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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.


Medical Residents Explore Implicit Bias at the Penn Museum

By: Pam Kosty

Fresh Eyes in the Galleries  It was 8:00 am on a Thursday morning in July, early for most Museum staff, but the special visitors from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania—seven medical residents and a program director—appeared wide awake and ready to engage. The residents had agreed to participate in a pilot program at […]

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Archives Photo of the Week: Mustache.

By: Eric Schnittke

The Penn Museum Archives is home to the archival collections of the directors of the museum. As you might guess, we have quite the fondness for them. None are more dear to me than George Byron Gordon and for one reason: that glorious, magnificent, noble mustache. Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum from 1910 […]

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How We Do What We Do

By: Morgan Burgess

“Can you please explain what you’re doing?” is a question we hear daily. From a visitor’s perspective it doesn’t look like we’re doing much. Basically, we observe and document. A thorough condition report is the first step in any conservation treatment; we need to know what we’re dealing with. These murals are so large that […]

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Archives Photo of the Week: Baby

By: Eric Schnittke

I’ve recently returned back to the museum after having taken some time off for paternity leave (thanks to Tom Stanley for covering for me while I was gone). I’m back, but my baby is still on my mind. In honor of him, this week’s photo is of a Umatilla baby. The Umatilla people inhabited around […]

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Archives Photo of the Week: Remembering John F. Kennedy

By: Eric Schnittke

As the nation remembers John F. Kennedy today on the fiftieth anniversary of his assassination, the Penn Museum Archives looks back to an exhibition of the late president’s library. From June 9 to 12, 1964, the Penn Museum hosted a collection of JFK’s doodles, writings, papers, furniture (including his famous rocking chair), photographs, and other […]

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Mummy of the Month: Pachamac Mummy Bale No. 26626

By: Gabrielle Niu

Starting in January of 1896, Max Uhle began his excavation of the Pachacamac cemetery in Peru. The site consisted of graves from different eras, but the best preserved layer dated from the late 6th century CE. From this site, the Museum has many objects in its collections (click here to see a few). The tombs from the 6th century layer […]

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National Museum of Kenya

By: Amy Ellsworth

The Museum was started in 1910 by the East Africa and Uganda Natural History Society as a place for British colonial scientists and naturalists to store, study, and conserve collections and specimens. When Kenya gained independence in 1963, the institution became the National Museum of Kenya and has since expanded to manage 19 Museums across […]

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