THE RISE OF MAN — BREASTED 425 



support of John D. Rockefeller, jr. His personal interest, which 

 has included a journey to the Near East for personal inspection of the 

 field work of the institute, has created a new era in the study of 

 human origins. The new home of the Oriental Institute in Chicago 

 is a gift of the International Education Board, which he created. 

 In this unique laboratory for the study of the unfolding life of 

 man there is now gradually accumulating a body of selected and co- 

 ordinated evidence such as has not been available before. 



We have endeavored to suggest the great drift of human de- 

 veloftment from east to west (pi. 7, fig. 2) in a sculpture occupying 

 the tympanum over the entrance door of the new building of the 

 Oriental Institute at Chicago. The civilized developments sug- 

 gested in this sculpture on the left, tilling up and bridging over the 

 great chasm between the emergence of physical man and western 

 civilization, restore to us the unbroken continuity of the unfolding 

 life of man on earth, till we are able to see it in uninterrupted se- 

 quence from the trilobite to Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lin- 

 coln. Against the vast deeps of this vista even the catastrophe of a 

 world war sinks into insignificance, and the voices of our Spenglers, 

 our Keyserlings, and all the other superficial pessimists vanish with- 

 out an echo. We see that to-day man is still standing in the dawn of 

 civilization — in the first glow of that dawn. The light which diffuses 

 that glow has been brightening for several hundred thousand years. 

 There is no indication that it will cease to grow. It is the story 

 of that growing light which is revealed toi us in the Rise of Man. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATES 

 Plate 1 



Figure 1. The new Oriental Institute building at the University of Chicago 

 seen from the northwest. The results of the institute's field operations, 

 which extend from Turkey on the north, through Syria, Palestine, Iraq, 

 and Persia, to upper Egypt on the south, are gathered for exhibition, 

 study, and publication at this scientific and administrative headquarters 

 building. Five exhibition halls and a lecture hall occupy the ground floor. 

 The other floors are devoted to administration, teaching, and research. 

 The basement contains shops, photographic laboratories, and storage. 



Figure 2. The storm beach of the 74-foot Faiyum Lake (north of the ruins 

 of ancient Philadelphia), containing Middle Paleolithic stone implements. 

 Originating not later than Mousterian (Middle Paleolithic) times at a 

 level of 112 feet above the sea, the Faiyiim Lake had sunk to 57 feet 

 above sea level by Neolithic times. Later desiccation has lowered the 

 lake to 147 feet below the sea. 



Plate 2 



Figure 1. A drawing of an air perspective of the new headquarters building of 

 the Sakkara expedition among the palms of Memphis. 



