Expedition Fall 2022 | Vol. 64, No. 2

SEEN FROM THE AIR

THE MAGAZINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY

By CD Green

By Eric Hobson

By

Virginia Herrmann, Eric Hubbard, Lauren Ristvet, and Joanna S. Smith

By Erhan Tamur

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Above: This calcite disk from Ur, ca. 2300 BCE, depicts and bears the inscription of Enheduanna, the earliest named author in history. The disk is united with several her texts and related images at The Morgan Library & Museum in the exhibition She Who Wrote, celebrating her legacy as an author and priestess. See page 34

On the Cover: Prehistoric hunting traps in the black basalt desert (Harra) in eastern Jordan, as visible in a declassified U-2 spy plane photo captured 30 January 1960. These traps, called “desert kites”, have long tails that sometimes link to form chains stretching for miles. U-2 photographs of archaeological sites are the subject of a new exhibition U-2 Spy Planes & Aerial Archaeology (see page 11).

A Bird’s-Eye View

AS ERIC HOBSON NOTES on page 14, when Percy C. Madeira set off on the “Central American Expedition of the University Museum” in 1930, his instinct that the bird’s-eye view offered by airplane travel would revolutionize field archaeology across remote locations was later proven correct; by 1932, airplane travel was established for scientific investigation around the world. One can only imagine what Madeira thought when the U-2 spy plane flown by American pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down by Soviet Air Defense Forces in May 1960. Did he wonder whether spy planes had captured images of ancient sites, along with the military targets they were intended to record? Thanks to painstaking analysis by Emily Hammer and Jason Ur of films from the planes’ flights over Mesopotamia, we now know that they did. Their research is spotlighted in the exhibition U-2 Spy Planes & Aerial Archaeology, which opened at the Penn Museum this summer (see page 11).

The aviation revolution also greatly expanded the public audience for archaeological and heritage sites, with global air travel exceeding four billion passenger trips annually by 2019. The impact of tourism on World Heritage Sites and their surrounding communities is one of the key challenges for conservation considered at an October 2022 conference convened by Lynn Meskell at the Perry World House to mark the 50th anniversary of UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention (see page 4).

In this issue, we also hear from the curators of the Penn Museum’s new Eastern Mediterranean Gallery, opening November 19 (the next issue of Expedition, Vol. 64-3, will be a special issue on the research that informed this gallery); from Chris Green, doctoral student working with the Kanak people of Kanaky/New Caledonia on a heritage-based strategy of selfdetermination; and from Erhan Tamur, Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and co-curator of the exhibition She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, on view at the Morgan Library & Museum.

PUBLISHER

Amanda Mitchell-Boyask

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

Emily Holtzheimer

GUEST EDITOR

Ava Cappitelli

ARCHIVES AND IMAGE EDITOR

Alessandro Pezzati

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Colleen Connolly

COPY EDITOR

Page Selinsky, Ph.D.

ACADEMIC ADVISORY BOARD

Marie-Claude Boileau, Ph.D. Richard Leventhal, Ph.D. Simon Martin, Ph.D. Janet Monge, Ph.D. Kathleen Morrison, Ph.D. Lauren Ristvet, Ph.D. C. Brian Rose, Ph.D. Page Selinsky, Ph.D. Stephen J. Tinney, Ph.D. Jennifer Houser Wegner, Ph.D. Lucy Fowler Williams, Ph.D.

CONTRIBUTORS

Jessica Bicknell

Marie-Claude Boileau, Ph.D. Jennifer Brehm Kris Forrest Christina Jones

Sarah Linn, Ph.D. Tena Thomason Jo Tiongson-Perez Alessandro Pezzati

PHOTOGRAPHY

Francine Sarin Jennifer Chiappardi (unless noted otherwise)

INSTITUTIONAL OUTREACH MANAGER

Thomas Delfi

AMANDA MITCHELL-BOYASK PUBLISHER

© The Penn Museum, 2022 Expedition® (ISSN 0014-4738) is published three times a year by the Penn Museum. Editorial inquiries should be addressed to expedition@pennmuseum. org. Inquiries regarding delivery of Expedition should be directed to membership@pennmuseum.org. Unless otherwise noted, all images are courtesy of the Penn Museum.

Physical and Philosophical Transformation

Dear Friends,

In our last issue of Expedition, I took stock of the many changes which have occurred at the Penn Museum during my first year as Director: not only the challenges and innovations brought on by the pandemic, but also the development of a repatriation program beyond NAGRPA, expanding our long-standing commitment to ethical stewardship. The issue showcased stories of heritage and community, about the need for selfdetermination in the context of cultural preservation. In this issue, we continue to center these communities, both in the ancient past and the present, from the Kanak peoples of New Caledonia/Kanaky, who are using cultural heritage strategies to achieve their sovereignty goals (see page 9), to an exhibition of objects that helps give context to the writings of Enheduanna, the earliest named author in world literature—and, alongside her, the voices of other Sumerian women (see page 35).

At the end of the summer, it was my great pleasure to welcome Penn’s new president, Liz Magill, for a tour of the Museum. As well as providing President Magill with a personal experience of the Museum’s collections, this visit was a chance for me to reflect on the many facets of our mission. Articles on the use of surveillance footage from U-2 spy planes for aerial archaeology (see page 11) and on the creation of a systematic database of lithic artifacts from the Ksâr'Akil rock shelter through our Museum Assistantship Program (see page 46) demonstrate the world-leading research of our faculty and staff, as well as the mentorship opportunities they provide to graduate students. An interview with an educator in our International Classroom Program (see page 48) showcases one of our many community educational initiatives. As we’ve previously shared, a $5-million gift, including a $2.5-million endowment challenge, from former President Amy Gutmann will sustain and elevate one of the largest of these initiatives, Unpacking the Past, which serves over 6,000 public school students a year.

President Magill’s visit also provided me an opportunity to consider the enormous physical and philosophical transformations underway. There are the renovations of our physical galleries, of course, the latest of which is our reimagined Eastern Mediterranean Gallery, opening on November 19 (see page 24). As we celebrate this milestone, we also look forward to the next stage in the transformation — the beginning of construction on the Coxe (Egyptian) Wing, which will make possible installation of new galleries of Egypt and Nubia. In addition to the construction of new galleries, research and teaching spaces, and stateof-the-art storerooms, this will be a major milestone in the Museum’s new interpretive plan, in which we consciously engage our audiences with issues of gender, ethnicity, and power in the ancient world, and how these issues affect our diverse communities today.

I hope to see many of you on November 19, as we open the new Eastern Mediterranean Gallery and celebrate the human ingenuity it showcases. Meanwhile, I want to thank you for travelling this path with us. Together we are building a museum which reflects the widest possible vision of our shared humanity.

Warm regards,

WOODS, PH.D. WILLIAMS DIRECTOR

CHRISTOPHER

Penn Vice President and University Secretary Medha Narvekar (left) and ninth President Liz Magill admire the famed “Ram in the Thicket” in the Middle East Galleries with Chris Woods.

UNESCO World Heritage at 50

A CONVERSATION WITH LYNN MESKELL

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention, UNESCO’s flagship program to save the world’s cultural and natural treasures for future generations. Forged in the aftermath of World War II, UNESCO’s international initiatives remain relevant today given the myriad challenges for conservation and communities. These include global conflicts, religious tensions, climate change, human rights violations, exploitation and extraction, tourism, and development.

Dr. Meskell at the Taj Mahal, July 2022.

Photo by Shubanghni Gupta.

TO MARK THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE 1972 CONVENTION, Lynn Meskell planned an international conference on October 27, 2022: UNESCO World Heritage at 50: What Future for the Past?

Part of Perry World House’s series The Future of Global Order: Power, Technology, and Governance, the conference brings together a diversity of regional expertise from international scholars, practitioners, policy makers, and heritage organization leaders, and experts from across Penn’s campus based at the Museum and the Schools of Arts and Sciences, Wharton, and Weitzman School of Design.

Over an intense day of short talks followed by a second day of round tables, participants examined global heritage within the arena of broader concerns including encompassing development, corporate ethics and political risk, the convergence of climate change and Indigenous rights, and the more traditional domains of international law, diplomacy, and governance.

Professor Meskell spoke with Expedition in August about her vision for the conference from India, where she was working with colleagues and communities at heritage sites.

Let’s start where you are now: India has a wealth of UNESCO sites across a vast, diverse nation of 1.4 billion people. How does your work there help us think through the complexities of World Heritage today?

India illustrates heritage politics in high relief and positions preservation alongside concerns over pollution and poverty, and with communal conflicts at properties like the Taj Mahal. There is incredible potential too, exemplified at Humayan’s Tomb in Delhi, to leverage cultural heritage for socio-economic benefits to surrounding communities. Then there’s the example of Amritsar, the Golden Temple which is a pilgrimage site for the Sikhs. It’s an incredible piece of architecture and a very holy site, but the Sikh community resisted applying for UNESCO listing, pushing back on the Indian government.

So in these three very different examples we’ve got this big picture: the dramatic Taj Mahal, then the remarkable work of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture led by Ratish Nanda at Humayan’s Tomb, and then the Golden Temple, all facing various issues.

The conference packs a lot into a dynamic day. Tell us how it will run.

Perry World House Senior Executive Director LaShawn Jefferson will open the conference, then I’ll give an introduction and framing of the issues facing us at this 50th anniversary which will be picked up by other speakers: issues like funding the explosion of World Heritage sites, now well over 1000 when the original intent was probably just a handful; the rise of other NGOs and incredible organizations like the World Monuments Fund, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, and a host of other NGOs that are doing more independent, smaller-scale work; the rise of conflict not just in the Middle East but now in Europe—we’re seeing that obviously in Ukraine—so how the old Cold War is “hotting up” again (that’s the specialty of speaker Paul Betts from Oxford).

Pulling it all together to reflect on the 50th anniversary: we are facing more and more conflict, religious difference, and we are considering how to leverage sites for community benefits, socio-economic uplift. Then you have to consider what happens when

AKTC’s longstanding support for women’s employment in craft production, in front of Humayan’s Tomb World Heritage Site. Photo by Narendra Swain and courtesy of the AKTC.

local organizations can do it themselves and don’t need any of these external agencies. From the national to global scale, it is timely that we reflect upon the monumental challenges that come with saving the world.

The conference is very interdisciplinary: among the speakers from Penn alone it will involve experts from SAS, from Design, from Wharton, from the Museum, and Perry World House, of course. There are going to be short panels where people say “these are the five most challenging things” or “the five most promising things” interspersed with perspectives of people specialized in history, philosophy, business, anthropology, heritage. It’s a huge array, not a single theme but a broader series of reflections—because it is the 50th anniversary. And then the conference will end at the Museum with a reception

and a chance for participants to see the exhibition Heritage in Our Hands: UNESCO 50 Years Later, curated by three undergraduate curatorial interns, so we’ll see undergraduate research around the same issue.

Are there other Penn events this year where people can hear more about your heritage work?

Yes, I’m a Wolf Humanities Center Fellow for this coming year and their forum focus this year is heritage. In one of their events next spring I will introduce a project I am working with Professor Ben Isakhan on in Mosul (Iraq) and Aleppo (Syria) with collaborators from Princeton’s Arab Barometer, describing how we got together and decided to do these large-scale public surveys of heritage destruction and rebuilding

At Tikal, a local community celebrates their own religious connections to the World Heritage site.

Photo by Lynn Meskell, March 2022.

in both countries, the thousands of people that were surveyed, and the results. I’m also speaking on the Penn Museum’s Great Lecture series—there I’ll focus on my work in India.

Another of your research projects, on Cold War Archaeology, offers a reflection on Penn connections to World Heritage Sites.

The Cold War Archaeology project is an archival deep-dive look at the career of Froelich Rainey, Penn Museum Director from 1947 to 1977. Rainey was in a unique position as a trained archaeologist and anthropologist with a career background in the Foreign Office. His government and military sources gave him the resources to carry out projects internationally, which is how he was able to oversee hundreds of research projects in 33 countries during his time as Director. A close study of his career shows how the U.S. government, private industries, and academia came together at these sites, many of which are now major World Heritage Sites, for example Tikal in Guatemala and the Etruscan Necropolis at Tarquinia in Italy.

Other directors of the Penn Museum have had major impacts and connections at what were or subsequently became World Heritage Sites, so the Museum has that great international profile. Richard Hodges, for example (Williams Director from 2007–2012) worked at Butrint in Albania, and of course many Penn archaeologists including current Williams Director Chris Woods have worked across the ancient Middle East and in ancient Mesopotamia in particular, including at Nippur (submitted for World Heritage designation) and Ur (part of the Ahwar of Southern Iraq World Heritage Site). There are several sites on the list that Penn has had a connection to, but some of them are obviously very major, or some, such as Tikal, would never have become World Heritage Sites if an organization like Penn hadn’t done the site conservation work there.

Lynn Meskell is the Richard D. Green PIK Professor of Anthropology, Professor in the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, and Curator in the Asia and Middle East Sections. She is also a Faculty Fellow of the Perry World House and Wolf Humanities Center.

