One Scholar’s Famous Student: James Pritchard and Martin Luther King, Jr. James B. Pritchard (1909-1997) was a renowned Biblical archaeologist. He worked at the Penn Museum from 1950 to 1978, excavating a number of sites in the Syro-Palestinian region, including Gibeon (1956–1962), where the sun stood still for Joshua. He also worked at Tell es-Sa’idiyeh, [...]
Missing sibling film re-united with Matto Grosso: The Great Brazilian Wilderness (1931) Three weeks ago you were introduced to Tari, the cute Bororo boy who appears in one of the Penn Museum’s films. He also had a starring role in his own short film, which was only recently rediscovered. You will be able to see [...]
I previously wrote about the Penn Museum’s close calls with visitors outraged because forbidden to paw at the granite sphinx. But when is it okay for a visitor to handle the artifacts? Exceptions are made, not only when you are famous, but sometimes because you are blind, and more rarely, when you are famous and [...]
It is an eternal conundrum of museums to balance the contradictory values of preservation and access. On the one hand, museums must protect these countless pieces of the world forever, but on the other, they’re not allowed to do it the best way, which is to put everything underground in a salt mine beneath a [...]
While preparing for an upcoming presentation, I am finally taking a close look at the museum’s amazing film collection. Though digitized and made available online in 2007-2008 by the Internet Archive, the 675 reels of 16mm film are simply too much material for casual browsing. Spending time with the films, however, is worth it. Comprised [...]
