STRANGERS IN THE LAND
New Clues about the Collapse of Maya Culture
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By Mohammad Fahim Rahimi
Katherine Blanchard
Simon Martin
Penn Museum
Charles K. Williams II and Roberto Nardi
Above: Dragon, bird, and other animals representing the constellations of the four directions, molded on the neck of a glazed jar from a ca. 1200 CE tomb in Jiangxi, China.
On the Cover: A frontal view of Caracol Altar 13, pictured in the Penn Museum’s Mexico & Central America Gallery. The monument, discovered in modern Belize, is the focus of Curator Simon Martin’s feature story about the Maya civilization; photo by Quinn Russell Brown.
The Message Inside a Monument
For the cover of this issue, we’ve stood you face-to-face with a 1,200-year-old stone monument known as Caracol Altar 13. Carved in 820 CE at the huge Maya city of Caracol, in modern Belize, this monument now holds court in its own corner of the Penn Museum’s Mexico and Central America Gallery.
On page 27, you’ll see a meticulous drawing of this same monument, rendered in stark black lines on a stippled background. While a photograph can faithfully illustrate the contours of its shallow relief, only a drawing can capture the tiny, almost-lost details have that narrowly survived erosion and breakage. This close-up view is a must for research purposes.
The artwork was created by Simon Martin, the lead curator of the Mexico and Central America Gallery, who trained as a graphic designer at the Royal College of Art in London before becoming one of the world’s leading Mayanists. Martin is an epigrapher, one who specializes in ancient Maya inscriptions, and his re-reading of the text on Altar 13 sparked a line of inquiry that led to this month’s cover story. A riveting piece of scholarship, he proposes a major shake-up of the way we think about the end of Classic Maya civilization. For an epigrapher like Martin, to draw is to see, but creating such an image is a lengthy process counted not in days but in weeks.
One Monday afternoon, Martin and I brought a tall ladder to Altar 13. I climbed up and took photographs as Martin rotated a bright lamp around all 360 degrees of the roughly circular stone. Pitched low, the raking light covered every crack and crevice of the monument, resulting in 155 highcontrast photos.
Back at his computer screen, Martin then mined this visual data as a source for new details. “Sometimes there will be a lighting angle that shows where a line used to be, although from all other angles that little groove is hidden,” Martin says. “So, from this one shot you can say, ‘OK, a line was there.’”
The final digital rendering was made in Adobe Illustrator and follows the house style of the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, first developed in the 1960s—when the photos were hand-printed in darkrooms and traced onto Mylar sheets with ink pens. Within the confines of this esoteric discipline, Martin’s work has a sparkle of its own. I love how he switches between thick and thin lines as he etches symbols and sculpts faces, with wider strokes reflecting deeper cuts into the stone. I see a calligrapher at work, with a cartoonist over his shoulder.
When I ask Martin about his artistic process, he clarifies that this is a technical drawing, and that the aesthetics belong to the Maya. “The art is their art,” he says. “I’m just trying to reproduce it.”
QUINN RUSSELL BROWN, EDITOR
EDITOR
Quinn Russell Brown
PUBLISHER
Amanda Mitchell-Boyask
ARCHIVES AND IMAGE EDITOR
Alessandro Pezzati
ART DIRECTOR
Christina Jones
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.
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
Sarah Linn, Ph.D.
Anne Tiballi, Ph.D.
Jo Tiongson-Perez
PHOTOGRAPHY
Jennifer Chiappardi
Colleen Connolly
Francine Sarin (unless noted otherwise)
INSTITUTIONAL OUTREACH MANAGER
Thomas Delfi
© The Penn Museum, 2024 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.
New Season of Scholarship
Dear Friends,
This issue of Expedition features articles by two of our Penn Museum curators whose scholarship I have admired for many years—Simon Martin on the Maya Collapse (p. 22) and Adam Smith on the Song Dynasty tomb featured in the exhibition Looking to the Stars, Listening to the Earth (p. 36). As a scholar of early writing systems, I have had many chances to engage with Simon’s and Adam’s research on ancient Mayan and Chinese respectively; I worked with both of them during my time in Chicago, and the opportunity to collaborate more closely with them was one of the many attractions that drew me to Penn. The work they do is indicative not only of the global reach of Museum research, but also the reciprocal relationship between research and exhibitions.
Simon’s article demonstrates how his new insights into the Maya Collapse were influenced by long study of the inscriptions in our Mexico and Central America Gallery. One of my priorities as Director is to expand the portfolio of research projects across the globe, to build on the research of outstanding scholars like Adam and Simon while at the same time opening new avenues for discovery.
Another of my priorities is to establish the Museum as a hub for cross-disciplinary research relating to cultural heritage, centering the work of the Penn Cultural Heritage Center (PennCHC), which works with communities around the globe to protect and preserve heritage that is at risk. This can sometimes mean supporting colleagues in areas of major conflict, and the PennCHC’s role in supporting Mohammad Fahim Rahimi and his colleagues at the National Museum of Afghanistan and the regional museums it oversees is both a compelling read and a showcase for this important part of the Center’s mission (p. 4).
Finally, I’d like to point out an example of a return of an Object of Cultural Patrimony under NAGPRA that speaks to the importance of repatriation for Native American communities. Lucy Fowler Williams’ and Stacey Espenlaub’s firsthand account (p. 58) of the ceremony held by the Passamaquoddy
Tribe of Maine to memorialize a wampum belt returned by the Penn Museum to the tribe in June brings home the importance of objects like this one in maintaining bonds with the tribe’s ancestors.
For me, personally, it was an exciting and productive summer, which included a wonderful trip to India to visit with our Asian Section colleagues Kathy Morrison and Mark Lycett at their spectacular site at Brahmagiri in Karnataka State. I always look forward to the start of each new semester, as the knowledge gained in the field becomes part of our teaching, exhibitions, and community engagement. I continue to be enormously grateful for your partnership in this journey!
CHRISTOPHER WOODS, PH.D. WILLIAMS DIRECTOR
Photographs taken by Williams Director Chris Woods at the site of Brahmagiri in Karnataka State, India. Pictured at right is Kathleen Morrison, Curator-in-Charge, Asian Section.
Protecting the Ghazni Museum
BY MOHAMMAD FAHIM RAHIMI
SAFEGUARDING CULTURAL HERITAGE in active conflict areas was an ongoing concern for me and my colleagues at the National Museum of Afghanistan after I assumed the role of Director in 2016. It was our responsibility to save as much of Afghanistan’s movable heritage as we could, not only at the National Museum but also at regional museums that I oversaw in my position. As the conflict escalated from 2016 to 2021, we had to prioritize our work
to reach the most vulnerable areas in Afghanistan. Therefore, we developed the Ghazni Museum Project to safeguard the collections of the Ghazni Museum in advance of the Taliban establishing control of Afghanistan's government and oversight of the country's cultural institutions.
In 2020, the Penn Cultural Heritage Center (PennCHC) of the Penn Museum, Cultural Emergency Response (CER), and Smithsonian Cultural Rescue
Conservator
Karimullah Aryan works on a Ghaznavid marble panel.
Initiatives (SCRI) generously supported my team at the National Museum as we implemented this project in Ghazni. Unfortunately, the city of Ghazni has been the frontline of the conflict for many years. The city had fallen to the Taliban before, and even after the government of Afghanistan retook it, the surrounding areas of the city remained under Taliban control when we implemented the project.
Documentation and conservation of the Ghazni Museum collections were of critical importance. The collections comprise objects of significant historical, artistic, and cultural value. Most of the objects came from excavations of three main archaeological sites in the Ghazni province: Tepe Sardar, the Palace of Mas’ud III, and the House of Lusterwares. These sites had been excavated by the Italian Archaeological Mission since 1956.
Tepe Sardar is a site from the late Buddhist culture of Afghanistan that has yielded unique late Buddhist art as well as remains of Hindu culture.
courtyard of Mas’ud III’s Palace are one type of such objects, which are very important for the history of Afghanistan. Each panel comprises three registers, the top of which contains a portion of a running Persian inscription in Kufic script, one of the oldest Persian inscriptions found in Afghanistan. These panels have been distributed among the collections of the Ghazni Museum, National Museum of Afghanistan, and Italian museums. Unfortunately, some in the Afghanistan museum collections have been looted during the civil war.
The co-presence of Buddhist and Hindu cultures in Tepe Sardar made it very famous among Afghans as a symbol of religious tolerance and diversity, causing us to prioritize safeguarding the finds from this site. In addition, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban in 2001 put Buddhist heritage objects at high risk of targeting in the event that the city once again fell to the Taliban.
The Palace of Mas’ud III and the House of Lusterwares were the two other main archaeological sites excavated in this province over the century of archaeological investigations in Afghanistan. The finds from both sites constitute important records of Afghanistan’s Ghaznavid- and Ghurid-era history, especially since many objects from these sites have already been looted during the country’s ongoing civil war. The dado (lower-wall) panels from the
In addition to the collections from these sites, the Ghazni Museum has accumulated many other objects over the years, including those that have been illegally excavated and confiscated by the security forces. Other collections have come into the museum through recent excavations (2016–2020) by the Archaeology Institute of Afghanistan, but these remain undocumented and in need of conservation.
Another important factor necessitating an urgent intervention at the Ghazni Museum was the damage to important artifacts during an incident in 2014. The National Museum of Afghanistan, with the support of the Italian Archaeological Mission, organized an exhibition of Islamic-period artifacts in 2013 on the occasion of Ghazni’s declaration as the Asian capital of Islamic civilization by the Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. This exhibition was installed in the building of the Department of Information and Culture of Ghazni, located beside the province’s National Security Department. Unfortunately, the Taliban’s targeting of the National Security Department on September 4, 2014,
Islamic art exhibition at the Ghazni Museum before its destruction in 2013.
completely damaged the neighboring exhibition. The incident destroyed many objects, which subsequently were not systematically collected, causing the loss of many fragments of the broken objects.
Therefore, our project team set out to recover and restore the broken fragments of the objects damaged in the 2014 incident, document the collections in the storerooms of Ghazni, and conserve the most endangered objects since the museum’s collections had not received proper care for many years. Unfortunately, we did not locate any documentation of the Ghazni Museum’s collection in the National Museum of Afghanistan or in the Ghazni Museum, although a large part of the collections was previously documented by the Italian Archaeological Mission.
Supported by a national budget, our first mission to the Ghazni Museum in 2017 aimed to evaluate the conservation status of the collections as well as the overall situation there. We discovered that the museum lacked a proper collections management system as well as documentation of the objects, and we determined that the ongoing conflict had severely compromised the collections’ preservation and management. The museum also lacked personnel with the training to effectively care for the collections. We found the storage rooms in critical condition,
with leaking roofs and broken windows. A thick layer of dust covered the surfaces of most of the objects, many of which were scattered over the ground and needed urgent conservation treatment. The rubble from the 2014 incident was piled inside the museum compound, and many fragments of the objects were still missing.
Working in Ghazni in 2020 presented additional life-threatening challenges. It was difficult for government and NGO employees to travel there or easily walk and work in the city. The road to the Ghazni province was controlled by the Taliban, and they would imprison, torture, or kill anyone they knew to be working with the government. Even amid these difficulties, we were motivated by the importance of our work and applied risk mitigation strategies to travel to Ghazni and work on the Ghazni Museum’s collections.
Over a few months, a team of conservators, curators, and archaeologists, together with the staff of the Ghazni Museum, worked hard to document as many objects as possible in the museum and conserve the most endangered ones. First, we searched through the rubble for the missing fragments of objects damaged in the 2014 incident, and then we continued with the documentation and conservation of the collections. In total, we documented about 2,700 objects and gave about 600 objects emergency conservation treatment. We also repaired the roofs of the storerooms to prevent leaks, as well as their interiors, windows, and doors. This mitigation has greatly reduced the risks to the objects. Thanks to the financial and technical support of the PennCHC, CER, and SCRI, we were
also able to prepare approximately 70 stable shelves for storing and rehousing the collections.
Unfortunately, after our work was completed, many more objects remained in need of documentation, conservation, and rehousing. Additionally, recent excavations around the Ghazni Minarets yielded numerous objects that have been handed over to the Ghazni Museum. Since then, many other objects from other contexts have been given to the museum but remain undocumented and untreated. A continuation of the Ghazni Museum Project will be necessary to
safeguard both new and preexisting collections. The work we conducted at the Ghazni Museum significantly reduced the risks to this collection, saved many objects from decay, and lessen their vulnerability to theft and destruction, especially following Ghazni’s fall to the Taliban in 2021. Additionally, we established proper documentation of most of the collections that would facilitate their identification and recovery in the case that they were looted. Finally, the project provided professional training for the local staff who lacked the educational background to properly care for the objects. The project thus ensured not only the safety of the collections but also their future maintenance.
Mohammad Fahim Rahimi, archaeologist, served as the Director of the National Museum of Afghanistan for more than five years. He is currently the Director of both the Cultural Heritage of Afghanistan Conservation and Research Institute and the Hindukush Museum of the Silk Road. He completed his M.A. in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania through a Fulbright scholarship.
Photos courtesy of the National Museum of Afghanistan.
Right: Training of local staff on the documentation of objects. Below: An inventoried and photographed head of a Buddha.
