Robert Woods and Mildred Barnes Bliss correspondence with Kirsopp and Silva Lake, 1933–1941
The collection contains correspondence among Robert Woods and Mildred Barnes Bliss and Kirsopp and Silva Lake, most commonly letters between Kirsopp Lake and Mildred Barnes Bliss. There are also project proposals, fieldwork reports, and a single set of photographs of the Citadel of Van. These documents relate to financial support provided by the Blisses for various projects undertaken by the Lakes, most notably an archaeological expedition to Lake Van in eastern Turkey in 1938 and 1939.
Kirsopp and Silva Lake's expedition to Van aimed to identify the capital of the Vannic or Urartian kingdom of 900–600 BCE (the Biblical Ararat), an ancient civilization that was believed to have spoken a Hurro-Urartian language and to have rivaled the Assyrian empire. The expedition included the survey and excavation of the Citadel of Van (“Van Kaleh”), the surrounding plain where they hoped to find the ancient settlement, and two nearby sites, “Kalehjik,” a smaller Vannic citadel north of Van Kaleh, and “Tilke Tepe,” a pre-Vannic mound. In addition to private contributions, such as that of the Blisses, the expedition had institutional sponsorship. The first season was sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania Museum and Brown University, where Silva Lake had received her PhD in 1936. The subsequent season in 1939 was sponsored by the Semitic Museum of Harvard University and the Biblical Literature Department of Brown University.
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Preferred citation: Robert Woods and Mildred Barnes Bliss correspondence with Kirsopp and Silva Lake, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC.