Tag: The Penn Museum

Olivia Herman, BMC ’26

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: 

OliviaHerman_Poster_FinalS24_redsize

 

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.

 

Annalise Ashman, BMC ’24

Connecting the Past to the Present: African Collections at The Penn Museum

Semester: Spring 2024

Praxis Course: HART B420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Faculty Advisor: Matthew Feliz

Field Site: The Penn Museum

Field Supervisors: Dwaune Latimer with the support of Larry McClenney, Sister Anne McCloskey, and Monique Scott

Praxis Poster: 

AnnaliseAshman_Poster_FinalS24

 

Further Context:

Reflecting on my recent collections management internship at the Penn Museum, I immersed myself in a world of artifacts, databases, and exhibition research within the African Collections. Under the supervision of Dwaune Latimer, the keeper of the African Collections, I embarked on several research projects to delve deeper into the museum’s behind-the-scenes operations.

At the beginning of the internship, my primary goal was to gain insight into how museums process, catalog, and organize information within their databases, mainly when the collections are often used for research purposes to support academic and curatorial projects. I was eager to expand my knowledge and skillset in object handling, database management, and archival research. From day one, I learned the ins and outs of inventory, data entry, and archival research, focusing on artworks and objects from Ghana. I compiled a list of over one hundred objects, including the use of Adinkra symbols, a visual language rich in cultural significance and symbolism in West Africa. Throughout this process, I gained a deeper understanding of how these symbols communicate ideas about culture and identity through objects like gold weights, stools, knives, and curtains. Among my other projects, I also researched Moroccan jewelry-making done by the Amazigh or Berber people to provide an updated illustration of how one of the original necklaces in the collection may have looked.

Beyond the technical aspects of collections management, the internship also afforded me invaluable experience working with objects. The knowledge and skills I have gained will undoubtedly serve me well in future endeavors. As I bid farewell to the Penn Museum, I carry a new experience of dedicated research and hands-on learning.

Anna Keneally, HC ’26

Loom Weights and the Humanity within Objects not on Display

Semester: Spring 2024

Praxis Course: HART B420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Faculty Advisor: Matthew Feliz

Field Site: The Penn Museum

Field Supervisor: Katherine Blanchard

Praxis Poster: 

Anna Keneally_Poster_Final S24

 

Further Context:

During my time at the Penn Museum’s Near Eastern collection, under the supervision of Keeper Katherine Blanchard, my main tasks involved rehousing various artifacts from the Beth She’an site, located in modern-day Israel, and photographing them for inclusion in the digital database accessible to researchers. As we removed the objects from their original packaging, we ensured that each piece was accounted for before photographing them and placing them in new, clean bags. Each shelf and drawer presented a new array of materials representing different troves of material culture, stratified by excavation level and object type.

The Beth She’an site, which was my primary focus, was excavated in 1921. Over several excavation seasons, the museum acquired over 8,000 artifacts for its permanent collection, despite half of the finds being retained by the host country and now housed in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. For photography, we employed “shot-on” and “shot-down” techniques depending on the orientation of the objects. “Shot-on” photography emphasized the third dimension, ideal for objects like bowls and amphoras, while smaller items without a prominent third dimension, such as sherds, didn’t require this approach. By photographing and arranging the objects, I gained insights into their original use, enhancing my understanding and appreciation of their cultural significance.

Throughout this experience, I frequently photographed and rehoused loom weights, totaling over 100. Loom weights, typically made of clay or stone with a hole for securing strings on a loom, may appear visually similar at first glance. However, handling a large number of them allowed me to appreciate their diverse shapes and sizes, revealing the human aspect of material culture. Unlike artistic objects, loom weights prioritize function, serving as practical tools used in daily life. This aspect resonates with my love for material culture, as these artifacts provide glimpses into the lives of past peoples through seemingly mundane objects.

