The images on display also recall the larger context of physical anthropology, especially anthropometry, the study of human body measurements. As Peabody Director of External Relations Pamela Gerardi explains, the exhibit highlights the photos as anthropology, not art. They were taken in pre-Franz Boas era, before modern anthropology’s focus on cultural rather than race as the defining factor in the differences among peoples.

There are startling images of Field’s makeshift lab on the Marshlands, taking measurements and physical samples. Overall, Field collected 221 profiles of men, describing their physical characteristics and recording anthropological measurements (dimensions of the body, facial and skill ratios) in statistical tables.

Field’s anthropometric undertaking illustrates the basic fear of the foreigner. Al-Dewachi stresses the difficulty Field might have had in finding willing individuals. “At first there is curiosity, but then it becomes anger at this foreigner,” he says. He emphasizes the importance of Field’s Iraqi translator, who also acted as a liaison between the two peoples.

Having lived in America both before and after 9/11, Al-Dewachi says he has seen firsthand the changing nature of such consciousness. Photographed, fingerprinted and screened by the Immigration Naturalization Service, Al-Dewachi speaks of this exhibit as a way to mediate this form of racial science and profiling. “Racial science still exists and is alive and present,” he says, “only today it is undertaken in the name of security and not science.”

The scientific element of Field’s journey resonates in the modern world, where one is aware of the dangers of racial classification and stereotyping—techniques employed in the name of science and physical anthropology. Field’s conclusions, though, were more in line with Boas’ findings: the distinguishing features of Ma’dan and non-Ma’dan peoples are not biological, but cultural.

For Al-Dewachi, the images in his first exhibit tell a fascinating story of both a lost culture and an early form of anthropology. This duality will be echoed in subsequent displays. Gerardi hopes to showcase a series of four exhibits a year, each displaying part of the Peabody’s huge photographic collection. The collection could even be said to trace the history of anthropology itself, as the Peabody is one of the oldest anthropological museums in the world.

“Field Photography: The Marsh Arabs of Iraq, 1934” will be on display through Feb. 28, 2005 at Harvard’s Peabody Museum.