Volume 39 / Issue 1
On the cover: Vintage scenes from the tomb of Nakht, western Thebes, dating to the end of the reign of Amenhotep II or beginning of the reign of Tuthmosis IV (ca. 1400 BC), after N. de G. Davies, The Tomb of Nakht at Thebes (New York, 1917), pl. 26.
Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, no. 15.5.19e (facsimile painting), Rogers Fund, 1915.
Animal Symbols at ‘Ain Ghazal
By: Denise Schmandt-Besserat
Animal figurines are a familiar find on Near Eastern sites from the 9th to the 3rd millennium BC and from the Levant to Iran. Their function, however, is still enigmatic. Excavations at the Neolithic site of ‘Ain Ghazal (ca. 8300-6000 BC, calibrated dates), located near Amman, Jordan, have produced an impressive assemblage of clay artifacts […]
Betel Chewing Paraphenalia from Asia and the Pacific
Behind the Scenes
By: Adria H. Katz and Jennifer L. White
From the east coast of Africa through South and Southeast Asia to the islands of Melanesia, wherever the areca palm (Area catechu) and the betel pepper vine (Per betle) grow, the fruit of the palm and the leaf of the vine are combined with slaked lime to form an astringent, mildly stimulating quid. According to […]
Military Hospitals on the Frontier of Colonial America
By: David R. Starbuck
Health care in 18th-century America was radically different from today, and one of the greatest contrasts is in the role played by hospitals. The 18th-century hospital was a rarity, except in urban settings such as New York and Philadelphia where the poor needed inexpensive, readily accessible health care and could not afford to get it at home. […]
The Copper Hoards of Northern India
By: Paul Yule
In 1870, while tending cattle, two young boys in the village of Ghangaria in central India noticed a long metal object poking out of the ground. Grubbing at the spot revealed many more such pieces, and soon word of the find reached local officials. The discovery of this hoard, with over five hundred copper and […]
The Beginnings of Winemaking and Viniculture in the Ancient Near East and Egypt
By: Patrick E. McGovern and Ulrich Hartung and Virginia R. Badler and Donald L. Glusker and Lawrence J. Exner
The origins of winemaking and viniculture are shrouded in the mists of human prehistory. Scenarios of how wine might have been discovered, however, are easily conjured up. One can imagine a group of early humans foraging in a river valley, dense with vegetation. They are captivated by brightly colored berries hanging in large clusters from […]
From the Editor – Spring 1997
By: Helen Schenck
Once hundred years ago, the University of Pennsylvania Museum put out its first periodical, entitled The Bulletin of the Free Museum of Science and Art (that being the original name of the Museum). Over the next 60 years the Museum successively launched and retired various serial publications (see below). As Expedition nears the end of […]