ON VIEW HERITAGE IN OUR HANDS: UNESCO 50 YEARS LATER

On view in the Idea Lounge, Upper Level, through June 2023, Heritage in Our Hands is an exploration of heritage issues by three undergraduate curatorial interns: Cindy Srnka, Jackson Clark, and Ashley Fuchs.

FOR FURTHER READING

Meskell, L. 2022. Atomic Archaeology: Italian Innovation and American Adventurism. American Anthropologist DOI 10.1111/aman.13745

Meskell, L. and S. LaPorte. 2022. “Your Mysterious Instruments”: American Devices and Imperial Designs in Cold War Archaeology. Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 47/4 DOI 10.1080/00934690.2022.2041279

Meskell, L. 2020. Toilets First, Temples Second: Adopting Heritage in Neoliberal India. International Journal of Heritage Studies DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2020.1780464.

Meskell, L. 2018. A Future in Ruins: UNESCO, World Heritage and the Dream of Peace. New York: Oxford University Press.

Photo by Kellie O’Brien.

The traditional Kanak case (Fr.) or house is part of the Centre Culturel Goa ma Bwarhat, a museum founded by Jean-Marie Tjibaou—leader of the Kanaky independence movement—in his hometown of Hienghène, Kanaky/New Caledonia. Goa and Bwarhat are the two traditional families/chiefdoms of the land the Center is on; the author met with Joseph Bourate, an elder of the Bwarhat namesake family of the Centre. Photo by CD Green.

Wisdom of the Ancestors

WHY MUSEUM POLITICS MATTER

BY CD GREEN

BURIED IN THE LUSH AND GREEN MOUNTAINS of northern New Caledonia—named by colonizers after the verdant ranges of Scotland—I was sitting across from elder Joseph Bourate, a tribal leader of the Indigenous Kanak peoples. He spoke to me about his friend about whom I’d been asking for my dissertation research: “Jean-Marie Tjibaou fought for it. To say: here is a people who have had practices over time, old practices, which we can look at and that our children must then look at, in order to have a sense of pride. To say: this people exists. By putting the cultural memories in front of their eyes. Like Westerners, we too have our history. This thought is to get out to the Kanak people: ‘You are part of the stories of the world.’”

Jean-Marie Tjibaou had been assassinated in 1989, over 30 years earlier, but his legacy is still strong in Kanaky/New Caledonia. His leadership of the independence movement in the 1980s culminated in an agreement that allowed for a referendum on independence from France, as well as support for majority Kanak communities. In his efforts towards Kanak sovereignty, Tjibaou had recognized a significant issue holding the Kanak peoples back: the ways the

public understood them through museums.

The identities of Indigenous communities are disproportionately affected by museum interpretations all over the world. In many cases, non-Indigenous people might never meet Indigenous peoples living in the borders of their own country. For Tjibaou, this meant representation of Kanak identity in museums needed to be out of the hands of the French Caledonian colonizers and into the hands of the Kanak.

In his hometown of Hienghène, Tjibaou created the Centre Culturel Goa ma Bwarhat, where I was sitting discussing his impact with one of the elders of the namesake families of the museum (Bourate). I was there to understand what Tjibaou’s teachings could tell us about the ways that heritage and identity representation of Indigenous peoples by non-Indigenous interpreters is always political.

From their very beginnings, museums have always claimed to be apolitical. They represent science and research—in other words, facts. What Tjibaou and other Indigenous scholars and intellectuals have consistently shown us is that there is no such thing as apolitical representation. Representation of identities is always

Far left: Temporary exhibition space at the Centre Culturel with displays about the Kanaky. Left: Statue of Tjibaou with the Kanaky flag draped around his shoulder, which overlooks the Centre Culturel Tjibaou just northeast of the city of Nouméa. Photos by CD Green.

done in ways that reflect and adhere to the political aspirations of those doing the representing.

This is perhaps why the insights of Tjibaou were taken up by white communities after he was assassinated. Before his assassination, Tjibaou, as the leader of the Kanaky independence movement, was a signatory to the June 1988 Matignon Agreements arranged under the aegis of the French government, approved by referendum, which provided that New Caledonian residents would be allowed to vote for self-determination in 1998. In the time leading up to the 1998 referendum, white communities fearing forced deportation (albeit falsely) from a country their ancestors had lived in for generation began to build museums that highlighted the contributions of both free and forced colonizers (i.e. penal colonists) to the archipelago. These museums show that the white communities understood the need to control representation of their heritage to maintain political control of their own future.

Ultimately, the independence referendum due in 1998 was pushed to 2018 under the Nouméa Accord and turned into three potential referenda, which did take place in 2018, 2020, and 2021. In the first two, votes for maintaining the status quo only narrowly outnumbered votes for independence, with turnouts of over 80 percent. The final referendum, though, held in 2021, was boycotted by predominantly Kanak pro-independence parties due to COVID hardships that disproportionately affected Kanak communities. This boycott greatly reduced voter turnout (around 44%), and the result that overwhelmingly supported remaining with France is being contested internationally by pro-independence politicians.

It remains to be seen how (non-)independence is resolved in Kanaky/New Caledonia. Since the death of Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Kanak strategies for gaining sovereignty have primarily relied upon proving the economic viability of independence.

My research points toward a heritage-based strategy of self-determination that might yet be useful for local Kanak to accomplish their sovereignty goals. My aim is to demonstrate to Kanak activists, leaders, and museum professionals the power that their ancestor, Tjibaou, saw in museums to help their cause,

a power that has now been widely co-opted in nonKanak communities. My hope is that this clarity will empower Kanak communities to use heritage in ways that advance their own aspirations, ultimately towards self-determination.

Chris Green is a doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology interested in analyzing museums and monuments as sites of determination/self-determination of identities, especially Indigenous identities, towards understanding of how Indigenous self-determination might be better effected in the contemporary political landscape.

Top: The author hiking Les Roches de la Ouaième, a trail just outside of Hienghène. Bottom: Map of Oceania; New Caledonia is about 755 nautical miles east of Australia’s coast, in the Coral Sea. Courtesy of the Nations Online Project.

AUSTRALIA

NEW ZEALAND

NEW CALEDONIA (KANAKY)

U-2 Spy Plane Images Reveal Ancient Landscapes

OVER THE COURSE OF FOUR YEARS, working over a light table in a darkened room in the National Archives, landscape archaeologist Emily Hammer, Assistant Professor, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and the Price Lab for the Digital Humanities, and Jason Ur, C94, Stephen Phillips Professor of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, created an invaluable resource offering scholars a window into ancient sites as well as Middle Eastern communities as they existed more than half a century ago.

In a series of trips to the National Archives, they painstakingly examined thousands of high-resolution

Ur (Tell al-Muqayyar) was one of the earliest and longest-lived ancient cities in southern Iraq. The main settlement mounds of Ur were once surrounded by a city wall that enclosed an area of 50-60 hectares. Soil discoloration and mounding visible in U2 photographs suggest that the city was originally much larger than this and incorporated several suburbs.

images captured for U.S. military intelligence from U-2 spy planes during the 1950s and ’60s. Engineered to be lightweight, U-2 planes flew at around 70,000 feet over Cold War hot spots throughout Europe and Asia, capturing places of military interest such as foreign bases, airfields, and potential weapons facilities, but also capturing—at high resolution that could show details as small as a person—historical, ethnographic, and archaeological sites and landscapes.

Many of these U-2 images were declassified by the U.S. government in 1997, but they were unindexed and unscanned, so researchers were unable to access them digitally or to know where each roll of film was taken.

Analyzing them posed a daunting task but offered Drs. Hammer and Ur a high-resolution aerial overview of their areas of research across the Middle East from 60 years ago—before urban expansion, development, agricultural intensification, or political actions wiped away surface traces of ancient communities that had survived for millennia.

To accurately reconstruct the path of the missions, they examined rolls of “tracking film” from the U-2 planes and matched it to modern satellite imagery.

Unlike the main camera system, which offered highresolution images over stretches of the flight where it was activated by the pilot, tracking frames show lowresolution, horizon-to-horizon views under the plane

ON VIEW

U-2 SPY PLANES & AERIAL ARCHAEOLOGY

The exhibition is on view in the Lower Level Special Exhibitions Gallery through Fall 2023.

throughout the entire flight, offering researchers a much broader view and making it easier to recognize ground features. This, in turn made it possible to figure out which locales might have intersected the plane’s flight path and its main camera’ photographic swath.

To use the detailed main camera images for their research, they unspooled hundreds of meters of film over a light table, identified frames from sites already known to be of archaeological interest, photographed the negatives in pieces using a 100-mm macro lens, and then stitched them together and inverted them in Photoshop. Because the lens from a plane or satellite never has a perfectly vertical perspective, they georeferenced each frame in digital mapping software to geometrically correct it and give it real-world coordinates, creating an image they could use to map the place that it covers.

Dr. Hammer admits that the archives work was sometimes cumbersome but notes that it was prevented from becoming tedious because the images were so interesting and sometimes beautiful. In the first roll she examined in 2015, she was stunned by the clarity of images taken over the black basalt desert of eastern Jordan. These images showed enclosures connected to long stone lines, marking ancient gazelle hunting traps called “desert kites,” as well as mysterious circular stone structures resembling spoked wheels, and clusters of dwelling foundations or animal corrals—evidence of much early human activity in a region that is sparsely inhabited today. In 2019, she and Dr. Ur published an online, interactive guide for U-2 images of the Middle East as well as a how-to guide for reproducing and working with the images, enabling other anthropologists and historians to search the U-2 photo archives for images relevant to their own research projects. They note that for broader audiences, the photos provide a fascinating historical look at the Middle East, showing, for example, Old Aleppo before the massive destruction wrought in the Syrian Civil War. Visitors to the Penn Museum can now enjoy a

On September 15, Penn Museum members heard from Curator Emily Hammer about her research identifying images captured by U-2 spy planes over archaeological sites in the Middle East, and had a chance to explore the exhibition.

U-2 photographs show the thin stone walls of prehistoric hunting traps, called "desert kites," located in the black basalt desert (Harra) of eastern Jordan. This is today an inhospitable desert, largely devoid of people except for isolated roads, but thousands of years ago it was a land of plenty for hunters and herders.

selection of these fascinating photos in the special exhibition U-2 Spy Planes & Aerial Archaeology, curated by Dr. Hammer, which opened in August 2022. Through approximately 15 large-scale printed photographs that include sites and a selection of related objects from the Museum’s collections, the exhibition highlights new archaeological and historical evidence gathered from U-2 photographs in each of three case studies: 1) the kite-shaped gazelle hunting traps in eastern Jordan that fascinated Dr. Hammer in her first review of the film rolls; 2) the watercourses and suburbs of the early Mesopotamian city of Ur and its magnificent ziggurat; and 3) the marsh villages in southern Iraq. This last case study is ethnographic rather than archaeological, documenting a 1950s way of life that no longer exists due to the destruction of the unique environment. The Iraqi marshes shrank first due to the construction of hydroelectric dams that impounded the Tigris and Euphrates floodwaters that once sustained them, and then they were decimated when former President Saddam Hussein systematically drained what was left in

the 1990s, forcing marsh dwellers to abandon an ancient way of life. The island villages, woven reed huts, networks of boat paths, and expansive reed forests that sustained that way of life remain preserved in U-2 photos.

Dr. Hammer hopes that Museum visitors will “have the same exciting feeling of time travel and discovery that I experience in seeing the human-scale details, hidden ancient landscapes and lost ways of life captured in these decades-old, declassified photos.”

Emily Hammer is Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities and Archaeology in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and the Price Lab for the Digital Humanities. Jason Ur is the Stephen Phillips Professor of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University and the Director of its Center for Geographic Analysis.

THIS ARTICLE DRAWS ON: Hammer, E. 2020. Spy Plane Photos Open Windows into Ancient Worlds. SAPIENS 21 February. https:// www.sapiens.org/archaeology/satellite-imagery/

ARCHAEOLOGY TAKES WING

The Penn Museum’s 1930 Aerial Expedition to the Yucatan

BY ERIC H. HOBSON

Mesoamerican culture now stimulated his curiosity more than banking, and to satisfy that intellectual itch, Madeira had just enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania’s graduate archaeology program. By providing a bird’s-eye view of the culturally rich but remote Yucatan, Madeira thought Lindbergh and Kidder might revolutionize Central American field archaeology.

After financing and accompanying a longer exploration thirteen months later, the “Central American Expedition of the University Museum” led by American Section Curator J. Alden Mason, the experience and expense gave him pause, but his initial instinct was correct: by 1932 airplane travel was established for scientific investigation around the world— which cannot be imagined without it today.

The Plane at Yaxha, North Central Guatemala. PM Image 202712.

In October 1929, fifty- year old Philadelphia banker and lawyer Percy C. Madeira, Jr., tracked with great interest Charles A. Lindbergh’s progress across northeast Guatemala, British Honduras (Belize), and the Yucatan peninsula with archaeologists Alfred V. Kidder and Oliver Ricketson.

Alfred Kidder flew with Lindbergh on that trip from October 6–10, 1929, to see “what the Maya country really looks like,” having worked for decades in areas “so stifled by … vegetation, that it has been impossible to gain a comprehensive understanding of … this territory.” He believed “all people, ancient and modern, are largely products of their environment. Hill and plain, watercourse, and arable land shape the destinies of nations more powerfully than do kings and battles.” Lindbergh granted Kidder’s wish, and across those five days they identified five Maya ruins and confirmed sites reported but not plotted.

