THE MAGAZINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY — FALL 2019 | VOL. 61, NO. 2 —
Our New Penn Museum AFRICA GALLERIES • MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA GALLERY • SPHINX GALLERY
Meet us at the
SPHINX Thank you for being a member of the Penn Museum during our Building Transformation. The wait is finally over: join us for a reopening celebration weekend on November 16 and 17 as we unveil our new galleries and amenities.
We’ll see you at the Sphinx!
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FALL 2019 | VOLUME 61, NUMBER 2
Contents Mexico and Central America Gallery 16
28
ivinity and Power in the Ancient D Americas: The Reimagined Mexico and Central America Gallery By Simon Martin
Continuous Thread: Subversion A and Solidarity in Maya Cloth By Lucy Fowler Williams
Africa Galleries 40
aking the Africa Galleries: M A Conversation with Tukufu Zuberi By Alyssa Connell Haslam and Jane Hickman
44 A Selection of Objects
from Our Africa Galleries
By Jane Hickman, Lauren Cooper, Dwaune Latimer, Alioune Diack, and Jessica Bicknell
56 The Asante Gold Weights: Practical, Unique, Artistic Tools of the Trade
DEPARTMENTS 2
From the Editor
3
From the Director
4
At the Museum
82
Favorite Object
83
Portrait
84
Global Classroom
86
Member News
89
Museum News
96
Looking Back
By Christina Griffith
The Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials 68 In the Labs: Celebrating Five Years of CAAM
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y Marie-Claude Boileau, Moritz Jansen, Janet Monge, B Katherine Moore, and Chantel White
On the Cover: Top, Asante double lizard brass weight used to measure gold dust, PM object AF2422. Bottom, small gold crab figurine from Central America, PM object SA2778.
PENN MUSEUM 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6324 Tel: 215.898.4000 | www.penn.museum.org Hours: Tuesday–Sunday: 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. Open until 8:00 pm on first Wednesdays. Closed Mondays and major holidays. Admission Penn Museum members: Free; PennCard holders (Penn faculty, staff, and students): Free; Active US military personnel with ID: Free; K-12 teachers with school ID: Free; Adults: $18.00; Seniors $16.00; Children (6-17) and students with ID: $13.00; Children 5 and under: Free
Tours Global Guides offer tours Fridays at 2:30 pm and Saturdays and Sundays at 11:00 am and 2:30 pm; docents also offer tours most Saturdays and Sundays at 1:30 pm. Check the Museum website for topics. Group discounts and docent-led tours are available for groups of 10 or more with reservations. For more information, call 215.746.8183. Museum Library Open to the general public with ID. Call 215.898.4021 for information and hours.
Fall 2019
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FROM THE EDITOR
Ten Years as Editor
I
began as Editor of Expedition in 2009, just after I finished graduate school at Penn. Issue 51.2 that year was a special magazine focused on the site of Gordion in Turkey, a Museum excavation that began in 1950 and continues to this day. Since then, I have been responsible for over above: The Editor examines jewelry 30 issues of Expedition. Some were from the Near East Section. Photo by Mike Furlong. expanded issues on exhibitions like Secrets of the Silk Road, Maya 2012, Beneath the Surface, and The Golden Age of King Midas. Others were issues with themes such as animals in antiquity, mummies of the world, excavations in Italy, the Museum’s 125th anniversary, the site of Beth Shean, our work in Abydos, and objects in our collection from World’s Fairs. We also created issues dedicated to new exhibitions and galleries such as Native American Voices and the Middle East Galleries. Many issues were eclectic, with stories of archaeology and anthropology from various parts of the world. The issue you hold in your hands is another special commemorative issue that celebrates the new Penn Museum: our new Main Entrance and Sphinx Gallery, a renovated and more comfortable Harrison Auditorium, and the completely new Mexico and Central America Gallery and Africa Galleries. We also introduce in this issue the rebranding of the Museum including our new logo. The last ten years at the Penn Museum have gone by quickly. My education did not end with my Ph.D., but continues every day as I learn about exciting discoveries in world archaeology and anthropology, the incredible and unmatched Museum collection, and our institution’s legendary past. My job as Editor is to present these stories to you, a task that is only possible with the help of my colleagues: authors, curators, keepers, archivists, photographers, collections staff, and all those who form the backbone of the Penn Museum. I hope you enjoy reading about the new Penn Museum. And that you visit us several times over the coming months to see everything that has changed.
EDITOR
Jane Hickman, Ph.D. ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Christina Griffith
ASSISTANT TO THE EDITOR
Alioune Diack, Summer Intern GRAPHIC DESIGNERS
Remy Perez Mary Anne Casey COPY EDITOR
Page Selinsky, Ph.D. PUBLISHER
Amanda Mitchell-Boyask ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
Alyssa Connell Haslam, Ph.D.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Francine Sarin Jennifer Chiappardi Kristen Hopf Julianna Whalen (unless noted otherwise) CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Jessica Bicknell Marie-Claude Boileau, Ph.D. Jill DiSanto Kate Fox Therese Marmion Ellen Owens Alessandro Pezzati Kate Quinn Tena Thomason Stephen J. Tinney, Ph.D. INSTITUTIONAL OUTREACH MANAGER
Darragh Nolan
ACADEMIC ADVISORY BOARD
Simon Martin, Ph.D. Janet Monge, Ph.D. Lauren Ristvet, Ph.D. C. Brian Rose, Ph.D. Stephen J. Tinney, Ph.D. Jennifer Houser Wegner, Ph.D. © The Penn Museum, 2019
JANE HICKMAN, PH.D. EDITOR
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Expedition® (ISSN 0014-4738) is published three times a year by the Penn Museum. Editorial inquiries should be addressed to the Editor at jhickman@upenn.edu. Inquiries regarding delivery of Expedition should be directed to membership@ penn.museum.org. Unless otherwise noted, all images are courtesy of the Penn Museum.
FROM THE DIRECTOR
Welcome to the New Penn Museum Dear Friends, In 1926, the Coxe (Egyptian) Wing opened, and visitors thronged the lower gallery to see the great Sphinx of Ramses II in his new home. We long thought that the Sphinx would stay in that gallery permanently—however, as archaeologists and anthropologists so often demonstrate, assumptions can be questioned, and new developments in technology make great feats possible. It turned out that the Sphinx could move, and on June 12, he did move: thousands of people across the world tuned in on social media as the Sphinx safely traversed our inner courtyard on a custom runway, escorted by a team of conservators and expert riggers. (Read more about this momentous day on p. 6.) Now, from his post at the heart of the new Sphinx Gallery adjacent to the Kamin Main Entrance, he will beckon all visitors to explore the wonders of our Museum. Moving a 25,000-pound Sphinx is a feat in itself, but it is only one aspect of our transformation. Our new Main Level invites visitors to travel the world across continents and millennia, through vibrant new galleries. Joining the Middle East Galleries are new Africa Galleries and Mexico and Central America Gallery, showcasing rich and vibrant cultures that are so very important to our shared human story. In these new gallery spaces, visitors of all ages are invited to engage with objects and their stories through thoughtful displays that forge connections and spark curiosity. And we continue to invite everyone to learn beyond our galleries through special talks and programs: the Harrison Auditorium—one of the largest public spaces on Penn’s campus and an anchor of our public programming for more than a century—has been beautifully renovated, thanks to the support of our generous donors, including many of you who named newly reupholstered seats. The transformation of our Main Level is dramatic. We are proud of what the first phase of construction has achieved and hope that, as members, you will share our pride and excitement too. But our Building Transformation, as you know, is about more than transforming our historic building. This November marks the launch of our new
above: Williams Director Julian Siggers stands with the Sphinx in its new home adjacent to the Main Entrance.
Penn Museum, with a visual identity that conveys our important place as a public museum as well as a university museum. Our new logo brings together archaeology and anthropology to create a portal, inviting all to step through and explore the human story, and new wayfinding alongside our expanded visitor amenities ensures that everyone feels comfortable and welcome to explore our spaces. Read more on p. 4 about how we worked to create this new look for and within the Museum. As our members, you are an integral part of our Building Transformation and this exciting chapter of our Museum’s story. Please join us for special members-only events and for a grand reopening celebration on November 16 and 17. In the meantime, I hope that you enjoy exploring this issue, and that you will come and explore our new spaces soon. Welcome to the new Penn Museum. Warm regards,
JULIAN SIGGERS, PH.D. WILLIAMS DIRECTOR Fall 2019
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AT THE MUSEUM
The Penn Museum Has a New Look OPEN TO ALL
OUR MUSEUM has been known by a few names throughout its history—the Free Museum of Science and Art, the University Museum, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. What has remained constant is the Museum’s commitment to leading trailblazing discovery and unlocking the wonder of the human story. The Penn Museum is a university museum that is open to all, committed to sharing our world-class collections and resources in order to foster connection and build understanding in a complex world. Now, the Museum has a new look that represents this openness. The Penn Museum invites all visitors to step
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through our doors—in person or through the Digital Penn Museum—and connect with other peoples across time and place. The Museum is a portal to exploration and inspiration. Our new logo, designed by LaPlaca Cohen (New York), connotes this invitation. The two letters “A” of archaeology and anthropology come together to form the “M” of Museum. This “M” is open in the center, suggesting a doorway that opens onto the many stories and artifacts that make us America’s museum of ancient worlds. The blue of our new logo is that of the sky—something that we all share, and that extends over all of history and Penn’s excavations and research that illuminate it.
Find Your Own Journey WHEN YOU NEXT VISIT, you will notice that the Museum’s new look extends to our wayfinding. Working with Exit Design (Philadelphia), we have redone our wayfinding from top to bottom, resulting in a more visitor-friendly approach to maps and signage.
A WELCOME FOR ALL Stepping through the doors of the Main Entrance, you will notice the Sphinx straight ahead, greeting all visitors to the Museum. You will also notice a new welcome on the west wall, conveying “welcome” in 19 languages that represent many of our visitors from around the world.
NAVIGATING THE MUSEUM The Museum is a large building with several wings, situated at a busy intersection. To help all visitors orient themselves, we have marked our entrances with more descriptive names. PREVIOUSLY
NOW
Main (Kamin) Entrance
Main Entrance
Group (Kress) Entrance
East Entrance
Trescher Entrance Harrison Entrance
Courtyard Entrance (for special events)
Harrison Entrance (for special events)
This simplified wayfinding continues inside the Museum with renamed levels for public spaces: PREVIOUSLY
NOW
1st Floor
Lower Level
2nd Floor
Main Level
3rd Floor
Upper Level
Accessibility is a priority for this Museum open to all visitors. In addition to new visitor amenities that include air-conditioning, seating areas, and new restrooms, the first phase of the Building Transformation project added two new elevators—in the new Sphinx Gallery and Gateway to Egypt—so that the entire Museum is fully accessible.
The Museum has added two new elevators near the Main Entrance, C and D above.
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AT THE MUSEUM
Moving a Monument ON JUNE 12, surrounded by a team of conservators and expert riggers, the Museum’s great Sphinx of Ramses II made stately progress from the Egypt (Sphinx) Gallery, across the inner courtyard, and—with just over an inch of clearance on either side—into the space opening this month as the new Sphinx Gallery (formerly the stairs down to Harrison Auditorium). Twelve and a half tons of red granite rested on pads of compressed air, in a journey that was streamed live and watched by people across the world, featured in local and national media stories, and trended on Twitter. right: The Sphinx of Ramses II moves through a window opening into the new Sphinx Gallery, located adjacent to the Main Entrance. Photo by Raffi Berberian. below: Then and now: The Sphinx exiting the Museum in 1924 (thought to be his last journey outside), and the 2019 move through the Museum Courtyard. Photos by George D. McDowell (1924) and Raffi Berberian (2019).
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A spectacle for all—Penn Museum staff gather to watch the Sphinx of Ramses II move to its new location. Photo by Raffi Berberian.
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AT THE MUSEUM
Our Building Transformation
Phase One: Opening November 16
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Harrison Auditorium
Main Entrance
Egypt Elevator
Museum Shop (Relocated in 2018)
Gateway to Egypt
Africa Galleries
Keyhole Gallery
Mexico and Central America Gallery
Main Elevator
Archives Corridor Gallery (Opening this fall)
Sphinx Gallery
Middle East Galleries (Opened April 21, 2018)
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The renovated Main Entrance welcomes visitors into a light-filled space adjacent to the new Sphinx Gallery, which introduces them to the wonders of the Museum’s collections. Renovations to the historic Harrison Auditorium, including refurbished seats, update this important space for its next century of programs and events.
IN GRATEFUL THANKS These renovations to the Harrison Wing, as well as the installation of new elevators and wayfinding systems, would not have been possible without special support from the University of Pennsylvania, and the outstanding leadership of the following donors:
Transformational Donors David T. Clancy, W70, and McCarroll Sibley Clancy Otto Haas Charitable Trusts Barbara D. Kowalski and Michael J. Kowalski, W74, PAR; the Kowalski Family Foundation Charles K. Williams II, Ph.D., GR78, HON97 Lead Donors Anonymous Connelly Foundation Peter G. Gould, Ph.D., LPS10, and Robin M. Potter, WG80; PoGo Family Foundation Diane v.S. Levy and Robert M. Levy, WG74 Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Dr. Judith Rodin and Paul Verkuil Alexandra Schoenberg and Eric J. Schoenberg, Ph.D., GEN93, WG93, PAR 25th Century Foundation Jean Harrison Hyland and William Hyland McLean Contributionship • Bonnie J. O’Boyle, CW68 Christopher Sharples • Sally H. Sharples • William Sharples George H. Talbot, M.D., and Sheryl F. Talbot, M.D., GM84 Helen P. Winston and Richard E. Winston, G48, PAR
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AT THE MUSEUM
Africa Galleries Gallery Sections
Introduction Design Exchange Instruments Spirituality Benin in the West
Introductory Gallery Africa Orientation Gallery Museum CafĂŠ Museum Shop
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The reimagined Africa Galleries trace the paths of featured objects from their African makers to the Museum, highlighting their fascinating and important stories.
IN GRATEFUL THANKS The Penn Museum Africa Galleries would not have been possible without the outstanding leadership of the following supporters:
Naming Donors
BFC Peter G. Gould, Ph.D., LPS10, and Robin M. Potter, WG80 Osagie O. Imasogie, Esquire, GL85, and Losenge M. Imasogie, PAR
William M. King Charitable Foundation
Mark P. Curchack, Ph.D., and Peggy L. Curchack Pamela Freyd, Ph.D., GED68, GR81, and Peter Freyd, Ph.D., PAR Institute of Museum and Library Services
Risa Korris and Douglas Polumbaum Sachs Center for Performing Arts Estate of Curt Thomsen
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AT THE MUSEUM
Mexico and Central America Gallery Gallery Sections Ancient Maya Olmec Teotihuacan West Mexico
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Gulf Coast Zapotec Aztec Eastern Central America Maya Peoples Today
Spanning 3,000 years of history, the reimagined Mexico and Central America Gallery connects visitors to the region’s powerful ancient cultures.
