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: February 2014
By: Brad Hafford
Site Records Mapping Woolley’s Notes Spotlight on Letter Designators for area excavations found in Ur notes and reports As we go through Woolley’s field notes from his excavations at the ancient city of Ur we learn more and more, not just about the buildings and artifacts he found, but about the way in which he […]
Archives Photo of the Week: Russia
By: Eric Schnittke
I absolutely love the Olympics. Winter or summer, I tune in every night to watch the amazing feats of athleticism. I figure, what better way to honor the Olympics than having this week’s photo of the week be from Russia. This photo from Golchikha, Siberia, Russia was taken by Henry Usher Hall between 1914 and 1915. […]
Olympics at the Museum
By: Lynn Makowsky
I loathe winter (especially this one), but I love the Winter Olympics. I grew up skiing, and a love of the sport stayed with me. Every time the summer and winter Olympics are held, we draw attention to objects in our collection that relate to the games. Working in the Mediterranean Section, I have the […]
Archives Photo of the Week: Dancers
By: Eric Schnittke
Working in an archives has its definite perks. One of those perks is working with the collections. Here at the Penn Museum, I particularly enjoy working with the photographic collections (hence my weekly blog contribution). This week, we had a Penn class in and the archivists were pulling images for them to view. I had […]
Telling Stories of Today: Collecting Native American Material Culture in the 21st Century
By: Lucy Fowler Williams
A lot is going on in the American Section of the Penn Museum as we make our final preparations to open our newest exhibition, Native American Voices: The People – Here and Now, on March 1. The exhibition explores contemporary Native America, and though Penn Museum has its share of older Native American material culture […]