{"id":283075,"date":"2025-10-07T03:09:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T03:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/283075\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T03:09:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T03:09:10","slug":"penn-museum-creates-archive-of-newly-digitized-photos-to-document-yazidi-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/283075\/","title":{"rendered":"Penn Museum creates archive of newly digitized photos to document Yazidi history"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t
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\t\t\t\t\t\tPenn Museum on Oct. 14.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCredit: Rachel Zhang<\/a> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Nearly 300 photographs taken in northern Iraq during the 1930s and stored at the Penn Museum have been digitized and shared with the Yazidi community \u2014 which is indigenous to that region \u2014 forming what researchers describe as the group\u2019s first visual archive.\n<\/p>\n

The images<\/a> \u2014 which show weddings, shrines, festivals, and the daily life of indigenous Yazidi people \u2014 were originally taken by Penn archaeologist Ephraim Avigdor Speiser and his team during excavations at the Mesopotamian sites of Tepe Gawra and Tell Billa. Many of the photos had not been cataloged or published until Marc Mar\u00edn Webb, a Ph.D. candidate in Mesopotamian history and archaeology, rediscovered<\/a> them in 2022.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cColleagues at the Penn Museum knew that I was looking at the history of Lalish, and then this colleague sent me the photo,\u201d Webb said in an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian. \u201cWe went to see the photos, and we found all of those 300 photos.\n<\/p>\n

The Penn Museum\u2019s photo studio scanned the collection at high resolution, cataloguing fragile negatives and prints that had remained in storage for decades.\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Penn Museum was very generous in scanning everything and sharing it in such a record time,\u201d Webb said. \u201c300 photos in just a few months.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

In April, the photographs were exhibited in Iraq through the Sersal Project, a collaboration between Penn, the University of Victoria-Libraries Goethe Institute, and the Mirzo Foundation School of Music of Sinjar.\n\t<\/p>\n

Webb described the collaboration with the Mirzo Foundation as the \u201cmost important\u201d part of the project.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving musicians composing songs of Yazidi history, looking at this photograph was a beautiful dialog between oral histories and visual memory,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

Reman Salo, a College sophomore who was born and raised in northern Iraq, recalled his reaction when he first learned about the photographs in an interview with the DP.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was incredible, actually, because as someone from the community, it was a great thing to see the Penn Museum paying attention and caring about such stuff,\u201d Salo said. \u201cI was very happy, honestly, I was very proud.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

According to Salo, the process of researching the photographs was also emotional.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cBack home, our parents and grandparents have told stories about our history. Knowledge is passed through generations,\u201d he said. \u201cBut when you put a camera, or a picture, into that voice, you can really see it. At least I saw pictures from my hometown from 100 years ago, which was incredibly amazing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The photographs surfaced a decade after the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham’s 2014 campaign in Sinjar, which the United Nations has classified<\/a> as genocide.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Webb said that the photographs, though originally created for archaeological documentation, have taken on a new role connecting the past and present.\n<\/p>\n

He emphasized that the Penn Museum\u2019s decision to digitize and share the images reflects broader efforts to support heritage preservation in Iraq, where much of Yazidi culture has been targeted<\/a> for destruction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt helps to bring \u2026 attention to not so much the genocide, but what happens after the genocide,\u201d Webb said. \u201cThe problem of places like Sinjar is that it\u2019s still destroyed \u2026 there\u2019s still unexploded devices [and] mass graves that haven\u2019t been opened.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

For Salo, the photographs expand the possibilities for how Yazidi life can be represented and have the potential to raise more awareness for indigenous communities. .\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great thing that reflects a history of the community that has existed for thousands of years, years of civilization, culture, and resilience,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not only known for the violence against us, but also \u2026 the happy moments.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Webb acknowledged that local populations in Iraq have expressed a similar desire for remembrance during the exhibitions.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThose images allow you to have empathy with the people, because they are getting married, because they are celebrating in the shrines,\u201d he said.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

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Get our newsletter, DP Daybreak, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning.<\/p>\n

He also described his hope to continue the project beyond his Ph.D. dissertation.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea would be to generate the proper archive, the first visual archive of the community,\u201d Webb said. \u201cMaybe we can find a way to collaborate with different archives \u2026 it\u2019s a project around memory, and I\u2019m very interested.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Pending approval from museums, Webb said, plans are also underway to bring an exhibition to Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

The Daily Pennsylvanian is an independent, student-run newspaper. Please consider making a donation<\/a> to support the coverage that shapes the University. Your generosity ensures a future of strong journalism at Penn.<\/p>\n

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