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172-574: Penn Museum , formally known as The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology , is an archaeology and anthropology museum at the University of Pennsylvania . It is located on Penn's campus in the University City neighborhood of Philadelphia, at the intersection of 33rd and South Streets. Housing over 1.3 million artifacts, the museum features one of the most comprehensive collections of Middle and Near-Eastern art in

344-546: A 150 meter by 80 meter harbor. In 2019 the Oriental Institute of Chicago received permission to excavate at Dlehim and in 2022 preliminary excavation began. The site of Tell Waresh 2 lies 12 kilometers northeast of Nippur (UTM 38 S 532261.73 m E, 3561401.12 m N) and was subject to a rescue excavation in 1990 led by Muhammad Yahya Radhi on behalf of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage. It

516-464: A basic level of analysis, artifacts found are cleaned, catalogued and compared to published collections. This comparison process often involves classifying them typologically and identifying other sites with similar artifact assemblages. However, a much more comprehensive range of analytical techniques are available through archaeological science , meaning that artifacts can be dated and their compositions examined. Bones, plants, and pollen collected from

688-563: A big impact throughout Europe. However, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard; the importance of concepts such as stratification and context were overlooked. In the mid-18th century, the German Johann Joachim Winckelmann lived in Rome and devoted himself to the study of Roman antiquities, gradually acquiring an unrivalled knowledge of ancient art. Then, he visited

860-401: A clear objective as to what the archaeologists are looking to achieve must be agreed upon. This done, a site is surveyed to find out as much as possible about it and the surrounding area. Second, an excavation may take place to uncover any archaeological features buried under the ground. And, third, the information collected during the excavation is studied and evaluated in an attempt to achieve

1032-437: A clue that would reveal who the original thieves were or how they committed the crime. The museum's collection of Egyptian artifacts is considered one of the finest in the world. The museum's Egyptian galleries house an extensive collection of statuary, mummies, and reliefs. Most notably, the museum houses a set of architectural elements, including large columns and a 13-ton granite Sphinx of Ramesses II , circa 1200 B.C., from

1204-458: A collecting expedition across Mongolia and northern China in 1930-1931. The Mayer Collection consists of 464 small bronze daggers, harnesses, plaques, and a variety of ornaments that represent the "Ordos" style made by the Scythians and related nomadic peoples between the 12th century BCE and 3rd century CE, as well as some metalworks of more recent origin. Maxwell Sommerville (1829-1904), one of

1376-543: A collection of almost 30,000 clay tablets inscribed in Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform , making it one of the ten largest collections in the world. The collection contains the largest number of Sumerian school tablets and literary compositions of any of the world's museums, as well as important administrative archives ranging from 2900 to 500 BCE. The Penn Museum holds approximately 1,300 skulls collected by 19th century physician Samuel George Morton . The museum acquired

1548-574: A concentration from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Angola, Morocco, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Madagascar. The Penn Museum has one of the most extensive Sherbro Island collections in the world. During a museum sponsored expedition in 1936–1937, Curator of General Ethnology, Henry Usher Hall spent seven months conducting ethnographic research among

1720-527: A dozen crania, along with mid-19th century measuring devices, were on public display at the museum from 2012 to 2013 in an exhibit named "Year of Proof: Making and Unmaking Race". In 2018, students in the Penn and Slavery project discovered the collection includes 55 crania of enslaved people, with 53 of these crania from Havana and two from the United States. In July 2020 the museum announced it would move

1892-451: A field survey. Regional survey is the attempt to systematically locate previously unknown sites in a region. Site survey is the attempt to systematically locate features of interest, such as houses and middens , within a site. Each of these two goals may be accomplished with largely the same methods. Survey was not widely practised in the early days of archaeology. Cultural historians and prior researchers were usually content with discovering

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2064-528: A large region or site can be expensive, so archaeologists often employ sampling methods.) As with other forms of non-destructive archaeology, survey avoids ethical issues (of particular concern to descendant peoples) associated with destroying a site through excavation. It is the only way to gather some forms of information, such as settlement patterns and settlement structure. Survey data are commonly assembled into maps , which may show surface features and/or artifact distribution. The simplest survey technique