This experience afforded me the freedom to indulge my curiosity, challenging my interpretations of the past and deepening my interest in cultural heritage preservation. Not every day in a museum’s collections yields a significant find or groundbreaking discovery, but my passion lies in safeguarding objects for future generations, interpreting complex histories through visual culture, and connecting with past civilizations through the artifacts they left behind, even if it’s something as humble as a loom weight.

Liz Larsen, BMC ’25

Sherd Analysis & Database Creation: Hajji Firuz

Semester: Spring 2024

Faculty Advisor: Jennie Bradbury

Field Site: Penn Museum

Field Supervisor: Katherine Blanchard

Praxis Poster: 

Liz Larsen_Poster_Final_S24

 

Further Context:

This semester, I engaged in an independent study in the Near East section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology under the supervision of the Keeper, Katherine Blanchard. I was given several options for projects and ultimately selected an endeavor concerning a specific site in North-Western Iran: Hajji Firuz Tepe.

On-site, my responsibilities centered around data creation, photography, and data entry (in that order). I’d pull out and process one tray of ceramic sherds at a time, writing down their object and area numbers and creating a short description. Then, I’d move on to photography and ultimately digitize my gathered data for upload to the public database on the Penn Museum’s website.

When approaching this opportunity, I adopted a set of intentions for my research. The first of these was to explore and then implement the approaches and techniques archaeologists utilize in ceramic analysis. Along the way, I hoped to familiarize myself with the archaeology of the given region and chronological period and then unpack points of academic discourse specific to it. The goal in selecting these aims was to orient myself towards gathering data for a cumulative final project that would allow me to demonstrate an understanding of ceramic analysis via its application.

As the semester began, a couple of things became clear:
1) The material that I had been directed towards processing was not primarily from Hajji Firuz and instead was a mix between it and two other sites that had also been excavated in the region around the same time: Dalma and Pisdeli. In fact, the material from Hajji Firuz was squarely in the minority.
2) Given the newly realized range of material (as my chronological timescale roughly doubled in span), it would be difficult to use my data as a case study for considering the discipline of ceramic analysis generally.

As my project continued, I shifted my focus toward the discussion and ontology of chronological and cultural transitions in ceramic analysis. Also, in response to the range of material I was dealing with, I chose to integrate my simultaneous studies in computer science and use Python to analyze the data I was creating. This helped me to select a smaller sample of the pieces that I have processed, specifically ones coming from a couple of stratigraphic layers at Dalma, which I am including in the mock pottery analyst’s report that will serve as my final project.

Della Burke, BMC ’25

Museum Fieldwork: Cheshmeh Ali

Semester: Spring 2024

Faculty Advisor: Jennie Bradbury

Field Site: Penn Museum

Field Supervisor: Katy Blanchard

Praxis Poster: 

Della_Burke_Poster_Final_SP24

 

Further Context:

This semester, I interned with Katy Blanchard, the Keeper of the Near East Collections at the Penn Museum. In consultation with my faculty advisor, Dr. Jennie Bradbury, I elected to work with ceramic material – vessels and sherds, fragments of pottery – from Cheshmeh Ali, a site in Iran’s Tehran Plain. This site dates to the Transitional Chalcolithic Period (c. 5300-4300 BCE) and is adjacent to the Islamic site of Rayy. Both sites were excavated by the Penn Museum in the 1930s under the direction of Erich Schmidt. The material brought back to Penn has remained largely unphotographed and digitally inaccessible.

In my preliminary research before the semester, I realized that scholarship on Cheshmeh Ali is limited, which made the site and material even more appealing, as my work in the museum would expand the accessibility of Cheshmeh Ali’s material culture.

In the Near East Collections, my responsibilities were primarily inventory and photography. For the first two weeks of my internship, I cross-checked object IDs and field numbers and photographed the complete vessels to ensure they were all accurately recorded and represented in Penn’s digital collections. After that, I labeled, re-bagged, and returned them to the shelves. I worked with boxes of sherds from the site for the rest of the semester. The size of the boxes was often misleading, as many had more sherds (around 200) than I expected! For the sherds, I carried out an inventory, including cross-checking numbers and writing descriptions of the sherds, and photography. Outside of the Collections, I input my data and descriptions into spreadsheets so Penn’s electronic database is up-to-date. Then, my images are added to Penn’s online collections, and the Cheshmeh Ali material is accessible to researchers and visitors of the digital collections!

