Postseason Wrap-Up and Publishing

At the close of each season, numerous miscellaneous duties remained to be completed, including baking tablets, paying workers, and packing gear. For example, in 1928, two weeks were necessary to close up the expedition and prepare for shipment of Harvard’s share of the artifacts—40 crates in all. The excavation equipment was locked in the dig-house for use in subsequent expeditions and put in the care of a guard, who lived in the building. All the artifacts destined for export were stamped by the government to ensure duty-free exit from the country and shipped to Baghdad and then Basra for transport by boat to the United States. Objects did not always survive shipment.

At the end of the 1931 season, Starr recommended that Harvard cease its work at the Yorghan Tepe mound. The investigations had revealed a significant city, palace, and temple of the 14th century BC, but clearing the structures to expose earlier levels of Nuzi would be very expensive. By then, the United States was suffering through the Great Depression, and the prospect of spending money for an archaeological expedition halfway around the world was no longer appealing. The sponsoring institutions, both in Iraq and the United States, had already received sizable collections of artifacts from Nuzi—so many that Starr had difficulty convincing the various museums to pay to ship the artifacts from the final season.

Starr published the results of the expeditions in a two-volume set—illustrations in 1937 and texts in 1939—a remarkably short time compared with the long delays between excavation and publication in some modern expeditions. These volumes are among the most detailed archaeological reports ever produced for the region and remain the definitive publications of the excavation results.