IN GRATEFUL THANKS The Penn Museum Mexico and Central America Gallery would not have been possible without the outstanding leadership of the following supporters:
Lead Donors
David A. Schwartz, M.D., in honor of J. Alden Mason Charles K. Williams II, Ph.D., GR78, HON97 Elin C. Danien, Ph.D. Mr. and Mrs. John Osborne Downing The Forney Family Janice T. Gordon, Ph.D. Gregory S. Maslow, M.D., C68, M72, GM77, and Laurie Maslow, CW69, PAR Carlos L. Nottebohm, W64, and Renee Nottebohm, PAR Rosa Portell-Weinstock and Louis Weinstock Dr. George E. Vaillant Dr. Henry Vaillant Nina Robinson Vitow, CW70, WG76 Ana-Maria V. Zaugg and David W. Anstice
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AT THE MUSEUM
Harrison Auditorium WELCOME BACK TO OUR GRAND AUDITORIUM
THE RENOVATION of the historic Harrison Auditorium would not have been possible without the generosity of donors who named seats in the Auditorium. Their names, or the names of those they wished to honor, are displayed on brass armrest plaques on the newly refurbished seats— which will be enjoyed by the many guests attending programming in the reopened Auditorium.
JOIN US FOR LECTURES AND MORE On Friday, November 15, join us for the first event held in the renovated Auditorium: the premier of a 30-minute documentary on the making of the new Africa Galleries. This event will be free for members and the University community, kicking off a weekend of reopening festivities. Our “Great Catastrophes” Lecture series, on the great disasters of history and how they have shaped societies, kicked off last month. In December, the “Great” lectures will return to the Harrison Auditorium with Dr. C. Brian Rose’s talk on Pompeii. (For more information and the series schedule, visit www.penn.museum/greatlectures.)
The Harrison Auditorium under renovation. Photo by Raffi Berberian.
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The Harrison Auditorium ceiling after cleaning and restoration. Photo by Raffi Berberian.
The New Penn Museum Opening Weekend Celebration SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16–17
A VIBRANT PUBLIC CELEBRATION of the new Penn Museum on November 16 and 17 will begin outside our Main Entrance doors just before 10:00 am on Saturday, with jubilant musical performances in the garden from Aztec group Ollin Yoliztli Calmecac and the Universal African Dance and Drum Ensemble. Following blessings from Yoruban and Maya spiritual leaders to mark the ceremonial openings of the new Africa and Mexico and Central America Galleries, Williams Director Julian Siggers will welcome and invite guests inside to meet the Sphinx and explore these new galleries—and all that the reimagined Penn Museum has to offer. Dance and musical performances will continue through the weekend across the Museum—including in the renovated Harrison Auditorium—by Guatemalan group Maya Awal, Troupe Da Da African Dance, Universal African Dance and Drum Ensemble, and others. Visitors are invited to participate in craft activities—including writing in Maya glyphs and Egyptian hieroglyphs—and to “Meet the Experts” in the galleries: curators, curatorial advisors, and the new Global Guides for the Mexico and Central America Gallery and Africa Galleries. (Our new Global Guides will begin giving tours of these galleries later this month—check the Museum website for details.) A Saturday symposium on the Africa Galleries, organized by Lead Curator Tukufu Zuberi, will bring together the curatorial advisory board in a morning panel to discuss the planning of the Galleries, and, in an afternoon panel, the four contemporary artists
The Opening Celebration will feature spectacular dance performances by Maya Awal and Universal Dance and Drum ensemble, and other activities for visitors of all ages.
whose commissioned work in the Galleries offers fresh perspective on the collections displayed. Highlights of the continuing celebration on Sunday November 17 include the public premier of a documentary on the making of the Africa Galleries by Dr. Zuberi, including interviews conducted in Africa this past summer with museum directors and curators— offering not only an important perspective on the objects in the galleries but a chance to experience the state-of-the-art new audio-visual capabilities of the Harrison Auditorium.
Please mark your calendars and plan to join us! Fall 2019
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FAVORITE OBJECT
Divinity and Power in the Ancient Americas
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THE REIMAGINED MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA GALLERY BY SIMON MARTIN
November 2019 marks the opening of the transformed Mexico and Central America Gallery. The new space displays some of the finest artifacts of their kind in the U.S., including some never previously displayed. The Gallery continues to emphasize our fine collection of Maya objects— including the largest and most important group of stelae outside the region—reflecting the Museum’s long and storied history of research in the Maya area. By pulling pieces from our storerooms and welcoming some long-term loans from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, we have expanded our coverage to present a much more comprehensive overview of civilization in the land that connects North and South America. THE ANCIENT AMERICAS are a diverse and fascinating part of the world, and their societies contribute an important chapter to the human story. Given that all their major social developments—be it urbanism, writing, organized religions, or political hierarchies— were built from scratch, independent of any influence from the Old World, we can see them as an alternate experiment in what society and culture can be. What they achieved that is unique and surprising tells us something about the creativity and problem-solving talents of humankind, while the ways in which they repeated solutions seen across the world emphasizes the cognitive capacities we all share.
left: Temple I at Tikal, excavated by the Penn Museum in the 1960s. Photo by Simon Martin. Fall 2019
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Pyramid of the Sun looms over the Teotihuacan cityscape. Photo by Simon Martin.
ORGANIZING THEMES IN THE GALLERY
Map of the region.
We use artifacts to tell that story, emphasizing two particular themes. The first focuses on the close connection between political and divine power, as rulers sought to acquire supernatural attributes and embed their right to rule in a cosmic order. Forces of nature, aggressive predators, and celestial objects were all enlisted to legitimize personal and dynastic authority. The second theme explores how, no matter how different they might appear, all the cultures in this Gallery were connected and that common threads run throughout the cultural fabric of the region. In several places we present special cross-cultural sections that highlight these commonalities. Fall 2019
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DIVINITY AND POWER
THE OLMEC AND THE CENTRAL MEXICAN HIGHLANDS The organization of the Gallery is by culture and region, divided into seven distinct, color-coded zones, which reach from Mexico to the isthmus of Panama. We begin with the earliest steps beyond village life, exploring the Olmec and the groups they interacted with in the Central Mexican highlands. Best known for their colossal stone heads—believed to be the portraits of early kings—the Olmec were the first in this region to produce lofty temple pyramids, a sophisticated art system, and a codified pantheon of gods. The rise of political hierarchies is something we illustrate with the sculpture of an enthroned lord from the late Olmec period, about 500 BCE, a telling expression of personal authority. A key member of that pantheon was the Maize God. He first appears in Olmec carvings in jade and basalt by about 1500 BCE, just as corn cultivation was making an impact on population levels and speeding social complexity. Appearing in different forms in many other cultural zones, veneration of the Maize God would endure for the next 2,000 years. Indeed, in prayers for a good harvest it can be argued that this veneration survives to this day. above: This enthroned Olmec lord illustrates the development of political hierarchy. PM object 12676.
above: View from the Pyramid of the Moon toward the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. Photo by Simon Martin.
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THE CITY OF TEOTIHUACAN We turn next to Teotihuacan, which by 500 CE was one of the world’s largest cities and boasted a population of 100,000 or more people. The site is dominated by the massive pyramids of the Sun and Moon, which take their place within a rigid urban grid filled by other temple complexes and numerous residential compounds. Even the river that runs through the center of the city was channeled with right-angled turns to conform to the grid. Teotihuacan’s equally boxy architecture was in sympathy with an art-style that emphasized angles and hard edges. Almost every available surface in the city was painted in dazzling patterns and supernatural motifs, all in a rich palette of colors. Red and green survive on an incredibly rare three-dimensional sculpture of the so-called “Water Goddess,” a major Teotihuacan deity of water and fertility we display in the new Gallery. The only other complete example, vastly larger in size, was excavated at the base of the Pyramid of the Moon.
above (right): Teotihuacan mask with inlaid eyes. Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950, 1950-134-947. above (left): Rare sculpture of the Teotihuacan Water Goddess. Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950, 1950-134-282.
Some of the city’s most distinctive products were its “masks” carved in various hard greenstones. These were not worn—they never have holes for the eyes— but are believed to have been tied to mummy bundles or were used in other memorial effigies. In either case, they were idealized representations of the dead that invoked the beautiful and green-associated Maize God. Of the five masks included in our Gallery, one is a rare example with surviving inlays in its eyes. Teotihuacan was a cosmopolitan place. Excavations
have revealed separate districts occupied by Zapotec, Maya, and Gulf Coast peoples. Why they were there is less clear. Their presence might point to trading missions or diplomatic embassies, or refer more darkly to the political subjection of those regions. We have good reason to think, for example, that Teotihuacan successfully invaded the Maya area in 378 CE, and depictions of Teotihuacan-style warriors in other cultural zones suggest they constructed the region’s earliest true empire.
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DIVINITY AND POWER
Zapotec funerary urn showing a lord in the guise of a storm deity. PM object 20993.
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above: Timeline from the Mexico and Central America Gallery.
THE ZAPOTEC OF SOUTHERN MEXICO
Figurine of high status male drinking from a bowl. Colima culture, West Mexico. PM object 72-23-6.
Zapotec culture took root in the Valley of Oaxaca, where the Zapotec ruled from their hilltop capital of Monte Alban from 500 BCE to 700 CE. One of their most notable cultural products were ceramic “urns,” vessels embellished with the portraits of lords, many of which appear in the guise of gods. The Zapotec developed their own hieroglyphic script, but used a version of the sacred calendar common to almost all societies of the region—a system that probably dates back to Olmec times. Many of the dates we see in the art of the Zapotec and their contemporaries across Central Mexico are not, in fact, markers of time but rather personal names, monikers that were probably adopted from birthdays. We feature two sculptures that identify their lordly subjects in this way.
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DIVINITY AND POWER
WEST MEXICO AND THE GULF COAST A large central case covers West Mexico and the Gulf Coast. The former, consisting of the modern states of Jalisco, Colima, and Nayarit, was home to some vibrant cultures that built no major cities but are known for producing large numbers of fine ceramic figurines. These were placed in tomb chambers cut at the base of vertical shafts to accompany the dead. Their subjects range from the portraits of ancestors—twinned males and females— to those of warriors, priests, playful dogs, as well as to lively scenes of everyday life, including ceremonies and ballgames. The section on the Gulf Coast includes all of what is today the state of Veracruz. This area thrived after the fall of Teotihuacan and features the great city of El Tajin, which enjoyed its apogee between 600 and 1000 CE. El Tajin culture developed a distinctive style of sinuous, interlaced scrollwork, completely unlike those angular forms at Teotihuacan. The city has 20 separate ballcourts and special energies went into the art that surrounded the game—which was both a true sport and a ritualistic performance of myth. Shared by many cultures, and still played in one part of Mexico 24
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today, we use another cross-cultural section to describe the basics of the game and show some superb examples of the players’ equipment. Originally made from wood and other perishable materials, what survives today are ceremonial versions made in stone. These consist of thick protective belts called yokes, as well as hachas and palmas, two kinds of attachment to the yoke. These may originally have had some function in the game, but their primary role was to carry emblematic motifs. These motifs are varied, but birds, skulls, crocodiles, and bundles of darts are some of the most popular and are among those we have on display. The main Gulf Coast section features a miniature hacha in the form of a ballplayer’s head. Objects of this scale further emphasize that we are looking at ceremonial items, possibly even trophies, not practical equipment. A particular highlight in this case is the column fragment from El Tajin, thought to be the only one on display outside Mexico. It surely comes from a series of columns in a great palace at the highest point of the city, all dedicated to the king 13 Rabbit, who ruled at some point between 800 and 1000 CE.
top left: The head of a macaw on ballgame equipment. Tajin Culture, Gulf Coast. Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950, 1950-134-382. top right: Fragment of a carved column from El Tajin on the Gulf Coast. Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950, 1950-134-303. bottom left: Aztec sculpture showing Xipe Totec, a deity who wears flayed human skin. PM object 87-42-405. bottom right: Conch shell sculpture that might once have stood in the central precinct of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. It measures about 80 cm, almost 32 inches, long. Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950, 1950-134-348.
THE AZTEC EMPIRE The Aztec are the best known of all the societies featured in the Gallery. Their empire dominated Central Mexico as well as some territories far beyond, from 1428 until 1521, the year they were defeated by the invading Spaniards led by Hernán Cortés—the beginning of the end for the indigenous societies of the Americas. The Aztec Empire was actually an alliance of three kingdoms, with the dominant Mexica ruling from their capital Tenochtitlan (now beneath Mexico City) with lesser “co-capitals” situated at Texcoco and Tlacopan. At the heart of Tenochtitlan was a large sacred precinct, the symbolic, political, and religious hub of the empire. Recent archaeology confirms that it was the scene of grisly human sacrifices, and in our Gallery we include a sculpture of the fearsome god Xipe Totec, who wears the flayed skin of a victim as a bodysuit. The principal location of these ritualistic killings was the Templo Major, a mighty pyramid surmounted by two temples, a structure rebuilt and enlarged on several occasions. One sculpture on exhibit, a giant conch shell in stone, is a close match for others found at the Templo Major, and there is reason to think that it originally came from one of its phases or from somewhere else within the sacred precinct.
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DIVINITY AND POWER
EASTERN CENTRAL AMERICA Eastern Central America encompasses a range of cultures reaching through Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama to the northern tip of South America. This narrow isthmus was always a conduit for people and ideas traveling north or south, and the art of this intermediate zone shows those mixed influences. Highlights include grinding stones (metates) from Honduras or Costa Rica fashioned with images of a fire-breathing serpent and a crocodile, as well as ornately carved marble vessels from Honduras. We also include objects recovered in the Penn Museum’s excavations at Sitio Conte, Panama, in 1940. These included ceramics decorated with their characteristic fantastic animals and a considerable amount of gold, including large plaques featuring the same composite supernatural beings.
THE ANCIENT MAYA In the last section, we come to the traditional strength of the Penn Museum, the ancient Maya. The Maya have one of the longest continuous histories in the region, and many contemporary Maya people maintain their identity and work toward cultural revitalization in the modern nations they find themselves in. Indeed, we begin with a section called “Maya Today”—curated by my colleague Dr. Lucy Fowler Williams (see page 28)—that focuses on the textiles and masks that continue much earlier ideas and craft techniques.
left: Fantastic creature with a double tail on a gold plaque from Sitio Conte in Eastern Central America. PM object 40-13-11. right: A Maya king and his mother on Piedras Negras Stela 14. Photo courtesy of Nightfire Films. PM object L-16-382.
