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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.


Ur Digitization Project: November 2015

By: Brad Hafford

Horse and Rider at Ur A look at U.20055 (Museum Object Number: 35-1-114) And other horse and rider figurines When did the people of Mesopotamia first start riding horses? It’s a straightforward question but it has a somewhat complicated answer. First of all, the true horse (Equus caballus) was a relatively late entry into Mesopotamia […]

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Archives Photo of the Week: Bicycles, Horses, and a Golf Club

By: Eric Schnittke

The excavations at Nippur, Iraq are some of the University of Pennsylvania Museum’s most well known explorations. The seasons at Nippur resulted in numerous important artifacts and a plethora of new data and knowledge. Very serious work, however, calls for very serious party time. This week’s photo captures some downtime somewhere between 1899 and 1900. […]

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Mandarin Square [Object of the Day #9]

By: Amy Ellsworth

This satin Mandarin Square from the Qing Dynasty, China (19th century) depicts a Qilin, a mythical horse-like animal reserved for the weaves of first rank military officers. The body of Qilin has a couched filling of twisted blue thread to create a scale effect. Symbols include peaches, peonies, and fungus with bamboo. Penn Museum Object […]

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