These results drove Percy Madeira to replicate Lindbergh’s project, an endeavor he could afford to organize and finance. Thirteen months later and seated on the Board of Managers of the Penn Museum (then known as the University Museum), he launched the Central American Expedition of the University Museum. Dr. J. Alden Mason, Curator, American Section; Gregory Mason, writer and archaeologist; and Robert A. Smith, the aerial photographer, joined Madeira aboard a Pan American Airway’s Sikorsky S-38 airplane leaving Miami for the Yucatan Tuesday afternoon, December 2, 1930.

Over the Yucatan: December 3–14, 1930

After a night in Havana, Madeira’s team left for Pan Am’s Cozumel station at 7:42 am Wednesday, December 3. Responding to passenger eagerness, Captain William Ormsbee, assisted by co-pilot and radio operator William Carey, bypassed Cozumel, flew to the Yucatan’s northern tip, and circled the Coba ruins before the Museum team splashed down at Pan Am’s Cozumel base at 4:50 pm.

After seven hours seated in the Sikorsky S-38 the Museum team was initiated fully into the days to follow. Because cloud shadows distort observed differences in ground elevations, Ormsbee had skimmed palmtops to help his passengers look for vegetation-encapsulated buildings. Madeira, however, found such flying “too hard on the nerves to continue for more than a limited space of time.” And with little soundproofing, the team stuffed their ears with cotton balls to dampen the engines’ deafening roar. Amidst the cacophony, Madeira made a note to recommend a headset-intercom system so future

aerial explorers could coordinate in-flight adjustments with their pilot.

Over the next eleven days the team flew thirteen flights (37 hours and 11 minutes of flight time totaling more than two thousand miles). Some retraced the Lindbergh-Carnegie Expedition north-south Yucatanaxis routes; others crossed unassessed western and southwestern regions. Each day was eventful, if not productive.

Madeira’s expedition report reads at times like a tourist journal ticking off major Maya sites: Coba, Chichen Itza, Yaxuma, Labna, Uxmal, Piedras Negras, Yaxchilan, San Clemente, Tuluum. He hoped to spot an unknown Maya site beside a lake on which Captain Ormsbee could land and then fly support runs as the team initiated exploratory fieldwork. Unfortunately, no such site presented itself, although the team assessed several lake-side possibilities. Still, the team did identify four unmapped Maya ruins: two northeast of Uaxactun-Tikal, one on the Belize-Mexico border, one in north-central Yucatan parallel to Cozumel Island, and confirmed Lindbergh-Carnegie Institution expedition reports of other new sites.

The Personnel and the Plane, at Miami, Florida. Left to right: Dr. J. A. Mason; William Carey, co-pilot; Frank E. Ormsbee, chief pilot; Robert A. Smith; Percy C. Madeira, Jr; Gregory Mason. PM Image 28425.

“Hard on the Nerves”: Eleven Days, Thirteen Flights

Over eleven days, from December 4–14, 1930, the team flew thirteen flights (37 hours and 11 minutes of flight time totaling more than two thousand miles). Some retraced the Lindbergh-Carnegie Expedition north-south Yucatan-axis routes; others crossed unassessed western and southwestern regions. Each day was eventful, if not productive.

Appendix to the article “An Aerial Expedition to Central America” by Percy C. Madeira, Jr. in The Museum Journal, Volume XXII No. 2. Left: December 3 and 4 entries in Captain William Ormsbee’s Flight Notes; Right: The team’s sketch plan of the San Clemente Ruins.

Postcards collected by Percy Madeira during the 1930 Aerial Expedition. Top: Ruins of Chichén Itzá, Temple of the Warriors. Center: Ruins of Chichén Itzá, El Castillo. Bottom: Ruins of Uxmal, The Governor’s Palace (seen from the Nunnery Quadrangle).

“Madeira’s expedition report reads at times like a tourist journal ticking off major Maya sites: Coba, Chichen Itza, Yaxuma, Labna, Uxmal, Piedras Negras, Yaxchilan, San Clemente, Tuluum.”

On Wednesday, December 6, the team’s fourth day flying, they left Carmen on the Yucatan’s west coast and flew south down the Unsumacinta River toward the Piedras Negras site that Dr. Mason was preparing to excavate, and Yaxchilan ruins further south. Neither site was visible from the air, although Captain Ormsbee flew by at fifty feet above the river. Madeira reported that “The tropical vegetation, trees, vines and creepers, formed so dense a curtain that not a single portion of the ruins, nor the slightest vestige of any masonry could be seen… even when we knew exactly where they were, not more than a hundred and fifty feet away.” Dr. Mason was impressed that they reached this site in one hour, however; one year earlier, in 1929, the same CarmenPiedras Negras trip took him five days.

The Museum team did not spend all thirteen days airborne. Between fiestas and fetes hosted by local dignitaries at each stop, Madeira had Captain Ormsbee fly west on Tuesday morning, December 9, from Belize City to drop off the Museum team at the Yaxha Lake area in Guatemala’s Petan region. There, after hiking 12 miles west and pitching camp, Percy and his colleagues spent Wednesday and Thursday mapping and photographing the San Clemente ruins east of Tikal.

Captain Ormsbee returned three days later at noon to pick up a dirty, hot, tired, and insect-bitten group. After the team reveled in the sandwiches and iced beer that the Pan American Airways team provided, they

tested dropping supplies by parachute (from about 500 feet) before returning to Belize City to pack for the next morning’s return to Miami. Reflecting on the expedition’s Saturday exit from Central America, Madeira wrote, “At six o’clock in the morning of the previous day we had broken our camp in the heart of the forest of north central Guatemala, and at six o’clock that night—36 hours later— we were comfortably settled in the Columbus Hotel in Miami, Florida; a most extraordinary transition, possible only with a modern airplane as the magic carpet.”

Taking Stock, Assessing Results

Six months after the Central American Expedition of the University Museum returned, Percy C. Madeira, Jr. published his post-trip report in the June 1931 issue of The Museum Journal (Volume 22.2). In addition to summarizing the expedition’s activity, observations and accomplishments, Madeira dedicated several pages to describing possible roles for aircraft as midcentury archaeological tools. Some of his observations acknowledged basic facts: “The airplane can cover in one hour a stretch of country which takes a week to travel by mule or on foot.” Some reflected Central American geographic reality: “it is nearly impossible to find from the air any new sites in a country of a broken and densely forested character” even with an airplane. Practicality framed some of his other suggestions: “Until some sure method can be worked out to guide a land

East Coast of Yucatan, looking north. PM Image 18916.

The map created by the team led by Madeira of the aerial expedition to Central America.

party through virgin jungle to the site of ruins located from above, finding more new sites by airplane in the vast tropical forests of the Maya country appears to be of very little scientific value.”

Madeira could see a number of roles that airplanes could play to support scientific teams if terrain was suitable for building airstrips adjacent to archaeological sites. Aircraft could ferry personnel and supplies in and artifacts out; in emergencies they could evacuate sick or injured team members, potentially saving lives. Madeira was also intrigued by possible uses of “autogyros” (helicopters) to access archaeological digs situated in rough terrain and along precipitous ridgelines—assuming, of course, that the still-developing technology matured. Regardless of these many benefits, Percy Madeira concluded that for the moment, based on his experience (and his expeditionary financial outlay), airplanes might “more properly be classified as a fascinating although somewhat expensive sport.”

Yet, by the time Madeira published his assessment of aircrafts as scientific tools, another expedition affiliated with the University Museum—the Matto Grosso Expedition (see Expedition Vol. 60, No. 3,

2018)—had leased a Pan Am Sikorsky S-38 to support its fieldwork in western Brazil. Other institutions soon followed the University Museum’s lead, and by 1932 airplanes had established a niche for themselves in scientific endeavors around the globe, and have not relinquished that role.

Eric Hobson, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of English at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. He previously published an article in Expedition on the Matto Grosso Expedition and is writing a book on the subject.

FOR FURTHER READING

Deuel, L. 1969. Flights into Yesterday: The Story of Aerial Archaeology. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Hobson, E.H. 2018. Brazil from Above: General Rondon and the Matto Grosso Expedition. Expedition Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 3 https://www.penn. museum/sites/expedition/brazil-from-above/ Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum. Madeira, P.C., Jr. 1931. An Aerial Expedition to South America. The Museum Journal XXII, No. 2 https://www.penn.museum/sites/journal/9316/ Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum.

Tuluum. PM Image 18969.

AT A CROSSROADS OF CULTURE

CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION IN A REGION KNOWN FOR CONFLICT

On November 19, 2022, the Penn Museum will open the doors of the new Eastern Mediterranean Gallery, subtitled “Crossroads of Cultures,” showcasing the stories of interconnectedness among peoples and ideas in this region—a place of origin for the alphabetic writing system and Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

BY VIRGINIA HERRMANN, ERIC HUBBARD, LAUREN RISTVET, AND JOANNA S. SMITH

This page: Inventing the Alphabet: The letters we use descend from the world’s first alphabet. Some of the earliest alphabetic inscriptions were written at this turquoise mine at Serabit el-Khadim in Sinai, Egypt, featured near the entrance to the Gallery. Photo by David Rohl. Facing page: Ivory box lid from KourionBamboula, Cyprus; 49-12-245.

Spanning Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian Territories, and Cyprus, this region is marked by periods of intense political exchange, and by innovation and creativity along cross-cultural lines. The gallery, with its 400+ artifacts from the Middle Bronze Age (2000 to 1600 BCE) through the Ottoman Period in the 1800s, focuses on re-routing the narrative identifying this region as a site of conflict.

The interactive gallery is organized into three themes—coexistence and connection, power and conflict, and creativity and change—and suggests a rich and complex identity for this region. It presents interpretations of layers of excavated material representing different temporal periods and sheds light on a world of knowledge about the Eastern Mediterranean never before seen in museums across North America.

Expedition Guest Editor Ava Cappitelli sat down with exhibition curators Lauren Ristvet (LR), Joanna S. Smith (JS), Virginia Herrmann (VH), and Eric Hubbard (EH) to discuss the gallery’s role in highlighting the potential for human achievement when people collaborate across geographic, political, and religious lines.

Facing page: Early Iron Age clay sarcophagus lid depicting a female face, excavated at Beth Shean; 29-103-789.

and then divided it up. I was responsible for what we called coexistence and connection, Virginia [VH] focused on power and conflict, Eric [EH] on religion in the creativity and change sections, and Joanna [JS], because of her expertise in Cyprus, came together with all of us. We each chose objects, wrote text, decided on stories and spent time presenting these to each other. And then we spent a lot of time working together to see how everything could come together thematically.

VH: We had great assistance from Penn graduate students, including Paul Verhelst, Madeleine Nelson, David Mulder, and James Shackelford, who had specialties in different areas that really complemented our strengths, and we also got input from curators from other sections. Because this region is tied into Egypt, it’s tied into material from Greece and Rome and the Near East Section, it was really essential that we also had expertise from other curators in the Museum.

LR: One of the things that was exciting to me was that Pat McGovern [Consulting Scholar in the Near East Section and Director of the Museum’s Bioarchaeology Program], worked on one of the sites we’re really featuring at the Baqa’h Valley in Jordan, so it was great to incorporate his ideas and analyses into that work and have that connection.

JS: Yes, and the CAAM [Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials] feedback as well, and bringing in their materials, analyses, and x-ray photographs of objects, some of which are featured in the gallery.

VH: And then because our alphabet section reaches all the way to East Asia, we needed input from Asian Section curators like Adam Smith as well.

EH: Though we worked somewhat independently in developing the stories within the three main themes,

TRADING AT SEA: Merchants sailed the Mediterranean, stopping at bustling cities in Cyprus, Syria, and elsewhere along the way in ships like this one, modeled on a shipwreck from the late 1300s BCE near Uluburun, and another found nearby at Cape Gelidonya, both in Turkey. Archaeologists found objects like the ones included in this Eastern Mediterranean Gallery display at the Uluburun shipwreck site. Gallery rendering of the Eastern Mediterranean Gallery, opening on Nov. 19. Image by Penn Museum Exhibits Team.

they wove back together in satisfying ways as the team developed floor plan and exhibit flow. The different sections build on each other, and we ultimately blur our own thematic boundaries. For me, that was another interesting way to speak to the crossroads concept.

How will this gallery disrupt our assumptions and perceptions of what we know about the region?

LR: One of the main goals of this exhibit is to get people to rethink what they know about this place.

When dealing with the Eastern Mediterranean now, so much is narrated through either the Israel-Palestine conflict or through the Syrian civil war. This is not only a place of conflict, but very much a place of people living together, of coexistence. We wanted to think about innovation. One of the things we do, because of the material we have, is to provide a very different context to stories in the Hebrew Bible, which visitors may be familiar with, so it helps us rethink religion. Another thing I think we do, which is exciting for me, is not just tell the story of the Hebrew Bible but really consider this space as important in the Byzantine Empire, in early Christianity, and in early Islamic empires.