‘It Feeds My Soul’ TWO MEXICAN RESEARCHERS VISIT A MIXTECO CODEX AT THE PENN MUSEUM
FOR MORE THAN A CENTURY, the Penn Museum has taken great pride not only in the stewardship of global collections, but also in hosting researchers from around the globe who want to come and see or study these objects in person. Early in 2024, two Mexican researchers contacted William S.
Wierzbowski, Keeper, American Section, with a deeply personal and meaningful request.
Omar Aguilar Sánchez is a Ph.D. candidate in the Sustainable Humanities Program and teaches archaeology and the humanities at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Izaira López Sánchez is a ña’a
Ñuu Savi (Woman from the People of the Rain) and speaks Tu’un Savi (Language of the Rain), who studied at the Universidad del Mar, Campus Huatulco, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Omar and Izaira were born and raised in the Mixteco region and specialize in the Mixteco language and culture of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. A small number of ancient Mixteco codices are held in museums worldwide, including the Penn Museum, which holds the codex known as the “Lienzo de Filadelfia” (42-7-1). The two researchers have been touring the world to visit museums with Mixteco codices and promote the contributions of the Mixteco people.
Researchers Izaira López Sánchez and Omar Aguilar Sánchez view the “Lienzo de Filadelfia” at the Penn Museum in April 2024; photo by Kellie Bell.
home and around the world. Noting how much he enjoyed their visit, Bill shared that he and Omar discussed the way the pigments have faded over time and speculated on the possibility of creating a “digital Lienzo” using technology to show a version with the color added back in.
Omar and Izaira visited Philadelphia in April 2024 and examined the Lienzo with Bill Wierzbowksi, hosting Facebook Live events during their visit to share the experience with their communities back
Alma García, Office of Press and Economic Affairs, and Valeria Siller Ramírez, Press and Economic Affairs Attaché, of the Consulate of Mexico in Philadelphia arranged and accompanied their Penn Museum visit, as well as facilitating the Expedition interview that follows. The group was also joined by Edgar Ramírez, the founder of Philatinos Radio who happens to be of Mixteco heritage, and Philatinos Administrator Olga Rentería. Philatinos Radio broadcasts Spanish-language music and talk programming online for 50 hours a week from their studio on Ninth Street in Philadelphia.
Left: The Lienzo de Filadelfia codex; PM 42-7-1. Above:
Expedition began the interview with Omar and Izaira by asking them to tell readers about the Mixteco region:
Omar Aguilar Sánchez: After the Spanish conquest, many objects of our region were split up and spread around the world, up until today. Many of the treasures we had in the past, we don’t have in our territory anymore. That includes material culture, manuscripts, and language from our ancestors. My focus is on how we can connect the people again with the cultural material. After colonization, they said we didn’t have culture and we didn’t have history, or that we don’t speak the right language because we are the savage, because we don’t have a civilization. And that is not true.
From Spanish conquest till today, almost all of the Mixteco codices have been destroyed. There are only 10 remaining in the world. Not one of them is in the Mixteco region. Two are in Mexico City, and the rest are around the world.
What did you hope to see when you came to the Museum?
OAS: Ourselves. (Laughs.) We were lucky to see our heritage. First, we wanted to connect it with us. And second, we wanted to create some materials and videos for social media, to connect the material with our parents, our families, and our communities. We wanted to do these in our own language, Tu’un Savi, “The Language of the Rain.” In the community where we are from, the people of the community often ask Izaira when she is going to travel again to show them different things from around the world. We were in Berlin, Netherlands, Warsaw, London, at the Smithsonian, and then in Philadelphia. This is very powerful for us.
Olga Rentería, Administrator, Philatinos Radio holds her hands over the Lienzo de Filadelfia codex to feel the connection with Mixteco ancestors who created this record of their history and culture; photo by Kellie Bell.
Izaira López Sánchez: For me, the main goal is to express what I saw and what I felt to my people. I want to communicate what I saw here of our ancestors and our culture. It is important for my people to see what the world has of ours, and what remains of our culture around the world. My focus and study is the repatriation of cultural objects and ancestral remains. I am thinking about how technology can contribute to reconnecting my people. The language is a very important part of our culture, and we are using didactic materials to teach the language again, including to children.
Which experience stood out to you in your travels before you came to Philadelphia?
ILS: For me it was important to have access for five hours in the British Museum to see codices from our culture.
OAS: To have this access at the British Museum was nostalgic and important. It is not just a document; it is the manuscript that contains the history and the genealogies of the kings and the queens, the history and the origin of our culture. These are not just treasures of my ancestors, but they are the things that
my ancestors did, made with their own hands—in our own territories, with our own meanings, and a special discourse in its own context.
Why is it important for you to see these objects inperson, and to hold your hands over them, instead of seeing them in books and online?
ILS: For me, there is a huge difference between seeing it in person with the right tools, and seeing it in books or magazines. I feel a deep connection when I see it in person.
When I return home, I want to express this in the appropriate language, not a very academic language, to my people. It is our right as the community, and the UN Declaration says that we have the right as a community to decide about our own heritage. I hope that this step will be just the first step in the collaboration with Penn Museum.
OAS: This is not just about art. It’s about my own culture, my own language. When I look at the codices, it’s more than just academic, scientific, or artistic, it is for my own life and my own culture. When I see them in person, it is very powerful for me. For me, it feeds my soul.
Omar Aguilar Sánchez and Izaira López Sánchez (third and fourth from right) with (left to right): Bill Wierzbowski, Keeper, American Section; Edgar Ramírez, Founder, Philatinos Radio; Olga Rentería, Administrator, Philatinos Radio; Alma García, Office of Press and Economic Affairs, Consulate of Mexico in Philadelphia; Valeria Siller Ramírez, Press and Economic Affairs Attache, Consulate of Mexico in Philadelphia; and Jennifer Brehm, Merle-Smith Director of Learning and Public Engagement; photo by Kellie Bell.
A Century-Old Story, Out of the Shadows
BY KATHERINE BLANCHARD
IT BEGAN AS A NORMAL DAY: An email came in requesting to see material that we excavated in the 1930s. A standard request, but what made this request different was that it was a site called Murteza Gerd that wasn’t fully processed. In the Penn Museum’s heyday, many excavations happened simultaneously
all over the world. Once a permit was secured, excavations sometimes had side discoveries that led to the teams wanting to expand their original remit, and then contacting government officials to either extend their excavation, have an exploratory sounding, or to get a permit for an area nearby.
Above: In October 1934, the government of Iran hosted a four-day series of celebrations and scholarly events to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of the birth of Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi, poet and author of the great Persian epic Shahnameh (Book of Kings). Events included an exhibition at the dig house in Rayy of the objects found at the main site and sub-sites, including Murteza Gerd and Cheshmeh Ali; photo from Schmidt’s official records, courtesy of the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC) at the University of Chicago.
The site of Murteza Gerd falls under this last category. Erich Schmidt, a German archaeologist who had previously excavated the site of Tepe Hissar (in Iran) for the Museum, got the permit to work at the site of Rayy, near Tehran. This was to be a large excavation at an exciting site: It was known to be mainly Islamic in date, and the work was cosponsored by the Penn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (MFA), and a longtime supporter of Dr. Schmidt, Mrs. Thompson. A known subset of the Rayy site was a large prehistoric mound called Cheshmeh Ali, but in a letter dated August 1, 1934, Schmidt wrote home to Museum Director Horace Jayne from a new location (later determined to be Murteza Gerd): “Right now I am typing on top of another prehistoric mound about four miles from Ray [sic]. It is a twin mound of Tepe Hissar with gray and painted pottery. Of course I could not resist testing it. Today we found a gray ware sherd with a seal cylinder impression, a good omen.”
In the researcher’s email to me, she noted she was working on gray ware objects from this area now in Tehran institutions, and she wanted to see the gray ware objects that came to the Penn Museum through the old partage system, a division of finds between the host country and the excavating parties. I went to the shelves and the database to see what we had. It listed 50 objects, but also had a lot of computer-generated numbers that were used for tracking in the 1980s assigned to almost 300 field numbers most likely from sherds. This wasn’t a huge surprise: The Museum had so many excavations happening at the time that what
systematically happened was the complete objects and the small finds (such as jewelry, spindle whorls, and animal figurines) would be numbered as they came into the building. But the sherds would have to wait for the future. The sherds from sites such as Murteza Gerd tell such an important story that I couldn’t wait to dive into this project.
To assist the researcher, I started by assigning numbers to the gray ware sherds and getting photos into the collections database so that she could study
them from Tehran (as she was unable to come to the Museum). I then assigned numbers and photographed all the rest of the material. I was struck by the decorations. I could see “HIII” written on the back of some of the sherds in pencil in Erich Schmidt’s handwriting as he drew comparisons from these pieces to the typology he created at Hissar. I started to think about this material in a larger context.
From Schmidt’s photo records: “Murteza Gerd (plain of Tehran). Registration map of site (for Antiquity Service). July, 1934”; courtesy of ISAC.
I reached out to Consulting Scholar Dr. Chris Thornton, who had worked with the Hissar material. He suggested that I look at the site of Sialk for comparison, included in an extensive survey throughout Iran completed by former Museum Director and Curator Dr. Robert Dyson Jr. in the 1950s. I could simply turn around in storage and be confronted with hundreds of sherds from Sialk (to be accessioned and available online with images soon). Both Sialk and Murteza Gerd were clearly delightful sites, and I was happy to make them accessible to people. Once I got the Murteza Gerd material online for this researcher and others to study, I still wanted to learn more about the site. I went where all great adventures begin: the Museum Archives. It was in the Archives that I discovered the wonderful letter to Horace Jayne (the best man at Schmidt’s wedding) which helped me realize this site was important. I also
Three views of a sprouted jar (35-8-49) found at Murteza Gerd. Top left: Excavation illustration and catalog card; photo by Katherine Blanchard. Left: Museum photography of object 35-8-49. Bottom: From Schmidt’s photo records: “Jar, MG 109: baked clay; gray; globular shape, tube-beak spout. Date taken August 5, 1934”; courtesy of ISAC.
learned that Erich Schmidt began his excavations in Iran through the Penn Museum, but by the end of his time in Iran, he was based out of the University of Chicago. And so—as I was to discover—when he was trying to finish his publications for the sites of Rayy, Cheshmeh Ali, and (yes!) Murteza Gerd, he had all of his notes with him in Chicago.
I then contacted my colleagues in collections and in the archives in Chicago and made a trip to see their archival materials (Murteza Gerd wasn’t excavated during a year that Schmidt had support from Chicago, so they had no objects from the site). There I found the field register for the site; the excavation log Schmidt kept with a sentence or two for each day of excavation; a copy of a letter to the government asking to dig at Murteza Gerd; letters written in Persian giving him permission to do so; the field cards (one for every object); and even a full set of illustrations, because Schmidt had indeed prepared this material for publication.
Delighted, I returned to the Penn Museum with a vision for the next year. Working with students to get the information from the field cards into our
Museum database. Working with Chicago’s Archives on getting the documents scanned. Working with my colleagues in Tehran to make sure they have all the relevant information. Visiting the MFA in Boston and the American Museum of Natural History to see objects housed there that came through partage. And making sure all the illustrations are matched to the correct objects and available to the next generation of scholars.
The site was never meant to be overlooked. Ninety years after Schmidt spent two weeks at Murteza Gerd and sent the material back to the Museum, it is getting a chance to have its full story told. The sherds are finally seeing the attention they deserve.
Katherine Blanchard is Fowler-VanSantfoord Keeper of Near East Collections.
FOR FURTHER READING
Blanchard, K., and M. Campeggi. 2023. Kara Tepe: A Conversation Across Time. Expedition 65(1):10–13. Dyson, R.H., Jr. 1963. Archaeological Scrap: Glimpses of History at Ziwiye. Expedition 5(3):32–37.
From Schmidt’s photo records:
“Murteza Gerd (plain of Tehran). Sherd yard at mound base. August, 1934”; courtesy of ISAC.
A Clearer Crystal View
HOW THE ‘DOWAGER EMPRESS’ CRYSTAL BALL CAME
TO THE PENN MUSEUM
BY STEVE LANG
IN NOVEMBER 1924, a large crystal ball appeared in a Wanamaker Department storefront in New York City, coaxing shoppers inside to marvel at its size and beauty. Upon entering the store, one would learn that the sphere came from the imperial palace in Beijing, a treasured artifact from the 17th century named after the Dowager Empress of China. A small pamphlet available to any potential buyers stated that the ball had been lost, wandered for a decade or more in China, until it was finally found, only recently, in Shanghai. A Wanamaker representative was able to acquire it, and now it could be yours. The asking price? Only $50,000. Newspaper editors became enamored with the sphere as it traveled around the country, printing accounts of its fantastic journey into the United States from China. One article recounted how the crystal ball, the largest in the world, disappeared during the Boxer Rebellion and was recovered by a beautiful American woman in an Arabian Nights adventure of hairbreadth escapes. Donning disguises and hiding
in baskets to thwart authorities, she worked her way into an audience with a wealthy banker who owned the ball and haggled with him until she procured the treasure. The final twist in the story was that the current child emperor of China was traveling to the U.S., possibly to demand its return.
As it turns out, the above story is likely a complete fabrication, one conjured up by the department store to instill the ball with an air of mystery and historical importance. It likely helped to bring in shoppers and sell newspapers, but any evidence that it was in an imperial palace has not come to light.
