By: Julian Siggers
Dear Friends, This issue of Expedition celebrates the opening of the Penn Museum’s new Middle East Galleries. These Galleries trace a story that is vital not only to who we are as human beings but also to the Penn Museum’s own history. Over millennia, we as humans have gone through a number of fundamental revolutions. […]
For this issue of “In the Labs,” two undergraduate students enrolled in CAAM’s Minor in Archaeological Science write on the research they conducted in the field last summer. Recording of a Burial Mound, Gordion (Turkey) By Braden Cordivari C18 My senior research project in the Department of Classical Studies concerns summer fieldwork at the site […]
By: Alessandro Pezzati
Henry Usher Hall (1876–1944), Curator of the General Ethnology Section from 1915 to 1935, undertook two expeditions for the Penn Museum in dramatically distinct areas of the world: he was in Siberia in 1914–1915, at the beginning of his career, and in Sierra Leone, West Africa, in 1936–1937, at the end of it. Due to […]
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: Stuart D. Scott
On the warm spring morning of March 5, 1959, as the sun first appeared over the tiered rainforest canopy of mahogany, ceiba, and sapodilla trees, a significant day was dawning at Tikal. The day started uneventfully except for the planned departure of some important visitors. Publicity about the Penn Museum’s Tikal Project, through its contract […]
By: Janet Simon
This is the story of two individuals drawn together through their work in Maya archaeology, who later developed a friendship that transcended their professional lives. From archival materials, we reconstructed their relationship at a critical period just after World War II. The story of Mary Butler and Franz Termer is one of unique kindness. Across […]
By: Simon Martin
If you were to fly low over the forests of southeastern Mexico, about 35 km from the border with Guatemala, you would see two immense mounds rising high above the canopy. These ruined pyramids announce the presence of Calakmul, one of the greatest cities of Classic Maya civilization (300–900 CE). Beneath the trees lie 6,000 […]
By: Lucy Fowler Williams
This special issue of Expedition is an extension of our new exhibition, Native American Voices: The People—Here and Now, and highlights Native American sovereignty through the work of some of today’s most talented Native leaders, several of whom are here at Penn. Native Americans hold a special status in our country as members of sovereign […]
By: Joseph R. Aguilar
On August 10, 1680, the Pueblo people, along with their Navajo and Apache allies, orchestrated what is arguably the most successful indigenous insurrection against a European colonial power in the New World. The uprising, led by Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo leader Popé, laid siege to and captured the capital of Santa Fe while missions at pueblos […]
By: Ellen E. Bell
Dr. Robert J. Sharer was the Sally and Alvin Shoemaker Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and Curator Emeritus of the American Section at the Penn Museum. He completed a B.A. in history at Michigan State University in 1961 and a Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. He […]