In addition to my internship, I’ve worked under the guidance of Dr. Jennie Bradbury, and my research centers on visual analysis of the Cheshmeh Ali material. Through my work with the material and review of scholarship and ceramic material from comparative sites (e.g. Kara Tepe and Tepe Pardis) I’ve been investigating three questions: What are the interactions between motif and vessel/sherd form? Is there a shared vocabulary of motifs and forms across sites from the Transitional Chalcolithic Period? And, considering these, what can I deduce about social complexity? For my final project, I am playing with digital scholarship by creating a Scalar “book” to communicate my findings.

I am grateful for the opportunity to work so closely with the Cheshmeh Ali material and my two advisors, Katy and Jennie. The Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology and practical experiences, like the Praxis Program, informed my decision to choose Bryn Mawr. I am thankful I was able to combine the two and contribute to increasing accessibility in museums and archaeology!

Nyla McNeil, BMC ’26

Ancient Artifacts and Contemporary Connections

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Faculty Advisors: Matthew Feliz &  Monique Scott

Field Site: The Penn Museum

Field Supervisor: Katherine Blanchard

Praxis Poster:

Nyla McNeil PRAXIS Poster - Final

 

Further Context:

Participating in the PRAXIS: Museum Studies course gave me the incredible opportunity to work at the Penn Museum on a rehousing project in the Near East Department. Before beginning the project, I established multiple overarching goals to give me insight into my potential career possibilities and explored my ethical questions about museum work. My time at the Penn Museum satisfied these goals, gave me a stronger sense of purpose in the museum sector, and cemented my profound appreciation for the behind-the-scenes collections management in Museums.

Our rehousing project was relatively simple, but it became a space for constant hands-on learning and complicated my understanding of preservation practices within museum collections. At the Penn Museum, several large shelving units housed artifacts in rows of wooden boxes. Our jobs were to complete an inventory of each box’s artifacts, photograph them based on proper orientation sanctions, re-bag each item, and return it to a more compact plastic bin. This work was seemingly simple but posed several challenges throughout. Photography was particularly challenging as my coworker, Samantha, and I had to learn dynamic practices for two different photo orientations (shot down and shot on).

Moreover, we frequently handled delicate materials, some of which needed to be photographed as a collection of several sherds or broken pieces. This tedious procedure taught me to pay greater attention to detail and to view object photography through the lens of a researcher. For example, when taking a photo, I had to ask myself questions such as: What unique grooves or curvature do I need to capture, or How would this item be oriented upright if it were still fully intact?

Despite the significant takeaways from the project itself, much of my newfound insight came from the questions and conversations brought up with my supervisor and coworker regularly. My supervisor, Katy, was incredibly willing to answer our questions and share her expertise from many years of experience in archaeological excavations and at the Penn Museum. Furthermore, Katy gave my coworker and I uniquely insightful opportunities such as:

  • Letting us sit in on a meeting that discussed a new exhibit’s cultivation (from the ground up).
  • Setting us up with meetings with department faculty that met our interests.
  • Taking us on a private tour at another local Philadelphia Museum, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Throughout the experience, Katy’s openness to questions, her relaying of archaeological insight, and her genuine appreciation for her profession made it memorable and valuable.