On the 100th year anniversary of the crystal ball appearing publicly, it seemed an appropriate moment to set the record straight on its true origins and how it found its way into the Penn Museum collection.
A BURMESE BLOCK OF CRYSTAL
The origin of the crystal ball starts not in the 17th century but in the 20th. Geological reports from the
Left: Article in The Birmingham News from February 1925 about the Penn Museum’s crystal ball. The story of its incredible journey after being lost during the Boxer Rebellion was likely fabricated to promote its display in the Miami branch of the Wanamaker Department Store. Above: The crystal ball (C681A) in the Museum’s Rotunda today.
early 1920s indicate that a large deposit of clear rock crystal was discovered in Sakangyi, a town famous for its precious gem industry located in central Burma (now Myanmar). This deposit produced large crystals some four feet long and one foot wide. The literature also mentions that the market for such large crystals was centered in China where traders would visit annually to see the latest finds and ship them north to cities like Beijing, Canton, and Shanghai. Here they would be cut and polished into all manner of objects, including statues, vessels, and crystal balls. The Penn Museum crystal ball was one of four that appeared on the art market in 1924, suggesting that they came from the same rock crystal source and likely followed a similar path of production, moving from Burma through China before being exported to the U.S.
An undated photograph published in a 1950 issue of The Gemmologist, a journal dedicated to the study of gemstones, shows three large rock crystals. The photograph was sent to the author, J. Coggin Brown, by a Mr. A.H. Morgan of the Burma Ruby Mines Company.
A QUARTET OF CRYSTAL BALLS
The first two of the four crystal balls, a pair similar in size, came to the public’s attention in a Wanamaker ad in May 1924. These were named the “Emperor” and “Empress” and were claimed to be the largest crystal balls known to the world. They were roughly nine inches in diameter, flawless, and valued at $50,000 for the pair. A photograph published that August in a magazine mentioned that they recently came from China and were “fashioned with infinite patience out of Burmese quartz.” The Far East Shop, a division within the Wanamaker Department store specializing in arts and crafts from Asia is visible in the background, rendered upside down and magnified by the optical properties of the spheres. Rows of shelves holding porcelain and other carvings as well as a large lacquer screen can be made out. The ball that appeared in the New York Wanamaker
storefront in November 1924 was the next to appear; details in a newspaper ad were similar to those of the “Emperor” and “Empress,” but this singular ball was named the “Dowager Empress” and was reputed to be flawless and 10 inches in diameter, making it the largest in the world. Ads touted that nothing in the Louvre or Victoria and Albert Museum could match it in perfection and size. The "Dowager Empress" was said to weigh more than 100 pounds, and the price again was $50,000. It, too, supposedly came from Burmese crystal. A photograph of the ball in the New York storefront of Wanamaker’s shows shoppers gazing into its depths.
Meanwhile, the fourth crystal ball was making its way to the U.S. This example had some difficulty making it past the customs officials. When it was imported into the U.S. customs house in the fall of 1924, officials wanted to see proof of the age of the ball, as this determined how much tax would be paid for it to enter the country. This inquiry created a
paper trail to its actual source and is what allows us to understand the true origins of the three previous crystal balls that came into the country before it. The paperwork for the ball shows that the raw crystal for the piece had been mined in Burma in 1923 and was then cut and polished in Shanghai before being sent on a ship meant for the U.S. in late 1924. When it finally appeared in newspaper ads in early 1925, it was said to have been made for a Chinese emperor in the 18th century, despite hard evidence to the contrary. Following the previous model of asserting it was made for an emperor made for a better story and certainly helped fetch a higher price. After it cleared customs, the ball was placed on loan to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. Weighing 106.75 pounds and measuring 12.9 inches in diameter, it dwarfed the other crystal balls and needed no imperial name—it was simply referred to as the largest in the world.
PIECING TOGETHER THE PROVENANCE
Knowing what we know about the world’s largest crystal ball, with its paper trail of provenance, we can attribute a similar origin the Penn Museum’s “Dowager Empress” crystal ball. The reasons for this
are varied. For one, both balls entered the U.S. around the same time, and both were said to have come from Burma. Additionally, the Wanamaker Department store opened a branch in Shanghai in 1924. It is likely that the three large crystal balls that appeared at the Far East Shop passed through this branch on their way to New York and Philadelphia. This also suggests that they were all being cut and polished around the same time, likely from the same rock crystal deposit discovered in the previous year. They also entered the U.S. according to size, with the smallest two arriving first since they could be cut and polished quicker. The pipeline for all four was likely the same.
In a pamphlet produced for the Far East Shop, the weight of the Penn Museum ball is said to be over 100 pounds; however, its true weight is closer to 49 pounds. This is a direct connection between the ball held in the Smithsonian and the Penn Museum’s ball. The publishers of the Wanamaker pamphlet must have been aware of the larger example and likely mixed up the actual weights. All the elements of the actual circumstances of how they came to be were present: Burmese quartz, a Shanghai connection, and weighing over 100 pounds. But to sell these pieces to the public and a prospective buyer, imperial embellishments were made. Ultimately, the plan worked, as each crystal ball was purchased by a titan of industry.
In August 1924, the magazine Current Opinion published this photo of two large crystal balls named “Emperor” and “Empress,” saying they were the largest in the world. The Wanamaker Department Store’s Far East Shop is reflected in the two spheres.
FINDING A BUYER
The Smithsonian ball found its way to Worcester Reed Warner (1846–1929), an astronomer and mechanical engineer who made his name in optics and lenses by producing telescopes and rifle scopes for scientific and military purposes. He also had an interest in the arts of Asia and put together a sizeable collection of Asian art, which he donated to the Cleveland Museum of Art. A pamphlet of the collection featuring a
smaller crystal ball was sent to George Byron Gordon (1870–1927), the director of the Penn Museum, in 1922. This may have piqued his interest in such things a few years before the “Dowager Empress” appeared on his radar.
The two smaller balls, the "Empress" and "Emperor," were purchased by Pierre S. du Pont (1870–1954) in 1929 and were put on display in the ballroom of his estate at Longwood Gardens. The du Pont family specialized initially in gunpowder, but by the early 20th century had branched out into various other products, including the creation of a clear plastic (methyl methacrylate), sold under the name Lucite. At a 1936 banquet celebrating patents in Washington, D.C., a ball made of Lucite was placed next to one of the crystal balls made of rock crystal to illustrate the clarity and transparency of the new plastic. These Lucite balls also doubled as symbols for looking into the future of American ingenuity and commerce.
The industry titan that landed the Penn Museum’s ball was Eldridge Reeves Johnson (1867–1945), a Museum board member and the owner of the Victor Talking Machine Company. Johnson had perfected the ability to mass-produce music records with quality sound and turned that innovation into a small fortune. A biography written by his son, E.R. Fenimore Johnson, recounts that his father had just sold the Victor Company for around $40 million dollars and was starting to pursue his hobbies. One of those was gem collecting, which initially started through purchasing jewelry for his wife made of precious gems. Eventually, this turned into a hobby of collecting raw gems, that is, those that were unset. Variations in jade, lapis lazuli, and rock crystal were of particular interest. He employed the famed gemologist George Frederick Kunz (1856–1932) to put together a collection for him, which he then donated to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.
Johnson’s other hobby was window-shopping, and it was through this leisurely pursuit he came upon the “Dowager Empress” in the Wanamaker Department Store and inquired about its selling price. The $50,000 figure floated to him was a sizeable sum, even to someone as wealthy as Johnson, who ended
Top: A photograph in The Brooklyn Daily Times from November 1924 shows shoppers in the New York branch of the Wanamaker Department Store gazing at the “Dowager Empress”—later the Penn Museum crystal ball.
Above: George Byron Gordon (left), Penn Museum Director from 1910–1927, and Eldridge Reeves Johnson (right), a board member who bought the crystal ball and donated it to the Museum in memory of Gordon.
up penning a letter to Museum Director George Byron Gordon to gauge his interest in acquiring the piece. In 1927, Gordon responded encouragingly and noted that there had been two sizable crystal balls on loan to the Museum through Wanamaker’s in 1925 that were a huge hit with the public. Incredibly, these were the "Emperor" and "Empress" that Wanamaker’s had touted in May of 1924. Gordon also surmised that they were modern, but that the requisite skill to cut and polish rock crystal to such a degree was impressive. Sadly, Gordon passed away shortly thereafter, and Johnson quickly purchased and donated it to the Museum as a tribute to the director.
DISPLAYING AN ICON
Upon its acquisition, the crystal ball was not placed in the Rotunda where it currently resides today. Rather, it was placed in front of the Rotunda along with a number of other precious objects made of jade, lapis lazuli, and coral. These were also part of the George Byron Gordon Memorial Collection and came from Johnson who had purchased them along with the ball and a few other items. Subsequent
references to the ball and a few photos show that it was displayed in an alcove in the Asia Galleries and, subsequently, adjacent to the alcove. It’s unclear even within the Museum Archives when exactly the ball moved to the center of the Rotunda, but, by the 1970s, it was sitting in pride of place surrounded by much of the collection from China that Gordon had put together. It’s a fitting tribute to the director who appreciated both masterpieces of art and also the way in which display and lighting could engage visitors and capture the beauty of a piece.
Stephen Lang is Lyons Keeper of Collections of the Asian Section.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to acknowledge the help of Alison Miner, Longwood Gardens archivist, for bringing the du Pont crystal balls to his attention, and of Dr. Jeffrey Post, Curator Emeritus of Gems and Minerals at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, for providing him with provenance information on the Warner crystal ball.
A museum guard gazes into the world’s largest crystal ball at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C. An inquiry into the age of the ball when it was imported into the U.S. created a paper trail that shows it came from Burmese rock crystal and was cut and polished in Shanghai; courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Harris & Ewing, LC-H2- B-3937-b.
Ixlu Stela 1, dating to 859 CE. The seated figure at lower right is dressed in a non-local style and carries the title of an outsider;
photo by Dmitri Beliaev, Proyecto Altas Epigráfico de Petén.
STRANGERS
LAND in the
RETHINKING THE CLASSIC MAYA COLLAPSE
BY SIMON MARTIN
By 800 CE,
the Classic Maya had scaled remarkable, even improbable, heights. In an outwardly hostile, resource-poor rainforest, they created a dense network of cities graced with temples, palaces, plazas, ballcourts, and reservoirs, all of them built only with tools available during the Stone Age. Their artistic and intellectual achievements are just as impressive: most notably their naturalistic artstyle, their sophisticated writing system, and the complex arithmetic they used for calendrical and astronomical computation. The decipherment of their hieroglyphs—which only got going in the 1990s—has revealed a great deal about their culture and history,
making clear that the Maya homeland was never politically unified but rather divided into well over a hundred competing kingdoms.
New technologies such as Lidar—which uses an airborne laser to pierce the forest canopy and show what lies beneath—have revealed further wonders. These scans show landscapes carpeted with humble house-mounds, confirming that the ancient population was very large, numbering 10 million or more. Lidar also reveals how the Maya transformed seasonal swamps into extensive wetland field systems, modified hillsides into agricultural terraces, and constructed large fortresses ringed by ditches and ramparts.
STRANGERS IN THE LAND
Yet all these glories would soon come to a shattering end. Within a century of 800 CE, the population of the central heartlands had plummeted by 50% or more amid a complete sociopolitical breakdown. A century later it was down by as much as 80%, after another it was 90% from its peak. By then all the great cities had been abandoned and reclaimed by a voracious jungle. Though much diminished in number, the Maya steadily rebuilt societies elsewhere, in the northern lowlands as well as in the southern highlands. With governments that conspicuously lacked the quasi-divine kings of the Classic era, this Postclassic civilization endured until the Spanish conquest of the 16th century. Despite suffering a long history of exploitation and oppression since then, millions of Maya people still live on the lands of their ancestors to this day.
But what happened to the Classic Maya civilization? How did startling success turn to abject failure so quickly and completely? Why did so few people return to reoccupy their old heartlands, even centuries later?
COMPETING EXPLANATIONS
The truth is that we’re still trying to find out. Even though ideas have never been in short supply and year-by-year archaeologists have amassed ever greater quantities of relevant evidence, a definitive answer continues to elude us. Each generation of scholars seems to settle on a favored option, only for it to be superseded in the next, as a solution more in line with fresh data and the shifting tide of anthropological theory comes to the fore. The most popular solutions today divide between the environmental and social, although in ways that are often entwined.
In the 1980s, suggestions emerged that the 9thcentury Maya had stripped the land of trees, creating erosion that carried away already over-exploited and increasingly infertile soils. As a result, harvests failed, and people died. Here was an apocalypse of the Maya’s own making, a vision captured in Jared Diamond’s widely read book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. The scenario was seductive
An imaginary view of Tikal a couple of decades after most of its population had abandoned it; painting by Russell Hoover and the Penn Museum.
because the mismanagement of nature in the past could be seen as a warning about the environmental abuses of our own time. Yet further research challenged this thesis, as a greater understanding of ancient Maya farming revealed its sophisticated conservation strategies, which blended the products of field and forest to create a sustainable mosaic of food resources.