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Maya painted cylinder vessel from the Chama region in modern Guatemala. PM object 38-14-1.
above: Piedras Negras Altar 4 with its four personified stones as legs. PM object L-27-200.
Five tall Maya stelae provide imposing statements to the majesty of Maya kingship, which reached its peak in the Classic Period 250–900 CE. The iconic monument here is Piedras Negras Stela 14, which celebrates the accession of a local king in 758 CE. Finely preserved, the monument even includes the hieroglyphic names of the sculptors who carved it. Stela 14 played a part in a major breakthrough in reading Maya hieroglyphs in 1960. One of a set analyzed by Tatiana Proskouriakoff, a former Museum staff member, it helped to show that the inscriptions were historical rather than religious in nature and thereby opened a door leading to the modern decipherment. To explore this topic further we have an area dedicated to Maya hieroglyphs, where we explain how they work. Nearby is our collection of painted cylinder vessels that show lordly and mythic scenes as well the fearsome face of personified stone, originally the leg of an altar at Piedras Negras.
The reimagined Mexico and Central America Gallery is designed to inspire new appreciation for the cultural and artistic achievements of the peoples of this region. Those achievements stand proudly next to those of the Classical World, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, as part of the rich tapestry of the human past that still impresses and informs us in the present. Simon Martin, Ph.D., is Associate Curator and Keeper of Collections in the American Section and is lead curator of the Mexico and Central America Gallery. for further reading Miller, M. E. Art of Mesoamerica: From Olmec to Aztec. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2012. Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1990.
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Kaqchikel immigrants Celeste and Olga Sagché in New Mexico wear today’s styles from San Antonio Aquas Calientes Sacatepéquez, 2019. Photo by Phil Karshis.
A CONTINUOUS THREAD SUBVERSION AND SOLIDARITY IN MAYA CLOTH BY LUCY FOWLER WILLIAMS FOR 1,500 YEARS, MAYA WOMEN HAVE WOVEN cotton garments with designs that depict the Maya cosmos and supernatural beings that sustain their world. A continuous thread through the centuries, highland Maya women of Guatemala have never stopped weaving as their communities have adapted to the massive demands of Spanish colonization, natural disasters, and the devastating Civil War (1960– 1996). In the 21st century, as old beliefs and customs that still survive blend with or diverge from Christian ritual, Maya garments continue to strengthen Maya bodies, identities, and solidarities in new ways. Today, roughly 10 million Guatemalan Maya men, women, and children— speaking 21 different languages—choose to wear indigenous garments every day or on special occasions. In some towns people still wear the unifying locally-specific style of their community. Regional and new pan-Maya styles are worn as well. Indigenous clothing is especially visible on religious holidays, and regional pageants and competitions celebrate and promote traditional dress. Urban Maya often experience discrimination and many choose to wear Western clothes to obscure their indigenous identity. This trend continues as young men and women seek opportunities for work and education in Guatemalan cities and beyond. 28
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The central zigzag band on this huipil from 1930 suggests the ancient Maya feathered serpent creator deity. Kaqchikel woman’s huipil (blouse), San Antonio Aguas Calientes, cotton and silk, PM object 42-35-231.
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Clay figurines were deposited over 1,000 years ago at a shrine for Chak Chel, the goddess of weaving and childbirth. This one depicts a Maya noblewoman working on a back-strap loom. Jaina, Campeche, Mexico, 700–900 CE. Photo courtesy of Instituto National de Antropologia e Historia, Mexico City.
THE ROOTS OF MAYA WEAVING Originally woven of local brown and white cotton, early Maya weaving was associated with the ancient Maya Goddess Chak Chel (Great Rainbow), patroness of weaving, childbirth, and world destruction. In legend she wove the four-sided framework of the world into existence on her back-strap loom tied to the world tree. According to Lilly de Jongh Osborne, collector of Maya textiles, with its roots in the underworld and its canopy holding up the sky, the tree is the axis mundi through which life is regenerated anew (1965). The dress of ancient Maya kings, queens, and commoners visible in Classic Period art is similar to that worn by Maya descendants today.
Through the centuries, Maya weavers have enthusiastically incorporated new tools and materials received through trade—floor looms, wool, and dyes from Europe, and brilliant silk floss from China. Early in the Historic Period, machine-spun cotton yarns in bright colors were imported from Germany and England, and by 1885 colorful yarns and cotton yardage were produced locally in Guatemala as well. The use of jaspe (a type of resist-dyed ikat fabric, shown on page 34) flourished in the second half of the 20th century, and less expensive synthetic rayon and acrylics have been incorporated since the 1960s. Despite these many changes, fundamental design principles and technologies that mark Maya weaving’s
left: Maya noblemen and women wore elegant textiles over 1,200 years ago. Note the form and design of the garment worn by the King’s mother (at lower left in drawing), depicted on Stela 14, Piedras Negras, Guatemala, ca. 761 CE, PM object L-16-382. Fall 2019
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left: Blended Catholic and Maya ritual has helped preserve Maya textile traditions through time. In 1940, at San Pedro Sacatepéquez, the statue of the Virgin Mary received a newly woven huipil. Photo by Lilly de Jongh Osborne. Photo courtesy of the Osborne family. right: Man in cofradia garments, Sololá, Kaqchikel Maya, 1942. Photo by Lilly de Jongh Osborne.
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This fine ceremonial utility cloth made of two back-strap woven panels and decorated with isolated brocaded motifs conveys the energy of the Maya cosmos and its supernatural beings. Man’s cofradia tzute, Sololá, Guatemala, Kaqchikel Maya, cotton and silk, 1942, PM object 85-2-282.
Men’s garments, like this cofradia jacket collected in 1942 at Sololá, blend Spanish and Maya design influences. The bat motif references the Maya sacred underworld and the owner’s noble Kaqchikel ancestry (from Osborne 1965, page 117). Wool and cotton, PM object 85-2-285.
sacred beginnings have generally remained constant, as have gender rules around the production of cloth. The backstrap loom is still used by Maya women, and ritual garments—larger, more elaborate, and of the finest materials—are worn draped over the body with the four selvedges neither cut nor tailored. As known from the study of Maya textiles, Barbara Knoke de Arathoon (2016) suggests that the Spanishimposed cofradia system of religious brotherhood helped preserve textile traditions in many highland towns.
Osborne (left) in the field, 1935. Photo courtesy of the Osborne family.
Blending Maya and Catholic beliefs, cofradia are ritual organizations devoted to the care and protection of sacred religious icons. Annual ceremonies care for and please the saints and spirits with lavish processions, beautiful clothing, food, and prayer. Cofradia officers who orchestrate and finance these events are distinguished by their high-status garments made anew each year, which often mirror the clothes worn by the saint statues themselves. This ritual protocol keeps the textile traditions alive.
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This jaspe, or Guatemalan ikat, requires many steps of tie-dying before the cotton cloth is woven. Dyed warp and weft are carefully aligned to produce images like the pine tree visible on the center roll of these foot-loomed skirt fabrics. Left to right, PM objects 85-2-29, 42-35-520, and 85-2-223.
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THE OSBORNE COLLECTION OF MAYA TEXTILES The Penn Museum’s collection of 1,700 20th-century Maya textiles includes men’s and women’s garments gathered in over 80 communities across the Guatemalan highlands. The core collection, described only briefly here and highlighted in the new Mexico and Central America Gallery, was assembled before 1933 by Lilly de Jongh Osborne [1883–1975]. Of Dutch heritage and the spouse of a managing engineer of the International Railways of Central America, Osborne lived in Guatemala City for 71 years. She travelled regularly in trousers and by mule to remote mountain towns with an interpreter. Her keen eye and knowledge of the region enabled her to situate Maya textiles within their social and historical contexts. She purchased village-specific dress, noting historic linkages to Maya ethnic families and archaeological sites when possible. She also documented the subtleties of the Maya caste system as seen in clothing, a feature that distinguishes her collection. Though her collecting strategy was not systematic, she noted 18 communities that emphasized costumbre (traditional Maya customs) and described the use of cloth in ritual and life cycle events, fiestas, weddings, baptisms, and funerals. Some early 20th-century design motifs were like those of the ancestors, and, according to Osborne, though weavers were often unaware of their original meanings, enduring trends conveyed family symbols, cycles of fertility, natural phenomena, super-
natural beings, and ideas of cosmology. She collected several complete outfits and noted which garments were coveted and widely traded among the Maya themselves—wool blankets from Momostenango; woven belts from Oaxaca, Mexico; and silk brocades from Quetzaltenango. Emphasizing the lived social contexts and spirit with which textiles were made and used, Osborne acknowledged the quietly subversive and protective intentionality of Maya cloth in the first half of the 20th century. She named her closest Maya sources and returned their favors with payments, medicines, and gifts of food. She also noted the centuries of oppression and suffering the Maya endured at the hands of outsiders. In 1933, she loaned her first collection of 400 pieces to the Penn Museum. Immediately displayed in the South American Hall and soon afterward at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Penn Museum purchased her collection in 1942. After publishing the first monograph on Guatemalan textiles in 1935, Osborne continued to collect through the 1940s and 1950s and less so in the 1960s; her second collection of 487 additional garments was transferred to the Museum by her children in 1985.
Lilly de Jongh Osborne, in a 1925 portrait, collected Maya textiles that are now part of the Penn Museum collection. Photo courtesy of the Osborne family.
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This woman’s wedding huipil, ca. 1930, illustrates monkeys, turkeys, and birds in a silk brocade of purple (from a natural mollusk dye) and rose (from a cochineal insect dye). San Pedro Sacatepéquez, PM object 42-35-173.
K’iche’ Maya peace activist Rigoberta Menchú Tum [b. 1959] won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for her book in which she courageously spoke out against the human rights abuses of the Guatemalan Civil War. She always wears hand woven cloth to show solidarity with her people. Photo by John Murphy.
MAYA TEXTILES TODAY Since Osborne’s era, the devastating earthquake of 1976 and decades of Civil War have brought destruction, armed conflict, and genocide to Guatemala. Maya survivors fled to the mountains or to the cities to find jobs, and many, wanting to remain unnoticed, abandoned their indigenous dress. Though support has improved since the Peace Accords of 1996, Guatemalan society remains highly unequal, and indigenous families struggle within a system offering little or no rights to land and opportunities. Many seek education, wage work, and to emigrate to America, and evangelical Protestantism has helped some find a new beginning. Starting in the late 20th century Maya textiles have taken on new meanings. A new pan-Maya style supports indigenous solidarity without revealing the home community or ethnic identity of the wearer. Rosario Miralbés de Polanco (2013) indicates that, with this trend, more women are dressing as they wish, using designs indiscriminately and preferring outfits that harmonize in color. This represents a shift in cloths’ meaning from the local and regional to pan-national and ethnic associations. Manuela Picq (2017) suggests that, most recently, and in response to longstanding economic exploitation, inequality, and poverty, women’s weaving cooperatives are helping women advocate for cultural property laws to protect textile designs from corporations and mass production. Now, as in the past, Maya textiles are metaphorical recreations of the Maya world. Though they have changed through time, they still retain the connections that index Maya origins. Today’s weavers and wearers perpetuate this iconic art form as they negotiate their indigenous identities and solidarities in new ways. Wherever she may be, when a Maya woman puts on her huipil, she is at the center of the Maya world.
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NOTE: A new selection of textiles from the American Section collection will rotate into the Mexico and Central America Gallery each year. Lucy Fowler Williams, Ph.D., is Associate Curator and Sabloff Keeper of Collections in the American Section. She also served as a curator for the Mexico and Central America Gallery. for further reading Altman, P. and C. West. Threads of Identity, Maya Costume of the 1960s in Highland Guatemala. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992. Knoke de Arathoon, B., editor. Cofradia, Texture and Color. Guatemala City: Ixchel Museum of Indigenous Dress, 2016. Mayen de Castellanos, G. Tzute and Hierarchy in Sololá. Museo Ixchel de Traje Indigena de Guatemala, Museum Monograph, English Language version, 1988. Miralbés de Polanco, R. “Maya Attire and the Process of its Massification,” in Ancestry and Artistry, Maya Textiles from Guatemala, Roxane Shaughnessy, ed., Toronto: Textile Museum of Canada, pp. 88–99, 2013. Holsbeke, M. and J. Montoya, eds. With their Hands and their Eyes: Maya Textiles, Mirrors of a World View. Antwerpen: Ethnografisch Museum, 2003. Osborne, L. de J. “Osborne Collection of Guatemala Textiles,” American Section Records, Penn Museum Archives, 1933. Osborne, L. de J. “Making A Textile Collection,” Bulletin of the Pan American Union, Vol. X, pp. 275–279, 1933. Osborne, L. de J. Guatemala Textiles. Middle American Research Series, Publication No. 6, New Orleans: Tulane University, 1935. Osborne, L. de J. Indian Crafts of Guatemala and El Salvador. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965. Picq, M. “Maya Weavers Propose a Collective Intellectual Property Law.” Translated by Daniel Dayle, March 14, 2017. https://intercontinentalcry.org/maya-weavers-propose-collectiveintellectual-property-law/ Rowe, A. A Century of Change: Guatemalan Textiles. Washington, DC: Textile Museum, 1981.
above: Woman’s cofradia garments from Sololá. PM objects 93-20-2, 85-2-287, 85-2-375, cotton and silk, ca. 1940. left: A national movement of Maya weavers has introduced a new bill to the Guatemalan Congress to safeguard Maya textile design as indigenous intellectual property. Weavers in Santiago de Sacatepéquez, Santo Domingo Xenacoj, Santa Lucia Utatlán, and San Juan Comalapa are now listing their designs and discussing with local authorities how to protect their collective property rights. Photo courtesy of Angelina Aspuac, AFEDES–Women’s Association for the Development of Sacatepequéz. Fall 2019
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Making the Africa Galleries A CONVERSATION WITH TUKUFU ZUBERI BY ALYSSA CONNELL HASLAM AND JANE HICKMAN
Tukufu Zuberi, Curator of the Africa Galleries, speaks about plans to reimagine the Galleries at a dinner for members of the Loren Eiseley Society.
TUKUFU ZUBERI, PH.D., is the Curator of the Africa Galleries. He is the Lasry Family Professor of Race Relations, and Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Zuberi sat down with Expedition’s Editor Jane Hickman and Associate Publisher Alyssa Connell Haslam to discuss the making of the new Africa Galleries.
