Penn Museum’s World-renowned Mesopotamian Collection from Ur is the Centerpiece Of a New Exhibition Exploring Iraq’s Ancient Cultural Heritage PHILADELPHIA, PA—In 1922—the same year that Howard Carter made headlines with the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in Egypt—the Penn Museum and the British Museum embarked upon a joint expedition to the ancient site of Ur in southern Iraq.  Led by British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley, this expedition astonished the world by uncovering an extraordinary 4,500-year-old royal cemetery with more than 2,000 burials that detailed a remarkable ancient Mesopotamian civilization at the height of its More...

Penn Museum Presents a Special Event: Harry Potter and the Magical Muggle Museum on Sunday, November 22, 2009 from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm HARRY POTTER AND THE MAGICAL MUGGLE MUSEUM—the magical wizarding extravaganza designed for Harry Potter fans, those passionate about the novels of J.K. Rowling, and magic lovers of all ages—returns to the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology for its third straight year, on Sunday, November 22, 11:00 am to 4:00 pm, with new activities and magical surprises throughout the building. Penn Museum opens two hours early to share all the magic, and it is all magically free with regular Museum admission donation ($10 for adults; $7 for seniors; $6 for children 6-17 and college More...

Landscapes of Movement originates from the premise that trails, paths, and roads are the physical manifestation of human movement through the landscape and are central to an understanding of that movement. The study of these features connects with many intellectual domains, engaging history, geography, environmental studies, and, in particular, anthropology and archaeology. These diverse fields together provide not only a better understanding of infrastructure but also of social, political, and economic organization, cultural expressions of patterned movement, and the ways in which trails, paths, and roads reflect a culture's traditional knowledge, worldview, memory, and identity. The contributors to Landscapes of Movement document these routes across different times and cultures, from those made by hunter-gatherers in the Great Basin of North More...