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Museum in the News
4/02/12 - WHYY Radio
Understanding the Influence of the Ancient Maya
4/11/12 - New York Times
Cryptic Calendar and the People Who Made It ‘Maya 2012: Lords of Time,’ at the Penn Museum
4/24/12 - CBS Philly
Penn Museum Gears Up for New Mayan Exhibit
In the late 1800s, the University of Pennsylvania began excavating the ancient city of Nippur, located in present-day Iraq. This marked the first American expedition in the Middle East. Over the period of a decade, the excavation team unearthed a remarkable collection of nearly 30,000 cuneiform tablets. Archaeologists & Travelers in Ottoman Lands tells the stories of three men whose lives intertwined during the Nippur excavation, as well as the story of Penn’s first excavation. Osman Hamdi Bey, director of the Imperial Museum in Istanbul (now called the Istanbul Archaeological Museum) was the gatekeeper for all excavations in the Ottoman Empire. Also an accomplished painter, Hamdi Bey created a painting of the excavations at Nippur. This painting, along with another Hamdi Bey painting in the Penn Museum’s collection, will be featured in the exhibit.
The rug weavers of Afghanistan, long renowned for their artistry, depict on their rugs the world that they see. Like television news, their rugs “report” current events. Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and throughout more than three decades of international and civil war, Afghan weavers have borne witness to disaster by weaving unprecedented images of battle and weaponry into their rugs. Flowers have turned into bullets, landmines, and hand grenades.
Fang! The Killing Tooth explores the biology of the “killing” canine and the history of the vampire myth. Through objects, video, and text, you will be able to compare fangs from a range of different animals, investigate stories of ancient blood-sucking beings, and even get a new perspective on your own killing teeth.
The 1880's and 1890's were decades of tremendous upheaval for many native peoples in Texas. Numerous Indian reservations were opened in the Oklahoma and Indian Territories during this time and large-scale efforts were made to force the Native Peoples to adopt Euro-American ways. In Citizen’s Garb: Southern Plains Native Americans, 1885–1891, explores how dress--and life--changed for the Kiowa and Comanche tribes as they gradually adjusted to the new life forced upon them by the United States government. Images of Native Americans in both citizen and native dress reflect the transition occurring between the tribes’ past and their radically different future. Other details are more subtle: a tipi constructed of store-bought canvas rather than of animal hides, for example, reflects a significant change in the material culture of the Native Peoples. The exhibition is curated by John Hernandez, Director of the Museum of the Great Plains in Lawton, Oklahoma, and is organized by the Museum of the Great Plains.
