OI marks 100 years of discovery in ancient Middle East

A century ago, a few lone scholars began arguing a controversial idea:
Western civilization had its roots not in Greece and Rome, as
academics had maintained for centuries, but further back—in the
sun-drenched lands of the ancient Middle East.

That idea was at the center of the Oriental Institute at the
University of Chicago when it was founded in 1919. Over the course of
the next 100 years, the OI has changed how humans understand their own
history through groundbreaking work in archaeology, linguistics, and
historical and literary analysis—work that continues today in Chicago
and across the Middle East.

[news.uchicago.edu]