2236-505: A macehead of Naram-Sin, ruler of the Akkadian Empire, indicating he had rebuilt the temple. During the excavation, the team inadvertently experienced difficulty progressing with their work. The excavators reached a surface that appeared like a baked brick pavement. Notably, this incident drew a lot of interest in the team, and with further progress, they reached what seemed to be a room. Further into their excavation, they discovered

2408-638: A much earlier period. Nippur was situated on both sides of the ancient bed of the Shatt-en-Nil canal, one of the earliest courses of the Euphrates , between the present bed of that river and the Tigris , almost 160 km southeast of Baghdad . The canal bed divides the site into an East Mound and West Mound. It is represented by the great complex of ruin mounds known to the Arabs as Nuffar , written by

2580-754: A new direction in Chinese art. Four of the panels are at the Beilin Museum in Xi'an, while the only two to have left China were donated to the Penn Museum by Eldridge R. Johnson , the founder of the Victor Talking Machine Company . Johnson also donated the perfectly spherical crystal ball that sits in the center of the gallery, which is supposed to have belonged to Empress Cixi (1835–1908). Along with an Egyptian statue of Osiris ,

2752-437: A new dress for the gallery. Moore enlisted the help of her friend and Philadelphia artist, Emerson Ruffin, to create the dress titled “Wearable Literature”, now a popular item in the Penn Museum's African galleries. The North American archaeological collections contain heritage items from twenty thousand years old to a few hundred years old. In the 1960s, these were arranged chronologically. Some of these items were excavated in

2924-484: A pedestal to manage the leadership of the dynasty. The temple had specific administrative units that were answerable to the reigning king of the dynasty. This could be attributed to the fact that the leading goddess of the temple, Inanna, was associated with power. Kings believed that the Inanna goddess has the power to influence political issues, which explained the temple's importance and long-lasting popularity throughout

3096-492: A professor at Penn, and Janet Monge , Mann's graduate student and later curator of physical anthropology at the Penn Museum. Without the family's permission, in 2019 the bones were used as a case study in an online forensic course by Janet Monge. They were also used as the subject of a Penn senior thesis in anthropology which Monge supervised. Although the bones used by Monge in the online case study were given to MOVE members in 2021, accounts differ regarding how many remains were at

3268-490: A room with inscriptions, suggesting that the building was a temple built by Sulgi, the second king of the third dynasty of Ur. However, the architectural plan of the temple is further demonstrated by the layers of the building.   During the excavation, it was noted that the building had twenty-three-level layers. The excavators revealed that each of the twenty-three layers serves a different purpose. For instance, levels VIII-VII were associated with sculptures and idols used in

3440-515: A ruinous effect upon the economy of the country and thus led to the bankruptcy of the landowners. Although the house of Murashu loaned money to the landowners initially, after a few decades it began more and more to take the landowners' place, and the land began to concentrate in its hands." Site TA is a 20 m × 40 m area located in Tablet Hill in Nippur. It is built in between 1948 and 1952 and

3612-424: A site can all be analyzed using the methods of zooarchaeology , paleoethnobotany , palynology and stable isotopes while any texts can usually be deciphered . Nippur Nippur never enjoyed political hegemony in its own right, but its control was crucial, as it was considered capable of conferring the overall "kingship" on monarchs from other city-states. It was distinctively a sacred city, important from

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3784-504: A site excavated depends greatly on the country and "method statement" issued. Sampling is even more important in excavation than in survey. Sometimes large mechanical equipment, such as backhoes ( JCBs ), is used in excavation, especially to remove the topsoil ( overburden ), though this method is increasingly used with great caution. Following this rather dramatic step, the exposed area is usually hand-cleaned with trowels or hoes to ensure that all features are apparent. The next task

