Dear Friends,
In our last issue of Expedition, I looked forward to welcoming you to our newly reimagined Eastern Mediterranean Gallery; now it’s my privilege to introduce this special issue devoted to this immersive new exhibition. You’ll hear from the curators about the historical, social, and cultural contexts for the region’s world-changing innovations (Virginia Herrmann and Adam Smith on the alphabet, page 12), and about the process of building the gallery itself (Joanna S. Smith on displaying a Late Bronze Age ship, page 24). You’ll also learn more about the socio-political context of the excavations which produced many of the artifacts in the gallery—as in the article by Janessa Reeves about the political tensions around the excavation site of Kourion, in Cyprus, before, during, and immediately after World War II. The depth, range, and scholarly detail on display in these pages makes them a fitting companion piece to the gallery itself. I hope you’ll turn to them, before and after you visit, to immerse yourself more fully in a region that has been so central to the development of the human story.
It was a great pleasure to see so many of you during Member Previews and the Opening Weekend. Amid enjoying Middle Eastern food and wine and watching friends and families playing drums and learning traditional dances, I took a moment to walk through the new gallery myself. I was struck by how close I felt to the ancient Eastern Mediterranean; this is a testament to the excellent work our curators and Exhibits team have done to make the gallery immersive and engaging, but also to the many interconnections between this ancient era and our own. An increasingly global civilization, riven by conflict but rich with intercultural exchange: this description could apply just as easily to our world as it does to theirs. Since becoming Williams Director, I’ve stressed that our Museum must demonstrate the relevance of the past to the problems of the present—and I can’t think of a better example than this newly reimagined gallery, which presents the enormous potential for human innovation in a multicultural world.
As 2023 gets underway, I’m looking forward to the months ahead, which will be pivotal for the Museum. We’re embarking on a Strategic Visioning process: a comprehensive consideration of all aspects of our institutional mission. At the heart of this process is a museum-wide interpretive plan: a series of common
themes that will guide our exhibitions and programs in the years to come. The first fruit of this process will be the renovation of our Egypt and Nubia Galleries; the construction phase of these galleries will begin before the end of the year, eventually creating a stateof-the art home for one of the most important parts of the Museum’s collection and an educational resource for Penn, our larger community, and audiences from around the world.
Looking back on 2022 and considering what’s to come, I want to take this moment to thank you for the support you give the Museum, and for being a part of our programs and exhibitions. It’s a privilege to be on this journey of discovery together.
Warm regards,
CHRISTOPHER WOODS, PH.D.
WILLIAMS DIRECTOR