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EXPEDITION: Can you describe the new Africa Galleries for us? TZ: The new Africa Galleries are redesigned to engage in conversation and to provoke an intellectual curiosity about Africa and Africa’s history, but also how we view Africa and why we view it that way. The data we collected through the Imagine Africa exhibition gave us a certain understanding of how people have been experiencing their time in the Museum. By taking that lead we did something interesting: we organized the new galleries around the idea of decolonization, and around the idea of gaining a new understanding of what the significance of material culture in this Museum could be. Humans need to understand each other, and
stories so visitors understand the original context of objects and how they came into our collection? TZ: Objects in the Museum’s Africa collection were collected or purchased. We include some of these purchase records in the Galleries, in fact. We’re trying to tell the story of how these objects got here, to the Museum, and part of the story is these collectors and ethnographers who purchased items either on the African continent or from dealers in Europe. African material in the Museum’s collections from Egypt and Nubia—of course also part of Africa—was excavated, EXPEDITION: Tell us a bit more about this idea of which is a different way of bringing Africa into the decolonization, or decolonizing the museum. Museum. Africa has always been a central element TZ: Decolonizing the museum asks us to consider, how of the conceptualization of the Museum, but we’re are we looking at objects from Africa? Are we seeing approaching these galleries with an awareness that them with a colonial mentality? That kind of mentality visitors have questions about how these objects got here. is a big part of the problem because it So, in the galleries, we need to justifies thinking of material answer three interconnected culture in a very possessive questions about each way—we own it, and we object: why this own the ideas about particular object, in it, as the narrator this particular place, of a Museum at this particular documentary put time. We give it in 1940: “we are visitors a sense of here to study the the object but also primitive peoples of of its provenance. the world.” There is Traditionally, African also, in decolonization, material culture has recognition of questions of been presented out of the where objects come from— context of its provenance In the course of evaluating objects for the Galleries, many unusual like the Elgin [Parthenon] and even of the Africans pieces were selected, including this exquisitely carved ivory box from Marbles in the British themselves. When western the Benin Kingdom. It depicts two Portuguese soldiers fighting alongside a pangolin, or scaly anteater. PM object 29-93-6A/B. Museum, certain Native viewers first saw brass American pieces, pieces sculptures from Benin, stolen during World War II—and whether to “give” them they claimed they must have been made in Asia or by back. Really, the question is being put to museums, how Europeans. So, this is itself a reflection of a colonial will you handle these aspects of decolonization and mentality that disconnects the item from the people what does it mean? And so rather than being quiet about who made it and the purpose for which it was made. If it we have put it up front in the new Africa Galleries. In we take the example of a Kota head: this is a reliquary our opening statement, for example, we say very clearly item, and it’s a protection item that was placed on top that this material culture was either created or collected of baskets made of tree bark, filled with valuable items from Africa in the periods of enslavement or colonialism. and a person’s bones, and buried. So, what happens EXPEDITION: How the Penn Museum acquired when you put that in a museum? As an anthropology African objects is complex. How are we telling these museum, we can talk not only about the mathematics of one of the best ways to do that is through material culture. Obviously, Egypt is so well known because of the circulation of its material culture. We should know about Benin. We should know about Ife. We should know about the Congo. We should know about the cultures of the people in Morocco. We should know about the Ghana Empire, about Ethiopia, about Nubia, and so many more. This knowledge enhances our ability to be a human being and to empathize with each other, because we need to empathize with each other.
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above: Preliminary rendering of the ORIENTATION SPACE, by Joshua T. Lessard.
its design, its shapes and symbolism, but also about its significance. The ethnographic approach demands that we understand context and that we have self-reflection— that we are critical of our own standpoint relative to knowledge about the object. EXPEDITION: How long have the Africa Galleries been in development? TZ: Africa has been a core part of the Museum’s mission, and it has been a core part of my life’s work. I have wanted to improve our galleries of Africa for 20 years. I ended up leaving for a few years to work on PBS’ History Detectives, which put me in more proximity to museum collections and the kinds of collections you don’t usually see, the ones in storage and in the basement. And I was doing that all over the country, generally being more involved in material culture and telling historical stories about material culture. And by the time they asked me to curate a new gallery at the Independence Seaport Museum, I had built a collection of posters that we exhibited here at the Museum. And that exhibit has traveled around the country. (See Expedition 55.2, Fall 2013, pp. 14–17.) Then, about four years ago, with Imagine Africa on display, we started reconceptualizing the Africa Galleries. It was a big change. And the Museum had the foresight to think about the decolonization angle even before it blew up in public with Black Panther. I thought, 42
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I know some really good people who are already working on decolonizing museum space, and this is an opportunity to reintroduce the Galleries completely using modern technology like touch screens and videos, by talking to people in Africa today along with using archival footage and documents that we have, just to reinvent the idea of each object as it is shown. EXPEDITION: You mentioned incorporating technology into the galleries. How will this shape visitors’ experiences? TZ: The idea is to work in every dimension with the people who come to see these Galleries. So they will hear music, they will see videos—like one on Africa’s great kingdoms—to give them visual cues. They will see informatics explaining how certain items were made. There will be various timelines throughout, to give people some grounding in terms of the temporal periods that we’re talking about. The interactive maps that we will present will give a different kind of history and a different kind of understanding of the collection in itself. The idea is to be interactive, to invite people to engage with the material in different ways at different levels. EXPEDITION: Why are these Galleries important? TZ: We have entered a moment where intolerance is something that some people would celebrate. And they would celebrate that our differences make us incompatible, or our differences make us undeserving,
above: Object layout plans for one of the cases in the Africa Galleries.
and think why should I empathize with a person I think is unequal and therefore undeserving? Or “less developed,” therefore undeserving? Well, the visit to these Galleries will upend that for Africa, and Africa has received the brunt of this hostility in some ways—it’s not exclusive to Africa, but Africa has been one of those spaces that has felt this conceptual marginalization. Why identify with the Africans? Some people would think that Africa is full of jungle. Even today you have people who have that idea. And then other people who still think that Africa is incompetent and not a full part of the human family. And one way to counteract that is by organizing galleries like this and not ignoring that that is the way people think about Africa. People can have a colonial mentality when they think about Africa. It is our job as an educational institution to undo that. So we have to upend how we show the objects—we have to point people’s attention to how and why they are displayed, to what kind of information we have about how they came to be here and why, to how contemporary artists have reflected on featured pieces in the Galleries. EXPEDITION: Finally, do you personally have a favorite object or group of objects? TZ: You know, I selected every single one, all the 300 objects, every little bead on the gold chain, I selected
People can have a colonial mentality when they think about Africa. It is our job as an educational institution to undo that. So we have to upend how we show the objects. it. And I selected them because I was fascinated by them, and I was fascinated by their story. I always come back to the ivory box from Benin. It’s a beautiful sculpture, probably made in the 19th century. There are two Portuguese figures on the lid, fighting, and next to them is a pangolin (or scaly anteater), with its legs tied. One interpretation is that he represents the Oba, and it suggests that even though the two Portuguese are about to kill each other, they can still tie you up. I’ve heard that a few times, I don’t know if it’s true, but I can see how that symbolic meaning could come from that particular object. So, I really like that.
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A Selection of Objects from Our Africa Galleries BY JANE HICKMAN, LAUREN COOPER, DWAUNE LATIMER, ALIOUNE DIACK, AND JESSICA BICKNELL THE AFRICA COLLECTION at the Penn Museum includes objects that were purchased by or gifted to the Museum or collected on ethnographic expeditions, primarily in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As was common practice at the time, most pieces were acquired by wealthy travelers or European art and antiquities dealers and later sold to institutions around the world. One of the goals in creating our new Africa Galleries was to place the objects in our care in context. Why, where, and how was each object made? How was it used in daily life, on special occasions, or in religious ceremonies? What made this object meaningful to the culture that produced it? Were other objects displayed with it? This is the type of information that we provide when it is known. It was not easy to select just 15 of the 300 or so objects that are on display in the new Galleries, as there are many stories to tell. We hope this small selection encourages you to visit the Museum to learn more about these wonderful objects and their histories.
left: Benin plaque detail showing military leader, see page 46. Fall 2019
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Royal Plaque Unidentified Edo Artist Igun Eronmwon (Brass Casting Guild) Copper Alloy 16th century CE Nigeria, Edo, Benin City Height 47 cm, PM object AF2066
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This commemorative plaque once adorned a wooden post at the Benin Royal Palace. The military leader (center) holds an eben (ceremonial sword) used in a festival to honor Ogun, the god of iron and war.
Uhunmwun Elao (Ancestral Head) Unidentified Edo Artist Igun Eronmwon (Brass Casting Guild) Copper Alloy 17th century CE Nigeria, Edo, Benin City Height 30 cm, PM object AF2060A
This brass head represents a previous Oba or hereditary ruler. The reddish color of the metal connects him to Ogun, the god of iron and war. A carved elephant tusk would have sat atop the head to demonstrate the Oba’s absolute control over the Kingdom.
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LEFT (TOP) Mbulu Ngulu (Guardian Figure) Unidentified Kota Artist Wood, Copper, Brass Late 19th–Early 20th century CE Gabon Height 47.7 cm, PM object 29-12-201 LEFT (BOTTOM) Bwete (Reliquary Basket) Unidentified Kuba or Luba Artist Wood, Fiber Late 19th century CE Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kasai Province Height approx. 42 cm, PM objects AF1361A,B Many Central African peoples believe the bones of their ancestors retain power after death. Bwete (reliquary baskets) like this once held human remains, though this basket no longer does. Mbulu ngulu (guardian figures) were tied to the tops of the baskets to watch over the sacred remains.
RIGHT Statue of Iyoba’s Attendant Unidentified Edo Artist Igbesanmwan (Ivory Guild) Ivory Late 18th–Early 19th century CE Nigeria, Edo, Benin City Height 37.8 cm, PM object 29-93-1 Unmarried women served the Iyoba (Queen Mother) at her Palace outside Benin City. This figure, which represents these attendants, was once part of a pair that lived on an altar dedicated to the Iyoba. Blade-like tattoos across the stomach and coral beads around the neck of the figure signal her non-royal status.
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Lukumbi (Slit Drum) Unidentified Tetela Artist Wood, Fiber Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kasai Province 19th century CE Length 83 cm, PM object 60-9-1A The six musical tones played on lukumbi (slit drums) mimic the sound of Tetela speech. Tetela men in Central Africa learn to combine these tones to communicate messages about warfare and ceremonies, and to make music for dancing. In the evening, the sound of this drum carries for ten miles.
Meskel (Cross) Ato Ayele Beshah Copper, Zinc, Nickel May 1, 1969 CE Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, Gullele, Zebegna Sefer Height 8.5 cm, PM object 88-7-16 The Orthodox Christian Church in Ethiopia is one of the oldest in the world. This metal cross is unfinished, but crosses like it have attachments that allow them to be held by priests during blessings or worn around the neck for protection.
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Agere Ifá (Divination Cup) or Salt Cellar Unidentified Yoruba Artist Ivory 19th century CE Nigeria, Owo Kingdom Height 18.5 cm, PM object 29-94-2 Delicately carved ivory pieces signified power in many West African kingdoms. This container may have been used to store salt in the Oba’s (King’s) Palace in Owo or to hold palm nuts in divination ceremonies.
Sowei (Initiation Ceremony) Helmet Unidentified Mende Artist Wood, Fiber Early 20th century CE Sierra Leone, Sherbro Island, Sitia Chiefdom, Yoni Height 43 cm, PM objects 37-22-267A,B Sowei helmets are worn exclusively by women of the secret Sande Society. The Society teaches girls in Sierra Leone and western Liberia about marriage, childcare, economics, and medicine. Masked dancers perform for the community during initiation ceremonies.
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Sculpture of a Married Couple Unidentified Kongo Artist Ivory ca. 1880–1925 CE Republic of the Congo Height 6.6 cm, PM object 29-94-6 The rope encircling the waists of this couple protects them throughout their life together. The knot represents the strength of their union. The artist carved this object after stripping the outer rind from an elephant’s tusk and sawing it into small segments.
Opon Ifá (Divination Tray) Iroke Ifá (Divination Tapper) Unidentified Yoruba Artist Wood, Horn 19th–20th century CE Nigeria Tray length 29.2 cm, PM object 81-2-7A,B Yoruba oracles use opon Ifá (divination trays) to divine answers about the future. By tapping on them with iroke Ifá (divination tappers), diviners call forth the messenger god, Eshu, shown at the top of this tray. Palm nuts thrown on the bowl-like surface of the tray help diviners answer questions.
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Armlet Unidentified Edo Artist Igbesanmwan (Ivory Guild) Ivory 18th century CE Nigeria, Edo, Benin City Height 12 cm, PM object 21168
High-ranking officials in the Benin court often decorate their wrists with brass and ivory armlets. The solid cuff would not snag on other beaded jewelry as the owner tossed an eben (ceremonial sword) during celebrations.
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Jibbah (Military Jacket) Unidentified Sudanese Artist Cotton Late 19th century CE Sudan Length 106 cm, PM object AF3357
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In 1881, Muhammad Ahmad was proclaimed Mahdi (Redeemer) of the Islamic faith. He united Sudanese people against British and TurcoEgyptian colonizers and established an Islamic state that lasted 18 years. This jacket was worn by soldiers in the Mahdist army. It is exhibited with a cap, shield, kaskara (sword), and sheath.
Mpungu a Nkisi (Protective Figure) Unidentified Vili Artist Wood, Glass, Brass, Iron Late 19th–Early 20th century CE Angola, Cabinda, Chiloango River Region Height 104.5 cm, PM object 30-46-2 Nkisi maintain public order. Kongo religious practitioners place bilongo (medicine) inside the wooden figures to attract spirits. Driving a nail into the figure activates it, calling on the spirit within for protection, judgment, or enlightenment. This nkisi may once have served a large community in what is now Angola. Here in the Museum, its spiritual function is no longer active.
Kitab (Amulet Scroll) Unidentified Ethiopian Artist Parchment, Ink ca. 1900 CE Ethiopia Length 167 cm, PM object 29-94-123 Many Ethiopian Christians believe that people encounter evil every day. Some wear a kitab (amulet scroll) in a leather pouch around their necks for protection. This scroll contains the Lord’s Prayer written in the ancient liturgical language Ge’ez.
Jane Hickman is Editor, Expedition; Lauren Cooper is Interpretive Planner, Exhibitions; Dwaune Latimer is Friendly Keeper of Collections, African Section; Alioune Diack is Assistant to the Editor, Expedition; and Jessica Bicknell is Head of Exhibitions.
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THE
ASANTE GOLD WEIGHTS
PRACTICAL, UNIQUE, ARTISTIC TOOLS OF THE TRADE
BY CHRISTINA GRIFFITH
WITHIN THE GLASS CASES IN THE AFRICA GALLERIES, THEY APPEAR AS MINIATURIZED TROPHIES, TOYS, OR JEWELRY, BUT THESE BEAUTIFULLY CRAFTED SCULPTURES AND ICONS OF MYTH AND REALITY WERE VITAL TOOLS IN THE BUSTLING TRADE HUB OF AFRICA’S GOLD COAST.
right: A Royal Scene, likely manufactured in the early 20th century. It depicts a chief surrounded by courtiers, one of whom is holding an umbrella while the others carry him. The chief is adorned with bracelets and holds a fly-whisk. Movement and action, society and social standing, reverence and practicality are all captured in this complex sculpture. It measures 11 cm tall and 7 cm wide. PM object 77-9-2.
