. Legrain died at Villa St. Joseph, Darby, Pennsylvania in 1963.
The Leon Legrain Near East Section records consist of 6.8 linear feet of textual and graphic materials that document the career and scholarship of Leon Legrain as Curator of the Babylonian Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum from 1920 to 1948. The collection also includes some of Legrain's research as early as 1907, as well as his activity as Curator Emeritus through 1951. Collection series include correspondence, biographical notes, Babylonian Section collection records, research notes, some publication material, photographs and drawings. Especially noteworthy are Legrain's research notes on Sumerian cuneiform and engraved seals. About 15% of the collection is in French or German.
See also Ur, Iraq Expedition records.
People
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- University of Pennsylvania: Penn Museum Archives
- Finding Aid Author
- Leslie M. Simon and James R. DeWalt
- Finding Aid Date
- 1985, 2017
- Access Restrictions
-
Although many items from the archives are in the public domain, copyright may be retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. The user is fully responsible for compliance with relevant copyright law.
Collection Inventory
The series contains general correspondence to and from Legrain, as well as communications with Babylonian Section Assistant Curator Charles Bache and General Assistant Dorothy Cross. Legrain correspondence is arranged by correspondent, sometimes by subject or institution, itemized under the folder titles. Although some letters date earlier, the bulk of the Legrain correspondence does not begin until 1926. Bache correspondence is arranged chronologically, Cross by correspondent. Additional correspondence can be found throughout the collection within specific topics.
The biographical notes series contains two folders pertaining to Legrain's academic career and professional memberships. Additional resources concerning Legrain can be found in the Museum Archives' Biographical Collection. It should be noted that articles and news clippings in these collections may contain conflicting or contradictory information.
The series contains documentation related to collections of the University Museum Babylonian Section, including gallery layout and inventory, as well as some files related to Persian/Islamic and South Arabian collections. By far the bulk of the series relates to objects and collections from the Babylonian expeditions, especially tablets and seals, including the Sallie Crozer Hilprecht Seal Collection.
Verso of some pages in this catalogue contain draft articles by Legrain on various topics. These articles are listed and referenced in the publications series of this collection.
The series contains research conducted by or collected by Legrain in reference to museum collections and topics, but not related to specific objects or University Museum collections. The bulk of the files relate to cuneiform vocabulary, especially Sumerian. Other files relate to ancient Mesopotamian chronology, geography, excavation sites, and sculpture. There are some brief files related to South Arabia. A file of publication notices contains Legrain's collection of publication lists and announcements of works by other scholars relating to Near Eastern archaeology (1907-1913).
Included in the research notes series is a collection of five index and note card files on various topics. Box 6 contains a collection of drawings of Mesopotamian objects and artistic motifs, with notes. Boxes 6 and 7 contain a series of cuneiform transliterations and translations by topic (rivers, gods, etc.). Boxes 8-10 hold a collection of note card files numbered 1 through 155 on various topics, mostly relating to Ur, followed by a descriptive object inventory (tablets, seals, sculpture, etc.). Major topics include notes on publications of fellow archaeologists (works dated mostly from 1904 to 1937, scattered throughout), notes related to reports from Ur (1927-1934, files 5-11), notes and drawings related to finds (seals, files 19-23; tablets, file 24, pottery, etc.), a chronological repertory of objects with drawings (file 52), notes in reference to other archaeological expeditions (scattered throughout), and brief references to Assyria, South Arabia, Persia, Luristan (file 46-47), and India. Also in this section are files properly belonging to the collections and publications series, including files related to collections of the University Museum (Ur terra cottas, file 18; South Arabian collections, file 93, etc.) and notes related to articles that appeared in The Museum Journal (scattered throughout).
The publications series contains files related to works written or edited by Legrain and published by the University Museum. The publications of the Babylonian Section by Legrain that were produced in the 1920s are not well represented. The series includes brief planning documents and a preliminary collection of plates illustrating seals from The Culture of the Babylonians from their Seals in the Collection of the Museum (1925). Although mostly unattributed and undated, the majority of the files in this series appear to be drafts of articles or short notices written by Legrain and meant for publication in The Museum Journal and The University Museum Bulletin.
The Leon Legrain album is a collection of photographs and drawings (by Legrain) of excavation sites, ruins, and scenes of everyday life in the Near East, including many of participants in the expeditions. Individual photographs are not labeled or described, but drawings, mostly of excavation sites, are sometimes labeled and dated. The album is stored separately from the Leon Legrain collecton.