Another explanation gained traction in the 1990s. This took its cue from the discovery of hastily built fortifications, burned-out palaces scattered with flint points, and later even a mass grave of high-born individuals who had been bludgeoned to death. It was argued that the Maya had been gripped by a spiraling sequence of wars, first between kingdoms and then within them, as social bonds broke down and a vicious class conflict escalated. In such chaos, trade networks disintegrated and normal life became impossible. People voted with their feet to find a safer existence elsewhere.
However, for other researchers the key to the collapse still lay in the environment, although now pointing to a factor beyond human control. Documents from the era of Spanish rule (1524-1821 CE) show that the Maya region has suffered severe droughts persisting for years, creating a series of deadly famines. Evidence for ancient droughts first came from the analysis of lake sediments and then from the microscopic examination of stalactites—whose layered deposits of lime are a fossilized record of the rain that has percolated its way down into caves. Rapid starvation could certainly explain both the dramatic demographic decline and the sociopolitical disintegration, while invoking its own modern-day counterpart, this time the climate crisis.
But again, not all specialists are convinced. They note the lack of evidence for people moving to the permanent
water sources of lakes and rivers, only patchy signs for late malnutrition, and an appreciation that the Maya understood the unpredictability of the rains and invested in drought-resistant root crops and other measures that guarded against the failure of rain-dependent maize. It is also noteworthy that the precipitation records drawn from lakes and different caves do not align particularly well, and that none show a devastating dry episode close to 800 CE.
This last point resonates for those of us who study the inscriptions. Archaeologists are right to say that the collapse was a process spanning a full century, lasting at least until the last dated inscription in 910 CE. At first sight this seems to point to a slow, steady decay, but the chronology of the monuments tells a different story. This makes clear that something calamitous occurred close to 810 CE, the point at which most major kingdoms fell silent.
A map of the Maya area showing places mentioned in this article.
Northern Lowlands
Central Lowlands
Chontal Area Southern Highlands
THE HIDDEN OVERLORD
Truth be told, the collapse had never ranked high in my interests as a Maya writing specialist. With the dwindling number of monuments commissioned between 800 and 900 comes a correspondingly meager number of inscriptions to study. Even those we have tend to be short and very light on historical information, describing formulaic rituals instead. Should we, in any case, expect the Maya to describe their own decline and fall? Societies under stress often project a “business as usual” façade as they desperately, and in this case vainly, seek to restore normality.
Yet first slowly and then quickly, I changed my mind. Today I believe that late monuments contain critical clues to what was going on, with anomalies in art, architecture, ceramics, and writing that speak to a
telling transformation within the collapse process. My change of heart came in 2018 as we were busy remaking the Mexico and Central America Gallery, home to the significant collection of Maya artifacts housed at the Museum. As lead curator, it was my task to write most of the new captions, taking a fresh look at every object put on display. One of these was Altar 13 from Caracol, a very large site now in western Belize. Dated to 820 CE, Altar 13 shows two standing figures with another kneeling, surrounded by an eroded but mostly legible inscription. On the prestigious right side of the scene stands the local king K’inich Yukbil Yopaat, while to the lower status left we see someone captioned by the name Papmalil or Papamalil (the spelling doesn’t allow us to decide which). We know from a second monument at Caracol, Altar 12, that Papmalil was based at Ucanal—a
Riggers and Museum staff moving Caracol Altar 13 in 2018, as we prepared the new Mexico and Central America Gallery.
sometime rival city located 30 km to the west. But all is not what it seems. Papmalil’s name appears three times on Altar 13, whereas the king is named only twice. Moreover, the term that links them is an “overseeing” that only otherwise connects a lord to an overlord, making Papmalil not the inferior but the superior actor. He does not use Ucanal’s local political title but rather carries the higher epithet of ochk’in kaloomte’, roughly meaning the “Great Lord of the West”—firm evidence that he outranked the Caracol king. Papmalil is ascribed the same title at another major Maya capital, Naranjo, where he again outranks and exerts authority over the local king, who submissively visited Ucanal in 820 CE.
In short, the image and text of Altar 13 present different messages. The scene boosts the status of the Caracol ruler for a home audience, whereas
A drawing of Caracol Altar 13 (also our cover image), which is dated to 820 CE, by the author. The drawing was made with the aid of 155 photographs, each taken from a different lighting angle that catches hardto-see details.
the inscription offers a more accurate reflection of political reality.
This is intriguing, but the anomalies do not stop there. Papmalil is in no way a typical Maya king’s name. Its closest parallels come from the west, where Papa-, Papand Pa- are male prefixes in Chontal, a Mayan language from the Gulf Coast of Mexico, modern-day Tabasco (see panel 1, p. 28). This region was a melting pot where Maya people were in contact with other cultures and languages. This seems to be reflected in Papmalil’s costume, with his padded and knot-tied headband and surmounting three-feathered insignia, items we normally associate with Nahua-speakers from Central Mexico. In several different ways, the creators of Altar 13 sought to tell us that Papmalil was a powerful outsider.
The idea that foreigners came into the Maya area after 800 CE is not a new one. Indeed, in the 1960s
STRANGERS IN THE LAND
Naming Strangers
One of the ways that ethnic outsiders are recognized in the ancient world is where their non-local names are written phonetically. Famously, the very first word to be deciphered in Egyptian hieroglyphs was the Greek name Ptolemy on the Rosetta Stone, and the same phonetic strategy was used for Egypt’s first Greek ruler, Alexander the Great (Aleksindres)
several scholars suggested that an invasion from the west sparked the collapse. Jeremy Sabloff, a former Penn Museum Williams Director, was one of them, citing his research at the site of Ceibal (formerly Seibal) in Guatemala. By at least 849 CE, Ceibal had shown clear stylistic shifts in its ceramics, architecture, and monuments, which included the depiction of nonMaya deities originating far to the west. But any enthusiasm for a conquest model was short-lived. Although a late pottery type at Ceibal bore non-Maya imagery, further analysis proved that it was of local manufacture, not an import from elsewhere. The western features at Ceibal did not appear at most Maya sites and, even where they did, could be explained in other ways—for example, as cultural borrowings or as a late evolution in Maya style. It is also hard to overestimate the importance of the theoretical currents of this time, ones that still flow strongly today. These take a skeptical view of invasion and migration, considering them to be overly simplistic solutions to complex problems.
We have a similar phenomenon in Maya writing after 800 CE. By then, we encounter non-Classic Maya names such as Papmalil which, unlike those of most Maya kings, are spelled exclusively in syllables without any word signs. In this case, we can recognize the prefix of Papa-, Pap- or Pa-, a feature of a far western Mayan language called Chontal, spoken by people in close contact with Central Mexican cultures and languages.
The consensus against a late incursion is now almost universal. To give one example, in a book published in 2021 in which 31 authors re-examine the last years of the Classic era, not one of its 19 chapters mention the possibility of a foreign intrusion. Yet the non-local features of Papamalil compel us to re-assess that position. It would be one thing if he were an isolated and aberrant case, but if we look elsewhere, we find that he is not.
KINGS TURNED INTO REFUGEES
For a further interaction between a local and an outsider, we can turn to the region around Tikal. That immense city, excavated by the Penn Museum between 1956 and 1969, was a Classic Maya superpower whose military successes gave it a commanding position over neighboring kingdoms in the decades before 800. Yet this late golden age ended abruptly with its last regular stela commission in 810—a monument that was found smashed into dozens of fragments.
The reason the itinerant Tikal dynasts left their fortress at Zacpeten is evidently linked to this new political reality. No longer their own masters, they were instead beholden to a stranger in the land.
Recent evidence demonstrates that some portion of the Tikal dynasty fled the city at this time, setting up shop at Zacpeten, a peninsula on Lake Salpeten, 29 km to the south. A modest, even pitiful site, Zacpeten was nonetheless defended by substantial, newly built earthworks that sealed it off from the mainland. It was here that the holed-up exiles created monuments in 820 and 830, each a consummate display of continuity in Tikal traditions that gives no hint of their beleaguered situation and the crisis that had driven them into it.
The severe threat of this initial period must have abated by the time this royal remnant shifted home
again, this time to the much grander and undefended Ixlu, just across the lake from Zacpeten. There we find Stela 1 from 859, dominated by the portrait of a flamboyantly plumed dynast—the very picture of orthodoxy—who is dressed as a specific patron deity of Tikal. But he is observed by a seated figure to the lower right who wears unusual clothing. Previous work had noted the foreign tinge to this character but couldn’t say more. Today we can.
New information comes from the all-text record on Ixlu Altar 1. Although this stone was long dated to 879, 20 years later than the stela, I have shown that this is erroneous and that the true date matches the one on the stela. This means that both monuments refer to the same ceremony performed on the same day: the stela showing it, the altar describing it. Most importantly, the altar does two things the stela does not. Employing the same “oversight” term seen on Caracol Altar 13, it tells us that the seated observer is
Top: Ixlu Altar 1, dated to 859 CE.
Right: Ixlu Stela 1, also dated to 859 CE.
STRANGERS IN THE LAND
the presiding authority under whom the ceremony takes place, and it provides his name and title. That nominal phrase includes the very same Papmalil monicker seen at Caracol and Naranjo, although, at three decades remove, this is presumably a later namesake. The critical part comes at the end, where he is said to be a xaman kaloomte’ “Great Lord of the North”—a title only otherwise seen in the northern Maya lowlands. This is an unambiguous statement that he was both politically ascendent and an outsider to the central lowlands. We know that by now the northern zone had close ties to western cultures and that its hybridized style in art, architecture, and ceramics was reaching down into the central area. The Ixlu mon uments offer the first concrete evidence for the political context within which this took place.
The reason the itinerant Tikal dynasts left their fortress at Zacpeten is evidently linked to this new political reality. No longer their own masters, they were instead beholden to a stranger in the land.
A STRANGER CAPITAL
We can now return to Ucanal, the earlier Papmalil’s base of operations. Situated in northeastern Guatemala, it was anciently known as K’anwitznal “Yellow Hill Place,” and its ceremonial core occupies a plateau-like hill that had been modified over many centuries. It was a notable, but by no means remarkable Classic Period capital.
That changed in the 9th century as, unlike the great majority of its contemporaries, Ucanal thrived, with new construction projects and a buoyant population. It now showed many of the foreign features seen at Ceibal. Notably, both centers built circular temples, an innovation in this period that marks the arrival of some new religious idea (see panel 2, p. 32). There is even a textual link between the two, with one Ceibal stela telling us that its most famous king arrived there at the behest of an Ucanal lord in 829.
Ucanal monuments are often badly eroded and none survive from Papmalil’s time. But we do have Stela 4, erected in 849 CE, which shows two richly
The uncovering of Stela 29 by the team at Ucanal, Guatemala, in 2019.
dressed lords and, floating above them, the Central Mexican sun deity the later Aztec called Tonatiuh. Both lords bear conventional Maya names, but also thoroughly alien ones of western origin (see panel 3, p. 34). This is a strong hint that the ruling dynasty was now of mixed ancestries.
In 2014, new archaeological investigations at Ucanal were initiated by Christina Halperin of the University of Montreal and her Guatemalan colleagues, and I have been fortunate to collaborate on their project. My hope was for fresh discoveries of monuments and, indeed, in 2019, a carved stone, now known as Stela 29, was uncovered at the foot of a pyramid dubbed K-2.
Ucanal Stela 29 shows a standing male wearing a battle jacket and holding a spear-thrower in one hand and three long darts in the other. In Maya art, spear-throwers usually serve as ethnic markers for non-Maya westerners, while the long ornament that pierces his nose can also be linked to western inspiration. Another notable feature is this lord’s very slender physique, which matches those of similarly armed warriors on painted ceramics of this time— some of the last ever made by the Maya. Sadly, the inscription of Stela 29 is badly damaged, and almost nothing of it can now be read, robbing us of any name or political title. However, small details of the date strongly suggest that it was dedicated in 879.
In 2022, Halperin and her team dug into the K-2 pyramid and uncovered a desecrated, but once very wealthy, tomb. The contents had been extracted and burnt on a pyre, leaving only shattered fragments of bone and jade finery. She suggests that it was Papmalil who wrought this destruction, aiming to break with the past and entrench his new regime.
A NEW UNION
The idea that the newcomers married into the existing elite is supported by evidence I have only recently come across. It emerges from a carved bone, the foot-long mandible of a dolphin, now in the Dayton Art Institute.
Above: An image of the Central Mexican sun deity from Ucanal Stela 4, dating to 849 CE. Right: Ucanal Stela 29, very likely dating to 879 CE, shows a warrior king dressed and armed in the fashion of non-Maya peoples from the west.
RELIGION IN THE ROUND
The Maya lowlands of the 9th Century CE saw the sudden appearance of rounded or fully circular temples, either set on their own three-tiered sub-structure or added to an older temple platform. Most scholars see a close connection here to the round temples seen in Central Mexico and the Gulf Coast that were dedicated to Ehecatl, the wind aspect of the feathered serpent deity Quetzalcoatl. Carved and painted images of Quetzalcoatl in western styles appear in the Maya are at just this time and add considerable support to this interpretation.
Round temples emerge right across the region but are most common in the north and the east. The latter along the rivers of modernday Belize that connect the Caribbean Sea to the central lowlands. There they were built at the most populous and powerful late centers, both Ucanal and Ceibal, as well as at contemporaries that similarly share non-Maya characteristics. Here too foreign gods such as the sun deity Tonatiuh and the storm god Tlaloc join or replace existing Maya deities who served those roles.