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A spoon for carefully transferring gold dust. PM object AF2397.
BETWEEN THE 9TH AND 16TH CENTURIES, were developed, the Akan used tropical seeds on which desert-traversing trade routes connecting Egypt, to base their system of weights. Over time, a complex Ethiopia, Arabia, and Europe to sub-Saharan Africa system of standardized measures was used to conduct carried ivory, salt, spices, and gold among kingdoms transactions. By the 14th century, goldsmiths in the and cultures. In the forested region that is today region were manufacturing their own weights, scoops, modern Ghana, gold was plentiful and relatively easy to scales, and boxes for storing gold dust to facilitate trade. extract from the The Asante, environment. It also known as was here that the Ashanti, are an Akan-speaking ethnic group peoples, made among the Akan up of several that utilized their populations gold wealth to that shared a build an empire. language and many Organized in cultural elements, 1670, the Asante established a gold embarked market so rich that on a military A gold-dust box with its lid adorned with symmetrically positioned birds. In the Twi the region was campaign to rule language it is called Adakawa. It was used for carrying the gold dust or nuggets but given the moniker the surrounding was sometimes also used as a gold weight itself. PM object AF2398A, AF2398B. “the Gold Coast.” states under a Valuable as both a commodity and as currency, gold centralized government and judiciary system. It is dust was used as a medium of exchange. The Dyula, their kingdom that the Penn Museum’s gold weight Sudanese people whose merchants began trading with collection represents. the Akan in the late 14th century, are credited with The term “gold” weight is a bit of a misnomer. introducing Islamic designs and a weight system based While they are used to measure gold dust and nuggets, on Islamic units. Long before metalworking techniques they are actually cast from brass. There are two
left: Map of Africa’s west coast, highlighting what the British would term the Gold Coast. This is now the Republic of Ghana. Later designated as a colony, the extent of the Asante empire is shown by this map from 1896. Fall 2019
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primary ways the Asante produced their brass objects. In direct casting, a mold made from clay would be formed around the object meant to be copied. The object itself would then burn away when the mold was fired, leaving the void for the molten metal to be poured into. To make a great variety of original designs and complex objects, casters employed the “lost wax” method. For this, a mold is made by first sculpting an original, finely detailed piece out of wax, clay, or resin, which is coated by either dipping in or painting on layers of clay slip (a liquefied clay mixture with the
required to make specific weights and, if incorrect, could add small amounts of metal or take away metal to meet a lower or higher weight standard without losing the completed work. There were over 60 values used by the Akan that are as small as .04 grams. Each population center used local names for the measures, but the weight standards between regions were the same. The earliest weight systems used the Islamic standard, as Europeans did not arrive until the Portuguese landed in 1482. Because of the extent of global trade, by the 19th century, Islamic, Portuguese, and troy standards were combined together in the standard weight system. Gold dust was the primary currency of the region by the middle of the 18th century until paper currency based on the British pound was introduced in 1899. Handling gold dust is a delicate skill, and boys would begin practicing using miniature weights and scales. Most adult men owned a set of weights, often inherited from previous generations. The value of each individual weight was known by its owner, even in sets that included over a hundred weights. The wealthier and more powerful traders and chiefs would have sets of weights greater in number, units of measurement, and artistic Men in the process of weighing gold dust, photographed on the Ivory Coast in 1892. flair. Depending on the size of From Marcel Monnier’s France Noire Cote d’Ivoire et Soudan, 1894. the set, gold weights were stored consistency of cream) to ensure that all the elements of in a special container such as a bag or a chest. the sculpture are captured. Clay is packed around the Because the gold weights have not been excavated mold and then is set to dry. Placed in a furnace, the wax in archaeological contexts, dating their development is drained away and the mold is now ready to be filled is largely speculative. It is generally believed that with molten brass. the abstract and geometric designs are the earliest Some weights have additional nuggets of brass weights, influenced by Islamic culture brought by attached to them or holes drilled into them. The the first trans-Saharan traders. Much of Islamic art goldsmith had to judge the amount of molten metal avoids representations of living beings in part due to 60
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Woven textiles, called kente, are worn to symbolize status. The repeating patterns are also visible on these geometric weights. At the top right, the pattern frames an abstract image of a bird. This weight may represent Islamic influence in the early period of the gold trade. Even a prohibition against aniconism (the depiction of sentient beings) could not prevent this Asante artisan from imbuing this weight with the power of a Sankofa symbol. At the bottom left, the pattern is made from a design of ropes. PM objects AF2531A, AF2672. Textile photos by Alamy.
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The two lizards on this weight are each missing a front leg. This could have happened over time or the legs may have been removed to correct the weight. Their forms cross bodies and share a stomach. They do not appear to have the more realistic crocodile features depicted in other figures such as the weight on page 65. They resemble the stylized symbol to the left. There is a proverb associated with Cross-Crocodiles: “Two crocodiles have one common stomach, but when they are eating (dinner) they fight over the food.� This is said of a family member who becomes greedy and wishes to take everything for himself. PM object AF2422. Symbol drawing after figure from adinkra.org.
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the prohibition of idolatry. Many of the design motifs used in the geometric gold weights are also found in Akan textiles and on wall and home decorations. The geometric patterns became more complex over time, adding spirals and waves and even stylized representations of human figures and animals. Figurative weights are representative of everyday objects such as shoes, tools, knives, or rope, and animate objects like animals and people. These are presumed to have been adopted soon after geometric designs.
Natural objects like seed pods were once used to measure gold dust, and their brass counterparts were likely direct castings. Interestingly, the representations of animals are all of undomesticated creatures that would not live in a village. It is believed that the symbolism of the weights as balanced and impartial is so important that the inclusion of animals that have a relationship with people for food or labor would hinder the fairness of the transaction.
The Sankofa Bird, meaning a bird which has its head turned to look backwards. Birds are a common motif on gold weights, representing creatures that transcend boundaries, in this case land and air. This example displays decorated wings to indicate feathers. PM object AF2458.
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Human figures are depicted in activities like hunting or ritual practice and are often identified through details in dress and hair as a specific social status or ethnicity. Figures that depict Europeans became common in the early 18th century. Firearms were heavily traded by the middle of the 17th century and were represented alongside other weapons in gold weight sets from that period on. The gold weights serve more than a functional or artistic purpose: they are representative of cultural norms, standards, and ideals. The figures include references to proverbs, myths, and histories of the Asante people. They represent a practical tool used every day in economic activity but created in unique artistic forms that exhibit the personality and culture of the metalsmiths and merchants who created and used
them. Scholars can observe changes in iconography in weight sets that reflect the influences on the Akan people’s culture and document changing trends in style. In this way they are valuable for their artistic and cultural significance as well as their economic function. There is nothing quite like them in use today. Christina Griffith is Associate Editor of Expedition. For Further Reading Crownover, D. and W. Kohler. “Gold Beads from the Gold Coast.” Expedition 15.3: 25–29 (1973). Garrard, T.F. “Studies in Akan Goldweights (III): The Weight Names.” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, 14.1: 1–16 (1973). Sheales, F. African Gold-Weights in the British Museum. Online Research Catalogue. https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/online_research_ catalogues/agw/african_gold-weights/origins_and_history.aspx
A Mancala game board (in Twi, oware). Possibly the oldest game in human history, mancala games were common enough in daily life that they were included in gold weight sets. This example has some of the spaces filled in, which may depict a game in mid-play. However, it could also be a convenient way to adjust the weight when necessary to meet a standard measure. PM object number AF2480.
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These two human figures depict elder men shaking hands, but there is much more to the scene for the Asante. These figures evoke the proverb, “You have ended up like Amoako and Adu.” This proverb is used in situations where an outcome is disappointing. It is a way of saying “Sorry, you have failed in life,” or “Your venture wasn’t successful.” PM object AF2444.
When perched together, birds are often placed in symmetrical positions, facing each other, such as on the example of the box lid seen on page 59. These three birds are on a pyramid, and one has a ring around its legs. This may be an example of adding metal to a weight to bring it up to standard. PM object AF2458.
A realistic crocodile, odemkyem, with ridges on its back and cross-hatching to represent its scales. Like fish and crabs, very common in gold weight sets, crocodiles live in two spheres of reality (land and water), and so were a powerful symbol for the Asante. This object is 5.8 cm long and 2.2 cm wide. PM object AF2421A.
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THE LOST WAX CASTING TECHNIQUE A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE BY CHRISTINA GRIFFITH
THE PROCESS FOR CASTING GOLD objects like ornaments and jewelry is the same as that for casting Asante brass weights. Goldsmiths who were skilled in the art of working with the precious metal were also responsible for casting the necessary boxes, scales, weights, and scoops used in storing and weighing gold dust. In the early 1970s, David Crownover, Executive Secretary of the Museum, and William Kohler, Research Associate in MASCA, made several trips to Africa for the Penn Museum prior to publishing an article about goldsmithing and lost wax casting in the Spring 1973 issue of Expedition. They described the process of a goldsmith in Kumasi to better understand the craft. Wild beeswax was harvested or traded in. Working the wax into a mold ( foa) required rolling and shaping on a wood block (adwini pono) to get a basic shape. Heated blades (sekan), spatulas made from wood or bone, and bamboo or iron needles were used to carve intricate details. Thin, hollow wax rods were attached to the completed mold in places that would not ruin the final product. When the mold was covered in clay, they would be left in place to melt away and allow a channel for the molten metal. The wax mold was allowed to harden. Clay slip, a fine mixture of clay, water, and charcoal, was either painted on or the mold was dipped into it. Multiple layers of slip would be applied to ensure each detail was captured and that the mold would be protected when the clay casing was applied.
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The entire piece was allowed to dry completely. The next step was to heat the mold in a furnace (ebura), so that the molten wax could be poured out. Where the wax rods had been was now an opening, and a clay cup (semoa) to hold pieces of brass was attached with clay around this opening. The new joint must now dry as well. When the time came to cast the piece, the mold was placed in the furnace with the cup below. A charcoal fire, controlled by using a bellows (afa), was used to heat the metal until molten. Once ready, the smith used a pair of tongs (odabaw) to flip the mold upside-down, allowing the molten metal in the cup to flow into the cavity. The mold and metal within would be left to cool in this position. Once completely cooled and hardened, the clay cast was cracked open. The casting was thoroughly cleaned; bits of blackened clay would have been baked on and had to be chipped away. A mixture of water and lime juiced was used to scrub it further, and then the smith would set to work on trimming any excess metal or imperfections in the casting. An experienced caster would judge the size of the mold and how much metal was required to produce a specific weight. Should the weight come out too far below or too heavy for the intended measure, alterations were made to allow the weight to be used for the next higher or lower standard. If it was close enough, alterations could be as simple as adding an extra ring of brass or drilling a hole into the piece. Some of the examples in the Penn Museum collection appear to reflect this practice.
This series of drawings demonstrates the lost wax casting method. A wax model is made of a ring (a). The model is coated in clay or plaster (b) which may be fired or left to dry. A hole is drilled into the coated wax model (c) and the wax is melted out. Molten metal is poured into the mold (d). After the metal has cooled, the mold is broken and the sprue (the waste on a casting left by the hole through which the molten metal was poured) cut away (e). The cast object is finished, and rough patches are removed. The final piece is polished (f). After Ancient Jewellery by J. Ogden, University of California Press/British Museum, 1992, page 50.
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Upper incisor of H. H. Holmes, America’s first serial killer, with an interstitial cavity filled with gold foil.
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IN THE LABS CELEBRATING FIVE YEARS OF CAAM
BY MARIE-CLAUDE BOILEAU MORITZ JANSEN JANET MONGE KATHERINE MOORE AND CHANTEL WHITE
AS A JOINT ENDEAVOR between the Penn Museum and the University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences, the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM) has brought together expertise in the archaeological sciences, facilities, Museum collections, and student research since 2014. At the heart of the Center is our commitment to teaching and mentoring Penn students in the interdisciplinary analysis of the human past. In any week, a large cohort of students comes to CAAM for classes, lab activities, recitations, and research. Our curriculum, open to all Penn students, offers foundational courses for the exploration of
archaeological science, intermediate courses for a focus on specific fields of expertise, and advanced courses in which students work on original and independent projects. For a deeper engagement, students can enroll in our newly created Minor and Graduate Certificate in Archaeological Science. In all, CAAM is unique with its team of teaching specialists, innovative coursework, access to outstanding Museum collections, and fullyequipped laboratories. To celebrate five incredible years of growth, here is a glimpse, lab by lab, of how the Center has become a vibrant place at the Penn Museum for teaching and research.
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Original matchboxes from the 1960s contain plant samples collected from the Penn-led project at Hajji Firuz, Iran.
Juliet Stein (MLA ’18) examines preserved plant material from the Philadelphia home of John Bartram, one of America’s earliest botanists.
Allison Whitlock Kampa, a Ph.D. candidate at NYU, volunteers in the Lab by sorting archaeobotanical samples from Hajji Firuz.
Archaeobotany Seminar students view a 4,000-year-old bristlecone pine section from California used by Penn Museum scientists to establish the radiocarbon calibration curve.
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Archaeobotanist Chantel White and student Fabian Toro (Chem Eng ’16) measured rice grains for an experimental study published earlier this year in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.
ARCHAEOBOTANY LABORATORY The CAAM Archaeobotany Lab has expanded over the past five years to include innovative research projects from many different time periods and regions around the world. Our primary focus is the study of macrobotanical material from archaeological sites— seeds, nut shell, pods, and other plant parts that can be studied with low-power microscopy. Students and volunteers are working on macrobotanical research projects dating from the Paleolithic period (40,000 years ago) to recent history (150 years ago) at archaeological sites in Jordan, Israel, England, and Philadelphia. To identify preserved botanical specimens, we have created a large seed reference collection that consists of over 1,100 different specimens. We have also formed an experimental collection of spices, fruits, and even animal dung found in archaeological deposits. Students are then able to build on the skills they have developed in the Lab
through the Summer Archaeobotany Program, during which they work at archaeological sites in Greece and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA) archaeological science lab. In addition to macrobotanical material, two types of microbotanical remains, plant-cell phytoliths and starch granules, are studied using hands-on activities in the lab such as grain grinding and beer brewing. Our digital microscope has greatly aided in the analysis of archaeological wood, and a new high-power lens allows us to examine wood cells from even the most ancient of trees, the bristlecone pine. We are honored to house a large section of a 4,000-year-old bristlecone pine that was first used by Penn Museum researchers in the 1960s as part of their pioneering work with radiocarbon dating. Today this teaching tool helps connect our CAAM students with the long history of archaeological science research here at the Museum.