3956-414: A site reveals its stratigraphy; if a site was occupied by a succession of distinct cultures, artifacts from more recent cultures will lie above those from more ancient cultures. Excavation is the most expensive phase of archaeological research, in relative terms. Also, as a destructive process, it carries ethical concerns. As a result, very few sites are excavated in their entirety. Again the percentage of

4128-523: A small Late Sassnian house. Permission has also been granted to dig at Dlehim and Drehem. Excavation began in November 2022 for the 21st season which lasted two months. Work began at nearby Drehem but ceased after authorities decided that a police station must first be established there to prevent looting. Work then returned to the Parthian building. Extensive excavation details have been recorded for

4300-408: A sole source. The material record may be closer to a fair representation of society, though it is subject to its own biases, such as sampling bias and differential preservation. Often, archaeology provides the only means to learn of the existence and behaviors of people of the past. Across the millennia many thousands of cultures and societies and billions of people have come and gone of which there

4472-479: A stair to the upper level but it is not considered a two-storey but rooftop level. There are total of 1.591 tablets found in site TA. Regarding the texts type found in tablets are divided into two main categories, private documents and educational material, TA is viewed as a residential area. Most of the houses in TA are residential housing while only one of the houses (House F) are viewed as scribal school, this conclusion

4644-527: A stone wall, will develop more slowly, while those above other types of features (such as middens ) may develop more rapidly. Photographs of ripening grain , which changes colour rapidly at maturation, have revealed buried structures with great precision. Aerial photographs taken at different times of day will help show the outlines of structures by changes in shadows. Aerial survey also employs ultraviolet , infrared , ground-penetrating radar wavelengths, Lidar and thermography . Geophysical survey can be

4816-487: A systematic guide to the ruins and topography of ancient Rome in the early 15th century, for which he has been called an early founder of archaeology. Antiquarians of the 16th century, including John Leland and William Camden , conducted surveys of the English countryside, drawing, describing and interpreting the monuments that they encountered. The OED first cites "archaeologist" from 1824; this soon took over as

4988-495: A wide range of influences, including systems theory , neo-evolutionary thought , [35] phenomenology , postmodernism , agency theory , cognitive science , structural functionalism , Marxism , gender-based and feminist archaeology , queer theory , postcolonial thoughts , materiality , and posthumanism . An archaeological investigation usually involves several distinct phases, each of which employs its own variety of methods. Before any practical work can begin, however,

5160-452: A ziggurat on the north-western edge of the latter. Ur III ruler Shu-Sin , after destroying Šimānum , as noted in a year name, settled the prisoners of that war near Nippur he founded called Šimānum (sometimes called E-Šu-Suen). This practice for disposition of prisoners continued into the first millennium. The temple continued to be built upon or rebuilt by kings of various succeeding dynasties, as shown by bricks and votive objects bearing

5332-635: Is a ceramic statue of a Luohan , reputed to be one of a group of eight or ten statues from a cave in Yizhou that date between 947 and 1234 CE. Other rare Chinese works of art on display are two of the six horse panels from Emperor Taizong 's Mausoleum in Shaanxi Province. Each of these horses had names and poems commemorating their service in the fight to unify China during the Tang dynasty . The secular focus and historic realism of these reliefs marked

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5504-418: Is a special emphasis on works published within the field of Mesoamerican archaeology as well as works which relate to the current research of the university's professors. As of 2008 there are approximately 115,000 volumes in the library's collection, 14,000 of these volumes have been circulated on an annual basis. The library also has subscriptions to an estimated 549 scholarly journals. Computing services within

5676-477: Is composed of close to 3,000 objects of art and artifacts from China, Tibet, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, India and other Asian countries. Through the concerted efforts of Dr. George Byron Gordon , the majority of this collection focuses on China. From 1914-1918 and again in 1923-1924, Penn Museum archaeologists attempted archaeological expeditions in China that ended in failure. Consequently,

5848-451: Is little or no written record or existing records are misrepresentative or incomplete. Writing as it is known today did not exist in human civilization until the 4th millennium BC, in a relatively small number of technologically advanced civilizations. In contrast, Homo sapiens has existed for at least 200,000 years, and other species of Homo for millions of years (see Human evolution ). These civilizations are, not coincidentally,

