Gift From Euseba And Warren Kamensky Endows Nagpra Position
Penn Museum is pleased to announce a generous gift from Mr. Warren F. Kamensky, long-time Penn Museum member and volunteer, to endow the position of NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) Coordinator. The gift will directly support the full-time staff position currently held by Stacey Espenlaub. The position’s new title will be the Euseba and Warren Kamensky NAGPRA Coordinator of the American Section.
Penn Museum’s NAGPRA Coordinator position, established initially in 1995 on a part-time basis, was formalized as a full-time duty in 1997. It has proven to be of increasing importance to the Penn Museum’s mission, not only in the care of the collection, but also in developing and maintaining relationships with tribes and Native American communities across the United States.
Penn Museum Co-Hosts International Workshop On Southeast Asian Ceramic Archaeology
From November 4 through 8, 2010, the Penn Museum, in partnership with the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Galleries, co-hosted the International Workshop on Southeast Asian Ceramic Archaeology: Directions for Methodology and Collaboration. More than 30 international scholars from Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as Japan, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and North America gathered to view a special exhibition Taking Shape: Ceramics in Southeast Asia in Washington, DC, and, in Philadelphia, to examine and discuss one of the most significant collections of legally excavated ancient Southeast Asian pottery outside of the region—more than 500 vessels including material from Ban Chiang, Thailand.
The workshop was co-organized by Dr. Joyce C. White, Associate Curator, Asian Section, Penn Museum, and Director of the Museum’s Ban Chiang Project and its Middle Mekong Archaeological Project and Louise Allison Cort, Curator of Ceramics at the Freer and Sackler galleries. The program was made possible with funding from the Henry Luce Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania Research Foundation.