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Microphotograph of the sponge spicule tempered ceramic fabric of a bowl fragment (PM object 29-39-103) from Lago Grande, Brazil. The thin section is part of the WPA collection.
CERAMICS LABORATORY The Ceramics Laboratory opened in January 2011, was integrated into CAAM in 2014, and continues to be a hub for microscopy and ceramic analysis. One of the key questions we can ask in this laboratory is where were the objects made. Knowing their location of production using petrographic analysis allows archaeologists to study patterns of trade and exchange between settlements and regions. The Lab is equipped for the in-depth study of pyrotechnological processes as applied to earthen materials. Transmitted polarized light microscopes, a reference collection of rock specimens and their matching thin sections, a kiln, a collection of soil types, geological maps, and thousands of additional thin sections provide the necessary resources for students to train in petrographic analyses of a range of objects, from pottery containers and faience objects to architectural 72
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Radiographic image of PM object 27163, a face-neck vessel from Pachacamac, Peru.
materials such as fired bricks, tiles, stone, mortars, and plasters. Together, student research projects represent over 10,000 years of human engagement with the mineral world. Examples of current collaborative projects include Parthian glazed ceramic coffins from Nippur (Iraq), Late Bronze Age pots from Bamboula (Cyprus), ethnographic and archaeological ceramics from the Solomon Islands (Oceania), and historical garden containers from The Woodlands (West Philadelphia). A large legacy collection of archaeological ceramic thin sections representing material from most curatorial sections of the Museum was created in the 1930s through the Work Progress Administration program. One of the many class projects using these early samples focused on tempering traditions from around the world, exploring how potters in Brazil mixed
freshwater sponge spicules with clay, while in Alaska, potters used bird feathers instead to strengthen the clay paste. Student petrographers learn skills such as writing professional technical reports and how to conduct raw material surveys using geological maps, knowledge of drainage systems, and landscape topography. Outside of coursework, a small but dedicated cohort of volunteer petrographers and high school interns contribute to the research activities of the Laboratory. For a multiscale analysis of ceramic materials, instrumentation housed in the other labs are often used, such as x-ray radiography for microstructural analysis and scanning electron microscopy for elemental composition of glazes and ceramic bodies. CAAM routinely uses the Conservation department’s X-ray radiography facility to image, document, and analyze objects and specimens. Since 2014, hundreds of radiographic images have been acquired using this non-destructive analytical technique. The collaboration between the two departments goes beyond the sharing of instruments and has been formalized by the creation of CAAM classes and recitations taught by Museum conservators. Advanced coursework on conservation in archaeology explores the scientific conservation of cultural materials from archaeological contexts. The Ceramics Lab’s rock specimen collection provides reference material for the study of flaked and ground stone tools. Lithic analysis is a key component of our curriculum and is one of the eight fields of specialization taught in CAAM. Building from the work of the late Prof. Harold Dibble, flaked stone experimentation and analysis continues in the Laboratory.
The volcanic sand tempered ceramic fabric of pot CG2009.3.10 from Choiseul, Solomons Islands.
Hundreds of thin sections were made in the 1930s through the WPA program.
Learning to flintknapp different types of stone creates hundreds of sharp flakes and shatter material. Student Autumn Melby making a tool out of obsidian.
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HUMAN SKELETAL LABORATORY Over the past five years, the Human Skeletal Laboratory The visualization tools in the Lab, the Scanning has worked on specimens that range in time from 40,000 Electron Microscope (SEM), polarizing light microscopy, BP (before present) to recent forensic cases including the and micro-CT scan analyses, have allowed for a range 120-year-old skeleton of of research questions H. H. Holmes, America’s to be addressed first serial killer. The using state of the art laboratory has fostered techniques of analysis. research relationships For example, many of with scholars worldwide the skulls (cranium and within our own and mandible) in the Penn community Morton Collection and including both the Penn from the archaeological Medicine and Dental sites of Hasanlu and Schools. Since 2014, the Tepe Hissar have been Lab has attracted over CT scanned for the 1,000 undergraduates assessment of occlusal in the classroom, 17 patterns, indicating how undergraduate research the teeth fit together. projects including senior The image to the right theses, and 15 graduate shows a CB CT scan research projects as part (Cone Beam CT) of of Ph.D. dissertation the skull of one of the research. immature specimens Many of the in the Morton Cranial projects include the collection. Craniometric analysis of ancient teeth: measurements are the hardest and most undertaken to show durable tissue in the the forming dentition human body is dental and the relationship of enamel. For example, the mouth to airways the photo on page 75 located behind the shows isolated upper mouth and nasal teeth from one of the cavity. When used in skeletal archaeological conjunction with the top: Upper left dental incisors of Vergisson 4-83 showing scratch marks on the front surface of the tooth indicating directional patterns of a left-handed specimens from Tepe same images taken person. bottom: Upper incisor of H. H. Holmes, America’s first serial killer, with Hissar, Iran. Within the on living children a an interstitial cavity filled with gold foil. dentition is the hard remarkable group of evidence of the processes of growth and development, changes emerge. Not only do the front teeth not meet leaving markers of both the health and disease status of edge-to-edge, but general malocclusions of other ancient peoples. Current projects, in paleodentistry and teeth are the norm in living children. Indeed, the evolutionary dental medicine, highlight the uses of teeth, entire mouth, shape of the dental arcade, and depth both ancient and modern, to understand peoples of the of the palate seem to be significantly altered from our ancient past, which give insights into living peoples. evolutionary past. 74
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Cone Beam CT scan of the skull of one of the immature specimens in the Morton Cranial collection.
Upper dentition of Sir George Yeardley.
Isolated upper teeth from one of the skeletal archaeological specimens from Tepe Hissar, Iran.
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ARCHAEOMETALLURGY LABORATORY Archaeometallurgy is the study of the production and processing of metals in archaeology. Interwoven with mining archaeology, archaeometallurgy starts with the investigation of the exploitation of ores in mines and of primary production of metal at smelting sites. At consumer sites including workshops, the processing of metals is investigated. Finished artifacts may also reveal processes involved in their production. Chemical, mineralogical, and metallographic characterization of finds deriving from the metallurgical production chain are part of the scientific analysis in the Archaeometallurgy Laboratory. CAAM maintains about 1,600 mounted metal specimens, one of the largest collections of its kind. The collection is a legacy of the Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology (MASCA). The samples originate from archaeometallurgical research, both worldwide and over several decades. The specimens are frequently re-analyzed in classes and for student research. In addition, a teaching collection of ores used in prehistoric and historic metal production and polished sections of these specimens is available. By visiting facilities like Next Fab, a makerspace in Center City, students gain insights into metal processing techniques which were already used in antiquity. The CAAM Lab offers instrumentation for practical metallography. Besides two metallographic microscopes, the lab is equipped with facilities for all steps of sampling and preparation, including cutting with circular saws, mounting in epoxy resin, grinding and polishing with a polishing wheel, and a fume hood for etching. The digital microscope offers the opportunity to take up-to-date micrographs, both non-destructive and metallographic. Initial chemical characterization is done using the scanning electron microscope in the Human Skeletal Lab. We also work collaboratively with colleagues on campus for use of specific instruments and equipment not available in CAAM, such as the Laboratory for the Research on Matter and the Singh Nanotechnology Center.
CAAM hosts a legacy collection of metal samples to be reanalyzed for teaching purposes.
Student Ayanna Coleman analyzes a metal artifact in ANTH 148 Food and Fire.
Ben Jeffs demonstrates forging techniques used since antiquity in the blacksmith workshop of Next Fab.
Student Olivia Hayden documents an Early Iron Age artifact metallographically by using the digital microscope.
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Students Kristen Pearson and Lauren Aguilar learn how to fly a drone at the Morris Arboretum.
VIRTUAL LABORATORY
Students Elizabeth Vo-Phamhi and Mati Davis honing their 3D modelling skills in the CAAM course Material Past in a Digital World.
In addition to CAAM’s physical labs, a Virtual Lab was created in 2016, providing a powerful cloud-based server for students and researchers to collaborate on data processing. Digital archaeology focuses on working with the archaeological evidence we use to study the past. Through coursework students are introduced to the fundamentals of conducting research with computers, work with key forms of data, and learn how to use a variety of digital tools and technologies such as relational databases, 3D modeling, and image processing for the collection, analysis, visualization, and dissemination of archaeological data. At the graduate level, students use spatial analysis to investigate past human-space interactions. Training in different settings allows students to gain experience with various digital technologies: in the Museum’s Collections Study Room for photogrammetry on an accessioned object and outside, for example, at the Morris Arboretum’s Bloomfield Farm, for hands-on UAV flight training.
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ZOOARCHAEOLOGY LABORATORY
Zooarchaeology student Weronika Tomczyk lays out the llama skeleton in the Zooarchaeology Lab.
The laboratory for zooarchaeology was established in 2015, though archaeologists at Penn have been studying the dynamic relationship of people with animals since the 1970s. Shelves stacked with boxes and trays surround a central table with tools for measuring and examining ancient bones. Those boxes and trays are full of the lab’s most important collection: carefully prepared skeletons from modern animals. Ancient bone fragments are matched with the shapes of modern skeletons to identify them and reconstruct ancient lifeways. Artist Travis Lumpkin made ink drawings of catfish skeletal elements as a student project in scientific illustration. The drawings highlight delicate surface features that archaeologists use to make identifications from small fragments of bones. CAAM’s legacy collection from earlier generations of research comprises 65 skeletons recorded on cards in a metal file box. The Zooarchaeology Lab now holds more than 500 individuals, including more than 100,000 individual bones. All but the tiniest vertebrae and finger bones have been labeled in ink so that individual bones from more than one skeleton can be viewed and compared from all angles. Specimen no. 1 in the Zooarchaeology Lab catalog is a partial skeleton of a white-tailed fawn collected in 1973. Natural history museums seldom include immature animals like this one but we depend on such specimens for detailed zooarchaeological reconstructions. For key resources like cattle, we hold specimens of five different states of maturity. 78
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Where are these skeletons from? Of those early specimens from no. 1 to no. 65, records show that some were prepared at Penn Vet from animals that had been cared for at the New Bolton Center, some had been prepared as student projects, and some had started out as meals enjoyed by Museum staff (we have several incomplete turkey skeletons). We have added to this collection from gifts from other museums, purchases from scientific preparators, and specimens provided by farmers, meat cutters, fishermen, fur trappers, and hunters. Skeletons of several now-rare hoofed animals have been loaned to us by colleagues at the Drexel Academy of Natural Sciences. Students and researchers have handled, compared, sketched, measured, photographed, and made x-ray images of these modern bones to continue drawing connections with the past. Experimental archaeology helps us understand how bones from archaeological sites have changed. A friendly German Shepherd was given this cattle scapula (or shoulder blade) to gnaw on for 36 hours. We seldom find a whole bone like the one on the right in an archaeological site: these controlled experiments in bone destruction (part of the science of taphonomy) help us understand why.
Modern calf maxilla (upper jaw) and an ancient tooth in comparison.
Deer skeleton layout: Specimen no. 1 in the Zooarchaeology lab, remains of a 2–3month-old fawn.
The cattle scapula on the left after dog damage, compared to the whole specimen.
Two views of a catfish cleithrum (“shoulder” for front fin).
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Science-themed Daily Dig talk in the Middle East Galleries.
MUSEUM AND COMMUNITY COLLABORATIONS The success of our program rests on close collaboration with the Penn Museum’s curatorial sections, Archives, and Academic Engagement department to maximize student experience with the vast Museum collection. Outside of our labs, we engage with general audiences with outreach activities, many organized with our colleagues from Learning and Public Engagement. Look for us in the galleries during special events such as science-themed Daily Digs or come and meet us during our annual behind-the-scenes open labs every October on International Archaeology Day.
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CAAM BY THE NUMBERS Year founded. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2014 Teaching specialists, each representing a different area of expertise in archaeological science.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Members of the Faculty Steering Committee, representing CAAM’s stakeholder academic departments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Consulting Scholar.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Courses created or developed for CAAM’s programs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Undergraduate students enrolled or have completed the 6 CU Minor in Archaeological Science since its creation in Fall 2016. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Graduate students enrolled in the 4 CU Grad Certificate in Archaeological Science since its creation in Fall 2018. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Students, since 2014, in CAAM classes, labs, and recitations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,016
about the authors
Marie-Claude Boileau, Ph.D., is the Laboratory Coordinator and Teaching Specialist for Ceramics; Moritz Jansen is the Teaching Specialist for Archaeometallurgy; Janet Monge, Ph.D., is Associate Curator-in-Charge and Keeper of Collections, Physical Anthropology Section; Katherine Moore, Ph.D., is the Mainwaring Teaching Specialist for Archaeozoology; and Chantel White, Ph.D., is the Teaching Specialist for Archaeobotany.
To learn more about our programs and to meet our students, please visit us at www.penn.museum/ caam. Follow us on twitter at CAAMatPenn for weekly updates and to see what our students and teaching specialists are doing in the labs and in the field.
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FAVORITE OBJECT
A Famous Queen Mother from Benin BY HEATHER J. SHARKEY
THE QUEEN MOTHER, or “Iyoba,” was a powerful figure in the Edo kingdom of Benin, which ruled parts of the West African coast for seven centuries. Starting in the 16th century, the kings or “obas” of this realm appointed craftsmen to make figurative sculptures and reliefs from cast bronze and carved ivory. Installed in palace shrines, these figures exalted past obas and their mothers, along with the chiefs and warriors who helped them. The Penn Museum’s iyoba shows the first and most famous queen mother, Idia, whose son Oba Esigie ruled from 1504 to 1550. Idia was legendary. She raised an army of her own and used medicine and magic to defeat her son’s enemies. Probably cast around 1700, this sculpture shows her wearing the conical, curved headdress of royalty, along with four vertical scars above each eyebrow, which mark her as female. The Kingdom of Benin fell in 1897, when British forces launched a “punitive expedition” against it. Amid the European “scramble” for Africa, this invasion enabled Britain to secure a strategic section of the coast and forge what we now call Nigeria. This expedition also enabled British forces to seize several thousand objects from the oba’s compound. The Foreign Office in London later auctioned off the 82
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goods to raise money, which is how they were scattered into museums and private collections. In 1920, the Penn Museum bought this statue from William Oldman, a British antiquities dealer who also sold objects from Pacific islands like New Zealand, New Caledonia, and New Guinea. About 4,000 items from the Museum’s Africa and Oceania sections came from this dealer. As one of the great Benin Bronzes, the statue of the Queen Mother is a world-class work of art. More than 300 years after a royal metalsmith poured her likeness in bronze, and a century since Philadelphia became her new home, the Iyoba Idia has the beauty and strength to stop visitors in their tracks as they pass. Heather J. Sharkey, Ph.D., is Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic History at the University of Pennsylvania.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE OBJECT? We encourage you to tell us about your favorite Penn Museum object and why you like it. Essays should be about 300 words. Write the editor at jhickman@ upenn.edu for more information or to submit your essay. left: This statue of the Benin Queen Mother named Idia was cast in bronze using the lost wax process, PM object AF5102. You will find her in the Africa Galleries.