Samantha Jean Kopkowski, BMC ’25

The Power of a Collection: What Bringing Beth Shean To Life Taught Me

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Faculty Advisors: Matthew Feliz &  Monique Scott

Field Site: The Penn Museum

Field Supervisor: Katherine Blanchard

Praxis Poster:

Final_SamanthaKPraxisPoster

 

Further Context:

In the spirit of honesty, I’ll confess that I came into the museum studies praxis seminar by accident. Last fall, I was looking to expand my knowledge of museum studies, and the praxis seminar was the only available class. In a whirlwind of interviews, emails and assists from my faculty advisors, I connected with my field advisor, Katy Blanchard, about an internship in the
Penn Museum’s Near Eastern collections. I went into the experience without much knowledge of near eastern archeological material and a keen desire to observe museum operations from the inside. Ultimately the internship offered me a chance both to learn about the Near East and
explore the inner workings of the Museum as much as I wanted. However, most importantly, the opportunity showed me how much work goes into even the smallest, most easily taken-for-granted aspects of Museum operations, and how even this largely invisible work, can change a museum for the better.

My work at Penn primarily contributed to a single project, the continuing effort to re-inventory, photograph, and rehouse material from the site of Beth Shean in Northern Israel. The Beth Shean material is a cornerstone of the Penn’s Near Eastern collection. As I learned through digital and on-site research, Beth Shean was continuously occupied from the late Neolithic period through the middle ages. Thus, the archeological material I worked with records a progression of visual culture through man’s earliest discoveries, the Egyptian colonial period in Israel, the rise of Judaism, Greek colonization of the eastern Mediterranean, Roman colonization, and the rise of the Byzantine Empire. This makes these objects critical subjects of research, useful educational tools, and beautiful, enlightening features in museum exhibitions.

This, I came to realize, was the importance of my work. The photographs I was taking with my colleague, Nyla Mcneil, opened these valuable objects up to new attention from researchers, curators, and professors. Moreover, through shadowing my field advisor in meetings, doing an informational interview with the brain behind the Penn’s community outreach initiatives, and reading about the museum throughout the semester, I observed a will to revitalize the Penn and reinvent the institution as an asset to the community at large. I realized that my work, though it may seem small, was a crucial element of this. Photographing objects brought them to life and gave the world outside of the Penn’s archives a chance to understand these
pieces of history.

I also learned a lot of useful, practical information about the inner workings of the Penn and museums like it. I will certainly use this newfound knowledge of things like exhibition design, archival techniques, object handling, and industry standards in future positions with material closer to my area of study. However, I’m most proud to take away the knowledge that
every bit of work done in a museum can contribute to the desperately necessary democratization of these institutions. In my future, I hope to apply this principle in every area of museum work I can.

Hannah Cohen, HC ’25

The Environment of Tepe Hissar, Iran: Using Material Culture to Illustrate a Society’s Relationship with its Surrounding Environment

Semester: Spring 2023

Faculty Advisor: Astrid Lindenlauf

Field Site: The Penn Museum

Field Supervisor: Katy Blanchard

Praxis Poster:

Hannah Cohen_Praxis Poster_Final

 

Further Context:

Having just transferred into Haverford College, I did not hear of Bryn Mawr’s Praxis Program until my field advisor, Katy Blanchard, recommended that I look into completing a Praxis Independent Study.  I met Dr. Blanchard through my Professor for ARCH 244: Great Empires of the Ancient Near East after inquiring about how I could continue learning about the subject now that the semester was drawing to a close.  My Professor, Dr. Swerida, recommended that I get in contact with the Keeper of the Near Eastern collections at the Penn Museum of Archeology and Anthropology who was not only well versed in the history of the ancient Near East but also had worked with many students in the Bi-College Consortium and had, in fact was a Bryn Mawr alum herself (as a Classical Languages major, I found the fact that Dr. Blanchard had majored in Bryn Mawr’s Classics department to be quite exciting as well but, alas, I digress).  Dr. Swerida also put me in contact with my faculty advisor, Professor Lindenlauf after I had decided to take up Dr. Blanchard’s recommendation and pursue a Praxis Independent Study.

