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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.


Digging Deeper at Gordion

By: Tom Stanley

When it comes to the Citadel Mound at Gordion—the primary focus of the Gordion Archaeological Project’s work this year—one thing is quite clear, even to a newcomer such as myself: this is a very large site. As I mentioned before, it measures 450 x 300 meters, which equals roughly the size of 19 American football […]

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Ankara and Gordion: First Days on the Ground

By: Tom Stanley

I boarded a plane at the Philadelphia International Airport last Tuesday at around 10:30 am. Two layovers and 20 sleepless hours later, I landed at Esenboga Airport in Ankara, Turkey, at roughly 1:30 pm local time. I found my checked bag, exchanged some US currency for Turkish Lira, and got myself a yellow cab at […]

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Going to Gordion

Gordion site photo

By: Tom Stanley

Hi friends. Tom Stanley here, your favorite Penn Museum social media manager, reporting for summer excavation duty. Last year, I was quite fortunate to be sent on my first expedition to a beautiful corner of the US known as Wilkinson County, Mississippi, where my job was to document a portion of the first season of […]

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Considering the Feather Headdress

By: Margaret Bruchac

During the Spring 2016 course Ethnohistory of the Native Northeast, students are studying Native American objects in the Penn Museum collections by combining close material analyses (elements, construction, design, condition, etc.) with other forms of evidence: textual, photographic, historical, and ethnographic. In many cases, the objects we’re studying have little to no provenance data. So, we are seeking out similar objects, reaching out […]

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Teens and Tea: Cultural Heritage Education at Gordion, Turkey

By: Naomi Miller

by Janelle Sadarananda, Ayşe Gürsan-Salzmann, and Naomi F. Miller This is the last post in a series reporting on the Gordion Cultural Heritage Education Project, led by Ayşe Gürsan-Salzmann, Assistant Director of the Gordion Project. Halil Demirdelen, Deputy Director of the Ankara museum, provided invaluable educational support. Naomi F. Miller, consulting scholar at the Penn Museum, and […]

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In One End, Out the Other: Evidence for Camel at Gordion, Turkey

By: Naomi Miller

Naomi F. Miller, Consulting Scholar, Near East Section and Janine van Noorden, Leiden University and Groningen Institute of Archaeology The Penn Museum’s Gordion project has been going on for more than half a century. Is there anything else to learn? Sometimes, new, high-tech approaches give a fresh perspective: for example, last year and ongoing, Lucas Stevens (AAMW […]

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Teens and Treks: Cultural Heritage Education at Gordion, Turkey

By: Naomi Miller

By Elspeth Dusinberre, Department of Classics, University of Colorado, Boulder This post is part of a series reporting on the Gordion Cultural Heritage Education Project (CHEP), conceptualized and led by Ayşe Gürsan-Salzmann, Deputy Director of the Gordion Project. Halil Demirdelen, Deputy Director of the Ankara museum, provided invaluable educational support. Naomi F. Miller, consulting scholar at […]

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Teens and Trips: Cultural Heritage Education at Gordion, Turkey

By: Naomi Miller

By Janelle Sadarananda, with Naomi F. Miller and Ayşe Gürsan-Salzmann This post is part of a series reporting on the Gordion Cultural Heritage Education Project, conceptualized and led by Ayşe Gürsan-Salzmann, Deputy Director of the Gordion Project. Halil Demirdelen, Deputy Director of the Ankara museum, provided invaluable educational support. Naomi F. Miller, consulting scholar at the […]

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Teens and Trowels, Cultural Heritage Education at Gordion, Turkey

By: Naomi Miller

By Naomi F. Miller, Ayşe Gürsan-Salzmann, and Janelle Sadarananda This post is part of a series reporting on the Gordion Cultural Heritage Education Project, conceptualized and led by Ayşe Gürsan-Salzmann, Assistant Director of the Gordion Project. Halil Demirdelen, Deputy Director of the Ankara museum, provided invaluable educational support. Naomi F. Miller, consulting scholar at the Penn […]

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Soft Vegetative Roof Capping at Gordion: A Tutorial Video UPDATE

By: Naomi Miller

July 30, 2015 This is one in a series of posts about the Gordion ecopark:  Although I am primarily an archaeobotanist, I maintain several gardens at the Penn Museum’s excavation project at Gordion, Turkey. The biggest one is in the large area of the Citadel mound that was excavated down to the 800 BC Early […]

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