PORTRAIT
Elin Danien (1929-2019) BY JANE HICKMAN
— To the memory of my hero, my co-conspirator, and my very good friend. ELIN DANIEN was more than a force of nature. She was a dancer, an actress, a writer, a scholar, a traveler, an expert on chocolate, an engaging lecturer, and a beautiful woman who was curious about everything. She was devoted to her husband Bud and their dogs and was a friend and mentor to many. I always thought of Elin as a Mayanist, but I just finished a book she edited in 1990 for the Penn Museum— The World of Philip and Alexander, A Symposium on Greek Life and Times. Elin was responsible for many symposia, workshops, lectures, and books on a variety of subjects in her role as Coordinator of Museum Events. After volunteering and working part-time at the Museum for ten years, she went to the then-director of the Museum, Bob Dyson, in 1981 and told him we needed more public programs. He immediately agreed and gave her the job. That was the way Elin did things. She saw a need and filled it. She created Museum programs that exist to this day, including Member Nights and World Culture Days. She started the Museum rentals program, and, one spring, even helped landscape one of the courtyards. For many years after her official role at the Museum ended, she served as a volunteer docent and a Research Associate in the American Section. In 1986, she founded Bread Upon the Waters, a scholarship program that has provided more than 123 women over the age of 30 with the opportunity to earn their undergraduate degrees at Penn. Elin became interested in pre-Columbian culture after she hitchhiked to Mexico from her home in New York for a summer vacation and ended up staying two years. She continued to travel to Mexico and Guatemala after she returned to New York to work as an advertising copywriter. In the early 1970s, when she moved to Philadelphia, she discovered the letters of Robert James Burkitt in the Penn Museum Archives and became
captivated with this eccentric man, who lived in Guatemala excavating and acquiring objects for above: Elin with a pottery urn from Chipal, Guatemala, the Museum in the early Painted Metaphors exhibition. 20th century. In 1979, 34 years after Burkitt’s death, Elin flew with her husband to Guatemala, then traveled seven hours on bumpy, dirt roads to reach a finca or ranch in Cobán, where she found two crates in a barn with “Burkitt” stenciled on them. The crates contained Burkitt’s notes from 1903 to 1913, which she brought back to the Museum with permission from his family. Her fascination with Robert Burkitt led to a Penn Ph.D. dissertation on pre-Columbian polychrome vessels excavated by Burkitt, more than seven articles for Expedition magazine and other publications, and an event called Maya Weekend, which brought together professionals and amateurs for three days of lectures, workshops, and fellowship (tequila was served). She ran Maya Weekend for 25 years. In 2009, she developed the Museum exhibition Painted Metaphors: Pottery and Politics of the Ancient Maya; she edited a special issue of Expedition dedicated to this subject. Elin also researched and wrote about others associated with the Penn Museum, including illustrator Mary Louise Baker and Egyptologist and Museum pioneer Sara Yorke Stevenson. All of us at the Museum who knew Elin will never forget her. She made our lives richer. She could always make me laugh. I end with something I heard Elin say many times:
“ Archaeology is the most fun you can have with your pants on.” Fall 2019
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GLOBAL CLASSROOM
News From Learning Programs Teens Learn College and Work-Ready Skills THE MUSEUM’S teen programs continue to expand the skills of Philadelphia youth. Teen Ambassadors is a free after-school program focused on improving skills critical for college success, including public speaking, formulating research questions, and academic writing. Over 28 weeks, nine high school students learn about anthropology and archaeology and explore their natural curiosities in STEAM-related fields with weekly activities. Ambassadors also host educational events for other teens. Using the national model of the Teen Science Network, they organize youth-centered evening workshops called Teen Science Cafés. Topics are based on the teens’ interests, with recent cafes focused on Globalization, Climate Change, and DNA. The Teen Summer Internship Program trains high school students for professional work by pairing them with departments across the Museum, including Development, Learning Programs, the Museum Library, and Conservation. Over the course of two three-week internships, students work directly with Museum supervisors and receive behind-the-scenes tours, workshops, and talks from staff and faculty, introducing them to multi-disciplinary work approaches, developing career skillsets, and gaining practical and professional experience.
Teen Summer Interns are given a tour of the Museum Archives by Senior Archivist Alessandro Pezzati.
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Campus Tours THE PENN MUSEUM has a quickly-growing number of visitors from China; in fact, Chinese tourists comprise the second-largest market for overseas visitation to Philadelphia. This summer the Museum piloted a brand-new tour package that includes a University of Pennsylvania Campus Highlights tour, a Penn Museum tour, and the opportunity for visitors to dine on campus. The package allows the Museum to showcase its incredible collection to a growing international audience and also places the University’s initiatives and campus as focal points for visitors exploring the city. Tours are offered in Mandarin or English. To book a tour, contact Group Sales (grouptickets@pennmuseum.org).
Guides Offer Worldly Perspectives in New Galleries THE GLOBAL GUIDES tour program, designed to provide contemporary perspectives and connections to ancient objects, will now offer interpretive experiences in the Museum’s renewed Mexico and Central America and Africa Galleries. Six new colleagues, hailing from Mexico, Guatemala, The Democratic Republic of Congo, and Tanzania, joined the current Middle East Galleries Global Guides. The new guides have a wide variety of interests and expertise, ranging from two Penn students studying Political Science and Law, to a published author, a pastor, and an educator— read their fascinating biographies at www.penn.museum/ globalguides. From talks with curators to training with expert storytellers, the Global Guides have received immersive learning sessions to then create their own individualized tours. Training began in July, with the first full tours to be offered on November 22, 23, and 24. Free public Global Guides tours are available Fridays at 2:30 pm, along with Saturdays and Sundays at 11:00 am and 2:30 pm. Visitors and tour operators can also book private tours by contacting Group Sales (grouptickets@ pennmuseum.org). The Museum is giving away a limited number of free private tours to groups.
The Museum’s Group Sales Manager, Amanda Grady (far right), served on the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau’s Global Tourism Summit Panel in May 2019 to discuss international tourism trends.
Penn Museum staff led educational sessions about marketing, interpretation, digital archives, and, pictured here, the Global Guides program at the 2019 American Alliance of Museums conference.
Eight Years at Science Festival
Teen Ambassadors represented the Penn Museum in West Philly’s Clark Park during the 2019 Philadelphia Science Festival.
THE PHILADELPHIA SCIENCE FESTIVAL (PSF) provides opportunities for Philadelphians of all ages to engage with and build a community around science by bringing informal science education to restaurants, parks, breweries, libraries, museums, and other spaces. Through five events hosted between April 26 and May 4 in Philadelphia, over 900 community members celebrated the Penn Museum’s scientific work through hands-on activities, access to experts, and collaborations with Penn departments and cultural organizations. As part of the festival, the Museum’s Teen Ambassadors hosted a Discovery Day program in Clark Park, a few blocks from the Penn campus. The teens studied the science of conservation to facilitate the Can You Match That X-Ray? Game, interacting with visitors of all ages and teaching them to use their observation skills.
Unpacking the Past Offers China Programming ENTERING its sixth full school year, the Unpacking the Past (UtP) program has expanded to include an in-depth China track for students and teachers. Through a generous grant from the Freeman Foundation, UtP educators developed an interactive middle school tour highlighting key Chinese objects and fun educational workshops for in-school classrooms and at the Museum. Focused on analysis of the distinctive artwork from different Chinese dynasties and evidence of Silk Road trading, the programs
directly align with middle school curriculum in the School District of Philadelphia and make use of lifelike replicas of oracle bones and ceramic animal sculptures. Despite Building Transformation construction, Unpacking the Past served nearly 6,000 students last year and set a new record for the number of participating special needs students. The Museum is delighted to provide these expanded services to students throughout Philadelphia’s diverse communities.
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MEMBER NEWS
Member News and Events New Benefit for ALL Members! SHARE THE MUSEUM you love with the people you love. Beginning on November 16, the Penn Museum invites members to bring a friend—for free!—on Member Guest Sundays, which occur on the last Sunday of each month. Members are invited to bring one guest for each adult represented on their membership.
left to right: Peter Gould, Ph.D., LPS10; Robin Potter WG80; and Williams Director Julian Siggers, Ph.D.
LES and Expedition Circle Spring Preview and Dinner ON MAY 7, members of the Loren Eiseley Society and Expedition Circle joined us for a behind-the-scenes preview of spaces on our Main Level (previously Floor 2) under transformation. Members of the Loren Eiseley Society enjoyed their annual dinner following the program. left to right: Carlos Nottebohm, W64; Mary Ann Meyers, Ph.D., GR76, PAR; and Executive Director of Galleries Dan Rahimi.
left to right: Dave Schwartz, M.D., and Simon Martin, Ph.D., Lead curator of the Mexico and Central America Gallery, Associate Curator and Keeper, American Section.
above: Tukufu Zuberi, Ph.D., Curator of the Africa Galleries, Lasry Professor of Race Relations, Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies, shows Mark Curchack and other guests the upcoming Africa Galleries.
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above: LES Co-Chair Bill Conrad, PAR, examines plans for the renovated Harrison Auditorium.
Member Events Mark your calendar for exclusive member events coming up soon! For registration information, visit www.penn.museum/calendar or call 215.898.5093.
12 NOV
VIP PREVIEW, NEW PENN MUSEUM For Expedition Circle members and up
25 JAN
15 NOV
MEMBER PREVIEW, NEW PENN MUSEUM
26 FEB
Friday, November 15, 2019, 3:00–8:00 pm
ee our new Africa and Mexico and Central S America Galleries, and new Sphinx Gallery with the colossal red granite Sphinx of Ramses II, before they open to the public.
22 JAN
LIVING OUR HISTORY January 22, 2020, 6:00–8:00pm
Learn about and take part in our new programs that highlight lived experiences and the unique, critical ways personal experiences engage audiences with our collection. Meet key presenters in our Global Guides, Daily Dig, and International Classroom programs, and hear how they connect their stories and inspirations to the Museum’s artifacts and its visitors.
For new members
aturday, January 25, 2020, 1:30–2:30 pm S Deputy Director Steve Tinney leads a tour of collection highlights especially for new members, and gives a sneak peek about what’s coming up at the Museum. For new members since April 2018.
Tuesday, November 12, 2019, 5:00–8:00 pm
embers of the Loren Eiseley Society M and Expedition Circle are invited for a VIP preview of our new Main Level, including the new Main Entrance and Sphinx Gallery along with Africa and Mexico and Central America Galleries, with collections experts on hand and a special reception.
SPECIAL TOUR: DIG IN NEW MEMBERS’ TOUR
MAR 2020
08 MAR
ANNUAL CURATOR’S PARTY For Expedition Circle members and up ednesday, February 26, 2020, 5:30–7:45 pm W Join exhibition curator Dr. Lauren Ristvet for a behind-the-scenes look at the making of our upcoming exhibition The Stories We Wear. Select objects from storage will be available for an up-close look.
MEMBER MONTH March 2020
pecial tours, extra discounts, and more S exclusive perks for members all month long.
LIVE FROM TROY Sunday, March 8, 2020, 10:00 am–12:00 pm
Join Dr. Brian Rose, Curator-in-Charge, Mediterranean Section, live from Troy, where he was director of post-Bronze age excavations from 1988 to 2012. Event is held onsite at the Museum.
MONTHLY MEMBER TOUR SERIES Members are invited to exclusive tours led by a variety of curators and collections experts. Check www.penn.museum/calendar for the latest tour schedule.
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MEMBER NEWS
Meet Our Members Nina Vitow, CW70, WG76 NINA VITOW is a Penn and Wharton alumna who has actively supported Penn and the Penn Museum for many years. She is a member of the Director’s Council and the Loren Eiseley Society, and was a member of the Women’s Committee.
DISCOVERING ANTHROPOLOGY I first became involved with the Penn Museum because my college roommate was an anthropology major. We became roommates when I was a junior, and once I realized how much fun she was having, it was too late to change my major to anthropology. I knew the Penn Museum was there, but until I started taking classes there, I really wasn’t that aware of it, except for the fact that my roommate talked about it all the time, and I was really jealous.
JOINING THE COMMUNITY I became involved again with the Penn Museum about nine years ago. My husband had just died after a long illness, and my friend, Gretchen Riley, GS70, PAR, who had been very active at the Museum told me, “You need to do something!” She took me to a Women’s Committee meeting, and they voted me in as a member. Then I began to realize that there was much more to the Museum than the eye could see.
DIAMONDS IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD As for why I support the Penn Museum, I don’t see why anyone who loves the Museum wouldn’t. Do you know the expression “acres of diamonds in your own backyard”? I see the Penn Museum like that. People don’t know about it as much, so it doesn’t get as much support as some other institutions, but it should. In recent years, I have seen the Museum bloom. I supported the Mexico and Central America Gallery in particular, because a branch of my family lives in Mexico, so I’ve always felt an affinity for Mexico. Also, these are our closest neighbors, and they have a fascinating history. 88
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above: Nina Vitow at the Penn Museum Golden Gala in 2018.
AN UNMATCHED COLLECTION When you ask me if I have a favorite object or collection in the Museum, that’s more difficult to answer. I love all the collections. If pressed, I’d say that my favorite artifact is the Ram in the Thicket. In fact, my friend and I went to the British Museum after seeing the Penn Museum’s new Middle East Galleries. As you know, the Penn Museum conducted a joint expedition with the British Museum, and they have another Ram in the Thicket. My own personal feeling is that our Ram in the Thicket is much nicer than theirs. People might disagree with me, but I really like our exhibition much better. To conclude, I think that people are doing themselves a disservice if they’re anywhere near Penn’s campus and they aren’t going over to visit the Penn Museum.
MUSEUM NEWS
Museum News Museum Welcomes New Overseers The Penn Museum is delighted to welcome three new Overseers in fall 2019. As an Anthropology major at Penn, ERICA DESAI, C96, spent countless hours at the Museum in its classrooms, among the collections, and working with professors. Her education in medical anthropology and population health inspired a career in health care and public health in which she worked for over ten years. Most recently she was the Program Director for the Take Care New York initiative at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, where she was responsible for the development and implementation of this citywide health policy framework. Additionally, Erica also served as the Acting Chief of Staff to the Commissioner of Health. Prior to working at the Health Department, Erica worked in the Physician-in-Chief’s office at
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where she was responsible for a wide range of special projects affecting hospital operations and policy. Erica is currently involved with a number of nonprofit organizations including the Abaarso School of Science and Technology, a boarding school in Somalia, and she is a trustee for the Madison Square Park Conservancy and the Spence School. Erica lives in Manhattan with her husband, Anand, W96, C96, and their two children, Ella, age 12, and Asher, age 10. Erica is thrilled to reconnect with the work of the Museum at this exciting time.