VH: People often think of this area in relation to recent conflicts that are tragic and upsetting. But, because this area has a strategic position between Africa and Asia, it has been a site of imperial contestation for millennia, so people have frequently been under the imposition of outside traditions and have had to decide whether they were going to resist or embrace and adapt them

OBJECT HIGHLIGHTS:

VIRGINIA HERRMANN

“I’m most drawn to these little stamp impressions on jar handles from 8th- and 7th-century BCE Judah inscribed with the Hebrew word “lemelech” meaning “belonging to the king.”

While humble-looking, they contain illuminating significance for the politics, ideology, and economics of that biblical kingdom.”

Jar handles from Gibeon, letter equivalents lmlk (“lemelech”); clockwise from top, 60-13-99, 60-13-95, 60-13-74.

“The Eastern Mediterranean is the birth site for three major religions and the alphabet. These innovations did not emerge in a vacuum. They are a product of intense cultural and political exchange that this region is really marked by.”

—VIRGINIA HERRMANN

In the Early Iron Age, residents of Gibeon (El-Jib) cut a deep cylindrical pool descending almost 90 feet into bedrock to access fresh water. At the bottom archaeologists uncovered layers of household and possibly sacred refuse, including female and animal figurines, as well as the impressed wine jar handles shown on the previous page. Examples of each will be on display in the Eastern Mediterranean Gallery; PM Image 62640

What will make this gallery unique in North America?

LR: There are a number of things that make this gallery really special. One is how we are defining it geographically, including Cyprus, which I don’t think anyone else has done in this way. The material we have is special—and from important excavations. There is not a lot of material from this time and place available in North America from well-documented excavations, and where there is, curators usually focus on only one excavation. They don’t give us this fuller story or chronological focus.

VH: This is one of the largest collections of excavated material from this region that you can see in North America, and having these well-documented excavations be the source gives us a huge advantage in interpreting and contextualizing these objects.

JS: On top of the fact that the material is excavated, is the layering of the material. As sites develop over time there are layers and layers of deposited material. The objects also have layers of history. One end of the gallery uses this concept of a palimpsest of text, a document that is reused. It was erased and written on again, but you can still see the old text under the new. The gallery features this idea of vertical layering in both large and small objects, as with recarved stone

objects. At the other end of the gallery is a mosaic, a design composed of different tesserae. Here we find interconnectedness by horizontal proximity. There are thus two concepts of overlap and of connection, in the gallery, for the sites, and among the objects through time and space.

LR: This is the only gallery in North America, and I would suspect Western Europe, to deal with political and colonial contexts, so, similar to what we did in the Africa Galleries, we’re really confronting that. In our introductory section Uncovering the Past, we begin with an interactive “Dig into the Archives” for context; we don’t shy away from the fact that these excavations were part of very particular moments in time and that they have modern significances that are sometimes uncomfortable.

EH: Yes, the Archives help us understand how and why the collections were created and under what circumstances. The collections that make up the gallery come from Penn Museum-led excavations from 1921 through the 1980s—six decades that saw contentious and violent intervals including a World War, and the drawing (and redrawing) of national borders. With the Archives section we wanted to acknowledge that archaeology played a role in the politics of memory and heritage in this place—and continues to do so.

OBJECT HIGHLIGHTS: ERIC HUBBARD

“All the incense censers on display that span the three major chronological periods for the religion section. We wanted to show the commonalities in spiritual practices over time, like incense burning, while highlighting how these objects transformed within specific cultural contexts in decoration, style, and meaning.”

Incense censers across time and place: (left to right) Clay offering stand from Beth Shean, 1150–925 BCE, 29-103-830; limestone censer from South Arabia, 3rd to 1st century BCE, 30-47-32.

LR: Beth Shean is the first excavation post-World War I. It was under the British Mandate of Palestine. We have documents that go into how Penn Museum officials were part of creating what is going to be the framework of antiquities law within the Mandate.

EH: Yes, under the Mandate, this area and its material past became accessible to western European and American scholars in a way that it was not under the Ottoman Empire. Scholars particularly interested in unearthing the region’s biblical connections poured in to make it one of the most active areas of excavation in the world. The archives help illustrate how the collection from Beth Shean reflects that interest in that moment, as well as the way the excavators’ research intersected with the work of empire happening around them. We also wanted visitors to get a sense of what went into excavating the objects, so we pointed to the stories of the dig staff and hired local laborers who made these excavations possible, yet whose vital role has been historically overlooked.

VH: The wonderful Hellenistic, late Roman/Byzantine, and early Islamic material from Beth Shean has only rarely been displayed before in the Museum’s history, and then separately from the earlier Bronze and Iron Age material. It’s important to understand that the traditional approach of dividing the history of this

region into the biblical history and then the GrecoRoman period and then the Byzantine-Christian period and then the Islamic period is a colonial framework. We are deliberately trying in the new gallery to disrupt that idea that “this part of history is relevant for these people and that part of history is relevant for other people,” instead of seeing it as a continuous story that belongs foremost to the people of that region.

How will the gallery speak to different audiences, from scholars to families and school groups?

JS: There are a number of features that are interactive aspects—you can play with a screen in the gallery that relates to dress and color of sculptures. But others emphasize your presence in relation to some of these objects, for example at one end of the gallery there’s a reconstruction of a pithos, a large vessel, that could fit a whole person inside, so people can understand the size and scale of some of these objects in relationship to themselves. The reconstruction of part of an ancient ship gives you the sense of the size and scale of a vessel that people would have traveled in to ship some of the goods

LR: One thing that is exciting is that this is a place of enormous significance for a lot of people in Philadelphia, even people who wouldn’t normally go into museums, because of its link—of course—to Christianity, Judaism, and

There are a number of features that have interactive aspects... at one end of the gallery there’s a reconstruction of a pithos, a large vessel, that could fit a whole person inside, so people can understand the size and scale of some of these objects in relationship to themselves.

—JOANNA S. SMITH

Islam. It gives the Museum a really wonderful opportunity to reach out and bring in people in different ways.

VH: We should also mention the engagement of people’s senses. There is a wonderful smell interactive that gives people a sense of the smells of incense that you would encounter in a religious setting in this region. And we have tactile reproductions so people can feel the different writing materials that have been used through history—from impressing cuneiform on clay tablets to writing with pen and ink on parchment. Then they get to interact with touchscreens to see the development of world empires or the spread of the alphabet more dynamically.

This is such a rich collection—what is the most significant object to each of you that will be on display? JS: Near and dear to my heart—and the way I got started on working on the Cypriot collection—are cylinder seals. They are very small objects, but they are a very personal part of identity, and were worn and used to make impressions in clay. The small stone seals would be passed on and re-carved for new people.

There are some larger pieces that I think are incredibly significant. I have to give a call out to the Egyptian garrison doorway. I love the way that it has been incorporated, giving people a sense of the physical space of a building.

VH: Even when I used to go into the old gallery, one of the things I was most drawn to were these little stamp impressions on jar handles inscribed with the Hebrew word “lemelech” meaning “belonging to the king.” They are from 8th- and 7th-century BCE ancient Judah, and they are really humble-looking objects but they contain so much illuminating significance for the politics and the ideology and the economics of that biblical kingdom. At the same time, there is so much that is still not well-understood about this marking system and why it uniquely appears in Judah.

LR: I will second everything said so far, but I want to call out our sarcophagi—the Beth Shean sarcophagi— because I really do find that they are amazing. There are wonderful sarcophagi lids on display in Israel but we are the only museum to have them in North America. They help us tell a complicated story about people in empire: how do locals respond to a new imperial context; how do they change different techniques? Along the same lines, one thing that was fun for me to work on were the funerary portraits of the Roman period from Beth Shean, Palmyra, and Cyprus. We are going to do a project on the pigments on these in the future; thinking about Roman pigments on statuary has been really fun.

EH: For me, it’s a three-way tie between all the incense censers on display that span the three major

OBJECT HIGHLIGHTS: JOANNA S. SMITH

“Near and dear to my heart are cylinder seals. They are very small objects, but they are a very personal part of identity, and were worn and used to make impressions in clay. The small stone seals would be passed on and re-carved for new people.”

This small (2 cm) stone seal, found in Tomb 19 at Kourion-Bamboula, Cyprus, in 1939, has been re-carved for a new individual; 49-12-298. Line drawing showing detail by Joanna S. Smith.

Temple at the Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates in Kourion, Cyprus. The Greek general Ptolemy became king of Egypt after Alexander the Great died in 323 BCE. Ptolemy later won control of Cyprus and appointed official governors.

2.0.

Photo by Carole Raddato/CC BY-SA

—LAUREN RISTVET

chronological periods for the religion section. We wanted to show the commonalities in spiritual practices over time, like incense burning, while highlighting how these objects transformed within specific cultural contexts in decoration, style, and meaning.

Another is a small, unassuming clay model shrine from Cyprus that shows the beginning of a preference by the community it came from to display images of their gods or deities in a way that we’re not used to associating with ancient societies. Here we see several communities begin to direct their worship towards a standing stone or perhaps a sacred space, rather than

rendering the divine in a human or physical form. The Phoenicians were one such community and we associate this little shrine with the Phoenician goddess Astarte. Inside the shrine is an image which shares both the features of a standing stone and a figural image of goddess. So, it’s a fascinating piece that points to a mix of traditions circulating in the Iron Age.

And last, a telegram cable which says a lot about the complicated context in which the first excavation of Beth Shean began. It’s a 1919 message from the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (a short-lived government run by the British military) to the field director of the Museum’s excavations in Egypt, Dr. Clarence Fisher, denying him permission to excavate in Palestine given the area’s political precarity. This is just months after the War ended, and to me it shows the eagerness with which the Museum—and other institutions—were trying to get into the region to begin their work.

Lauren Ristvet, Ph.D., lead curator, is the Dyson Associate Curator, Near East Section, and Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology. Virginia Herrmann, Ph.D., co-curator, is co-director of excavations at Zincirli, Türkiye. Eric Hubbard, cocurator, is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Anthropology. Joanna S. Smith, Ph.D., co-curator, is a Consulting Scholar in the Mediterranean Section.

OBJECT HIGHLIGHTS: LAUREN RISTVET

period from Beth Shean, Palmyra,

Cyprus.

On this fragment of a limestone mortuary stone with a relief bust of a bearded man in a tunic and mantle, the black pigment around his hair and eyes is partly preserved. The slab bears a Palmyrene inscription to the right of his head. Excavated in 1890; B8906.

“One thing that was fun for me to work on were the funerary portraits of the Roman

and

We are going to do a project on the pigments on these in the future.”

“the Beth Shean sarcophagi... they are amazing. There are wonderful sarcophagi lids on display in Israel but we are the only museum to have them in North America. They help us tell a complicated story about people in empire...”

Goddesses, Mothers, & Rulers

Womanhood in an Ancient Patriarchal Society

BY ERHAN TAMUR

The exhibition She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, ca. 3400–2000 BC, is on view at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York from October 14, 2022, through February 19, 2023. Co-curated by Sidney Babcock, Jeannette and Jonathan Rosen Curator and Department Head, Ancient Western Asian Seals & Tablets, and Erhan Tamur, the exhibition brings together for the first time a comprehensive selection of artworks from the British Museum, the Louvre, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Vorderasiatisches Museum, and the Penn Museum, among others, that capture rich and shifting expressions of women’s lives in ancient Mesopotamia during the 3rd millennium BC.

The Penn Museum loans to She Who Wrote include breathtakingly crafted objects associated with two of ancient Mesopotamia’s most powerful and important women: Puabi, Queen of Ur in her own right (ca. 2500 BC), and the high priestess and poet Enheduanna, (ca. 2300 BC), the earliest named author in world literature. These objects were among the approximately 28,000 uncovered by a team of archaeologists headed by C. Leonard Woolley from a series of Royal Tombs between 1922 and 1934 and divided, through the system of partage, between the Iraq Museum, the British Museum, and the Penn Museum. Thanks to the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation, the Kowalski Family Foundation, and the Hagop Kevorkian Fund, the objects from these excavations housed at the British Museum and the Penn Museum can be found together online at the website www.ur-online. org. The opportunity, though, to view together in She Who Wrote two of the three cylinder seals found against Puabi’s right arm, one from the Penn Museum collection and the other from the British Museum, is an exceptional treat (see page 39).

In the article that follows, adapted from a 2021 version on The Morgan’s blog, co-curator Erhan Tamur describes how the objects in She Who Wrote bear testament to women’s roles in religious contexts as goddesses, priestesses, and worshippers as well as in social, economic, and political spheres as mothers, workers, and rulers.

—Amanda Mitchell-Boyask

Above, top: Seated female figure with tablet on lap, Ur III period (ca. 2112–2004 BC), alabaster; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Vorderasiatisches Museum, acquired 1913; VA 04854. Photo by SMB/ Olaf M. Teßmer. Above: Large gold earrings (10.2 cm x 10.5 cm) found on Queen Puabi in grave 800 of the Royal Cemetery at Ur. Penn Museum, excavated 1927/28; PM B17712B. Opposite page, top: Disk of Enheduanna, Ur (modern Tell el-Muqayyar), gipar, Akkadian period, ca. 2300 BC, alabaster; Penn Museum, excavated 1926; PM B16665. Opposite page, bottom: Choker necklace found at the neck of Queen Puabi in grave 800 of the Royal Cemetery at Ur. Penn Museum, excavated 1927/28; PM B16694.