It shows a standing male figure holding a knife, who wears a severed trophy head around his neck and a headdress of knotted rattlesnakes. Elements of the carving style and costuming resemble monuments dedicated in 864 and 869, suggesting that our undated bone was made close to that time. Its inscription begins with four hieroglyphs that identify the pictured lord, whose personal name is damaged but might read Upakal Chan Ahk “Shield of the Sky Turtle.” The significant part of this text comes next, where two short statements identify his parents.
The name of the father contains a sign whose spiked form has no counterpart in Maya writing. It resembles abstracted versions of the first day of the 20-day calendar used in Central Mexico and along the Gulf Coast, the spiny and fanged “Crocodile” the Aztec knew as Cipactli. The mother is not identified with a name but only as a k’uhul ixik “holy woman,” a title ubiquitously carried by Classic Maya royal women. The lack of a personal monicker is surely significant. The enthusiasm with which Classic Maya rulers normally recorded their mother’s names was provoked less by sentiment and more to signal the status and kin relationships she bestowed upon them. Since such connections were probably irrelevant in a cross-cultural marriage occurring during a time of crisis, her name was superfluous; it was enough to know that she was a high-born Maya. That their son is here given an exclusively Maya identity shows a process of assimilation at work, as foreign bloodlines were absorbed into late Maya society.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Classic Maya collapse remains one of the most startling social reverses in world history and one of the most momentous and enduring archaeological enigmas. What had once been a fabulously energetic, sophisticated, and populous civilization disappeared within a scant few decades. Given the anxieties and uncertainties of our own day, it is perhaps unsurprising that we are drawn to such dark historical parallels, ones we fear might foretell our own future.
The four inscriptions described here are part of a wider body of evidence indicating that outsiders
A circular temple built in the 9th century CE at Edzna, Mexico.
Carved into a dolphin jawbone, this 9th-century carving portrays a lord with mixed Maya and non-Maya heritage; photo courtesy of the Dayton Art Institute, Ohio.
Non-Maya Hieroglyphs
The most overt expression of foreignness in late personal names are those adopted from names of days. Although the calendar in question was the same 20-day system employed throughout Mesoamerica, the days in question come not from the Maya version but rather one of those used in Central Mexico or along the Gulf Coast. These systems differ not only in the names of the days and the signs used to represent them, but also by the square frames that often surround them as well. Foreign day names were being used as personal names in the Maya area by at least 849 CE: sometimes in combination with conventional Maya names, sometimes with other non-Classic Maya names spelled in syllables, and sometimes by themselves.
Shown at right are the comparable non-Maya signs 7 “Crocodile” and 10 “Storm God.” They appear not only on monuments but on the mold-made vessels that replaced the refined individually painted vases produced by the Classic Maya. Mass-produced, the new molded
were present in the Maya region soon after 800 CE— visible directly after the first clear signs of collapse begin—and that they achieved positions of influence and power. The centers they ruled, such as Ucanal and Ceibal, were marked by new religious ideas and styles in ceramics and architecture, both thriving while their neighbors declined.
This “new elite” used previously unseen names, sometimes spelled in foreign glyphs, and in all cases carried the most elevated of political titles, outranking the more traditional “old elite” who governed other enduring centers—who seem cowed into submission while struggling to preserve old traditions. But were these arrivals the cause, or only a
pots were often made from a fine, temperless clay developed on the Gulf Coast. An illustrative example excavated from a late tomb at Uaxactun, close to Tikal, has a literate Maya text around its rim but shows lords identified solely by those same squared forms. According to current thinking, the Maya adopted these names to impersonate or emulate foreigners, but a simpler explanation is that they refer to incomers who carried these names from birth.
symptom of the calamity? There is no reason why an outside intrusion, even a violent one, should lead to mass depopulation. They may simply have been filling a political vacuum and exploiting an opportunity presented by some other factor or factors. Yet, unless and until we can identify what those other factors might be with certainty, we are left with a complete restructuring of the political landscape led by outsiders at a critical moment. Could Classic Maya success have been so finely balanced, so tenuous, that a single blow could tip them into irreversible decline? Whatever the explanation, the crisis came quickly and powerfully, and there was no subsequent recovery. The decay continued throughout the 9th century, and,
A mold-made vessel from the site of Uaxactunl; photo by Alexandre Tokovinine.
by its end, all the elite groups, both old and new, were gone, and large swathes of the central region were effectively empty of people.
Centuries later, soon after the Spanish conquest, Maya sources make a few, very brief references to events said to fall between the late 8th and early 10th centuries CE. While these make no mention of plagues or pestilence, droughts or famine, they do refer to the arrival of “Mexicans” who became their political masters and, separately, to a “Great Descent” that came from the west. And this had happened before. Thanks to the decipherment, we know that forces from the mega-city of Teotihuacan, close to modern-day Mexico City, arrived in the Maya area in 378 CE and installed a foreign overlordship.
We are not done with the puzzle of the 9th century collapse yet, but I believe we have been missing an important piece we now need to put into the mix.
Simon Martin, Ph.D., Associate Curator in the American Section, is a political anthropologist and specialist in Maya hieroglyphic writing.
FOR FURTHER READING
Halperin, C.T. 2023. Foreigners Among Us: Alterity and the Making of Ancient Maya Societies. London: Routledge. 98(399):758–776.
Halperin, C.T., and S. Martin. 2020. Ucanal Stela 29 and the Cosmopolitanism of Terminal Classic Maya Stone Monuments. Latin American Antiquity 31(4):817–837.
Halperin, C.T., M.L.P. Carrera, K. A. Miller Wolf, and J.B. LeMoine. 2024. A Pivot Point in Maya History:
(u)baah “(It is his) image
upakal chan ahk? “Shield of the Sky Turtle?”
yunen “child of father” ? Cipactli? “Crocodile?”
yal k’uhul ixik “child of the holy woman”
A technical drawing of the jawbone pictured on the previous page, with a glyphic translation.
Fire-burning Event at K’anwitznal (Ucanal) and the Making of a New Era of Political Rule. Antiquity
Martin, S. 2020. Ancient Maya Politics: A Political Anthropology of the Classic Period 150–900 CE. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Martin, S. 2024. The Long Twilight of the Tikal Dynasty: What Ninth Century Tikal, Zacpeten, Ixlu, and Jimbal Tell Us About the Classic Maya Collapse. In Substance of the Ancient Maya: Kingdoms and Communities, Objects and Beings, ed. A.K. Scherer and T.G. Garrison. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
All unattributed photos are courtesy of the author. All technical drawings are by the author.
Two forms of the day-sign Cipactli “Crocodile” from Central Mexico.
LOOKING TO THE EARTH STARS LISTENING TO
THE
Cosmological Figurines from a Song Tomb
BY ADAM SMITH
THIS YEAR’S STUDENT EXHIBITION, Looking to the Stars, Listening to the Earth, presents a set of cosmological figurines and other objects characteristic of tombs ca. 1200 CE from what is now Jiangxi Province, People’s Republic of China. At that date, the Jiangxi region was governed by the Song dynasty from the capital at Lin’an 臨安 (now Hangzhou) after the loss of North China to the Jurchen conquest. The tomb belonged not to a member of the Song elite, but to a person of relatively modest social status, perhaps a provincial official. The objects were collected in the 1930s, and similar examples have been published by archaeologists since the second half of the 20th century.
The figurines are fascinating because of the diversity of divine beings that they represent. Even a relatively ordinary person might have more than two dozen distinct deities represented by figurines buried in their tomb. By examining features of the figurines, comparing them to examples from other tombs, and reading contemporary written accounts, we can understand who the figurines represent and how they related to cosmological beliefs.
ANTHROPOMORPHIZED COSMOLOGY
We are familiar with the idea of tombs provided with things that the dead might use in the afterlife, or with models of desirable goods, livestock, or servants. However, this group of figurines represents a different way of thinking about furnishing a tomb. Most of the figurines are anthropomorphized elements of a cosmology, i.e., the fundamental components of reality—heavenly bodies, spatial directions, units of time—whose regular and predictable
interactions might influence human well-being. If they could be anticipated or controlled, so could their effects on all the seemingly random and unpredictable aspects of human existence. Represented as figurines, these abstract cosmological forces were visualized as senior government officials attending court, so that they could be petitioned to intervene on behalf of human well-being.
Most of the standing figurines appear in the robes and caps of officials (as seen in the figures on page 38). Many of the figures’ hands form a clasping gesture and originally held a court tablet or hu ban 笏 板 (made of perishable material like bamboo or wood and no longer preserved). This appearance evoked images of senior ministers attending the imperial
Left: Standing guardian figure in armor, 80-5-1. Above: Daoist wall painting “Homage to the Highest Power” (detail showing the seven stars of the Northern Dipper as court officials), ink and color on clay, ca. 1300, Yuan dynasty; courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), Toronto, Canada, ©ROM, 933.6.3.
court in Lin’an. By extension, it evoked images of Daoist deities, conceived of as supernatural officials attending a celestial court and attentive to petitions via prayers and rituals. We see the same kind of depictions of cosmology in human form in other media such as wall paintings.
“LOOKING UP TO OBSERVE”
The key figurine in this representation of a universe that can be predicted and anticipated is subtly distinguished from all the other standing, robed figurines by the way in which its head is inclined backwards, as though it were looking skyward (seen below, center)..
An ink label on the bottom names the figure Yang Guan 仰觀 “Looking Up to Observe.” In early Chinese literature, this phrase evokes the observation of heavenly bodies and their motions. The goal of these observations was an accurate calendar of days, lunar months, solar years, and a reliable astrology that could help anticipate the less predictable aspects of life.
The Han historian and court astronomer Sima Qian used this exact phrase to describe how rulers since the beginning of human history had studied correlations between heaven and earth:
“Looking up (yang) they observed (guan) phenomena in the sky. Looking down, they organized
things by category on earth. In the sky, the sun and moon; on earth their shade (yin) and illumination (yang). In the sky, the Five Planets; on earth, the Five Elements. In the sky, the array of constellations; on earth, their regions of influence.”
The phrase on the bottom of the figurine would have evoked all of this. The “Looking Up to Observe” figurine is thus a timeless human observer hoping to understand the implication of celestial patterns represented by the other figurines.
In sets of tomb figurines like these, the “Looking Up to Observe” figure has a counterpart labelled “Lying Down to Listen.” Together, these two signify the observable correlations between heavenly patterns and events on earth, and the efficacy of divination.
THE DIPPER AND XUAN WU
The Big Dipper (Ursa Major, “Northern Dipper” bei dou 北斗 in Chinese) is one of the most easily identifiable constellations. In the northern hemisphere it is always visible in a clear night sky, since its proximity to the pole around which the night sky rotates means that it never dips below the horizon. It behaves like a giant clock, its long arm sweeping out one full rotation from its position at dusk one evening to the next. Its position at dusk performs an additional
From left: Prostrating figurine 80-5-24 with ink label “Lying Down to Listen,” hand-modeled. Standing figurine 80-5-19 with ink label “Looking Up to Observe,” produced from the same mold as one of the figurines seen in Making the Figurines on page 40, but with hand-modified collar and head. Standing figurine of Xuan Wu, also made from the same mold, with turtle and Northern Dipper hat; 80-5-18.
superimposed rotation over the course of a year. This gives it a central place in the astronomical clockwork that we “look up to observe," and a prominent position in the court of celestial bureaucrats.
Sometimes, the seven stars of the dipper are individually anthropomorphized as in the popular print of a full pantheon of Chinese deities shown above. In the set of tomb figurines, the seven stars of the Dipper appear on the hat of one of the officials. This figurine’s ink label and the tortoise climbing up the front of his robe identify him as the star deity Xuan Wu 玄武, a personification of the constellations of the northern quadrant of the sky.
THE TWELVE-CYCLE DEITIES
Early Chinese cosmology found many ways to count things by 12 and thought of them all as interacting with one another. Days had been counted using a cycle of 12 since the earliest times. The full circle of the rotating night sky was divided into 12 equal segments, each corresponding to two hours of the Dipper’s nightly motion, and about a month of its yearly motion. The terrestrial directions were also 12 in number (four cardinal directions and three subdivisions between each.) The lunar months (new moon to new moon) were counted in twelves. In acoustics, the 12 pitches of the musical scale were
A popular print from the early 20th century, with pantheon of deities including seven stars of the Northern Dipper, and the twelve cycle deities, depicted as officials attending court; 51-53-8.
MAKING THE FIGURINES
BY MARIE-CLAUDE BOILEAU
Tomb figurines like these were standardized and made in large numbers. Using X-ray images, we can see the process by which the required standard types could be efficiently mass-produced. The figurines were made from molded body-sections and head-sections to which hands and clothing details were applied. Different combinations of body and head types and different applied or incised details generated a diverse range of appearances.
The body of each figurine was made by pressing flat sheets of clay into molds, one for the back and one for the front, and then joining together the two pieces along their edges to form a hollow body. The seams where the front and back components were joined can be seen on the surface of the figurines and show up as black lines in the X-ray image.
Details such as the billowing sleeves, the hanging sash at the front, and the waistband and hanging
streamers at the back are all mold-impressed and so identical on all figures made from the same bodymold. Hands, shoes, and the collar of the robe are all made from clay added to the body and modeled by hand. A square base is attached to the bottom of the figurine body. The head is solid, made from a single mold, and held in place by a long tine inserted into the body through the collar.
