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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.


When you’re feeling down…

By: Maureen Callahan

It’s been a week chock-full of crazy here in the archives (my woo-woo friends tell me that Mercury is retrograde, plus it’s been a full moon. If that means anything).  Sometimes, when I’m having a hard day, I go through our database and just try to find cute photos.  So here we are.

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Did you say something?

By: Maureen Callahan

Surely these two guys and a gal have something to say.  Create dialogue for them in the comments section — the most clever (by our standards) will win a prize from the archives. Be sure to leave an email address so that we can let you claim your winnings.

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Thanks to cellulose and tourists.

By: Alison Miner

It’s great when you find something that is beautiful and also conveys a great amount of information.
This is not one of those circumstances.
Pure 19th-century eye candy.

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Stela! Steeeeeeeela! (Can’t you hear me yella?)

By: Maureen Callahan

You’re puttin’ me through Hella! Well, okay, Maya stelae are possibly less immediately dramatic than either Tennessee Williams or the Simpsons. And sure, it’s a different word with a different pronunciation. But the stone monuments in our Meso-American gallery might be my favorite part of walking into the archives in the morning. There’s something about […]

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