6020-454: Is made due to the significant amount of 1,407 tablets are found in House F. Moreover, organic materials were found in some of the houses, therefore, there might be animal husbandry. Moreover, due to the contents of tablets, it is believed that TA is owned by small private owner. Inanna (Inanna of Duranki) temple is a historical hallmark of Mesopotamia. Though the temple was a religious element in

6192-539: Is mentioned by early Muslim geographers under the name of Niffar. It lay on the Nahr an-Nars canal, believed to have been built by Narses. By the late 800s, though, geographers no longer mentioned it, which indicates that the city had gone into decline by that time. This was part of a broader decline in settlements throughout Iraq, especially in the south, as decaying infrastructure and political violence resulted in large areas being completely abandoned. However, Nippur remained

6364-426: Is no one approach to archaeological theory that has been adhered to by all archaeologists. When archaeology developed in the late 19th century, the first approach to archaeological theory to be practised was that of cultural-historical archaeology , which held the goal of explaining why cultures changed and adapted rather than just highlighting the fact that they did, therefore emphasizing historical particularism . In

6536-603: Is on display is Stela 14, a limestone rock with intricate carvings that stands at ten feet tall. Tatiana Proskouriakoff excavated this object in Piedras Negras, and at the time of its discovery, archaeologists could not decipher the Mayan hieroglyphics engraved in it. Proskouriakoff cross-referenced the glyphs on the Stela to historical events, eventually decoding the hieroglyphic language. Proskouriakoff's discovery transformed

6708-492: Is on the edge sides with the flat sides out, second layer on the edge sides with the ends out, third layer on the flat sides with the edges out. The ziggurat contains a water conduit system. From the upper surface of the ziggurat, there is a conduit for water drainage in the middle of three façades. Built by baked bricks 1 metre in breadth and 3 meters in depth, around the conduit base is a plaster of bitumen, sloping outward with gutters to carry off water. Pavements extend from

6880-443: Is reflected or emitted from the observed scene. Passive instruments sense only radiation emitted by the object being viewed or reflected by the object from a source other than the instrument. Active instruments emit energy and record what is reflected. Satellite imagery is an example of passive remote sensing. Here are two active remote sensing instruments: The archaeological project then continues (or alternatively, begins) with

7052-428: Is surface survey. It involves combing an area, usually on foot but sometimes with the use of mechanized transport, to search for features or artifacts visible on the surface. Surface survey cannot detect sites or features that are completely buried under earth, or overgrown with vegetation. Surface survey may also include mini-excavation techniques such as augers , corers, and shovel test pits. If no materials are found,

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7224-508: Is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture . The archaeological record consists of artifacts , architecture , biofacts or ecofacts, sites , and cultural landscapes . Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities . It is usually considered an independent academic discipline , but may also be classified as part of anthropology (in North America –

7396-655: Is through archaeology. Because archaeology is the study of past human activity, it stretches back to about 2.5 million years ago when the first stone tools are found – The Oldowan Industry . Many important developments in human history occurred during prehistory, such as the evolution of humanity during the Paleolithic period, when the hominins developed from the australopithecines in Africa and eventually into modern Homo sapiens . Archaeology also sheds light on many of humanity's technological advances, for instance

7568-431: Is to form a site plan and then use it to help decide the method of excavation. Features dug into the natural subsoil are normally excavated in portions to produce a visible archaeological section for recording. A feature, for example a pit or a ditch, consists of two parts: the cut and the fill . The cut describes the edge of the feature, where the feature meets the natural soil. It is the feature's boundary. The fill

7740-420: Is what the feature is filled with, and will often appear quite distinct from the natural soil. The cut and fill are given consecutive numbers for recording purposes. Scaled plans and sections of individual features are all drawn on site, black and white and colour photographs of them are taken, and recording sheets are filled in describing the context of each. All this information serves as a permanent record of

