logo

Welcome to the Penn Museum blog. First launched in January 2009, the Museum blog now has over 800 posts covering a range of topics in the categories of Museum, Collection, Exhibitions, Research, and By Location. Here you’ll hear directly from our staff and Penn students about their work, research, experiences, and discoveries. To explore the Museum's other digital content, visit The Digital Penn Museum.


Penn students gain a window into current Museum research

By: Beth Van Horn

How many undergrads get to see current archaeological research up close—as in, under a microscope? The 15 Penn undergraduates taking Dr. Marie-Claude Boileau’s new Spring semester course “Archaeology and Science” got to view samples of ceramic and metal objects from Ban Chiang, a site excavated by Penn Museum in Northeast Thailand. One year after the […]

Read the Blog Post


Employee of the Month, Kevin Schott

By: Amy Ellsworth

Our reigning Employee of the Month is Kevin Schott, Exhibit Developer. I felt compelled to write a blog post about Kevin because he is one of those rare people who seems to come from another planet – like he’s not as dinged up by the same space junk that makes world weary complainers out of […]

Read the Blog Post


Conservation of Masks for Maya 2012: Lords of Time

By: Tessa de Alarcon

  One of the projects that we’re working on in the conservation lab right now is preparations for the Maya 2012: Lords of Time exhibition (opening on May 5th!). We’re currently examining and treating Guatemalan face masks. A common problem that many of these masks have is flaking paint.             […]

Read the Blog Post


A Little Light Reading for the Troops

By: Amy Ellsworth

Jane Hickman, Editor of Expedition magazine and Maureen Goldsmith, from the Director’s Office at the Penn Museum, recently sent a stack of past issues of Expedition magazine to Staten Island Project Homefront. The magazines are being sent to troops stationed abroad, including Afghanistan. Staten Island Project Homefront is a non-profit organization that supports the families of deployed military troops […]

Read the Blog Post


Meow! Ancient Peruvian Textile

By: Fran Baas

As I mentioned in my staff introduction, I am working at the University Of Pennsylvania Museum Of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum) on a IMLS funded post-graduate conservation fellowship.  During this one year fellowship, my responsibilities include conducting a conservation assessment of approximately 2900 archeological textiles from Max Uhle’s excavation at Pachacamac, Peru.  The overarching […]

Read the Blog Post


Team Pachacamac

By: Ainslie Harrison

During the Pachacamac project Fran Baas and myself will move, survey, photograph, and rehouse 2800 textiles and 1000 pots (stay tuned for more about the survey process!). In order to complete this immense amount of work, we will be relying on our team of wonderful interns, volunteers, and work studies. While they come from different […]

Read the Blog Post