IRFAN M. FURNITUREWALA, WG01, PAR, is a partner and U.S. equity portfolio manager at Capital Group, a global investment firm that manages over $1.6 trillion in assets. Prior to joining Capital, Irfan was a design engineer at Motorola, where he co-invented two patents approved by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. He holds an MBA from the Wharton School, a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering from University of Mumbai in India. Irfan and his wife Asma live in Los Angeles
with their four sons. Besides being an alumni interviewer for Wharton and for Penn, Irfan has also been a member of Penn’s Major Gifts Giving Council and Penn’s Parent Leadership Council. In addition to being an engaged Penn alumnus, Irfan has been on the board of the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association, the Mirman School, and “I Have a Dream” Los Angeles.
GEORGE W. GEPHART, JR., WG79, PAR, is the former President and CEO of the Academy of Natural Sciences. During his seven-year tenure, he orchestrated its successful combination with Drexel University. George also served on the Penn Museum Advisory Board for much of this time. Prior to his service at the Academy, he spent 25 years in the investment management business in New York and Philadelphia. George also served on the boards of several Philadelphia non-profits including Main Line
Health, The Jefferson Health System, The Curtis Institute of Music, and Natural Lands Trust. George and his wife Elizabeth “Pooh” Gephart, CGS79, PAR, have two daughters and currently reside in Charleston, SC. There, he is on the board of the Medical University of South Carolina Foundation.
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MUSEUM NEWS
New Light on Ancestral Pueblo Perishables ON JUNE 27, the First Annual Rick Rockwell Lecture brought 2,000-year-old sandals, feather blankets, hide and cotton clothing, baskets, and atlatls from Southeast Utah in the Museum’s American collections together in conversation with today’s leading Native American specialists. Highlighting continuities through time, archaeologist Dr. Laurie Webster of Colorado introduced her Cedar Mesa Perishables research project, and cultural specialists Chris Lewis (Zuni Pueblo) and Louis Garcia (Tiwa/Piro of Albuquerque) spoke eloquently about the joys of discovering unfamiliar weaving techniques once used by their ancestors through object-based research at the Penn Museum.
above: The program honored former Board member and longstanding supporter of the Penn Museum, John R. (“Rick”) Rockwell, W64, WG66. Rick’s legacy of Museum service lives on in a new Southwest Collections stewardship initiative.
above: Chris Lewis of Zuni Pueblo discusses the weave of a contemporary basket as well as those from our collection.
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above: Louis Garcia (right), Tiwa/Piro of Albuquerque, describes how Pueblo textiles are woven.
Museum Objects Travel to New York City THE PENN MUSEUM has an active loan program to institutions in the United States and abroad. Below is a selection of objects recently loaned to the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in New York for their exhibition A Wonder to Behold: Craftsmanship and the Creation of Babylon’s Ishtar Gate. The exhibition runs from November 6, 2019 to May 24, 2020, and will include 25 Near Eastern and 2 Babylonian Section objects from the Museum’s collection.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
(1) Mold for Figurine or Plaque with Cast, Old Babylonian (ca. 2000–1600 BCE), terracotta, PM object 33-35-253. (2) String of Beads, 2200–1800 BCE, alabaster, shell, lapis lazuli, grahamite, paste, stone, PM object 33-22-168. (3) String of Beads, Eye Stones, Late 2nd–early 1st millennium BCE, paste, PM object 85-48-67. (4) Human Figurine, Female Head with Horned Headdress, Neo-Babylonian (7–6th century BCE), terracotta, PM object B14991. (5) Plaque Fragment, with Lion, Old Babylonian (ca. 2000–600 BCE), terracotta, PM object 51-6-204.
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MUSEUM NEWS
Foundation Grants Support Museum THE MUSEUM is honored to have received several recent foundation grants that advance our building transformation, research, and learning programs. A grant from the Otto Haas Charitable Trust is supporting our reopening this fall when we will welcome visitors to our new galleries and renovated spaces. A new grant from the Areté Foundation is supporting the Museum’s excavations at Gordion, Turkey, one of the most significant archaeological sites in the Near East and our longest continually running excavation. The Areté Foundation’s grant provides funding for excavation and site conservation over the
coming years as our researchers continue to make new discoveries about this historically important place in the ancient world. Grants from GRoW @ Annenberg, Giorgi Family Foundation, and the Walter J. Miller Trust are helping us continue our impactful Unpacking the Past program for Philadelphia middle school students. GRoW @ Annenberg helped us launch the program five years ago through a generous lead grant. Their renewed support enabled us to purchase two eye-catching Mummy Mobiles for our educators to drive to schools across the city to teach outreach lessons in classrooms.
Walk Softly on this Earth MOCCASINS in the Penn Museum’s collection tell many different stories, some familiar, some lost, others often hushed and uncomfortable. Beginning in the 1500s, millions of Native Peoples perished as waves of Spanish, French, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Scottish, and Swedish colonists settled across the land. In time, the U.S. government imposed brutal policies of annihilation and removal and attempted to “civilize” Native Peoples on confined reservations. Indigenous descendants actively remember these years as a time of suffering. The Judith Rodin and Paul Verkuil Gallery, a new space adjacent to the Sphinx Gallery for the display of featured objects that will rotate frequently, contains two pairs of moccasins with special stories. The Seminole moccasins shown here, worn over many miles on the Southeastern homeland, bear silent witness to warfare, disease, starvation, forced labor, broken treaties, stolen lands, segregation, and desecration. But Native Peoples were not simply victims. As is still true today, they drew on their strength and their histories, and using their strategic and diplomatic skills made choices to assure survival and shape the lives of future generations. The Huron-Wendat moccasins tell stories of adaptation and resilience. Their 19th-century maker chose her materials carefully, which retain the life 92
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Left, Man’s moccasins, Huron-Wendat, Wendake, Québec, Canada, ca. 1825. Moosehide, probably deerskin, porcupine quill, moosehair, tin alloy, porcupine hair, silk, sinew, unidentified Huron-Wendat artist. PM object NA4946A/B. Right, Man’s moccasins belonging to Big Jim or Little Tiger. Seminole, Big Cypress Band, Southwest Florida, ca. 1876. Buckskin, unidentified Seminole artist. PM object 45-15-479A/B.
forces of moose, deer, and porcupine. She added culturally meaningful geometric and plant motifs to honor and protect the wearer, likely a family member or a British supporter, as he navigated the complex physical and social terrains. Like her, Indigenous politicians, healers, mothers, artists, and intellectuals allied and protected themselves through the changing times. The Penn Museum respectfully acknowledges that it is situated on Lenapehoking, the ancestral and spiritual homeland of the Unami Lenape.
Conservators Attend May 2019 AIC Meeting in Connecticut SEVEN CONSERVATORS from the Penn Museum attended the Annual Meeting of the American Institute for Conservation in May 2019. Molly Gleeson, Julie Lawson, Jessica Byler, Alexis North, and Anna O’Neill presented papers. Head Conservator Lynn Grant received (in absentia) the Sheldon and Caroline Keck Award for excellence in the education and training of conservation professionals. right: Head Conservator Lynn Grant (center) with members of the Museum Conservation team.
Remembering a Devoted Overseer and Volunteer THE PENN MUSEUM mourns the loss of former Overseer and longtime volunteer Josephine (Josie) Arader Hueber, CW47, on July 7, 2019. An exceptionally dedicated member of the Women’s Committee through several decades, Josie organized many of that group’s most notable trips to archaeological sites, and she led the acclaimed celebrity book and exhibition project 44 Eyes in a Museum Storeroom (2000). A beloved friend of the Mediterranean Section, she served as Board liaison for the Etruscan and Roman galleries project and was
an indispensable member of the team. She was a guiding force in fundraising for the two new galleries, opened in 1998, especially for the Rome Gallery, named in honor of Andrew W. Farnese. As chair of the Etruscan and Rome Galleries opening gala, she helped organize the events for the enormously successful public opening of the new galleries—one of the most memorable events in the Penn Museum’s history. The Penn Museum is richer for the extraordinary legacy of Josie’s work on so many of its programs and projects.
above: At the 1998 Members’ Preview for the new Roman and Etruscan Galleries, Josie Hueber (second from left) with (left to right) Joe Jacovin, a special guest from ancient Rome, Andrew Farnese (for whom the Roman Gallery is named), and Williams Director Jerry Sabloff. Fall 2019
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MUSEUM NEWS
Native American Voices Rotates Objects THIS WINTER, 50 objects will rotate on display in Native American Voices—The People Here and Now, which is extended to 2021. Among them is this exquisite Timbisha Shoshone basket from Death Valley, California, coiled ca. 1890 of willow, black devil’s claw, and white bird quill.
Timbisha Shoshone basket, 14” high x 10.5” diameter. PM object NA8280.
Curator and Students Work With Mississippi Museum DURING THE SUMMER 2019 SEASON of the Smith Creek Archaeological Project, Dr. Megan Kassabaum, Weingarten Assistant Curator in the American Section, and two student curators, Arielle Pierson and Erin Spicola, worked with the Woodville Main Street Association to open an exhibition in the Wilkinson County Museum in downtown Woodville, Mississippi. The exhibition, entitled Exploring Familiar Landscapes: Native American Mounds in Wilkinson County, focuses on the precontact moundbuilding cultures that thrived in the American South from 6000 BCE to European contact. It features Native American artifacts from the local area and displays
two pots that were replicated by a modern potter using sherds excavated by the Smith Creek Archaeological Project. Located between Natchez, MS, and Baton Rouge, LA, the Woodville exhibition will remain open for three years.
Summer Internship Program Offers Diversity Stipend DIVERSIFYING THE MUSEUM FIELD is a conversation that has increased exponentially in recent years. With equity and inclusion in mind, the Penn Museum offered a Diversity Stipend for the 2019 Summer Internship Program. Three students from underrepresented groups in the museum field were paid a stipend for a 300-hour internship, which included the cost of travel and summer housing. Twenty-seven college and recent graduate interns were placed across sixteen Museum departments for eight to ten weeks, working with and learning from museum professionals. Several interns worked in curatorial sections learning about collections research; others worked on exhibitions preparing for the upcoming Africa and Mexico and Central America Galleries; one was an 94
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above: Summer interns at the Barnes Foundation on June 26, 2019.
editorial intern working on this issue of Expedition. During their internship, interns participated in a Museum Practice Program comprised of weekly lectures and tours about the Penn Museum’s collections, exhibitions, and programs led by Museum staff and curators.
Staff Members Take Part in AAMG Conference IN JUNE 2019, four members of the Museum’s Academic Engagement Department attended the Annual Conference of the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG) in Minneapolis, MN. The three-day conference provided staff a chance to learn how other campus museums and galleries connect with their student and local communities and the opportunity to share some of their work at the Penn Museum. Kelsea Gustavson, Teen and Undergraduate Engagement Coordinator, presented “Making Workshops,” which gives Penn students a chance to learn how Museum objects were made and used through hands-on, experiential workshops. Dr. Sarah Linn, Research Liaison, moderated a panel about the role that student gallery guide programs play in connecting students with one another, the Museum, and the public. Stephanie Mach, Academic Engagement Coordinator,
above: Dr. Sarah Linn, Stephanie Mach, and Kelsea Gustavson. Dr. Anne Tiballi (not pictured here), Mellon Director of Academic Engagement, also attended the conference.
moderated a panel about university museums as agents for decolonization on campus through campus and course partnerships.
Penn Alumni Travel Tours IN JUNE, American Section Associate Curator Dr. Lucy Fowler Williams and ten Penn alumni hiked the extraordinary terrain of Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches National Parks in Southeast Utah. Lucy shared lectures on Ancestral Pueblo and Navajo peoples whose histories tie them to this rugged landscape. The eight-day trip was sponsored by Penn Alumni Travel and World Wide Trekking.
above: The group stops for a photo on the Athabaska Glacier.
above: Penn Alumni take a break from the sun in Little Wild Horse Canyon, San Rafael Swell, Utah. Photo by Lucy Fowler Williams.
During July and August, Weingarten Assistant Curator Dr. Megan Kassabaum served as faculty host for Penn Alumni Travel’s Canadian Rockies Explorer tour. In addition to visiting a variety of important archaeological sites, the group had the opportunity to stand atop the Athabaska Glacier, a small part of the huge Columbia Icefield located in Jasper National Park.
Fall 2019
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LOOKING BACK
The Last Step in a Long Journey MOVING MONUMENTS FROM PIEDRAS NEGRAS INTO THE PENN MUSEUM, 1933
IN 1930, J. Alden Mason, American Section Curator, arranged for an unprecedented loan from the Government of Guatemala of Maya monuments from Piedras Negras, a site renowned for its beautifully carved stone monuments, or stelae. Due to the inaccessibility of the site deep in the Petén jungle, the plan required building a road in the jungle from the site to the Usumacinta River, loading the monuments onto an oxcart, and guiding them through the rapids on wooden rafts. The monuments were carried overland to the Mexican town of Tenosique and transported by river steamboat and then steamship to the Gulf of Mexico and to New Orleans, before continuing by steamship to Philadelphia. The last step of the journey, pictured here, involved hoisting the pieces through a window of the Museum’s Lower Fitler Pavilion, where the Mexico and Central America Gallery is still located today (PM image 175934). Maya monuments from Piedras Negras can be seen in the new Gallery.
— Alessandro Pezzati, Senior Archivist
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Welcome back,
and take a seat. The Harrison Auditorium has been inviting audiences to enjoy programs in its splendid setting since 1916. Now beautifully renovated and restored to its original glory, the Auditorium is ready to welcome you once again. Many of our members and friends have already named seats in this historic space. We invite you to join them: for a gift of $2,500, your name (or the name of an honoree of your choice) will be installed on an elegant metal plaque on a beautifully refurbished Auditorium seat.* For more information, please contact Therese Marmion at 215.898.3165 or tmarmion@upenn.edu.
* Payment may be made in up to four installments by June 30, 2020
NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE
PAID PERMIT #2563 PHILADELPHIA, PA 19104-6324, U.S.A.
3260 South Street Philadelphia, PA 19104 penn.museum/expedition
MAKE NEW CONNECTIONS The Penn Museum’s Global Guides connect visitors with ancient objects through their own contemporary perspectives. Now, six new guides from Mexico, Guatemala, the Republic of Congo, and Tanzania are ready to introduce you to the Mexico and Central America and Africa Galleries. See www.penn. museum/globalguides for more information.