Volume 52 / Issue 2
On the cover: Detail from At the Mosque Door by Osman Hamdi Bey (1842-1910). This Orientalist genre painting is featured in the Penn Museum exhibition Archaeologists & Travelers in Ottoman Lands. Notice that the seated and standing male figures are the artist, Hamdi Bey; he painted from photographs of himself in Oriental dress.
Photo credit: Penn Museum
New Discoveries about the Ancient Maya
Excavations at Nakum, Guatemala
By: Jarosław Zrałka and Wiesław Koszkul
Deep in the jungle of northeastern Guatemala, in the Department of the Petén, lies a Maya site that has only recently revealed its place in the early history of the region. A new excavation at Nakum by Polish archaeologists has uncovered an intact royal tomb from the Late Classic Period (ca. 600–800 CE) and important […]
From the Editor – Summer 2010
By: Jane Hickman
The Curatorial faculty of The University Museum today reached the unanimous conclusion that they would purchase no more art objects or antiquities for the Museum unless the objects are accompanied by a pedigree—that is, information about the different owners of the objects, place of origin, legality of export, and other data useful in each individual […]
Museum Mosaic – Summer 2010
People, Places, Projects
Egyptologist David Silverman Honored in Cairo A Festschrift celebration honoring the lifetime achievements of Dr. David Silverman was held in Cairo, Egypt, at the headquarters of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities on May 8, 2010. The celebration party was hosted by Dr. Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s Secretary General, Supreme Council of Antiquities. Dr. Silverman, Egyptian Section […]
The World of Soy
Book News & Reviews
By: Jane Kauer
The World of Soy edited by Christine M. Du Bois, Chee-Beng Tan, and Sidney Mintz (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2008). 352 pp., 13 illustrations cloth $40.00 ISBN 978-0-252-03341-4 The World of Soy explores what many view as an alternative, foreign, or new food. Little could be further from the truth. In fact, as the […]
Summer in the City
Around the Museum
By: Erin Jensen and Jennifer Reifsteck
Squeals of laughter fill the air. Campers swarm their counselors asking them to sign their t-shirts. Art projects are taken down from their displays and dispersed to their owners. Hugs, phone numbers, and promises of “See you next year!” are shared among newfound friends. The fifteenth year of the Penn Museum’s summer camp, Anthropologists in the […]
An Early Ivory Bracelet from Central Thailand
From the Field
By: Thanik Lertcharnrit
A piece of an ancient ivory bracelet was recently discovered during the fourth excavation season at the Late Prehistoric/ Early Historic site of Promtin Tai in the Lopburi region of central Thailand. It is one-of-a-kind and a distinctive Iron Age (500 BC–AD 500) artifact in unusually good condition. The fragment was found in an undisturbed occupational layer […]
A Hidden Gem at the Penn Museum
What in the World
By: Heather Hughes
Thanks to the voracious collecting habits of Maxwell Sommerville (1829–1904), the Penn Museum boasts an impressive collection of engraved gems. The former head of the Philadelphia-based publishing firm Sherman & Co., Sommerville fancied himself a glyptic scholar. His collection of 3,300 gems was donated to the Museum upon his death in 1904, but the presence of numerous obvious […]
The Pennsylvania Declaration
From the Archives
By: Alessandro Pezzati
Forty years have passed since Penn Museum Director Froelich Rainey presented the famous Pennsylvania Declaration, giving our Museum the distinction of becoming the first in the world to stop collecting archaeological objects obtained through the looting and plundering of ancient sites. Many other museums have since followed the Penn Museum’s lead, and bad publicity arising […]
Introducing Penn Undergraduates to Archaeology
From the Director
By: Richard Hodges
Penn Museum has launched a new expedition. Explicitly for undergraduates of the University, it is a summer school based in Montalcino, southern Tuscany. Our research design is very straightforward: we are investigating two sites associated with a 7th century monastery in the picturesque Val d’Asso, a UNESCO World Heritage landscape since 2004. But the archaeology in […]
Stickman
Excerpt from Astronomical Petroglyphs
By: Marinus Anthony Van Der Sluijs and Anthony L. Peratt
The so-called “Stickman” is the world’s most prevalent petroglyph. Found everywhere, the stickman can be carved as a stick-like figure with a head, two arms stretched out and up, and two legs stretched out and down. The figure is distinguished by a male anatomy. The stickman has several variations: with a belly, “an inner tube” […]
