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.
Are You Game?
By: Nathaniel
When my mom asked me if I wanted to go to last week’s Museum camp in February and she said it was about games I said “Sure.” I thought it would be fun because I already learned how to play the game Mancala last year at the Museum’s Domino Event and I was really good at […]
10,000 Dominoes
By: Amy Ellsworth
On Sunday, November 6, the Super Domino Brother set up 10,000 colorful dominoes in the Chinese Rotunda and set off the Rube-Goldberg-esque extravaganza with an audience of more than 100 enthusiastic visitors. This was one of many events planned to celebrate Penn’s Year of Games. See if you can hear an audience member yell, “That […]
The Historic Games Collection
By: Amy Ellsworth
Also in the spirit of Penn’s Year of Games, we interviewed Penn Museum Registrar Chrisso Boulis about the historic games collection. The beautifully crafted paper prints are the predecessors to the games (that require essentially no skill) like Candyland and Chutes and Ladders that we know so well. In the video Chrisso talks a bit […]
The Year of Games
By: Naomi Miller
In recognition of the “Year of Games” here at Penn, I searched ‘games’ on the Expedition magazine webpage. It turns out, the magazine has published articles about games for decades! Children’s Games (How do you say eeny, meeny, miny, mo in Turkish? Ena, mena, donsi donsi donsi!) Astragali, the Ubiquitous Gaming Pieces (near and dear […]