7912-616: The Achaemenid Empire , were excavated. The latter, the "books and papers" of the house of Murashu , commercial agents of the government, throw light on the condition of the city and the administration of the country in the Achaemenid period. The tablets date between 454 BC and 404 BC with the majority between 440 BC and 414 BC. The archive is reflective of a diverse populace as one-third of contracts depict non-Babylonian names. Enduring for at least three successive generations,

8084-471: The Alta Verapaz the early twentieth century. The museum houses the outstanding Lilly de Jongh Osborne collection of 19th and early 20th century Guatemalan textiles, exceptional because of its complete outfits for men, women and children acquired systematically across different Guatemalan villages. This collection includes raw material and other objects and tools related to weaving. Ruben Reina studied

8256-533: The British Museum in Iraq . Ur was an important and wealthy city-state in ancient Sumer , and the artifacts from its royal tombs showcase the city's wealth. The collections consists of a variety of crowns, figures, and musical instruments, many of which have been inlaid with gold and precious stones. The often traveling collection includes a well known Bull-headed lyre . The museum's Babylonian section houses

8428-710: The Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly the Belgian Congo). The majority of these artifacts were collected by the German ethnographer Leo Viktor Frobenius on his expedition to the Kasai district of the Congo in 1906. His collection illustrates the diverse sculptural forms found among the different cultural groups in the Central African region. Some of the cultures represented in the collection are

8600-668: The Sherbro people of Sierra Leone . The collection consists of textiles, sculpture, artifacts related to subsistence and household items, secret society and examples of medicine bundles. Hall's papers include field notes, bibliographies, and textual commentaries that provide ethnographic information about the way of life of the Sherbro people and others—including the Mende , Krim , and Temne peoples —who lived among them. The Central African collection includes approximately 3000 artifacts from

8772-594: The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the American Schools of Oriental Research . Part of the effort involved removing large archaeological dumps from the University of Pennsylvania excavations. In the process Early Dynastic bowls, cuneiform tablets, and brick stamps were found. At the temples of Inanna and at Ekur foundation deposits were found with statues of Shulgi and Ur-Nammu. A temple of Inanna , begun in

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8944-552: The four-field approach ), history or geography . Archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology is distinct from palaeontology , which is the study of fossil remains. Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for which, by definition, there are no written records. Prehistory includes over 99% of

9116-487: The looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, and opposition to the excavation of human remains. In Ancient Mesopotamia , a foundation deposit of the Akkadian Empire ruler Naram-Sin (ruled c.  2200 BC ) was discovered and analysed by king Nabonidus , c.  550 BC , who is thus known as the first archaeologist. Not only did he lead the first excavations which were to find

9288-580: The trench method , on several Native American burial mounds in Virginia . His excavations were prompted by the "Moundbuilders" question ; however, his careful methods led him to admit he saw no reason why ancestors of the Native Americans of his time could not have raised those mounds. One of the major achievements of 19th-century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy . The idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods

9460-559: The 1870s. These scholars individuated nine different cities that had overlapped with one another, from prehistory to the Hellenistic period . Meanwhile, the work of Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos in Crete revealed the ancient existence of an equally advanced Minoan civilization . The next major figure in the development of archaeology was Sir Mortimer Wheeler , whose highly disciplined approach to excavation and systematic coverage in

9632-642: The 1920s and 1930s brought the science on swiftly. Wheeler developed the grid system of excavation , which was further improved by his student Kathleen Kenyon . Archaeology became a professional activity in the first half of the 20th century, and it became possible to study archaeology as a subject in universities and even schools. By the end of the 20th century nearly all professional archaeologists, at least in developed countries, were graduates. Further adaptation and innovation in archaeology continued in this period, when maritime archaeology and urban archaeology became more prevalent and rescue archaeology

9804-522: The 1920s and 1930s respectfully. Twelve different indigenous groups are represented in the collections acquired in Guyana by Farabee in the 1920s. More than twenty-five native groups from Peru are represented as well. Smaller collections represent some of the indigenous peoples of Argentina ( Yahgan ), Chile ( Alacaluf , Mapuche ), Colombia ( Arhuaco , Chocó , Goajira , and Kogi ), and Ecuador ( Jívaro , Tumaco , Saparo). The Penn Museum's Asian collection