None of the figurines in this set are glazed, and, apart from some black ink on the back of some of the figures’ hats, no remaining trace of any pigment can be seen.
The efficient mass-production of figurines like these was in part a response to a demand by families of relatively modest means to have large, symbolically complex sets of several dozen tomb figurines to furnish tombs. It may also be due to the Song government’s standardization and regulation of funerals and their material aspects.
Tomb figurine (80-5-6) dressed in robes and cap of a court official, in X-ray and visible light. The hollow body appears dark gray in the X-rays. The dark lines running down the side view are where the front and back molded body components were joined together.
correlated with months of the year. The motion of Jupiter through the 12 segments of the sky takes about 12 years to complete, and years were also counted in twelves. This last feature, a cycle of 12 years, with its correlated list of zodiac animals, is the one feature of this complex cosmological clockwork that remains popular enough that almost everyone is aware that 2024 is the Year of the Dragon.
As with the Dipper, the 12 positions in these cycles of 12 were visualized as twelve deities in human form, attending the celestial court that governed the cosmos. They are represented in the set of tomb figurines as identically molded standing figures, with ink labels under the base corresponding to the names of the twelve terms of the cycle. In the popular print shown on page 39, they are depicted in a very similar convention.
DECORATED JARS
Besides the figurines, tombs of this kind often have a pair of elaborately decorated, tall, glazed porcelain jars. In a few cases, these very distinctive containers are labeled as “granaries,” indicating symbolic food provision for the occupant of the tomb. Based on research on the acquisition records, the pair included in the exhibition are likely not from this same tomb but are of exactly the same type that would be expected to show up together with the figurines (same date, region, and tomb type). A close look at the complex decoration on the pair in the exhibition reveals another representation of the same cosmological vision as the set of figurines. The twelve-cycle deities are arranged in a ring around each jar, the turtle representing the constellation deity Xuan Wu can be seen crawling over the neck along with other animals, and the “Listening to the Earth” figure makes an appearance.
REGULATIONS ON BURIAL
a proper burial would ensure the well-being of descendants. At the same time, governments were determined to regulate funerals to be economically modest, so they conformed to accepted ideas about appropriate ritual.
A long-standing tradition of complex tomb furniture was matched by a tradition of complaints from officials about lavish elite burials and their emulation by the lower classes. Five hundred years before the Song tomb figurines were made, a memorial to the Tang emperor complained about aristocrats and officials:
The use of these sets of cosmological figurines and decorated jars in burials reflects longstanding religious traditions and popular beliefs about how
“…competing to have the most elaborate burials, with figurines of humans and horses, carved and decorated as though they were living. They aim only to dazzle passers-
A pair of grave urns; 79-15-1A,B and 79-15-2A,B.
INK LABELS
BY ALEXIS NORTH
Infrared reflectance (IRR) imaging is a non-invasive photographic technique often used to identify features of works of art, such as faded writing or underdrawings. Carbon-based pencils and inks are particularly responsive, and even very worn areas can show up more clearly in IRR. For these figurines, we used IRR to try to find and read the ink characters which are present on the bottom of some figures. In several cases, the imaging was successful in clarifying the writing, providing more detailed identification of the figures.
Many figurines in the set have original brushwritten ink labels on the base. Examples can be seen in the infrared photographs (along with Museum numbers added in the 20th century). Each label indicates the cosmological divinity depicted by the figurine. The labels were written on the concealed underside of the base, so they would not be visible when the figurine was placed in a standing position. The labels would have been useful when procuring a complex set of figurines from the workshops or for arranging the figurines in a tomb.
Figurines and infrared images of original ink labels on the underside. The figurines were illuminated using an incandescent light, and the images were captured in the IRR (above 830nm) using a longpass IRR filter (B+W IR 830) on a modified (hot mirror removed) Nikon D5200 DSLR. Clockwise from top left: 80-5-3: 丑 Chou, 2nd in cycle of 12.
constellation divinity.
Burial manual, “Da Han Yuanling mi zang jing” 大漢原陵秘葬經, with text specifying figurine types and diagrams showing their placement within tombs of different ranks; Yongle Encyclopedia 永樂大典, v. 8199, 15th c. CE.
by. This is not a sincere form of ritual, and they incite one another to bankruptcy and ruin. The popularity of these customs extends down to the lower classes, and if we do not prohibit this, wasteful extravagance will continue to grow. I hope and request that, from the aristocrats down, the use of tomb furnishings will accord with regulations, and that they be arranged only inside the grave, and not paraded around in the streets.”
During the Song dynasty, these complaints continued about extravagant funerals and about the dead being left unburied for excessively long periods while the diviners waited for an auspicious funeral day. The Song government and private authors published detailed manuals to help with the scheduling of burials, the siting of tombs, and the provision of tomb figurines of modest size and number. The text and diagram shown above come from one of these funeral manuals, very close in date to the tomb figurines in the Looking to the Stars, Listening to the Earth exhibition. The diagram and the accompanying text specify the figurines that can be placed into the tomb, how large they are permitted to be, and where they are to be placed. The twelvecycle deities, “Looking Up to Observe,” “Lying Down to
Listen,” and others are all laid out on this diagram.
The text ends with the following summary description of the figurines and their role in the tomb: “The forgoing are all auspicious things to be used by gentry and common people. Whenever a big funeral is complete, if models of these divinities are not set up in the tomb, the soul of the deceased will not be at peace, Heaven’s Bureaucracy will not deal with them, they will not be accepted into the Underworld, and they will be confused and unsettled. This is inauspicious for the living and forbodes great disaster.”
This captures concisely the role the figurines played in the tomb. They had a protective function for the spirit of the deceased, which they exercised as bureaucrats in an anthropomorphized cosmology. The consequences of not deploying them correctly would affect not just the dead, but their living descendants also.
Adam Smith, Ph.D., is an Associate Curator in the Asian Section. His research focuses primarily on Chinese paleography and excavated texts, as well as the areas of material culture represented in our Asian Section collections.
FOR FURTHER READING
Ho, J.C. 2016. Representing the Twelve Calendrical Animals as Beastly, Human, and Hybrid Beings in Medieval China. In The Zoomorphic Imagination in Chinese Art and Culture, ed. J. Silbergeld and E.Y. Wang, pp. 95–136. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Liu Wei 劉未. 2021. Shiwu, tuxiang yu wenben: Song Yuan shiqi de muzang shensha 實物、圖像與文 本：宋元時期的墓葬神煞. Gugong bowuyuan yuankan 故宮博物院院刊 59–80.
Xu Pingfang 徐蘋芳. 1963. Tang Song muzang zhong de “mingqi shensha” yu mu yi -- du “Da Han Yuan ling mi zang jing” zhaji 唐宋墓葬中的“明器神煞” 與“墓儀—讀《大漢原陵秘葬經》札記. Kaogu 考 古 87–106.
Conservators working on frescoes found in the larger west room, which are from a series of panels each featuring a god or goddess.
Aphrodite emerges
Bringing an Ancient Roman Goddess to Life
BY CHARLES K. WILLIAMS II AND ROBERTO NARDI
he summer 2021 issue of Expedition (63.2) gave readers a glimpse—thanks to Charles K. Williams—of a fascinating project taking place at the site of ancient Corinth. A team of about 16 professionals from Rome’s Centro di Conservazione Archeologica, led by Roberto Nardi, was just over a year into an ambitious effort to restore and piece together fresco fragments from the Roman theater and four rooms in the area to its east, which Williams and his team excavated in the 1980s. For this issue, Expedition interviewed Charles K. Williams and Roberto Nardi to share with readers more about the fresco fragments’ excavation context, the absorbing process of restoring and matching them, and the decisions that inform their treatment and preparation for eventual public display.
Expedition, to Charles Williams: When did you first come to Corinth, and what was the first part of the site that you excavated?
CW: I came way back in 1964, and I spent my first years digging in what was widely believed to be the agora of the Greek city—I was doubtful about its
identification. I preferred to think of it as a festival ground, because it has a racecourse, a little podium where contact sports may have taken place, and it doesn’t have any civic buildings surrounding it. When the Romans came in and sacked the city around 146 BCE and then rebuilt it a century or so later, they took the festival ground and divided it into an upper and a lower forum. In the lower forum, they built an urban showplace with temples, a big basilica, and a speakers’ platform. In the upper forum, they created spaces for commercial and administrative activities.
One particularly interesting thing about the Roman rebuilding of Corinth is that they reestablished what had been in the Greek period the cult of Aphrodite on the top of Acrocorinth, the acropolis of the city.
How did you know it was a cult of Aphrodite?
Once we started on that, it was just a case of following through— because once you start on something, the excavation leads you; you don’t lead the excavation.
CW: It was known because Pausanias, a 2ndcentury CE Greek traveler and geographer, had mentioned in his Periegesis Hellados (Description of Greece) that the temple at the top of the hill had images of armed Aphrodite, Helios, and Eros with his bow. Excavation of that temple showed it to be very small, and because there was no room on the top of the Acrocorinth for all the cult facilities, the Romans apparently moved some cultic activities to the lower city. There, on the slope below the forum next to the Roman theater, they built a kind of extension of the Aphrodite sanctuary. Excavations in the 1980s were devoted to revealing this ancillary establishment—a multi-room cult building entered by a corridor from the street that flanks the theater.
So where did you start?
CW: The theater had been dug, but we didn’t know what was around it—was it a poor neighborhood or an elite neighborhood? So, I decided we ought to dig around the theater to find out what the neighborhood was. We found the street by the theater and then cleared it to see what was on it. Once we started on that, it was just a case of following through—because once you start on something, the excavation leads you; you don’t lead the excavation.
As we were excavating the street, we found the entrance into a large courtyard through a corridor
that was full of decomposed mudbrick and fresco fragments. We’d never found significant quantities of fresco fragments at Corinth before, so I was fascinated to find something new. I was also interested in the frescoes because they could provide important evidence for the chronology of the building. We had to work slowly through the corridor, as the mudbrick of the wall was mixed with fresco fragments, so if you took out the mud you had to make sure you first took out the fresco pieces that had fallen together. Our conservator for the American School in Corinth, Stella Bouzaki, was extraordinarily skilled at removing the fragments from the mud.
The building was large enough that it took quite a bit of time to discover that there were four rooms south of its entrance corridor—rooms that enabled us to identify this area as part of the Aphrodite cult on Acrocorinth.
What did the rooms reveal?
CW: The northernmost room produced fresco fragments of a wall with yellow panels below swags of a floral garland that have musical instruments hanging from them: a flute, a lyre, and a panpipe. This imagery suggests that this room may have served as a place for music and entertainment.
The middle room has a square area of paving tiles in the northwest corner on which was set a tall, cylindrical stand for a washbasin. Behind the paved area is an exit in the wall for wastewater. The contents found in the room were very important—rare Roman figurines of women washing their hair—which confirmed the use of the facility for bathing.
Two rooms toward the south are divided by a wall with two sets of doors, one opening into each space. In the smaller room to the east, high in the wall above the north side of the doorway is a niche-shaped shrine painted with roses. The larger west room is decorated with a series of panels each featuring a god or goddess. Heracles, Hera, Zeus, and Athena stand tall on the north wall, with a series of birds—including a hoopoe— at the east end. Aphrodite is centered on the facing south wall holding her shield, flanked by Eros with his bow and arrow and other flying figure, probably Helios.
Above: Figurine fragment of a woman washing her hair and figurine of a bathing woman with a wash basin. Right: Stand for a wash basin.
Fresco fragments from the northernmost room excavated, which show yellow walls beneath swags of a floral garland with musical instruments hanging from it.
At the west end of south wall there is a little space—a sort of chamber with a seat—on the wall of which is painted a situla or ritual pitcher for pouring water. This room is where a ritual of the Aphrodite cult appears to have been conducted. In this room we found a set of figurines that are almost two feet tall with elaborately coiffed hair, which may suggest that elaborate hairstyling is what this room was used for.
Once we had been able to examine the four rooms together, we saw a picture emerging of a chapter in the personal histories of the women who used them: we imagine that women would come into the first room with the garland fresco and be entertained as they awaited their turn to move along to the next rooms for the ritual cleansing and hairstyling.
When we dig, we’re not just looking for objects; we’re trying to find the personal histories that the objects together with their context will give us.
Expedition
When you start a fresco or mosaic project, is it rare for you to be able to consult the archaeologist and other team members who can provide the excavation context on the fragments your team will work with, as you were able to in this case?
RN: It is not just rare. It never happens… at least in our experience. But in Corinth, instead, we have the privilege of having Mr. Williams constantly with us and his incredible memory. And because, parallel to our conservation projects, Mr. Williams is working on his publication, our interaction has been
constantly vivid and productive. His assistance is always extremely useful. He remembers the location and context of each significant fragment with all the positive consequences that one can imagine for our work.
From a technical point of view, the participation of Stella Bouzaki, the excavation conservator responsible for the recovery and recording of the wall paintings, has proven to be very helpful to the process of restoring thousands of pieces to their correct positions. Overall, the good relations that you can only have with respected colleagues provide the project with the extra benefit of clear internal communication.
