Update – this post contains blurred images of human remains. To read more about this decision, follow this link.

Visitors to the Artifact Lab these days will see a slightly different scene.

Rockwell Project Conservator Molly Gleeson will be on leave for the next few months, spending time at home with her baby daughter. While she’s away, our intern Laura Galicier will continue to work on Egyptian artifacts such as the wooden heads or the demotic jar. But she’ll be joined by other members of the Penn Museum Conservation team, who will be working on a variety of projects. Because of various upcoming deadlines, a lot of what you’ll see worked on will be Native American artifacts from Penn Museum’s collections.

In addition to Native American Voices, our new exhibition opening March 1, 2014, we will be loaning Native American objects to exhibitions at three other museums in the new year: the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, France; the Autry National Center of the American West in Los Angeles; and at Penn’s own Arthur Ross Gallery. At other times you may see a conservator working on material from ancient Cyprus or material from the Museum’s excavations at Ur. Whenever you come, there’s sure to be something interesting to see and our conservators will be happy to talk to you about whatever they’re doing or whatever you’re interested in at our open window times (weekdays, 11:15 – 11:45 am and 2:00 – 2:30 pm, and weekends, 12:30 – 1:00 pm and 3:30 – 4:00 pm). And you’re always welcome to submit questions or comments via this blog. We’ll continue to post regularly on the doings of the Artifact Lab and Molly may even find some time to write in from home.