The Middle East Galleries will contain a case featuring rotating collections of textiles, thanks to support from the Coby Foundation (see “The New Penn Museum: Transformation Update”). In particular, the Museum holds two remarkable textile collections that will be showcased. The first, from the 16th and 17th centuries, includes extraordinary luxury fabrics like NEP6 (at […]
By: Page Selinsky
Archaeology is compelling, in part, because it provides a connection to people of times past. It allows us to step out of ourselves and, for a moment, envision what life was like in a different time and place. There are, however, many basic human needs, such as food, shelter, and interpersonal relationships, that span time […]
By: William B. Hafford
The ancient city of Ur was dedicated to the Sumerian moon god—today it resembles a lunar landscape. From 1922 to 1934 the Penn Museum and the British Museum jointly excavated portions of the site, but the massive mound containing 5,000 years of history has lain largely untouched for the last 80 years. In 2015, a […]
By: Aram Yardumian and Theodore G. Schurr and Ramaz Shengelia and Davit Chitanava and Shorena Laliashvili and Lia Bitadze and Irma Laliashvili
At the dawn of the common era, the Greek historian and geographer Strabo composed brief descriptions of the numerous tribes living and trading at Eastern Black Sea ports for his encyclopedic work Geographica. Among them, he wrote, “Are the Soanes, who are…superior…in power…and hold possession of the heights of the caucasus above Dioscurias. The mountainous […]
By: Susannah Fishman and Jeyhun Eminli and Lara Fabian and Emil Iskenderov
The first season of the collaborative Azerbaijani-American Lerik in Antiquity Archaeological Project (LAAP), co-directed by Ph.D. student Lara Fabian (Penn AAMW), recent graduate Dr. Susannah Fishman (Penn Anthropology), and Dr. Jeyhun Eminli (Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences), was funded by the Kolb Foundation, and supported by the Institute of Archaeology […]
Though Leonard Woolley’s excavations at Ur are his most famous, this is not the only site he explored during his expeditions to Iraq. In 1923–24, Woolley excavated the nearby site of Tell al-‘Ubaid, where he uncovered the remains of an Early Dynastic IIIB temple (2400–2350 BCE) dedicated to the goddess Ninhursag. It was adorned with […]
By: Robert Ousterhout
“We pitched our tent by the little sun temple,” wrote John Henry Haynes, as his party arrived at Palmyra in April 1885, “setting our table within its sacred precincts.” Nearing the end of their journey, Haynes and his companions had spent the previous months traversing Mesopotamia, looking for a suitable site for an American excavation—this […]
By: Marie Nicole Pareja and Philip P. Betancourt and Vili Apostolakou and Thomas M. Brogan and Andrew J. Koh
Bronze Age Clothing in Minoan Crete was multicolored and made from intricately woven textiles. Until now, our only evidence related to the colors in the textiles came from the study of costume in wall paintings. Fortunately, recent research has revealed that several different dyes were produced in Minoan Crete. Clothing is depicted in frescoes and […]
By: Kate Murphy and Cynthia Susalla
In ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, practitioners of magic exploited symbolic words, images, and rituals to achieve desired outcomes through supernatural means. Using magical acts, they attempted to control supernatural powers— gods, demons, spirits, or ghosts—to accomplish something beyond the scope of human capabilities. The exhibition Magic in the Ancient World, now at the […]
By: Kristen Pearson
Mancala has been popular in the United States since a commercialized version was intro- duced in the 1940s under the brand name Kalah. This version of the game is simple to learn and is played on a small, plain wooden board with two rows of six pockets and a set of flat marbles to use […]