SOCIETY

She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, ca. 3400–2000 BC

The first author known by name in history was a woman: Enheduanna. She received this name, which means “high priestess, ornament of heaven” in Sumerian, upon her appointment to the temple of the moon god in Ur, a city in southern Mesopotamia, in present-day Iraq. As the daughter of the Akkadian king Sargon (ca. 2334–2279 BC),

Enheduanna not only exercised considerable religious, political, and economic influence but also left an indelible mark on world literature by composing extraordinary works in Sumerian. Her poetry reflected her deep devotion to the goddess of sexual love and warfare—Inanna in Sumerian, Ishtar in Akkadian.

Rendering of the exhibition She Who Wrote with the funerary ensemble of Queen Puabi centered. The alabaster plaque depicting Enheduanna, the first named woman author, is to the right of the funerary ensemble, at back. Rendering view by Stephen Saitas Designs.

Making Enheduanna its focal point, this exhibition, which I co-curated with Sidney Babcock, brings together a comprehensive selection of artworks that capture rich and shifting expressions of women’s lives in Mesopotamia during the late fourth and third millennia BC. These works bear testament to women’s roles in religious contexts as goddesses, priestesses, and worshippers, as well as in social, economic, and political spheres as mothers, workers, and rulers. The Penn Museum generously loaned to The Morgan a spectacular group of artworks that speak to several key threads that run through the show.

The exhibition opens with an overview of representations of women from the earliest Mesopotamian cities founded around 3500 BC, where writing

Note: while the Penn Museum usually uses the BCE/CE system for time periods, this article follows the exhibition curators’ use of BC/AD system, which they feel gives an opportunity to engage head-on with the prevailing, exclusionary calendar systems and the history and dynamics of their dominance.

was invented, and major cult centers were formed. The rise of urban life in these early complex societies highly depended on women’s labor. As skilled workers, they produced textiles, pottery, and various agricultural goods.

Women were also active participants in the realm of religion. Hundreds of Mesopotamian deities, arranged in genealogical hierarchies, were known by name, and each presided over specific aspects of human life. Individuals, communities, cities, and states honored particular patron deities, for whom they constructed special places of worship and carried out elaborate rituals. Women engaged in these religious practices both as priestesses overseeing the cult and the organization of temples and as worshippers bringing offerings to the temples and dedicating images of themselves praying to deities.

The Realm of Inanna

To fully appreciate the role of women in ancient Mesopotamia, one must also look to their divine counterparts, goddesses. The fourth millennium BC marks the earliest symbolic representations of deities. For

Head of a female figure, Mesopotamia, Sumerian, Tutub (modern Khafajah), Nintu Temple VI, Early Dynastic IIIa period (2600–2450 BC), Alabaster and bitumen; Penn Museum, excavated 1938; PM 38-10-51.

instance, reed-ring bundles, which served as doorposts in the marshes of southern Mesopotamia, resembled the cuneiform rendering of Inanna’s name and became a visual symbol for her presence. As a warlike goddess, she was fierce and unforgiving, but she supported her favorite kings in battle and legitimized their political power. In fact, the concord between her and the ruler was central to the sustenance of the people, the maintenance of the herds, and the well-being of the land. Simply put, her presence preserved the cycle of life in early Mesopotamia, so clearly displayed in the celebrated Uruk Vase. In the centuries to come, deities began to be represented anthropomorphically, and iconographical conventions were developed to differentiate goddesses and mortal women. Goddesses were shown wearing horned crowns over their voluminous hair, for example, or holding clusters of dates. At times, the crowns are arrayed with branches, feathers, or animal heads; vegetal elements, such as flowers or stems, are occasionally seen above their shoulders— symbolizing fertility and abundance. In addition, particular goddesses began to be represented frontally, with direct gazes that exuded power and authority.

Above: Cylinder seal (and modern impression) with two female figures presenting offerings, Early Dynastic IIIa period, ca. 2500 BC, marble; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Vorderasiatisches Museum, acquired from Elias Solomon David, 1912; VA 03878. Photo by SMB/Olaf M. Teßmer. Right: Uruk Vase, Uruk (modern Warka), Eanna Precinct, Late Uruk–Jemdet Nasr period, ca. 3300–2900 BC; The Iraq Museum, Baghdad, excavated 1933–34; IM 19606. A plaster cast of the vase, loaned from the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Vorderasiatisches Museum, is on view. Photo by Wikimedia.

SOCIETY

Individual Women and Women of Prominence

Mortal women likewise featured a rich repertoire of hairstyles, garments, and accessories as reflected in their votive portraits. Portraiture in ancient Mesopotamia was more concerned with capturing an individual’s essence than her likeness, and these portraits stood for the depicted individuals in sanctuaries, in proximity to the divine for perpetuity. Two sculptures loaned from the Penn Museum not only reflect the stylistic variety of the time but also showcase the extraordinary attention paid to ensure the sculptures’ longevity: Both artworks demonstrate potential ancient repairs in the form of drilled mortises in the neck, perhaps to reattach the head to its body with the help of bitumen (see page 37). Many of these women took part in economic transactions, oversaw festive banquets, and participated in religious rituals. For instance, a pair of objects shaped like crafting tools record the first woman in history known by name, KAGÍR-gal, who may have been involved in a land sale. Another remarkable work, bearing the earliest known artist’s signature, records the donation of an estate on behalf of a woman named Shara-igizi-Abzu.

Stone scraper and chisel recording the first woman known by name (KA-GÍRgal), Jemdet Nasr–Early Dynastic period, ca. 3000–2750 BC, schist (phyllite), Proto-cuneiform inscriptions; The British Museum, London, 1899; BM 86260 and 86261. Photo courtesy of The Trustees of the British Museum.

Queen Puabi

The first half of the exhibition ends with one of the most famous personalities from ancient Mesopotamia: Queen Puabi of Ur (ca. 2500 BC). She died at about age forty and was interred in a stone tomb chamber with an elaborate ceremony, which involved the ritual sacrifice of soldiers, musicians, and servants.

The exquisite artworks associated with Puabi are renowned pieces of the permanent collection of the Penn Museum. The Morgan is deeply grateful for the loan of many of these objects. The most spectacular among these is Puabi’s funerary ensemble: Her body, when excavated in 1927, was still adorned with beads of precious stones and other pieces of jewelry, as well as an ornate headdress that represents the earliest perfection of metalworking techniques that are still in use today. In addition, three cylinder seals were found against her upper right arm, attached to three garment pins that secured her cloak. Two of these seals and one of the garment pins are on view in the exhibition. Although women’s seals generally bore inscriptions describing them in relation to their husbands and fathers, Puabi’s seal gives only her own name and title as queen, which suggests that she ruled in her own right.

Fragment of a vessel with frontal image of goddess, Early Dynastic IIIb period, ca. 2400 BC, basalt, cuneiform inscription in Sumerian; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Vorderasiatisches Museum, acquired 1914–15; VA 07248. Photo by SMB/Olaf M. Teßmer.

Clockwise, from left: Queen Puabi’s funerary ensemble, Ur (modern Tell elMuqayyar), Puabi’s Tomb Chamber, on Puabi’s body, Early Dynastic IIIa period, ca. 2500 BC, gold, lapis lazuli, carnelian, silver, and agate; Penn Museum, excavated 1927–28. Two of the three cylinder seals (with modern impression) of Queen Puabi, Mesopotamia, Sumerian, Ur (modern Tell el-Muqayyar), found in Puabi’s Tomb Chamber in the 1927/28 excavation season, against Puabi’s upper right arm, Early Dynastic IIIa period, ca. 2500 BC, both lapis lazuli. Reunited in the exhibition, the top seal is in the collection of the Penn Museum, PM B16728. The bottom seal is in the collection of the British Museum, BM 121544, photo courtesy of The Trustees of the British Museum. Garment pin of Queen Puabi, Mesopotamia, Sumerian, Ur (modern Tell el-Muqayyar), Puabi’s Tomb Chamber, against Puabi’s upper right arm, Early Dynastic IIIa period, ca. 2500 BC, Gold and lapis lazuli; Penn Museum, excavated 1927/28; PM B16729.

Enheduanna: High Priestess, First Author

The second half of the show centers around Enheduanna: her literary works, related images, and her abiding legacy. By the late twenty-fourth century BC, the Akkadian king Sargon (ca. 2334–2279 BC) had united most of Mesopotamia under his authority and paved the way for the world’s first empire, the Akkadian Empire. Its capital, Agade, possibly located close to modern-day Baghdad, has yet to be discovered. Sargon’s appointment of his daughter Enheduanna as the high priestess of the moon god Nanna in Ur was part of his efforts to consolidate his new empire. In Enheduanna’s writings, all in Sumerian despite her Akkadian origins, the Sumerian goddess Inanna was merged with her Akkadian counterpart, Ishtar. Whereas much of ancient Mesopotamian literature is unattributed, Enheduanna introduced herself by name in two of her poems, “The Exaltation of Inanna” and “A Hymn to Inanna.” A third, “Inanna and Ebih,” is ascribed to her due to its style and content. All of these texts come down to us only in copies made centuries after her death.

In “The Exaltation of Inanna,” a well-preserved, one-tablet edition on loan from the Penn Museum,

Enheduanna included astonishing autobiographical details such as her struggle against a certain Lugalanne, most likely the historically attested king of Ur, who attempted to forcefully remove her from her office:

Yes, I took up my place in the sanctuary dwelling, I was high priestess, I, Enheduanna.

Though I bore the offering basket, though I chanted the hymns, A death offering was ready, was I no longer living? I went towards light, it felt scorching to me, I went towards shade, it shrouded me in swirling dust. A slobbered hand was laid across my honeyed mouth, What was fairest in my nature was turned to dirt. O Moon-god Suen, is this Lugalanne my destiny? Tell heaven to set me free of it!

Just say it to heaven! Heaven will set me free!

[…]

When Lugalanne stood paramount, he expelled me from the temple, He made me fly out the window like a swallow, I had had my taste of life, He made me walk a land of thorns. He took away the noble diadem of my holy office, He gave me a dagger: ‘This is just right for you,’ he said.

Tablet inscribed with “The Exaltation of Inanna,” Mesopotamia, Nippur (modern Nuffar), Old Babylonian period, ca. 1750 BC, Clay; Penn Museum, Babylonian Expedition Fund, Purchase, 1888; CBS 7847 + PM 29-15-422.

Translation from Benjamin R. Foster, The Age of Agade: Inventing Empire in Ancient Mesopotamia. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016, 333-34.

The compiler of this tablet is Enheduanna. My king, something has been produced that no person had produced before.

Enheduanna turned to Inanna for help, as the moon god Nanna, whom she served, remained indifferent to her pleas. Fortunately, Inanna accepted her prayers, and Enheduanna was restored to her office. This poem was the culmination of her struggle, a cry that she no longer could keep inside. In fact, she added a remarkable line about her own creative process, stating that she has “given birth” to this poem:

One has heaped up the coals (in the censer), prepared the lustration. The nuptial chamber awaits you, let your heart be appeased! With ‘it is enough for me, it is too much for me!’ I have given birth, oh exalted lady, (to this song) for you. That which I recited to you at (mid)night May the singer repeat it to you at noon!

Translation from William W. Hallo and J. J. A. van Dijk, The Exaltation of Inanna. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968, 33.

Enheduanna also compiled short temple hymns that praised various Mesopotamian sanctuaries. There she articulated a unified religious landscape by connecting the temples of southern Mesopotamia with those in the north, perhaps in line with the broader political aspirations of her father. The postscript to the last hymn attributes its compilation to Enheduanna:

The compiler of this tablet is Enheduanna. My king, something has been produced that no person had produced before.

Translation from Charles Halton and Saana Svärd, Women’s Writing of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Anthology of the Earliest Female Authors. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018, 79.