How did the excavation and early site conservation history you heard from Charles Bouzaki inform your initial
RN: It was essential to orient the work program in the right direction and to find the beginning of the string to follow in a maze that otherwise
When we dig, we’re not just looking for objects; we’re trying to find the personal histories that the objects together with their context will give us.
Figurine of a woman with braided coiffure.
would have been an inextricable labyrinth. One has to imagine a repository consisting of 120,000 fragments averaging 5 x 5 cm in size and several dozen fresco pieces averaging a quarter of a square meter in size. Without the guidance of the individuals who excavated and collected them, it would have been impossible for us to plan a long-term program for restoration and display.
Moreover, the opportunity to discuss with Mr. Williams the possible provenance of the frescoes and link the fragments to architectural structures added a whole other dimension to an operation that otherwise would have been merely a technical process. Thanks to this collaboration, the project has acquired the scientific and cultural value to mark it as an important milestone in Mediterranean archaeology.
How is this project similar to others your teams have worked on, and what’s unique about it? What specific skills and knowledge have your team members developed here that will contribute to their ongoing careers?
The niche-shaped shrine painted with roses, found in one of the two rooms divided by a wall with two sets of doors.
RN: Having had the privilege of doing such work for 40 years, we cannot say that this is the first time we have had to deal with a gigantic puzzle. I’m thinking for instance of the painted stained-glass window in the Museum of Italian Art in Lima, Peru, where we pieced together a work that had been reduced to thousands of fragments by a car bomb; or the Giants of Mont’e Prama in Sardinia, prehistoric sculptures in 9,000 fragments, reconstructed into 25 stone warriors; or the fresco paintings from the Roman villa of Sant’Imbenia in Sardinia where, instead of reconstructing a vaulted wall as originally believed, we produced a coffered ceiling and two small domes. But at the same time, in archaeology and conservation, there is never one project equal to another. Perhaps there may be similar methodologies, but techniques and results are always different. That is why one has to start from scratch each time. This is exactly what happened in Corinth, where we had to develop totally new and unprecedented restoration techniques. This, I must admit, is one of the many aspects that make the profession of conservation so attractive. Our team members will certainly treasure the methodology followed to define the operational techniques needed to solve problems not encountered before.
How are you currently preparing the fresco panels you’ve been able to reconstruct for display?
RN: Our approach is to prepare panels suitable for display in a museum setting with accompanying educational apparatus. The parameters we set ourselves are first of all the reversibility of the restoration and the stability of the materials used. This is followed by the requirement that the panels be of a size that four people can handle without mechanical means and that they can pass through doors or windows. A final requirement is that they be mountable
on structures that can be displayed either against a wall or in the center of an exhibition area. For example, the wall of one room decorated with the garlands, measuring approximately 8 x 3 m, is divided into seven panels that are mounted on a self-supporting aluminum structure made up of four elements.
How do you think the displayed panels and rooms will add to what visitors who see them learn about the ancient site and the people who lived here?
RN: Unlike the large public buildings of Corinth, about which we know a great deal, the adjacent neighborhoods in which people went about their daily lives present large gaps in our knowledge. Mr. Williams’ excavation aimed to shed light in this direction by exposing a series of buildings constructed at the side of the theater, on one of the busiest streets in Corinth. Through the restoration of the frescoes that decorated some of the walls of these buildings it is hoped that visitors may soon experience them in a new museum at Corinth and gain a better
understanding of life in one of the great cities of the Roman world.
Charles K. Williams II, Ph.D., Field Director of the Roman Fresco Project, was Director of the Corinth Excavations from 1966 to 1977, where he continues as Director Emeritus. Dr. Williams is also a Consulting Scholar in the Penn Museum’s Mediterranean Section. Roberto Nardi is the director of the Centro di Conservazione Archaeologica (CCA) in Rome, which he founded in 1982. He has directed over 80 projects in 20 countries and is President of the International Committee for the Conservation of Mosaics.
All images are courtesy of the Corinth Excavations of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Special thanks for assistance to Christopher A. Pfaff, Ph.D., Director; Nancy Bookidis, Ph.D., Assistant Director Emerita; and Manolis Papadakis, Operations Manager.
FOR FURTHER READING
Williams, C.K. 2021. Surprise and Luck in a Roman Fresco Project. Expedition 63(2):4–5.
Fresco showing yellow panels filled with birds, from the north wall of the entrance corridor.
A Post-Baccalaureate Perspective
BY MARY ELIZABETH ALEXANDER
AS A POST-BACCALAUREATE STUDENT at the University of Pennsylvania, CAAM has offered me many avenues to grow my skills in the archaeological sciences. Over the last three years I have taken the courses Surface Archaeology, Material World in Archaeological Science, and the Archaeometallurgy Seminar, and I worked as a Lab Assistant in CAAM’s Archaeometallurgy Lab; and attended a field season at Mozia, Sicily.
In my Archaeometallurgy Lab position, I managed and maintained a collection of over 2,000 archaeological metal samples, organized storage, and contributed information to the database about prior research. I designed diagrams for a publication on the chaîne opératoire (production chain) of ancient copper and iron. Additionally, I assisted in cataloging and recording an assemblage of artifacts made from Egyptian Blue pigment found
Mary Elizabeth using a pXRF to acquire chemical data of Penn Museum object 32-21-356 in the Tepe Gawra assemblage; photo by Jessica Lubniewski.
at Iron Age Hasanlu, northwest Iran.
Through my lab position and as part of the ANTH 5252: Archaeometallurgy Seminar with Dr. Vanessa Workman, I had the opportunity to work closely with an assemblage from Tepe Gawra to understand the site’s earliest evidence of metals and their production methods. Tepe Gawra was a northern Mesopotamian settlement in the Late Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age, known for its early use of tin-bronze. Over a semester, I illustrated and documented the assemblage of 41 copper and bronze objects. In the Archaeometallurgy Seminar, I selected the six oldest objects, originating from Levels X–VII (3900–2400 BCE), for further microstructural and chemical study using reflected light microscopy, portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF), and Scanning Electron MicroscopyEnergy Dispersive Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS).
Microstructural analysis revealed annealed grains in five objects with surprisingly minor inclusions (irregularities). This shows the ancient working processes post-smelt of hammering and annealing (reheating) to shape the objects over a hearth. The lack of slag suggests purification, and perhaps recycling, of the metals prior to fabrication into objects. The chemical data revealed an overall low but consistent arsenic content across the assemblage, revealing a culture dependent on arsenical copper. Two exceptions were found: a Level IX awl composed of nearly pure copper, and a nail from the earliest level with a 7–9 percent tin content. The nail I analyzed is currently the earliest known tin-bronze at Tepe Gawra.
This summer, I was also fortunate enough to conduct fieldwork at Mozia, Sicily, with Dr. Jason Herrmann and a team from the University of Palermo. Having taken Surface Archaeology with Drs. Herrmann and Tartaron, and with an interest in digital archaeology, I knew the fieldwork at this Punic city site would be a great learning opportunity. The island has been largely mapped using magnetometry in prior summers, so the focus this summer was to bring higher resolution to a few key places using Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) and Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR).
I learned to use these instruments to collect data in the field and to process the data we collected to map subsurface features. I look forward to learning more from our work at Mozia as the results are interpreted and reported.
In all, my CAAM courses, lab, and fieldwork experiences provided me with a better understanding of methods and practices in the Archaeological Sciences in ways I had not hoped to achieve until graduate school. I now feel ready to tackle graduate studies as I head off to the Master of Arts Program in Social Sciences at the University of Chicago in the fall of 2024.
Mary Elizabeth Alexander completed the Liberal and Professional Studies Post-Baccalaureate Program at Penn and is now continuing her education at the University of Chicago.
Helen Wong, a Ph.D. candidate in Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World, pushing the GPR cart while Mary Elizabeth records notes near Area A of Mozia, June 2024; photo by Jason Herrmann.
Academic Engagement Turns Ten
BY ANNE TIBALLI
FOR THE PAST DECADE, the Academic Engagement Department has supported connections and programs between University of Pennsylvania faculty and students and the Penn Museum. We feel immense pride and humility in the task we have been given: to create opportunities for deep engagement with the Penn Museum’s mission, collections, and programming. We invite faculty to teach with our collections by giving them a sense of which objects could connect with their course topics. In nearly all instances, our invitations have been met with enthusiastic approval. We continue to bring in new faculty or new classes
every semester, and a Penn Museum visit has become a permanent part of many syllabi across the curriculum.
As the Museum’s reach extended from archaeological and art historical classes to other disciplines, we increased our support for object selection, classroom activities and assignments, and object-based learning. While faculty in comparative literature, history, and environmental studies like the idea of bringing their classes to the Museum, they are not always confident in using objects as primary sources rather than texts. These collaborations require more work, but they have enriched the ways
Students in Fall 2021 Intermediate Spanish interpret the symbols on Huichol yarn paintings from western Mexico with instructor Patricia Vargas; photo by Eric Sucar.
we think about our collections, and extended our reach to students who might not otherwise have visited the Museum.
Since not all learning happens in the classroom, we have also worked hard to develop internships, workshops, and events for students. Our Making Workshop series, launched in 2014, connects students with collections in themed hands-on events. We’ve recreated everything from atlatls to Japanese indigo tie-dye to Maya hot chocolate. The Student Exhibition Program and Penn Museum Fellows have provided paid opportunities for upperlevel undergraduates to create an exhibition or capstone research project, supported by Penn Museum staff. Graduate students can build their professional skills through the summer program Creating Academic Museum Professionals or as members of the Graduate Advisory Council; work on Museum projects in our Museum Assistantship Program; or give public tours through the Graduate Guides.
digital content that became an essential element of Penn classes. For a program whose central mission is to bring students and faculty in closer contact with the wonderful specificity and astonishing breadth of the collections, we felt the inadequacy as well as the potential of virtual learning.
Though we are thankful for the return of inperson teaching, Academic Engagement continues to adapt to the changing environment of higher education, museums, and the Penn campus. Along with the rest of the Penn Museum, we increased our efforts to make the Museum a more diverse,
A student can build a truly unique educational experience at the Museum.
When our activities came to a halt in March 2020, we adjusted the entire 2020–2021 academic year to virtual. When the lynchpin of our program was direct engagement with collections, how could we pivot to online teaching? As we do every semester, we reached out to faculty to share how we could support their teaching in this new paradigm, offering to record them giving tours in the (empty) galleries, connect them with curators and graduate students for virtual discussion sessions, or even conduct live classes from the collections classroom, supported by three cameras and a giant screen. We marshalled the talent of our graduate students and staff to create useful
welcoming, and inclusive space, particularly through our Summer Internship Program, which encourages applications from students from backgrounds underrepresented in museum-related fields. We are responding to Penn students’ needs to apply their knowledge to practical, ethically grounded work in cultural heritage, education, and community engagement. Finally, we continue to do our best to make the Penn Museum a place where students can build new connections to the people represented in the galleries and collections, the communities that surround us, and each other.
Anne Tiballi, Ph.D., is the Director of Academic Engagement.
Kate Moore leads a virtual object study from the collections classroom for Food & Fire: Archaeology in the Laboratory in fall 2020; photo by Anne Tiballi.
Building Intercultural Competence
BY AH-YOUNG KIM
THIS YEAR the Penn Museum proudly introduced the Global Learning Lab, an innovative initiative designed to promote intercultural exchange and dialogue among young visitors and educators from diverse backgrounds. This unique program offers transformative learning experiences that transcend traditional educational approaches, fostering a deeper understanding of cultures through interactive opportunities hosted in the Museum’s galleries and classrooms.
At the heart of the Global Learning Lab lies a commitment to developing key competencies in intercultural education. Through engaging
activities, students are encouraged to exchange ideas and experiences, enhancing their observation, inference-making, critical thinking, active listening, collaborative learning, and reflective skills.
Guided by trained educators, students build global competencies that help navigate an increasingly interconnected world.
The Global Learning Lab focuses on cultivating essential skills such as close-looking, critical thinking, active listening, and reasoning. Emphasizing collaborative and reflective learning processes, the program fosters an environment where students work together and make both
Museum educator Florence Hsu leads a group of Greenfield School students through an exercise in the Middle East Galleries.
personal and collective connections. Educators involved in the program cherish the opportunity to share their stories and value those moments that spark curiosity and wonder in their students.
A cornerstone of the Global Learning Lab is its dedication to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA). By diversifying the perspectives of educational personnel and embracing DEIA principles, the Lab creates an environment where intercultural understanding flourishes, critical thinking is nurtured, and global citizenship is cultivated. Responsive programming that better represents the community ensures that many voices are heard and valued. In the spring of 2024, the curriculum's design was put to the test with a pilot gallery lesson and studio workshop involving students from Greenfield School and Bayard Taylor School. Trained Museum educators led close-looking and discussion activities in several galleries, leading the students through thoughtful exploration. Following the gallery session, students participated in a studio workshop designed
to reflect on their own identities, appreciate each other’s communities, and increase their empathy and understanding of different cultures.
A Greenfield School chaperone remarked: “On this visit the children were actively engaged during the entire tour as they were asked to use their minds to think through and explore the areas of the Museum we were touring.”
