INSIDE BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY
Special Collections to house archaeologist’s documents
Anthropology Professor Reinhard Bernbec browses through some of the donated materials from the collection of the late Grace Burkholder.
Burkholder’s granddaughter Jo Ellen Burkholder earned her doctorate in anthrofrom Binghamton University. Jo Ellen Burkholder, now an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, facilitated the donation.
Grace Burkholder became famous in the field of Near Eastern archaeology for discoveries she made while serving as a teacher in ARAMCO oil camps during the 1950s and ’60s in Saudi Arabia. She found pottery from the fifth millennium B.C. that proved Mesopotamian Ubaid culture extended farther into the Arabian desert than had been known, Professor Reinhard Bernbeck said.
The materials donated to Special Collections include maps, drawings, letters, books, photographs and slides. Bernbeck’s lab is serving as a staging area while the materials are catalogued and examined.
“The collection is priceless in the sense that these things are one of a kind,” Professor Susan Pollock said.