In addition to these extraordinary literary compositions, several artworks referencing her name or image come down to us. The most notable among them comes to our exhibition from the Penn Museum: a disk-shaped alabaster plaque, dedicated to a temple in commemoration of a construction, on which Enheduanna is prominently placed in the middle of the

Above: Wall plaque with priest before the goddess Ninhursag, Girsu (modern Tello), Early Dynastic IIIa period, ca. 2500 BCE, calcite, 6 7/8 × 6 5/16 × 13/16 in. (17.4 × 16 × 2.1 cm); Musée du Louvre, Départment des Antiquités Orientales, Paris, excavated 1881; AO 276. Photo by Franck Raux courtesy of the Musée du Louvre. Below: Reverse side of the Disk of Enheduanna, Ur (modern Tell el-Muqayyar), gipar, Akkadian period, ca. 2300 BC, alabaster; Cuneiform inscription in Sumerian: En-ḫ[e]du-ana, zirru priestess, wife of the god Nanna, daughter of Sargon, [king] of the world, in [the temple of the goddess Inan]na-ZA.ZA in [U]r, made a [soc]le (and) named it: ‘dais, table of (the god) An’; Penn Museum, excavated 1926; PM B16665.

composition. A clay sealing and two seals belonging to individuals in Enheduanna’s entourage identify her by name and testify to her eminent position overseeing many institutions. These seals feature “contest scenes,” a popular theme in Mesopotamian glyptic, showing battling animals, heroes, and hybrid beings. Their struggle is interpreted as one between the wild and the domesticated, the chaotic and the orderly. Although Akkadian-period seals generally isolate the contesting pairs, as exemplified by the spectacular banded chalcedony seal of Šaggullum, seals owned by Enheduanna’s servants retain the friezelike, continuous compositions of earlier periods. This visual continuity with the Sumerian past accords with Enheduanna’s role in her father’s ambition to unify Sumer and Akkad. Enheduanna’s writings were also essential for the fusion between Inanna and Ishtar, and Ishtar’s eventual eclipsing of Inanna. Ishtar became the foundation of the Akkadian Empire, referred to as the “dynasty of Ishtar” in later historical sources. Enheduanna’s temple hymns culminate with Ishtar’s temple at Agade,

and Enheduanna’s overall characterization of the goddess—her propensity for violence, associations with fertility, and superiority within the Mesopotamian pantheon—may even have influenced contemporary visual portrayals. In cylinder seals from the Akkadian period, Ishtar is shown dominating formidable lions and gods while turning toward the viewer. Maces and sickle axes are seen around her shoulders as well as branches bearing fruit. Such images and Enheduanna’s texts worked together to form a powerful and threatening representation of the goddess.

Motherhood: Birth, Creation, and Nurturing

Enheduanna described herself as a mother to her poem “The Exaltation of Inanna.” The concept of motherhood in her day extended beyond biology to recognize the nurturing provided by wet nurses, midwives, and mothers both human and divine. According to ancient texts, the quintessential Mesopotamian mother goddess, Ninhursag, embodied these various types of motherhood by giving form to

1.

Cylinder seal (and modern impression) with contest scene, Akkadian period, ca. 2200 BC, banded chalcedony; Cuneiform inscription in Sumerian: Puzur-Šullat, šangû priest of BÀD.KI, Šaggullum, the scribe, (is) his servant; The British Museum, London, acquired 1825, ex-collection Claudius James Rich; BM 89147. Photo courtesy of The Trustees of the British Museum. 2. Cylinder seal (and modern impression) with goddesses Ninishkun and Ishtar, Akkadian period (ca. 2334–2154 BC), limestone; Cuneiform inscription: To the deity Niniškun, Ilaknuid, [seal]-cutter, presented (this); The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, acquired 1947; A27903. Photo by Anna R. Ressman, courtesy of The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. 3. Cylinder seal (and modern impression) with mother and child attended by women, Ur (modern Tell el-Muqayyar), PG 871, Akkadian period (ca. 2334–2154 BC), carnelian and gold; Penn Museum, excavated 1928; PM B16924.

Fragment of a standing female figure with clasped hands, Girsu (modern Tello), possibly the reign of Gudea, ruler of Lagash, ca. 2150 BC, chlorite; Musée du Louvre, Départment des Antiquités Orientales, Paris, excavated 1881; AO 295. Photo by Thierry Olivier courtesy of R.M.N.

kings’ bodies, assisting in their births, and serving as their wet nurse. Glyptic imagery from both Sumer and Akkad attests to the many maternal figures that could exist in a child’s life, often demonstrating the pride these figures took in the nurturing they provided. An excellent example comes from the Penn Museum in the form of a carnelian seal with the rare depiction of a mother holding her child in her lap, accompanied by three attendants.

Women Who Came After

The office of the high priestess not only existed prior to Enheduanna’s time, but also remained intact for centuries to come. Many later high priestesses were, like Enheduanna, daughters of rulers and heads of major temples, wielding religious, political, and economic power. They are generally distinguished by their flounced robes, long and loose hairstyles, and characteristic headdresses. Such iconographic features help us identify other figures as high priestesses, such as a female head with deeply cut, piercing eyes found in the sacred precinct at Ur and on loan from the Penn Museum. Another example is an exquisite statuette with a tablet in her lap (see page 35) that encapsulates one of the main threads of the exhibition: women and authorship. Other women of high rank, including members of the royal family, were often depicted

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

wearing fringed garments and having their hair tied in chignons or other intricate coiffures. The exhibition concludes with a selection of such images from the end of the third millennium BC.

The artworks that are brought together She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia showcase painstaking artistry and striking stylistic variety in the representation of women, often combining delicately executed naturalism with powerfully expressive stylization. These works have withstood millennia, lending us breathtaking insight into an oftenoverlooked aspect of an ancient patriarchal society: womanhood. Enheduanna’s passionate voice had a lasting impact as her writings continued to be copied in scribal schools for centuries after she died. Uniting a spectacular assortment of her texts and related images for the first time, She Who Wrote celebrates Enheduanna’s timeless poetry and abiding legacy as an author, a priestess, and a woman.

Erhan Tamur received his Ph.D. in art history and archaeology from Columbia University. He is the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a curatorial research associate at the Morgan Library & Museum. He has worked and published on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century art historical theory, style and ethnicity, and the politics of archaeology.

FOR FURTHER READING

Babcock, S., and E. Tamur (eds.) 2022. She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia. New York: The Morgan Library & Museum.

She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, ca. 3400-2000 B.C. is made possible through the generosity of Jeannette and Jonathan Rosen.

Additional support is provided by an anonymous donor in memory of Dr. Edith Porada, the Andrew W. Mellon Research and Publications Fund, Becky and Tom Fruin, Laurie and David Ying, and by a gift in memory of Max Elghanayan, with assistance from Lauren Belfer and Michael Marissen, and from an anonymous donor.

Analyzing Guastavino Akoustolith Tiles

BY JOSÉ HERNÁNDEZ

SINCE ANTIQUITY, reverberation and echo have been linked to monumental, vaulted spaces. Classical Roman temples and medieval Gothic cathedrals produced a recognizable soundscape. This relationship was considered as natural as gravity. Vaults, domes, coves, pendentives (triangular segments of a spherical surface which support a dome), and other concave surfaces produced a certain soundscape of high reverberation and echo.

At the turn of the 20th century, Harvard professor Wallace Clement Sabine (1868–1919) and master builder Rafael Guastavino Jr. (1872–1950) invented an artificial stone that was structural, imitated traditional masonry, and absorbed the mid- and high frequencies of the human voice in large, vaulted interiors. Branded as Akoustolith tile, the stone was bonded to the selfsupporting vaults of interlocking structural clay tiles that Guastavino popularized at the turn of the 20th century. The Akoustolith consisted of well-sorted pumice particles bonded with Portland cement at close points of contact, creating a network of voids that absorbed excessive reverberation. This network of voids transformed the kinetic energy of the frequencies between middle C (261 Hz) and three octaves above middle C (349 Hz) into heat that dissipated within the stone. The Akoustolith enjoyed tremendous success as a corrective to excessive reverberation in vaulted spaces of major cultural institutions in America during the early 20th century, including the Penn Museum.

Last spring, I joined a cohort of Penn graduate students taking Dr. Marie-Claude Boileau’s course CLST 7311: Petrography of Cultural Materials, an advanced class where students conducted original and independent scientific research on archaeological projects. My research included an in-depth study of the Guastavino Akoustolith used in the ceiling of the Coxe (Egyptian) Wing at the Penn Museum. Completed in 1924, the Coxe Wing featured a barrel-vaulted ceiling with Guastavino tiles on the upper-level galleries. Guastavino specified Akoustolith tile to be used on the interior soffit of these vaults, delivering a quiet soundscape for museum visitors.

Section through the Coxe Wing roof with Akoustolith tile as soffit (magenta). Image from the Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company architectural records, 1866–1985, courtesy of Avery Architectural Fine Arts Library, Columbia University.

microstructure of all the components of the Guastavino ceiling—structural clay tiles (423A1–A2), mortar (423B), and Akoustolith tile (423C)—provided invaluable information on the origin of the clay, workmanship practices, the degree of adhesion of the assembly, and observed deterioration mechanisms.

The analysis revealed that the Akoustolith used at the Cox Wing varied in the microstructure from the original 1915 patent. These insights and observations

AKOUSTOLITH TILE, manufactured by R. Guastavino Co., was first used in the Harrison Wing Rotunda and Auditorium, opened in 1915—a decade before the Coxe (Egyptian) Wing. Architectural plans for the Rotunda incorporated a large lecture hall as the University’s need for such a space was so great. To eliminate pillars in the auditorium, which would have obstructed the view of the stage, the architects re-engineered the building using the Guastavino construction, new at that time but a revival of an ancient method.

informed my thesis, Vaults Speak: A History and Material Analysis of Guastavino Akoustolith Tiles (MSc in Historic Preservation, 2022), where I investigated the relationship between compressive strength and porosity. Based on my research, I recommended improvements to the original formula, including sealing the pores of the bedding face of Akoustolith tiles to increase adhesion to the Guastavino vaulting.

José Hernández, GFA22, is the Lab Manager of the Architectural Conservation Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania.

Location of Akoustolith tile as a soffit layer to the larger Guastavino timbrel arch construction assembly, Coxe Wing, Penn Museum; image by the author.

A December 1915 article in The Museum Journal describes the result: “The engineering achievement was the tremendous 90-foot span of the floor, providing a column-less auditorium of near-perfect acoustics.”

Other noted domed locations created with Guastavino tiles are the Registry Room on Ellis Island, the Oyster Bar and Whispering Gallery at Grand Central Station, and the Bronx Zoo Elephant House all in New York City.

Above: A fragment of Guastavino vaulting with Akoustolith tile from the ceiling of the Coxe Wing, Penn Museum; EP-2010-7-423; photo by Marie-Claude Boileau.

Right: Cross-polarized view (left) and plane-polarized light (right) of a thin section of Akoustolith stone showing the interconnected air voids (AV) created by Italian pumice grains (P) bonded with Portland cement (C). Some inclusions (magenta arrows) share the same mafic volcanic origin as the pumice. Photo by the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials.

The Ksâr´Akil Rockshelter: A Corridor of Change and Innovation

BY AYLAR ABDOLAHZADEH AND SARAH LINN

The Museum Assistantship Program was started with the goal of pairing Penn Museum projects in need of research assistance with qualified Penn graduate students from relevant departments. Since Fall of 2019, the program has funded 23 students to work on 20 projects throughout the academic year. The projects range from designing an exhibition about the history of the Anthropology Department, to intensive collections research, to creating a new tour all about food. Each project fills a need for the Museum and provides graduate students from departments and programs including Anthropology, Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and Africana Studies with research experience and professional development opportunities. What follows is a case study of one student’s experience working closely with Katherine Blanchard, Fowler-Van Santfoord Keeper, Near East Section, on cataloging and digitizing lithic material to make it available to the public.

Right, top: Aylar Abdolahzadeh working on the Ksar Akil lithics in the study room at Penn Museum.

Photo by Breyasia Scott. Right, bottom: View of the Ksâr´Akil rockshelter during the Tixier excavation in 1975; photo by Prof. Marcel Otte.

AS PART OF THE MUSEUM ASSISTANTSHIP PROGRAM, I was invited to work on the Ksâr ´Akil lithic collection from Lebanon with the goal of reintroducing the Ksâr ´Akil lithic artifacts to a broad audience through an online catalog.

The Ksâr ´Akil rockshelter is located in the northern tributary of the Wadi Antelias River Valley, about 10 km northeast of Beirut, in central Lebanon, and 2 km from the present Mediterranean coast. Reintroducing the Ksâr ´Akil lithic collection is important for several reasons. First, the geological location of the Ksâr ´Akil rockshelter in the Levant is significant because archaeological evidence has showed the presence of modern humans (H. sapiens) at this rockshelter around 45,900 years ago at a time when modern humans were migrating from Africa into Eurasia through the Levantine corridor. All stone artifacts, such as scrapers and small points excavated from this site, represent cultural technological innovations and connectivity with adjacent regions. Second, the study of the Ksâr ´Akil lithic collection is important because these collections were distributed to several museums and institutes around the USA as well as the Institute of Archaeology in London based on the protocol of the time (1930s–1940s) for academic studies. Therefore, through cataloging these lithic artifacts, we reintroduce researchers to this collection at the Penn Museum and make information available to the public.

The first systematic excavations at Ksâr ´Akil, funded by Boston College, MA, began in 1937, but was halted by end of 1938 due to the Second World War. A new season of excavation began in 1947 and ended in 1948. A French team led by Jacques Tixier re-excavated the site’s upper layers from 1969–1975; unfortunately political unrest in the 1970s led to the loss of parts of their findings and excavation notes, making the most complete and available source of information and materials those of the excavations funded by Boston College.

As part of the Penn Museum assistantship lithic project, I began by identifying the lithics by their artifact types, describing their technological and other features, and assigning them numbers within a series. The lithics were then photographed by Katherine Blanchard, and both the images and the data were uploaded into the database by Daniela Bono for public and academic access.

What I found is that modern humans scraped animal bones using specific stone artifacts, such as scrapers, blades (long, parallel-sided artifacts), and burins (“chisels”), to produce awls and bone points. The Ksâr ´Akil scrapers might have been also used for preparing hides or peeling plant roots. This indicates that people at Ksâr ´Akil rockshelter were innovative in making and using tools.

