Layers Upon Layers: My Time in the Collections of the Penn Museum
Semester: Spring 2024
Praxis Course: HART B420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar
Faculty Advisor: Matthew Feliz
Field Site: The Penn Museum
Field Supervisor: Katy Blanchard
Praxis Poster:
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Further Context:
This semester I worked in the Near Eastern Collections at the Penn Museum. My main job was to inventory objects from Beth Shean, a site in modern-day Israel excavated by the Penn Museum between 1921 and 1933. We would start the day by going down a list of all the objects that should have been in the box and making sure they were accounted for and that there were no surprises. Once everything was accounted for and any surprises were dealt with we photographed the objects and rehoused them in new bags and a new box.
This experience gave me insight into behind-the-scenes of how a museum works and what happens to the objects after they are excavated and sent to a museum. As an Archaeology major, being able to handle objects that are thousands of years old and that I have only learned about in class and seen in photos has been a great experience. Some things can only really be learned by handling objects. Handling the objects put them in a new perspective for me, seeing the mundane day-to-day objects made me think about the people who had originally owned them and made me question why this object or its significance to its original owners. It was overall a very valuable experience that taught me a lot about both working in a museum and about what information is good to gather on an excavation to help people who will later handle the object.