Volume 45 : Articles

From the Archives

By: Alex Pezzati

The old cliché that museums and archives are full of undiscovered treasures is true. Though one works constantly to identify and catalog the materials stored therein, there are items that, until the propitious eye of an outside observer comes along, escape detection and revelation. Dr. Elin Danien, an expert in the archaeology of the ancient Maya and […]

Science and Archaeology

By: James R. Mathieu

Recently I had a chance to read Michael Crich­on’s Timeline, a book recommended to me because it combined my interests in archaeology and the medieval world with an adventure similar to the now-famous Jurassic Park. The book was indeed fun to read since it toyed with the concept of time travel and every archaeologist’s fanta­sy: […]

Maya Nobility and Their Figurine-Whistles

By: Julia A. Hendon

Unspeakable dignity isolates the diminutive nobleman. Dominating the shelf, his regnant nature ignores the bric-a-brac obstructing his view. With arms folded and head imperially lifted, he waits cross-legged for the next petitioner. Thus Evan Connell in his Novel, The Connoisseut describes a Precolumbian Maya clay figurine sitting in the win­dow of an antique shop. I […]

What in the World

By: William Wierzbowski

Since 1998, the American Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum has been involved with the National Museum of the American Indian’s Native Artist Fellowship Program. Those native artists selected for the program trav­el to the east coast to research muse­um collections in New York, Phila­delphia, and Washington, DC The University of Pennsylvania Museum has […]

Fare Project Gets Under Way; The Mediterranean Section Received an $18,000 Grant

If  you walked by the Museum this last summer, this is what the upper courtyard looked like — a big construction site, full of equipment moving vast quantities of earth, as the area was excavated down some 25 feet below the original garden level. The fishpond and the garden were long gone, and plywood protected […]

Portrait

By: Jack Murray

Getting to know Jim Marion was as easy as falling off your new two-wheeled bike for the first time, without the pain and embarrassment. Jim was soft spoken with an inner calm that revealed his deep faith in people. His smile was infectious; his eyes were dear signs of confidence. I knew that when he […]

Exhibit Notes

By: Programs Department

A new exhibit at the Museum can come about in one of many ways. In the case of our new exhibit “Mythic Visions: Yarn Paint­ings of a Huichol Shaman,” it was inspired by the Muse­um’s recent acquisition of a unique collection of the work of one Nichol shaman art­ist, Jose Benitez Sanchez. The Huichol Indians […]

Meet the Curators

By: Deborah I. Olszewski

Some of you know a thing or two about our featured museum curator, Donald White, because of his role in the exhibition, “Worlds Intertwined: Etruscans, Greeks and Romans.” This ambitious project occupied much of his time since 1990, intensifying from 1999 leading up to the opening of the new Etruscan and Roman galleries at the […]

By: Beebe Bahrami

In this issue, we explore the Americas with features that reflect the changes in archaeology and anthropology from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Christine Ward discusses Chacoan-era archaeology in southeastern Utah and how it benefits from an expand‑ ed perspective of Ancestral Puebloans through regional focus, landscape archaeology, and comparative sites. William Wierz­bowski brings […]

By: Jeremy A. Sabloff

As I write this column, I can look out my office window and admire the beautiful Stoner Courtyard, now in full bloom. The current scene at the Upper Courtyard, however, is a different story. The whole Warden Garden has been temporarily removed, while construction proceeds on the first phase of the long-term FARE (Future Air […]