My original goals for the course consisted of merely two things: gaining a better understanding of how to use material culture to study ancient societies (for as much as my archeology course revealed my love of studying the ancient Near East,  it also revealed my tendency to avoid looking at artifacts in favor of looking at textual evidence) and learning more about the ancient Near East.  After talking to Dr. Blanchard and Professor Lindelauf about my Praxis, however, I realized the extent to which taking an independent study would let me delve into a specific topic.  My previous desire to be an biologist (a marine biologist in particular) left me with a longstanding interest in ecology, environmental science, and other related topics and, even though I now study the humanities, I wanted to find a way to combine my long standing interest in the environment with my newer fascination with ancient societies.  Upon telling this to my two advisors, Dr. Blanchard recommended I focus on looking at the collections of Tepe Hissar – a site which, in spite of having a rich culture and plentiful collection, was often overlooked.  And thus is how this Praxis Course was formed.

In the museum, I focused primarily on the technical aspects of interacting with the artifacts.  Many of the smaller artifacts – animal figurines, spindle whorls (which are small donut-shaped artifacts that were used to create wool.  See fig. 7 for an image), and hand tools were stored in drawers which needed to be inventoried to ensure they were all accounted for in both the drawer and the museum’s data-base.  The objects were also rehoused so that they would be better preserved and easier to access.

One of the largest tasks I had in the museum was photographing the artifacts.  Even though the museum has had the artifacts for quite some time, many had not been photographed and those that were needed their photographs updated so that the pictures would have greater clarity.  There were two modes of photography that I used at the museum: shot-down photography and shot-on photography.  The shot-down photography was used for flat objects such as potsherds (see figs. 2 and 3) as it only captured two sides of the object whereas the shot-on photography was used for objects with greater three-dimensionality as it could capture all sides of an object.  The photos I took are currently being uploaded in the database and, in conjunction with updates to the objects descriptions, will allow for researchers to have a greater ability to find the objects in collections that would be most useful for them to study.

The academic component of my course was equally as interesting as the field-work.  My first readings were from the then most recent (and, I must say, well timed) edition of the American Society of Overseas Research’s magazine (the December 2022 publication) which focused on the wide range of ways in which different societies in the Near East interacted with and perceived animals.  My readings gradually grew more specific and soon I focused on learning about the site of Tepe Hissar itself by reading articles concerning the stratigraphy of the site, the artifacts found at the site, and even an analysis of what the people of Tepe Hissar ate.  The readings and the discussions I had with Professor Lindenlauf regarding them allowed me to not only view but also analyze the artifacts of Tepe Hissar which I worked with, making the fieldwork component of my course even more meaningful than I had found it before.

I am going to assume that I won’t be able to hold your attention for much longer so, rather than telling you about all of my findings, I am going to briefly elaborate on my favorite: how the dog depicted in fig. 9 helped me conclude, alongside other materials, that sheep were highly valued in Tepe Hissar.

When talking to Professor Lindenlauf during one of our meetings, I mentioned that I always thought it would be interesting to look at society’s values through the traits present in dog breeds that originated from that region.  Dogs are one of, if not the, oldest domestic animals and so, they have historically been present in many societies, each of which selectively bred the animals to retain characteristics that allowed the dog to perform the role(s) which they thought it was necessary for a dog to perform.  With the help of Dr. Blanchard, I found a depiction of a dog from Tepe Hissar, of course, this would be the animal figurine from fig. 9.  While looking at the dog I noticed how it had the shape resembling that of a mastiff and, after doing some further research, I discovered that there was indeed a mastiff that originated in Iran during this time: the sarabi dog (also known as the Persian mastiff).  This dog was bred for the purpose of guarding sheep and so, looking at this dog in addition to the depictions of sheep and artifacts that indicated the creation of secondary products from sheep made me realize just how important sheep were to the people of Tepe Hissar.  Furthermore, I also realized the extent to which I improved in my ability to analyze artifacts!  This skill, and all the others that I have learned, will help enrich my academic career; I am particularly excited to apply them next year while studying abroad in Rome.  I also thoroughly enjoyed getting a chance to explore ancient peoples relationships with the environment and I hope to further study ancient societies through this lens.