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.
Worth the Wait – Michael Freeman
By: Anne Tiballi
Apollonia Pontica was a 7th century Greek colony dedicated to Apollo. The well-placed port town, located on the Black Sea coast of modern-day Bulgaria, would stand through Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman times until it was ultimately rechristened “Sozopol” during the Christian era, meaning “The City of Salvation” in Greek. The Milesians who laid the foundations […]
A New View of Laventille, Trinidad – Leniqueca Welcome
By: Anne Tiballi
With funding from the Penn Museum, this summer I was able to travel to Trinidad and Tobago, a twin island republic situated off the northeastern coast of Venezuela, to conduct anthropological pre-dissertation field research in an area popularly called Laventille. Laventille is now infamous among Trinbagonians as it has been labelled one of the country’s […]
Viewing Tihosuco – Kasey Diserens
By: Anne Tiballi
I have just completed my third field season in Tihosuco. My work is part of a larger community-based heritage preservation project run by the Penn Cultural Heritage Center, part of the Penn Museum. My study is one of ten(!) sub-projects, all related to the history and heritage of Tihosuco, and many are focused on learning […]
How Dirty Can You Get While Excavating a Roman Bath? – Emma Brown
By: Anne Tiballi
Most of my summers have been spent working in research laboratories, but this year I left the bench to do some literal dirty work on an archaeological dig. I went to Italy as part of a field school to excavate a bath in the Roman city of Carsulae, located on the Via Flaminia, a trade […]
After Excavation Ends, the Real Work Begins – Kurtis Tanaka
By: Anne Tiballi
For a grad student in archaeology, summers usually mean being on the move, to sites, cities, and schools. Certainly this was true of mine—a simplified itinerary would look something like this: Athens, Rome, Athens, Berlin, Thessaloniki, Komotini, Istanbul, and Athens again. A peripatetic summer such as this reflects the many necessities and duties (or perhaps […]
Gather ‘Round the Pleistocene Fire – Aylar Abdolahzadeh
By: Anne Tiballi
Les Eyzies, located in the Périgord region, is one of the most beautiful towns in southwestern France. This region is rich with rock shelters, prehistoric caves, medieval castles, and archaeological materials. Hotels, restaurants, stores, and local markets are crowded with tourists who want to know everything about this part of France’s culture and the region’s […]