Revealing Penn Museum’s Middle East treasures | Penn Today
Revealing Penn Museum’s Middle East treasures | Penn Today
A footprint, pressed into a clay brick in an ancient city 4,000 years ago, starts the journey through the new Middle East Galleries at the Penn Museum.
More than 1,200 objects, most discovered and preserved by Penn archaeologists since the Museum’s founding in 1887, depict the human journey, from an era of hunting and gathering, to farming and villages, to creation of the world’s first cities. More than half of the artifacts have never been on display.
“No other museum could do this. Most museums acquire things by purchasing them. We actually excavated these items in context,” said Julian Siggers, Museum director. “We have detailed records of where each object was found in relationship to each other, and that’s how you can interpret the human story.”
Siggers and the Museum curators revealed the new galleries to the press on Monday.