9976-476: The 2nd millennium BC, the religious, as well as the political center of influence, was transferred to Babylon, Marduk became lord of the pantheon, many of Enlil's attributes were transferred to him, and Ekur, Enlil's temple, was to some extent neglected. The city was taken by Ilī-ma-ilu, the first ruler of the First Sealand dynasty in about the 29th year of the reign of Samsu-iluna, ruler of Babylon. It

10148-806: The African-American community in Philadelphia, who said that they had not been consulted on the matter. In April 2021, following critical news coverage, the Penn Museum and the University of Pennsylvania apologized to the Africa "family" and the community in general for allowing human remains from the 1985 MOVE bombing to be used in research and training. In 1986, an official from the Philadelphia City Medical Examiner's Office gave burned human remains found at

10320-417: The Akkadian Empire fell as divine retribution, because of Sargon's initiating the transfer of "holy city" status from Nippur to Babylon. This Akkadian occupation was succeeded by occupation during the third dynasty of Ur , and the constructions of Ur-Nammu , the great builder of temples, are superimposed immediately upon those of Naram-Sin. Ur-Nammu gave the temple its final characteristic form. Partly razing

10492-573: The American Board of Forensic Anthropology disagreed with the claims published by Penn's legal team and agreed with those of the City of Philadelphia. The City of Philadelphia also questioned whether all the remains of Katricia Dotson which were at the Penn Museum were given to MOVE in 2021. 39°56′56″N 75°11′28″W  /  39.9490°N 75.1911°W  / 39.9490; -75.1911 Archaeology Archaeology or archeology

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10664-527: The Chinese crystal ball was stolen in 1988. Shortly afterwards, a student found its elegant silver stand, a stylized ocean wave, in a culvert not far from the museum. The items were recovered in 1991 after a museum volunteer saw the statue in an antique shop across the Schuylkill River in New Jersey. The FBI then traced the crystal ball to a home in New Jersey and returned it to the museum without

10836-522: The Early Dynastic period was completely excavated. Subsequent superimposed new iterations of the temple extended all the way up to Parthian times. Finds included a tablet dated to the 4th year of the Kassite king Shagarakti-Shuriash , one dated to the 44th year of Ur III king Shulgi , and an Indus Valley stamp seal. In 1977 they briefly excavated at the nearby site of Umm al-Hafriyat which was in

11008-516: The Ekurigibarra, was built by Kurigalzu I (c. 1375 BC). After the middle of the 12th century BC follows another long period of comparative neglect due to the river Euphrates changing its course, but with the waters return and the conquest of Babylonia by the Assyrian king Sargon II , at the close of the 8th century BC, we meet again with building inscriptions, and under Ashurbanipal , about

11180-497: The Kassite period. Nippur was first excavated, briefly, by Sir Austen Henry Layard in 1851. Full-scale digging was begun by an expedition from the University of Pennsylvania . The work involved four seasons of excavation between 1889 and 1900 and was led by John Punnett Peters , John Henry Haynes , and Hermann Volrath Hilprecht . Thousands of tablets were found at a smaller mound dubbed "tablet hill", about 7.5 meters in average height and 52 square meters in area, southeast of

11352-462: The Kassite, Neo-Assyrian, and Neo-Babylonian periods. It is thought that the missing temple of Ninurta is nearby. Almost directly opposite the temple, a large palace was excavated, apparently of the Seleucid period, and in this neighborhood and further southward on these mounds large numbers of inscribed tablets of various periods, including temple archives of the Kassite and commercial archives of

11524-704: The Kokushikan University of Tokyo in 1988. In the early days of archaeology it was often confused with the nearby Drehem. It covers an area of 36 hectares and was occupied in the Ur III period. The site has been suggested as the location of ancient Tummal (thought to be the source of the Tummal Inscription ). Tummal played a primary political role in the Ur III period. In 2016 the QADIS survey project, carried out an aerial and surface survey of

