The Spring 2016 issue includes four articles related to the work of the Penn Museum. We open with “Secrets of Ancient Magic: The Power of Spells, Curses, & Omens,” which is tied to the current exhibition “Magic in the Ancient World”. Professors Bob Ousterhout and Grant Frame taught a curatorial seminar in 2015 that led to the development of this exhibition. Graduate students, including Kate Murphy and Cynthia Susalla, helped Bob and Grant select objects from the Near East, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Mediterranean collections, and gained experience in all aspects of exhibition development.
Our next article, “Traders of the Mountains: The Early Bronze Age in Iraqi Kurdistan,” was written by archaeologist Steve Renette. This new Museum-sponsored excavation of Kani Shaie reveals information about those who traveled and settled the Zagros Mountains in ancient times. “Sowing the Seeds of Competitive Play: The Enduring Legacy of Mancala,” by Kristen Pearson, describes the game of mancala and a collection of mancala boards recently donated to the Museum.
“Finding Their Way Home: Twenty-five Years of NAGPRA at the Penn Museum,” was written by three scholars who are actively involved in the repatriation of human remains and objects from our collection. Lucy Fowler Williams, Stacey Espenlaub, and Janet Monge describe the 1990 NAGPRA law and how the Penn Museum has built relationships with native groups in the process of helping them reclaim their cultural property.
Several short articles round out this issue, from a fieldtrip in Lisbon to work in the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM) on the domestication of pigs to an archaeologist’s experience with refugees on the Greek island of Kos. Alex Pezzati writes about Stewart Culin, Director of the Museum in the 1890s, whose passion was games; Culin collected the first mancala boards for the Museum.
The Spring 2016 issue marks my 21st issue as editor. I began at the Museum in 2009, recently out of graduate school. It has been an honor to work with many fine authors and the staff of the Museum for seven years. As always, I want to hear from you. Please let me know how I can make Expedition the magazine you read from cover to cover.