For me, working on the Ksâr ´Akil lithics was significant because we were able to move beyond the legacy of past protocols by developing a modern and systematic database, where these data can provide comprehensive information about this lithic archive in terms of technology, artifact types, and stone raw materials for future research, as well as improve its visibility and accessibility for public and educational purposes. Professionally, analyzing the lithics from Ksâr ´Akil improved my understanding of modern human behaviors, especially in the context of out-of-Africa migrations during prehistory. Working on museum collections such as this one captures how cultural connectivity through humans’ interactions is a significant behavioral legacy of the past that benefits us today.

Aylar Abdolahzadeh is a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology with an upcoming postdoctoral appointment at Arizona State University; Sarah Linn, Ph.D., is Interim Director of Academic Engagement.

10 mi

Iraq

Syria

Jordan

Turkey

Geographic location of Ksâr ́Akil in relation to Beirut (inset) and the wider Levantine regions.

Bringing Cross-Cultural Learning to Philadelphia Classrooms

BY JENNIFER BREHM, RORUJORONA FERRELL, AND HAIBIN WECHSLER

Thousands of school students each year participate in a global education program called International Classroom. The International Classroom program started in the 1960s to bring international student educators to Philadelphia area K–12 classrooms with the intention of encouraging cross-cultural learning. The program continues today to help students better understand cultures other than their own by hearing presenters share their personal experiences and cultural traditions. The International Classroom program plays a significant role in improving intercultural relations to counter stereotypes and students’ misunderstandings about other nations and their traditions. International Classroom reaches students in grades 3–12 both in the Museum and at schools. Haibin Wechsler is one of the educators working in this dynamic program. Born in Shanghai, China, Haibin immigrated to the United States while in high school. She joined the program after studying for her master’s degree in Education in Intercultural Communication at Penn’s Graduate School of Education. Global Education Manager Rorujorona Ferrell invited Haibin to share her perspective on the impact of International Classroom.

RF: What is International Classroom like?

HW: International Classroom is a terrific program that brings together people with diverse cultural backgrounds. In my case, I introduce Chinese cultural traditions to audiences of different ages such as elementary school students and seniors in adult communities. It is an excellent venue for intercultural communication to take place.

I teach a workshop for younger grades called “Legendary Creatures of China”. Students go into the Penn Museum’s China Gallery, see artifacts with animals such as lions and horses, and learn about how animals have certain meanings in Chinese culture. Then, in a hands-on workshop, they study one of four animals— dragon, horse, panda, or lion—in more depth and do a short presentation about what they have learned.

Older students learn how Buddhism shifted Chinese culture, customs, and religion. Students discuss the ideas of cultural appreciation and appropriation by evaluating contemporary images of Buddhism in popular culture. For example, what happens if you wear traditional Chinese clothing for Halloween or at a prom? Students talk about the differences between appropriation and appreciation in these situations.

RF: What is the best part of the International Classroom program?

HW: There are so many good parts of the program. The most impressive takeaway for me as an educator is how rewarding the whole experience has been. There

Haibin Wechsler photographed in the Penn Museum’s Asia Galleries

has been so much positive feedback and response from the program’s audiences, especially when a grant from the Freeman Foundation allowed us the opportunity to reach out to Philadelphia Title 1 schools to offer a free program, Inquiry Into China. These schools struggle to pay for these kinds of programs without funding. Students have limited knowledge of Chinese culture and limited access to Chinese educators. They are so excited to see me there and to learn about Chinese culture. Their enthusiasm is so infectious, and I feel very welcome in their classrooms because they are so receptive. They tell me afterwards what words they have learned and what they were excited about from the lesson.

International Classroom provides a wonderful opportunity to address challenging issues such as prejudice and racism in the classroom and in society around us. Students have asked me about the origins of COVID and sometimes have vocalized racist terms

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

about the Chinese. The International Classroom program has allowed me the opportunity to answer students’ questions and to correct these misunderstandings.

RF: What should teachers know about International Classroom?

HW: Teachers should know that this program is a great vehicle for their students to learn about diverse cultures, especially Chinese culture. It allows teachers and students to connect with someone from that culture to share their individual experiences. This is more impactful than reading about another culture in a textbook or even watching a video.

Jennifer Brehm is Merle-Smith Director of Learning and Community Engagement; Rorujorona Ferrell is Global Education Manager; Haibin Wechsler is an International Classroom Educator and a Global Guide.

International Classroom is made possible by the International Classroom Endowment and the Charles C. Harrison Endowment. With generous support from the Freeman Foundation, Penn Museum offers the Inquiry to China programs for free for a limited number of Philadelphia’s Title 1 classrooms. To request a program, please contact www.penn.museum/sites/k12 or ic@pennmuseum.org.

Haibin Wechsler teaching a class as part of the International Classroom Program.

Gifts of Objects Enhance American and Asian Section Collections

BY AVA CAPPITELLI

AT ITS JUNE 2022 MEETING, the Penn Museum Acquisitions Committee voted unanimously to accept three collections of objects and four collections of archival records. All three of the collections of objects were especially meaningful because of the donors’ longstanding connections with the Museum and will enrich our understanding of musical, agricultural, and religious traditions across continents.

A gift of 16 objects to the American Section comes from the estate of Joseph J. Rishel, legendary Curator of European Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA), originally in the collection of his late wife, PMA Director Anne d’Harnoncourt. Many were passed to her by her father, René d’Harnoncourt, former director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) and frequent guest on the Penn Museum’s weekly half-hour television show What in the World? ®, which ran from 1951 to 1965. The elder d’Harnoncourt was a champion of the arts of Indigenous populations in the 1940s and 50s through his positions as head of the Indian Arts & Craft Board and at MoMA.

The Rishel/d’Harnoncourt collection includes rare pieces of Indigenous American jewelry, including pieces that Anne d’Harnoncourt often wore from the Zuni and Navajo peoples that are stunning examples of silver casting technique and of joining small pieces of stone and shell. “[Zuni Pueblo] tradition connects back to the jewelry of their Pueblo ancestors recovered in the archaeological record at places like Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, ca.1100 CE,” notes Lucy Fowler William, Associate Curator in the American section.

The objects passed down from René d’Harnoncourt include Meso-American stone figurines that he acquired in travels to places including Mexico City and Chile. These artifacts carry stories related to the development of American modernism during the first half of the 20th century through art forms distinct from that of Europe at the time. “The inclusion of objects that he

2022-5-5.

Quechua Chakitaqlla or foot plow made by Fidel Vilca, 1981, Peru or Bolivia; gift of Clark Erickson;

owned and lived with into our collections will allow us to talk about that legacy and his great admiration for the Indigenous artistic traditions of North, Central, and South America,” says American Section Keeper Bill Wierzbowski.

A second gift to the American Section comes from Curator Emeritus Clark Erickson, also Professor Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology, acquired during his work in Bolivia and Peru, where he specialized in the use of intensive agricultural techniques in the ancient Andean region. The collection includes three Tarka wood flutes acquired in Bolivia in the 1970s, which share the rich, living musical tradition of the region. It also includes a smallscale, palm fiber Manioc press acquired in Iquitos, Peru—an excellent example of an old and critically important object used to squeeze out and remove natural toxins in manioc to make it edible. The final object in the Erickson gift is a Quechua Chakitaqlla or foot plow he commissioned from maker Fidel Vilca in 1981: an important and unique addition to the collection as a modern example of an ancient tool still used in Peru and Bolivia today to transform the rugged landscape for farming.

Single strand Zuni fetish necklace of turquoise heishi beads and a world of twenty-seven small animal fetish carvings made of many kinds of stone and shell including turquoise, coral, jet, abalone, and serpentine; gift of Anne d’Harnoncourt and Joseph J. Rishel; 2022-9-16.

The third gifted collection is from Bruce Pearson, in honor of his late wife Dr. Lee Horne, who was a Research Associate in the Museum’s Asian Section and Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology (MASCA) and editor of Expedition from 1991 to 1996. The collection comprises seven brass castings collected by Dr. Horne as part of her ethnoarchaeological fieldwork on Indian metallurgical traditions in the 1980s and 1990s. The Indian brass artisans whom she acquired these from came to the Penn Museum for demonstrations on casting techniques as part of her project and were featured in Expedition’s special issue devoted to

Oil lamp of Panchdipa Lakshmi, the goddess of light, riding an elephant. She holds a kalasha, or oil pitcher, on her head. Gift of Bruce Pearson, in honor of Lee Horne; 2022-7-5.

“Crafts of India” in 1987 (Vol. 29-3). Her accompanying documentation accompanies the objects and is now housed in the Penn Museum Archives.

Asian Section Curators Kathleen Morrison and Adam Smith appreciate these objects both for their scholarly merit and as visually impressive works of art, describing them as “truly amazing” examples of their kind, and envision them in a future exhibit on religious traditions.

Ava Cappitelli is a junior at Bryn Mawr College majoring in the History of Art. As the Penn Museum Marketing & Communications Intern in summer 2022, she assisted in editing Expedition and designed content for the Museum’s social media. She also presented a Daily Dig program on Middle Eastern ceramics.

The Harriet Tubman Museum in Cape May, New Jersey

BY JANE HICKMAN

UNDER DANGEROUS CIRCUMSTANCES, with “slave catchers” close behind, the men and women of the Underground Railroad risked death to lead the enslaved out of brutal conditions and on to new lives. One of the most famous conductors on the Railroad—a collection of secret trails and safe houses—was Harriet Tubman, known to the abolitionist movement as “The Moses of Her People.” During the 1850s, she led hundreds of people, in small groups, over routes she had memorized, through forests, fields, and dense thickets to freedom. In case they got separated, she taught her followers to find their way at night by the North Star. It is also likely she directed enslaved people to travel by boat

across the Delaware Bay from Lewes, Delaware to Cape May, as New Jersey was a Free State. From there, many continued north to New York or Canada.

Tubman received financial support from antislavery groups. To help pay for her rescues, she also worked as a cook and housekeeper for three summers during the early 1850s for families and hotels in Cape May. This seaside town was known at the time for its abolitionist sentiments. A founder of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, Stephen Smith, built a summer home in Cape May. And the Banneker House, one of the best hotels for free Black people, was located there.

During the Civil War, Harriet Tubman worked for the Union as a cook and a nurse. In 1863, she led a military action with 150 African American soldiers to rescue over 700 enslaved people in an operation called the Combahee Ferry Raid. She was the first woman to lead such a large military campaign. After slavery was outlawed, she spoke in support of women’s rights and

Above: The Harriet Tubman Museum in Cape May is the former parsonage of the Macedonia Baptist Church; photo by the Harriet Tubman Museum. Left: The traveling monument “Harriet Tubman: The Journey to Freedom” by sculptor Wesley Wofford, was exhibited in Cape May from June to September 2021. Courtesy of the Wesley Wofford Studio.

for the Women’s Suffrage Movement. She spent her last years in a home she founded for “Aged and Indigent Negroes” in Auburn, New York.

A new museum commemorating Harriet Tubman opened on Juneteenth (June 19) in 2021 in Cape May in the Howell House, the former parsonage of the Macedonia Baptist Church. The parsonage had been vacant for almost 40 years. The museum depicts the life and work of Harriet Tubman and the abolitionist movement in Cape May. A timeline describes important events and individuals associated with the rich history of the local African American community. Many of the objects in the museum, including shackles that date from the 1800s, were collected by Reverend Robert O. Davis, former pastor of the Macedonia Baptist Church. Other objects were donated by 86-year-old Emily Dempsey, a 4th-generation African American resident of Cape May. One of Dempsey’s prized possessions was an 1870s edition of abolitionist William Still’s The Underground Railroad. Still was a free Black man from Burlington County, New Jersey; he later lived at 625 S. Delhi Street in the Philadelphia neighborhood now known as Bella Vista.

The Harriet Tubman Museum is located at 632 Lafayette Street, Cape May, NJ 08204. For more information about the museum and to confirm hours of operation, see info@harriettubmanmuseum. org. Reservations are strongly recommended and are available at https://htmtickets.eventbrite.com/ Admission to the Museum is by timed entry on the hour, $10 plus applicable ticket processing fees for adults, $5 plus applicable fees for children 10 and under. A tour of the museum is included with admission.

Jane Hickman, Ph.D., is the former editor of Expedition. She lives in Cape May and is writing a book on Early Minoan jewelry.

FOR FURTHER READING

Bradford, S. 2004 (1886). Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications. Larson, K.C. 2004. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. New York: Random House. Perrin, P. 1999. The Underground Railroad: Life on the Road to Freedom. Carlisle, MA: Discovery Enterprises. Still, W. 2019 (1878). The Underground Railroad Records: Narrating the Hardships, Hairbreadth Escapes, and Death Struggles of Slaves in their Efforts for Freedom. New York: Modern Library. Harriet. 2019. Movie available on Amazon Prime.

