Hebrew University Sends Archaeological Finds to Newark Museum

The Archaeological Department of the Hebrew University has sent to the Museum at Newark, N. J., a collection of potsherds and other material from the excavations carried on by the University last year at Tel el Jerishe, a middle bronze age mound north of Tel Aviv, states an announcement by the American Advisory Committee of the Hebrew University, of which Felix M. Warburg is chairman.

By permission of the Department of Antiquities, Dr. L. Sukenik, Field-archaeologist of the University, recently cleared a cave in Wady-en-Nar in the Kidron Valley. A number of ossuaries bearing Hebrew inscriptions were removed from the cave. Of particular interest is an ossuary bearing the name “Shamai ben Jehosaf.” The fragments of these ossuaries have been added to the archaeological collection of the University.

The Department of Archaeology at the University has just received through the courtesy of George Blumenthal, a large collection of photographs of Moslem art objects in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The University has also received a similar collection of photographs from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, secured for the University by Louis E. Kirstein. The University now possesses, in addition to these collections, over three thousand photographs of the great Creswell Collection of Moslem monuments and objects of art, which were assembled by Dr. L. A. Mayer, who is Lecturer in Moslem Art and Archaeology at the University. The University is also securing photographs of Moslem art in private collections, notably that of Mortimer Schiff.

The ceramic chefs d’oeuvre of this collection illustrate some of the highest grade of Moslem craftsmanship and artistic achievement. Through a fund established by Judge Jacob Moses of Baltimore in memory of his wife, Hortense G. Moses, it will be possible for the University to secure photographs of Moslem art objects in the leading museums of Europe, the Committee announced.

The American Advisory Committee also made the announcement that Societies of Friends of the Hebrew University had been formed in Boston, under the chairmanship of Dr. Milton J. Rosenau of Harvard University Medical School, and in New Haven, with Col. Isaac M. Ullman as chairman.