Mar Shiprim this time spotlights the new galleries of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, thanks to this article written by Grant Frame – to whom we are very grateful. Officially opened in April 2017, the three new galleries stem from a joint effort, which has involved ten scholars associated with the museum, as well as numerous other museum personnel, for quite a few years . This article not only describes the history of this process, but also provides some valuable insights into the display.
Entrance to the galleries
In April 2017, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (commonly referred to as the Penn Museum) had the official opening for its three new Middle East Gallery (MEG), actually a series of three galleries that display materials from the Neolithic Revolution until the nineteenth century AD. MEG was the result of an approximately three-year process that involved ten different scholars associated with the museum (Grant Frame, William Hafford, Renata Holod, Philip Jones, Naomi Miller, Holly Pittman, Lauren Ristvet, Brian Spooner, Stephen Tinney, and Richard Zettler), as well as numerous other museum personnel. The preparation of these galleries was the first phase of a plan to renovate and redesign most of the museum. On November 16, 2019, new Africa galleries, a redesigned Mexico and Central America gallery, and a renovated entrance hall, as well as a renovated Harrison Auditorium will reopen. MEG was developed with the support of Haley Sharp Design, who are currently involved in the redesign of the museum’s Egyptian galleries.
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 Images from the first gallery
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The Penn Museum traces its origins back to 1887, when it was founded to house materials brought back from its excavations in Mesopotamia, where it worked at Nippur between 1888 and 1900. Initially, the finds that it was allowed to bring back to Philadelphia were kept in Furness Library; however, in order to raise funds to pay for the excavations, the university had had to agree to provide a fireproof structure to house its finds. The first wing of the museum was dedicated in 1899, with further sections opening in 1915, 1924, 1929, 1971, and 2002. In 2011, the west wing of the museum reopened after having been closed for several years for renovation and the addition of air-conditioning. For several years its three main floor galleries were used for temporary exhibitions, but they were later designated to be the location of MEG.
Most of the museum’s early exhibitions of its Mesopotamian material had been organized by artifact type, although, in 1983, the “Ancient Mesopotamian Members Gallery” tried to tell the story of Mesopotamia as the “Cradle of Civilization,” with a separate display of “The Treasures from the Royal Cemetery from Ur” in an adjoining gallery. When the “Ancient Mesopotamian Members Gallery” was dismantled in 1987, a gallery entitled “From Tokens to Tablets” attempted to show the increasing social complexity in Mesopotamia over time. In order to allow the materials from the Royal Cemetery of Ur to be used in a travelling exhibit, “The Treasures from the Royal Cemetery of Ur” gallery was dismantled and most of its materials went on the road from 1998 to 2003. When “From Tokens to Tablets” was taken down in 2006, the museum was left without any real Mesopotamian exhibit for about three years, until 2009 when the temporary gallery “Iraq’s Ancient Past” opened, emphasizing the most important materials from the royal cemetery from Ur and the Penn Museum’s involvement in the excavations at that site. In January 2017, “Iraq’s Ancient Past” was taken down in order to allow for the conservation of some pieces for reuse in the new Middle East galleries. Thus, for over a year again, there was no real display of Mesopotamian material in the museum, although a temporary exhibition “Cultures in the Crossfire: Stories from Syria and Iraq,” which opened on April 2017, did display a number of pieces from ancient Mesopotamia.
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 Images from the second gallery |
The overall theme of the new galleries is “Journey to the City,” showing the beginnings of settlement in Mesopotamia and Iran, the development of cities and increasing social complexity, and the expansion of trading networks and growth of globalization up until the nineteenth AD. The galleries are organized chronologically, with each historical/cultural period emphasizing materials from one or two sites (e.g., Ur for the late Early Dynastic through Old Babylonian periods). Behind the exhibits are five main themes: make, settle, believe, organize, and connect. The first gallery deals with the beginning of settled life in the area up until the rise of the early city states; materials from Ubaid, Tepe Hissar, and Turen Tepe are particularly prominent in this gallery and one case deals with the beginnings of writing. The second gallery focuses on Ur in the late Early Dynastic through Old Babylonian periods; objects from the Royal Cemetery of Ur and the Ur-Namma stele are among the items on display on display and two large wall cases present cuneiform materials, with an emphasis on scribal education. The third gallery contains materials from ca. 1500 BC to 1900 AD, with sections on nomadic populations, the destruction of Hasanlu, Nippur in the Neo-Babylonian through Parthian periods, and the Rayy plain, as well as some more recent ethnographic materials (e.g., illuminated manuscripts).
The Penn Museum’s collection of materials from Mesopotamia is curated by two different sections of the museum. The cuneiform materials (ca. 25,000 pieces) belong to the Babylonian Section, while the Near East Section houses approximately 105,000 catalogued items from Mesopotamia, Iran and the Levant. Unlike most other major museums, approximately 90% of the Penn Museum’s collections from Mesopotamia come from excavations with which it was involved.
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Images from the third gallery
For further information on the items displayed in the galleries, see S. Tinney and K. Sonik (eds.), Journey to the City: A Companion to the Middle East Galleries at the Penn Museum (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2019).
For a more detailed description of the creation of the new galleries, see H. Pittman, “The Middle East Gallery at the Penn Museum: A Curator’s Reflections on Challenges and Opportunities” in G. Emberling and L.P. Petit (eds.), Museums and the Ancient Middle East: Curatorial and Practices (London and New York: Routledge, 2019) pp. 175–195. Dr. Pittman kindly provided the author with an advance copy of her manuscript and he has made heavy use of it in preparing this report.
Images from the third gallery