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.
By: Naomi Miller
co-written by: Ayşe Gürsan-Salzmann In thinking of ways to preserve the historic landscape around Gordion , Turkey, Ayşe and I thought the best approach was one that would give economic value to the land. Historically, mixed farming (sheep and goat herding and dry-farmed grain cultivation) were the basis of the economy. Now, however, creeping suburbanization […]
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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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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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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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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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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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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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By: Naomi Miller
In earlier posts (August 3, 2012 and August 8, 2014), I mentioned the Gordion “ecopark” project’s goal of preserving regional biodiversity, the historical landscape, and the archaeological site itself. One part of the project concerns visitor education. I first visited Gordion as a tourist in 1983 and began archaeobotanical fieldwork there in 1988. I have […]
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By: Naomi Miller
Archaeobotanists usually deal with dead plants, but as I was finishing my research on the ancient plant remains at Gordion, an ongoing project of the Penn Museum, I became involved in a bigger project: preserving regional biodiversity, the historical landscape, and the archaeological site itself through the management of the native vegetation. The approach sees […]
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By: Naomi Miller
Ayşe knows everyone in the Yassıhöyük, and one of her friends is Metin the shepherd. Last year, he sold all his sheep and replaced them with a herd of (mostly) angora goats—the kind of goat that produces mohair—which I guess makes him a goat herder. We went out to the corral to watch him prepare […]
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