Penn Museum Creates Archive of Newly Typed Photos to Document Yazidi History

Nearly 300 photographs taken in northern Iraq during the 1930s and stored at the Penn Museum have been digitized and shared with the Yazidi community, which is indigenous to that region, forming what researchers describe as the group’s first visual archive.

The images, which show weddings, shrines, festivals and daily life of the indigenous Yazidi people, were originally taken by Penn archaeologist Ephraim Avigdor Speiser and his team during excavations at the Mesopotamian sites of Tepe Gawra and Tell Billa. Many of the photos had not been cataloged or published until Marc Marín Webb, a Ph.D. candidate in Mesopotamian history and archaeology, rediscovered them in 2022.

“Colleagues at the Penn Museum knew I was looking at Lalish’s story, and then this colleague sent me the photo,” Webb said in an interview with the Pennsylvanian. “We went to look at the photos and found all those 300 photos.

The Penn Museum’s photo studio scanned the collection in high resolution, cataloging negatives and fragile prints that had been in storage for decades.

“The Penn Museum was very generous to scan everything and share it in such record time,” Webb said. “300 photos in just a few months.”

In April, the photographs were exhibited in Iraq through the Sersal Project, a collaboration between Penn, the University of Victoria-Goethe Institute Libraries, and the Mirzo de Sinjar Foundation School of Music.

Webb described the collaboration with the Mirzo Foundation as the “most important” part of the project.

“Having musicians compose songs from Yazidi history, looking at this photograph was a beautiful dialogue between oral stories and visual memory,” he said.

Reman Salo, a college sophomore who was born and raised in northern Iraq, recalled his reaction when he first learned about the photographs in an interview with the DP.

“It was amazing, actually, because as someone from the community, it was a great thing to see the Penn Museum pay attention and care about those things,” Salo said. “I was very happy, honestly, I was very proud.”

According to Salo, the process of researching the photographs was also emotional.

“At home, our parents and grandparents have told stories about our history. Knowledge is passed down through generations,” he said. “But when you put a camera, or a photo, on that voice, you can really see it. At least I saw photos of my hometown from 100 years ago, which was incredibly surprising.”

The photographs emerged a decade after the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham’s 2014 campaign in Sinjar, which the United Nations has classified as genocide.

Webb said photographs, although originally created for archaeological documentation, have taken on a new role connecting the past and present.

He emphasized that the Penn Museum’s decision to digitize and share the images reflects broader efforts to support heritage preservation in Iraq, where much of the Yazidi culture has been targeted for destruction.

“It helps bring … attention to not so much the genocide, but what happens after the genocide,” Webb said. “The problem with places like Sinjar is that it is still destroyed… There are still devices (and) massive tombs that have not been opened.”

For Salo, photographs expand the possibilities of how Yazidi life can be represented and have the potential to raise more awareness for indigenous communities. .

“It’s a great thing that reflects a history of the community that has existed for thousands of years, years of civilization, culture and resilience,” he said. “We are not only known for violence against us, but also… happy moments.”

Webb acknowledged that local populations in Iraq have expressed a similar desire for remembrance during the exhibitions.

“Those images allow you to have empathy with the people, because they are getting married, because they are celebrating in the sanctuaries,” he said.

He also described his hope to continue the project beyond his Ph.D. dissertation.

“The idea would be to generate the right archive, the first visual archive of the community,” Webb said. “Maybe we can find a way to collaborate with different archives… it’s a project around memory, and I’m very interested.”

Pending museum approval, Webb said, plans are also underway to bring an exhibit to Philadelphia.