11696-698: The Kuba, Kongo, Luba, Suku, Yaka, Pende, Teke, Chokwe, and Luluwa. One of the lesser known collection within the African Section is the Moroccan collection. Dr. and Mrs. Talcott Williams travelled to Morocco in 1898 and returned with approximately 600 objects to document the cultures in Morocco. The collection consists of clothing, shoes, rugs, blankets, weapons, jewelry, pottery, baskets, cooking pots. This thorough collection of objects representing daily life

11868-508: The MOVE house to the museum for verification that the bones were those of 14 year old Katricia Dotson (a.k.a. Katricia or Tree Africa) and 12 year old Delisha Orr (a.k.a. Delisha Africa), although after the death certificates for both of those children were written, and after Dotson's family believed they were given Dotson's remains for burial in 1985. These remains were kept in a cardboard box in storage for decades and used for teaching by Alan Mann,

12040-553: The Mediterranean and Near East, sharing the ownership of their discoveries with the host country. Penn Museum followed this practice in acquiring the vast majority of its collections, and, as a result, most of the museum's objects have a known archaeological context, increasing their value for archaeological and anthropological research and presentation. Since its beginning, the Penn Museum's scientists have conducted more than 300 archaeological and anthropological expeditions around

12212-520: The Northwest Coast, Southwest, Southeast, and Sub-arctic regions. Many of the Northwest Coast materials were collected in the early 20th century by Louis Shotridge , the son of an influential Tlingit chiefly family. Penn Museum director George Byron Gordon hired Shotridge as a curator. He worked for the museum in various capacities between 1912 and 1932, including multiple field expeditions sponsored by John Wanamaker . Prominent ethnographers of

12384-420: The Penn Museum and whether all bones which were given to Mann and Monge in 1986 were returned in 2021. A legal team hired by the University of Pennsylvania stated that the bones of Delisha Orr were never at the Penn Museum. However, an investigation by the City of Philadelphia disagreed, and stated that there was evidence that remains of Delisha Orr were at the Penn Museum. Nine forensic anthropologists certified by

12556-505: The Song period, were revived in the 17th century during the Qing dynasty , but were always considered a branch of Chinese historiography rather than a separate discipline of archaeology. In Renaissance Europe , philosophical interest in the remains of Greco - Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Ages , with humanism . Cyriacus of Ancona

12728-676: The Spanish military engineer Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum , both of which had been covered by ash during the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 . These excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and even human shapes, as well the unearthing of frescos , had

12900-536: The Temple of Enlil was not for worshiping. Yet, religious ritual related to divine repast perhaps libation, could serve as the purpose of Temple of Enlil during Ur III period. In 1990 Oriental Institute excavators identified a building in area WA as the Temple of Gula , a goddess of healing and consort of Ninurta. The earliest identified construction of the temple was in the Isin-Larsa period, with major rebuilds in

13072-484: The Temple of Enlil. The possible height of the walls was 13.2 m as it was three times of the substructure which is 4.40 m. Although no remains of the roof left, purlins and reeds were covered first and then rammed earth mixed with straw was layered. From the floor plan of the Temple of Enlil in Ur III period, 2 cellae each connected with 2 minor chambers with wider doorways (2.40 m, 1.45 m for normal doorway) and 2 subsidiary chambers were presented. The burning evidence in

13244-767: The UK, metal detectorists have been solicited for involvement in the Portable Antiquities Scheme . Regional survey in underwater archaeology uses geophysical or remote sensing devices such as marine magnetometer, side-scan sonar , or sub-bottom sonar. Archaeological excavation existed even when the field was still the domain of amateurs, and it remains the source of the majority of data recovered in most field projects. It can reveal several types of information usually not accessible to survey, such as stratigraphy , three-dimensional structure, and verifiably primary context. Modern excavation techniques require that

