Facilities

The Jonathan and Jeanette Rosen Ancient Near Eastern Studies Seminar Room and Tablet Conservation Laboratory is located in White Hall on the Arts Quad of Cornell University.

The Seminar Room houses the tablet collection and Assyriological library. Here post-doctoral and other scholars work on translating the tablets from Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform into modern languages; courses on reading cuneiform languages are also taught here. The Seminar Room is equipped with data projection and white board, and can accommodate several researchers and students.

Tablets are photographed, cleaned, desalinized, and baked to brick-hardness in the connected laboratory. Here the conservator works with a digital photography station, electronically programmed kiln, sinks, and a fume hood in order to stabilize fragile, four and five thousand year-old tablets and document their appearance before and after conserving them.