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”

—Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman (ca. 1823–1913) was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, just over the Delaware Bay from Cape May. She risked her life to escape to the north in 1849. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

New Director of Collections

THE PENN MUSEUM was pleased to welcome Laura Hortz Stanton as Director of Collections on September 12. A nationally recognized educator and leader on conservation, preservation, and collections management, Laura was previously Executive Director of Philadelphia’s Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA). Founded in 1977, CCAHA is one of the leading conservation organizations in the United States—serving museums, libraries, archives, all levels of government, and other entities. Laura joined the CCAHA staff in 2005, serving first as Preservation Specialist before advancing as the Director of Preservation Services, and then, in 2014, Executive Director.

Laura is the co-chair of the Storytelling and Preservation working groups for Held in Trust, an initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Foundation for the Advancement in Conservation (FAIC), tasked with

evaluating the preservation of cultural heritage in the U.S. She is also a member of FAIC’s National Heritage Responders, which responds to emergencies and disasters across the country.

She has served on the Leadership Nominating Committee of the American Association of State and Local History (AASLH) and was part of the Member Designation Working Group of the American Institute for Conservation.

Laura received her M.A. from the Museum Studies Program at the Cooperstown Graduate Program and her B.A. in Anthropology and Archaeology from Temple University.

Outside of work Laura can be found spending time with her family, which includes her husband Patrick, their sons Teddy (12) and Eli (8), and their cat Buddy. Her first encounter with the Penn Museum was during a fourth-grade class trip—an experience that left a lifelong mark, sparking her curiosity about the world.

Summer Campers Dig Archaeology

IN EIGHT WEEKS from late June through mid-August, 335 grade school-aged campers enjoyed hands-on interactive workshops, talks with Penn researchers, games of Gaga in the courtyards, and safely globetrotting across time and space in the galleries—from Ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece to North America to Asia—in the Penn Museum’s Anthropology Camp.

According to Assistant Director, Family & Camp Programs Allie Krisch, 53 percent of these campers attended more than one week of camp, with a small percentage attending at least four weeks. The Penn Museum thanks its incredible camp team members who encouraged campers

to make messes while creating projects, answered endless questions while encouraging campers to find answers in stories and lessons, and played many, many games of Mancala and Uno during extended care.

Penn Museum Garners Awards

THE PENN MUSEUM WAS PLEASED to be named best “2022 Museum You Need to Visit” by Philadelphia magazine in its annual BEST OF PHILLY awards, and to win the competitive “Best Overall Social Media Content” for its innovative campaign for The Stories We Wear exhibition from Social Media Day PHL and the Philadelphia Business Journal.

Left: The Marketing & Communications team at the Philadelphia Business Journal awards. Left to right, Kellie O’Brien, Jill DiSanto, Jo Tiongson-Perez, Gaia Faigon, Tina Jones, and Colleen Connolly. Above, from left: Visitor Services Manager Cynthia Whybark, Chief Diversity Officer Tia Jackson-Truitt, Director of Public Relations Jill DiSanto, Associate Director for Group Sales Amanda Grady, and Director of Facilty Rentals Atiya German celebrate the Penn Museum’s Best of Philly award at the awards party.

It takes a village: the 2022 Penn Museum Summer Camp staff with Allie Krisch, Assistant Director, Family & Camp Programs, fourth from left in light blue shirt.

Conservation of Works of Art on Paper

TWO GENEROUS GRANTS from the Sumitomo Foundation have made possible conservation and rehousing of watercolor paintings of Japanese artifacts made for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Acquired from the Tokyo National Museum during the fair, these watercolors were originally painted by the artist Goseda Horyu II. They depict archaeological sites and artifacts from the Stone Age to the Kofun Period such as a haniwa figure, a kofun tomb, and sarcophagi. The Penn Museum partnered with the Philadelphia-based Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA), which specializes in works of art on paper, for treatment and rehousing of the pieces. The treatment of the paintings included cleaning, reduction of tidelines and staining, repairs of tears using mulberry paper and wheat starch paste, filling of areas of loss, humidification and flattening, and rehousing. Each painting was placed into a storage folder constructed with a double-wall, corrugated alkaline paper board backing and alkaline paper board cover.

The treatment and rehousing of these paintings will greatly enhance the ability of researchers and Penn students to study them in close proximity, allowing their historical and cultural significance to be better understood by local and international scholars and perhaps even published. The paintings will be digitized as part of the post-treatment documentation, providing access to the paintings for researchers unable to travel

Watercolor

to Philadelphia, and the paintings are now stable enough for display at the Penn Museum or to be loaned to other institutions for exhibition.

Penn Museum and the CCAHA have collaborated on several conservation projects. Director of Collections and former CCAHA Executive Director Laura Horst Stanton notes in particular a 2009–2011 project funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, to treat and rehouse an important collection of 195 illustrations of Maya pottery and archaeological sites by Mary Louise Baker. Baker was employed as Museum Artist from 1908 to 1936, before the advent of easy and accurate color photography such reproductions illustrated aspects of the finds otherwise not easily conveyed. Among a small group of artists whose precise recording became an essential part of the archaeological record, she came to be recognized as an outstanding practitioner of this unique art form.

Watercolor of a Maya vessel by Mary Louise Curtis Baker; PM Image 165047.

by Goseda Horyu II before (above) and after treatment; PM 21.192.2.

State Department Visitors

IN MAY 2022 the Penn Museum was pleased to welcome Lee Satterthwaite, Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and Brian Nichols, Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs and former U.S. Ambassador to Peru to learn about the breadth of the Museum’s collections and its engagement in international cultural heritage research and preservation, specifically, the work of the Penn Cultural Heritage Center and cultural heritage led by Richard Zettler, Associate Curator-in-Charge, Near East Section, with Michael Danti in northern Iraq.

In July 2022 U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and former Senator Jeffry L. Flake and his wife Cheryl visited the team working at Gordion, Turkey, the ancient site of King Midas, and enjoyed a tour of the site from Director of the Gordion Archaeological Project and Ferry Curator-in-Charge of the Mediterranean Section Brian Rose.

New Grants

GRANTS FROM GOVERNMENT AGENCIES will advance the Penn Museum’s mission this academic year. A new award from the National Endowment for the Humanities supports Unpacking the Past, the Museum’s flagship partnership with the School District of Philadelphia serving middle school students studying ancient cultures. A significant grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services will advance digitization of 21 archival collections in high demand by researchers from several of the Museum’s famed early archaeological excavations including at Piedras Negras (Guatemala), Kourion (Cyprus), and in Egypt at Giza, Memphis, Dendera, and the Dra Abu el-Naga necropolis at Thebes. A National Leadership Grant, also from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, will build the capacity of the Penn Cultural Heritage Center’s Cultural Property Experts on Call program (CPEOC).

Top: Lee Satterthwaite with (center) Chris Woods and (right) Penn Cultural Heritage Center Executive Director Richard Leventhal. Bottom: Jeff and Cheryl Flake examine excavated finds at the Gordion dig house with Director of the Gordion Archaeological Project Brian Rose.

Top: Seán Hemingway shares with Visionaries how this ancient Roman figural relief sculpture, carved from a single block of marble, combines the stories of Narcissus and Echo with that of the abduction of the hero Hylas as he was fetching water for the Argonauts; photo by Amanda Mitchell-Boyask. Bottom: View of the East Room of J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library; Photography by Graham S. Haber, 2010.

Member Events, Enjoyed and Invited

PENN MUSEUM VISIONARIES TAKE NEW YORK

On April 29 Visionaries joined Brian Rose, Ferry Curator in Charge, Mediterranean Section, and Williams Director Chris Woods in New York City for full day of curated programming. The day began in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Greek and Roman Galleries with a special tour from Seán Hemingway, John A. and Carole O. Moran Curator in Charge. After lunch at a local restaurant, the group then enjoyed a tour of the special exhibition Pompeii in Color: The Life of Roman Painting at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World from Associate Director of Exhibitions and Galleries Clare Fitzgerald.

On October 27, Visionaries are invited to tour She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, ca. 3400–2000 BC at The Morgan Library & Museum with co-curator Sidney Babcock, Jeannette and Jonathan Rosen Curator and Department Head, Ancient Western Asian Seals & Tablets, which includes loaned Penn Museum artifacts including the famed funerary ensemble of Queen Puabi and the “Disc of Enheduanna,” high priestess and poet (see page 38).

BETTER TOGETHER: SPRING 2022 LEADERSHIP DINNER

On May 3, the Penn Museum was delighted to welcome members of the Loren Eiseley Circle, Visionaries, and leadership volunteers for the first inperson annual Leadership Dinner since 2019. Guests enjoyed cocktails in the Warden Garden before an update on the transformation of Penn’s campus and the Museum from Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli and Williams Director Chris Woods, and dinner in the upper Egyptian Gallery.

EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN GALLERY: MEMBERS SEE IT FIRST!

Penn Museum members are invited to be among the first to see the reimagined Eastern Mediterranean Gallery and explore more than 400 artifacts representing a crossroads of cultural exchange.

Visionaries

and Supporting Circle Members

(Loren Eiseley Circle, Fellows, and Patrons) are invited to a reception and gallery preview with the curators on Tuesday, November 15 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM.

All members are invited to celebrate the opening of the Eastern Mediterranean Gallery at our after-hours Member Preview on Friday, November 18 from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM where you can tour at your own pace among minimal crowds, and enjoy coffee, tea, and light bites. Or use your Members’ free admission to enjoy our two-day opening weekend, November 19–20, featuring family friendly hands-on workshops, performances, pop-up talks from our Museum experts and more!

Top: Members (left to right) Mark Curchack, Nicholas and Anna Hadgis, and Ann and David Brownlee enjoy cocktails in the Warden Garden at the Leadership Dinner; photo by Eddy Marenco. Bottom: Rendering of the Eastern Mediterranean Gallery entering from the Rome Gallery by the Penn Museum Exhibits Team.

Member Spotlight: Jean Walker, SW74

Longtime Penn Museum Egyptian Section volunteer Jean Walker— recognized as the Museum’s Volunteer of the Year in 2016—is also a loyal member of the Penn Museum Visionaries and the earliest supporter of the Building Transformation. She shares her volunteer experience, her fascination with Egypt, and what excites her most about the coming Egypt and Nubia Galleries.

I HAVE BEEN VERY HONORED to have been working at the Penn Museum for over 20 years. I had the pleasure of helping renowned Egyptologists, Ph.D. students, and Penn undergraduates. I began in the Egyptian Section in 1996 as the photographer, succeeding longtime volunteer Section photographer Felix Korsyn. I worked with other volunteers in the section. The volunteers were led by Jim Flanigan, who had volunteered at the Museum for many, many years and at one time was the supervisor of 12 volunteers known as the “Mummy Dusters.” Through all their efforts, I believe, the storage area was very organized. Jim only left his post at the age of 87 because of failing health; he died shortly afterwards. Jim taught me so much about the artifacts and the protocol of the storage area and managing the artifacts. As time moved on, I continued as photographer, but my responsibilities increased to assistant keeper of collections.

I was always interested in Ancient Egypt. I remember always wanting to go to the adult section of the town library, as that’s where the books on Egypt were, and not being allowed until I was 12. I first had time to volunteer after I had left my social work position

with the City of Philadelphia and had run my own business for 12 years.

As section photographer, I was invited to join first David Silverman’s dig at Saqqara in 2001 and then the same year to join Josef Wegner’s dig at Abydos. This was absolutely a dream come true—to live and work in Egypt on digs, climbing down rope ladders to work underground in a tomb, viewing artifacts not seen for thousands of years and taking their photo. What more could you ask? I did all this as I entered my 60s, going on four digs from 2001 to 2007.

I am so excited to see the new galleries, especially to see the palace and the huge pieces out there for people to look at and get a sense of what it’s like if you were in Egypt looking at the monuments. I think all the cases of smaller objects are important, too, but to me, looking at many of the palace pieces installed in one place is so monumental.

“What more could you ask? I did all this as I entered my 60s, going on four digs from 2001 to 2007.”

Jean Walker, SW74, with David Silverman, Curator-in-Charge, Egyptian Section, in the Harrison Auditorium seats Jean named for members of the Section.

PENN MUSEUM SHOP

Give the world with gifts inspired by the Penn Museum’s collection. From exquisite jewelry and decor to toys, books, and apparel, find world treasures to inspire and delight family and friends.

PERMIT #2563 PHILADELPHIA, PA 19104-6324, U.S.A.

3260 South Street Philadelphia, PA 19104 www.penn.museum/expedition

STOLEN LEGACY

Music and Libretto by Hannibal Lokumbe January 14, 2023 | 2:00 pm

Commissioned by the Penn Museum, composer and jazz trumpeter Hannibal Lokumbe presents Stolen Legacy—a musical commentary. The lyrics, sung in Yoruban, are inspired by individual artifacts that long to return to the cultures which produced them on the African continent.

“All we truly own in our lives is what we share with others. What then could be more inhumane than the taking of the work of an artist ‘By hook or by crook?’ For not only is the image taken, so is the culture which produced the art. Often when money is exchanged for the art, the art is stolen to an even greater degree than if it were stolen outright. The exchange of money for art created expressly for the spiritual maintenance of a tribe and/or nation can create a lasting physiological wound to the culture from which it was removed. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of African Art. Art speaks to the legacy of a people. And those who have no regard for that legacy are no less thieves of the highest order.” —Hannibal Lokumbe Free with registration. www.penn.museum/calendar