Ultimately, the goal of the Global Learning Lab is to create programming that truly reflects the diverse community it serves and fosters a sense of global citizenship and intercultural understanding. The Penn Museum is thrilled to invite educators, students, and the wider community to be part of this exciting inaugural year of the Global Learning Lab, as we embark on a journey to transform how we learn about and engage with the world around us. To learn more or sign up, visit www.penn.museum/k12.
Ah-Young Kim is the Associate Director of Interpretive Programs.
A student from the Albert. M. Greenfield School observes the exhibition Native American Voices: The People—Here and Now
A Wampum Belt Returns to the Peskotomuhkati/ Passamaquoddy Nation
BY LUCY FOWLER WILLIAMS AND STACEY ESPENLAUB
THE IMPORTANCE OF REPATRIATION for Native American communities is more palpable than ever. We felt its impact on a June 2024 trip to the Passamaquoddy Nation in eastern Maine, near New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada.
Dr. Donald Soctomah, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer of the Passamaquoddy Tribe, Museum Director, is the great grandson of the tribe’s last wampum keeper—the Tribal member who protects and shares the histories and meanings of wampum in their community. He, requested the return of the belt as an Object of Cultural Patrimony under NAGPRA: “The belt represents a living spirit that must be used during tribal ceremonies. It is owned communally by the tribe and its energy is needed back home in its rightful community. It is a link to the Great Council Fire, an alliance of peace created in the early 19th century by the Seven Nations Iroquois and Wabanaki Confederate Tribes of Maine in response to pressures of European encroachment. Its sacred purple and white shell beads include 14 diamonds representing the alliance.”
Donald Soctomah, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer,
Since 2016, the Passamaquoddy have used a replica of the belt in their regular meetings with the Maine State Legislature. It holds central importance to the entire Passamaquoddy Nation and according to tribal leaders, no individual or group has—or has ever had— the proper authority to remove it from the community.
And yet, the wampum belt was purchased in 1913 by Penn Museum Director George Byron Gordon from an art dealer in New York City. Although the Museum purchased the belt in good faith, the Museum and the Tribe could not pinpoint how and when the item was removed from tribal custody. Wampum specialist and Penn Professor Emeritus Dr. Margaret Bruchac shared additional historical documentation that further supported the tribe’s request. Penn Museum’s NAGPRA Committee recommended the return, and after conferring with the Executive Committee of the Museum’s Board of Advisors, the return was approved by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania on February 29, 2024.
On a weekday in early June, after meeting Dr. Soctomah for a breakfast of blueberry pancakes, we joined approximately 60 joyful and enthusiastic tribal elders and youth from Maine and Canada at
Dr.
generously shared Peskotohmuhkati tribal knowledge about his people on the land; photo by Lucy Fowler Williams.
the Wabanaki Museum and Cultural Center in Calais, Maine. Accompanied by singing and drumming, Dr. Soctomah unwrapped the belt and placed it on a table in the center of the room inside a circular wreath of fresh cedar. Tribal leaders offered prayers and speeches of thanks and recognition. Dr. Soctomah acknowledged the Penn Museum and presented each of us with a small Peskotohmuhkati basket woven of ash and sweetgrass. A female wampum keeper from a neighboring Canadian First Nation imparted tribal knowledge among the guests: “If you place your hands over it,
you can feel your ancestors. It might be cold, it might be hot, you might feel sparkles or flashes. Whatever you feel, it’s your ancestors.”
One by one, tribal members reverently approached the belt; carefully placing their hands over the tiny woven shell beads, they felt its energy. Most closed their eyes, some wept, and others smiled as they quietly welcomed their ancestors home.
Lucy Fowler Williams, Ph.D., is Associate Curator-in-Charge and Sabloff Senior Keeper of Collections, American Section. Stacey Espenlaub is the Manager of Provenance and Repatriation and Kamensky NAGPRA Specialist.
Congratulations to Our Conservation Techs
SINCE ITS FOUNDING IN 1966, the Penn Museum Conservation Department has had an active program of internships and fellowships, many of which have provided the professional experience needed by aspiring conservators for entry to graduate school conservation programs. Our more recent Conservation
Technician positions also provide this experience. This summer we wished three of our Conservation Technicians well as they left us for graduate school programs: Rachelle Wolfe, now attending the Museum Studies M.A. Program at NYU; Sarah Lavin, now attending the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation; and Eva Marie Fuschillo, now in Buffalo State’s Art Conservation Program.
We hope perhaps to welcome Rachelle, Sarah, and Eva Marie back to the Conservation Department some day; a number of our former interns and fellows have returned as conservators once their training is completed, including Morgan Burgess, current project conservator for the restoration of the Buddhist murals in the Penn Museum collection.
Conservator
Morgan Burgess and Conservation
Technician Sarah
Lavin cleaning a panel of the Buddhist murals.
Tribal members are strengthened by repatriation and welcome home the energy of their ancestors; photo by Lucy Fowler Williams.
Penn Cultural Heritage Center Receives National Leadership Grant
THE PENN CULTURAL HERITAGE CENTER
(PennCHC) has received a highly competitive National Leadership Grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services to work with collecting institutions across the United States to explore the landscape of museum collecting practices in the Museums: Missions and Acquisitions Project. Over three years, the PennCHC project team will investigate the policies and practices governing the missions, values, and acquisitions of U.S. museums through facilitated focus groups and in-depth interviews, directed desk research and content analysis, and a representative field-wide survey. This work contributes to the Penn Museum’s strategic goal to create opportunities for dialogue across museums with similar collections to share best practices—part of its 2024–2027 Strategic Plan.
National Leadership Grants are intended to encourage leaders within the museum and library fields to develop best practices that will benefit the larger community in which they operate. The Museum and the PennCHC are pleased to take a leadership role in research and dialogue that will advance industry standards in a rapidly developing field.” This more accurately represents what M2A will do.
The Museum’s own history of informing field-wide standards for acquisitions includes the Pennsylvania Declaration of 1970, which later informed UNESCO guidelines around museum collecting practices. More recently, the Museum has embarked on a serious reckoning with the legacies in our collections, recommitting to community consultation, co-creation and—when necessary—repatriation, in order to find an ethical future path for collections stewardship.
The M2A Project is made possible by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, grant MG-255529-OMS-24.
PennCHC M2A project team, above from left: Corinne Muller, Administrative Coordinator; Soleil Hawley, Research Analyst; Noor Shihabeddin, Administrative Assistant; Kayla Kane, Research Coordinator; Daniela Tanico, Research Analyst; Brian I. Daniels, Director of Research and Programs; and Richard M. Leventhal, Executive Director; photo courtesy of PennCHC.
Penn Museum Reaccredited by the American Alliance of Museums
THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY
has earned its fifth consecutive accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). First accredited in 1975, the Penn Museum is one of only 36 AAM-recognized institutions in Pennsylvania.
To earn the distinction, museums are required to conduct a year of self-study and undergo a site visit with a team of peer reviewers. In their report, these AAM reviewers highlighted the Museum’s exemplary practices, such as our proactive work with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA); our educational work through Unpacking the Past and our Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM); new leadership positions, like our Chief Diversity Inclusion and Community Engagement Officer and Director of Collections; and the Museum’s recent physical and philosophical transformation, including building upgrades that have improved accessibility
and the formation and productive actions of our Community Advisory Board. The AAM reviewers also praised the leadership of Dr. Christopher Woods, our Williams Director, for his willingness to engage in conversations designed to move the Museum forward while confronting its complex history.
Reviewers noted that “there can be no doubt that the Penn Museum is at the top of its game in this field.”
Developed and sustained by museum professionals for more than 50 years, the Alliance’s Museum Accreditation program is the field’s primary vehicle for quality assurance, self-regulation, and public accountability. It strengthens the museum profession by promoting practices that enable leaders to make informed decisions, allocate resources wisely, and remain financially and ethically accountable to provide the best possible service to the public.
The Penn Museum will not have to undergo reaccreditation again until 2033.
Summer Enrichment for All Ages
THIS SUMMER, the Penn Museum offered enrichment programs for everyone from kindergartners to Ph.D. students through summer camps, internships, and professional development programming. Regardless of the age range these programs serve, they are designed to draw participants into a deeper engagement with the museum world—one that we hope will last long after the programming ends.
ANTHROPOLOGY CAMP
Our youngest attendees, in the Penn Museum Anthropology Campers, enjoyed eight weeks of hands-on, inquiry-based workshops, art projects, and gallery lessons. Weekly themes explored the importance of storytelling, ancient boardgames, engineering marvels, global music, and mythology. Our team welcomed 323 children to summer camp. Many of campers return year after year, traveling
from Philadelphia and the surrounding areas. While most of our campers are from the Greater Philadelphia region, we also had participants join us from as far as North Carolina, Florida, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., as well as from Japan and the United Arab Emirates. We were also able to award 11 full scholarships and nine partial scholarships to attendees this summer, all of whom were from Philadelphia. As the camp season ended, we shared our end-of-season survey with families. One parent wrote: “Love that it exposes our kids to the workings of a museum, and Penn Museum in particular. So many educational opportunities in an amazing environment with amazing and knowledgeable counselors.” Penn Museum Anthropology Camp will return in June 2025. Dates and themes will be released on the Museum’s website later this year.
Photo by Eddie Marenco
TEEN STORYTELLING PROGRAM
This summer, high school interns from the Bloomberg Arts Internship participated in the Penn Museum’s Teen Storytelling program, an opportunity to lift youth voices in museum exhibitions and cultivate career pathways for young people in the arts and sciences. During the program, the interns developed skills to create a film from script to screen, with the help of teaching artist Jasmine Lynea of Big Picture Alliance.
Through their films, which were inspired by the Museum’s Ancient Food & Flavor exhibition, the interns explored the relationship between food, culture, history, and the human experience. The resulting video project, Exploring Flavors, was on view alongside Ancient Food & Flavor for the last two months of its run.
The Teen Storytelling program is generously funded by PECO.
SUMMER INTERNSHIP PROGRAM
At the undergraduate level, the Penn Museum’s Summer Internship Program welcomes college students from across America and around the world to gain real-world experience in museum careers. At a time when internships are more important than ever in preparing students for professional success—and when museum staffs remain significantly less diverse than the audiences they serve—paid internship programs are essential to expanding the pipeline for
future museum professionals. This year 17 students participated—the largest cohort since the program moved to an all-paid model. In between supporting their respective departments, interns met for Museum Practice Programs (MPPs) and took weekly field trips to other Philadelphia museums, where they learned about how different institutions curate collections, lead educational programs, and serve their communities.
Diana Escobar, who interned with the Conservation Department, felt that the experience gave her vital hands-on experience in the field. “At the beginning of the internship, I was incredibly nervous about handling objects and certain tools for extensive periods of time,” she said. “However, through practice and repetition, I have grown more comfortable working with both objects and tools in the lab. With the help of my outstanding mentors, who have guided and taught me all of these essential skills, I am able to do work that real conservators do every day!”
CREATING ACADEMIC MUSEUM PROFESSIONALS GRADUATE PROGRAM
At the graduate level, the Museum hosted the Creating Academic Museum Professionals (CAMP) program, which introduces graduate students at all stages of study to the structure of museums, how people and departments work together toward goals, and what issues are currently facing the field. This program included 11 participants from 10 departments across Penn: Anthropology, History, Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World, Art History, Ancient History, History and Sociology of Science, East Asian Languages & Civilizations, Spanish and Portuguese, Graduate School of Education, and Religious Studies.
As part of the program, which was coordinated by Associate Director of Academic Engagement Sarah Linn, participants met with members of the Museum’s Executive Team to discuss best practices, strategic planning, inclusion, and community engagement. From this meeting, the participants went on to study peer institutions in Philadelphia, including the Museum of the American Revolution, the Rosenbach, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Bloomberg Arts Interns in the Teen Storytelling Program at the opening of their video exhibition Exploring Flavors; photo by Stanley Augustin, Big Picture Alliance.
Welcome New Senior Director of Development
THE MUSEUM IS PLEASED to introduce our new Senior Director of Development, Katie Murtha. A nationally known fundraising and arts management professional, Katie brings over 20 years of leadership experience at some of the country’s most significant arts organizations. Most recently, Katie was Senior Director of Principal and Major Gifts at The Juilliard School at New York’s Lincoln Center. Founded in 1905, Juilliard is the world’s leading performing arts conservatory of music, dance, and drama. In this role she helped secure several transformational gifts, including a $50 million grant for the school’s Music Advancement Program (MAP), which addresses inequities in access to classical music education. Katie began her nearly two-decade tenure at Lincoln Center in New York City at the Metropolitan Opera. As Deputy Director of the Patron Program, she oversaw a team responsible for raising over $20
million annually. Prior to that, she held roles at San Diego Opera and Project H.O.M.E. in Philadelphia. Throughout her career Katie has been motivated by her belief in the power of arts and culture to connect humanity, the importance of education, and a commitment to give back to our communities. Katie received her B.A. in Communications from the University of Pennsylvania.
Outside of work, Katie enjoys spending time with her family, which includes her husband Justin and their rescue dog Special Agent Cooper. Her first encounter with the Penn Museum was during her freshman year and she is thrilled to have found a professional home at her alma mater. Katie spent a semester abroad in Madrid, Spain—an experience that left a lifelong mark, sparking her curiosity about the world and a love of travel, including a backpacking trek through South America and two cross-country road trips.
Katie Murtha in the Penn Museum; photo by Quinn Russell Brown.
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