13416-482: The Ziggurat of Ur-Gur. Overall, the ziggurat site is 25 meters in height, has a rectangular base of 39 meters by 58 meters, consisting three stages of dry brick, and faced with kiln-fired bricks laid in bitumen. The northern corner of the ziggurat points to 12 degrees east of the magnetic north. Construction structure and materials are homogeneous, of small unbaked bricks, laid in different ways: first layer of bricks

13588-426: The ability to use fire, the development of stone tools , the discovery of metallurgy , the beginnings of religion and the creation of agriculture . Without archaeology, little or nothing would be known about the use of material culture by humanity that pre-dates writing. However, it is not only prehistoric, pre-literate cultures that can be studied using archaeology but historic, literate cultures as well, through

13760-408: The archaeological excavations being conducted at Pompeii and Herculaneum . He was one of the founders of scientific archaeology and first applied the categories of style on a large, systematic basis to the history of art He was one of the first to separate Greek art into periods and time classifications. Winckelmann has been called both "The prophet and founding hero of modern archaeology " and

13932-434: The area surveyed is deemed sterile . Aerial survey is conducted using cameras attached to airplanes , balloons , UAVs , or even Kites . A bird's-eye view is useful for quick mapping of large or complex sites. Aerial photographs are used to document the status of the archaeological dig. Aerial imaging can also detect many things not visible from the surface. Plants growing above a buried human-made structure, such as

14104-833: The artifacts recovered from the past by excavation, ethnology , the objects and ideas collected from living peoples, and physical anthropology , the physical remains of humans and nonhuman primates. For curation and display, the items in the archaeology and ethnology collections are organized by geographic regions. As of 2023, there are eleven permanent galleries: Africa, Asia, Egypt, Sphinx, Middle East, Eastern Mediterranean, Etruscan, Greece, Rome, Native American Voices and Mexico and Central America. The collections are organized along similar lines, but with larger geographic groupings for some regions. Collection areas include Africa, America (North, Central and South), Asia, Egypt, Europe (Etruscan, Greece and Rome), Mediterranean, Near East and Oceania. Many items within these collections are not on display in

14276-560: The artifacts they had found in chronological order. A major figure in the development of archaeology into a rigorous science was army officer and ethnologist Augustus Pitt Rivers , who began excavations on his land in England in the 1880s. Highly methodical by the standards of the time, he is widely regarded as the first scientific archaeologist. He arranged his artifacts by type or " Typology (archaeology) ", and within types chronologically. This style of arrangement, designed to highlight

14448-563: The best-known; they are open to the inquiry of historians for centuries, while the study of pre-historic cultures has arisen only recently. Within a literate civilization many events and important human practices may not be officially recorded. Any knowledge of the early years of human civilization – the development of agriculture, cult practices of folk religion, the rise of the first cities – must come from archaeology. In addition to their scientific importance, archaeological remains sometimes have political or cultural significance to descendants of

14620-402: The cella (room 13) and the minor chambers (room 16,17) adjacent to the other cella (room 18), the inscription of the Temple of Enlil around Ur III period; both indicated the purpose of the Temple of Enlil was to feed gods on the adjacent ziggurat, as 'kitchen temple', so food preparation could be taken place. Other than that, the Temple of Enlil shown no place of a dais for enthroned deities. Thus,

14792-525: The collection from a private classroom into storage after criticism from students and the local community. The museum is also planning to repatriate or rebury skulls of enslaved individuals. In 2024, the museum buried the remains of 19 African-American residents of Philadelphia that it held in its collection in Eden Cemetery , that has been used by the African-American community. The interment sparked criticism from prominent members and groups representing

14964-491: The collection from the Academy of Natural Sciences in 1966. Morton has long been criticized for promoting white supremacist views, leveraging science to uphold racism, poor research quality, and unethically collecting human remains without consent. Despite this, the museum claims the collection is an important historic and research resource. The museum has actively conducted research using the collection in recent years. More than

15136-518: The collections in many areas. Penn Museum's Mesoamerican collections include objects from Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Costa Rica. The American Section's ethnographic collections from Mesoamerica include strong collections of masks, ceramics, and textiles from Guatemala , and very small collections from Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. In Guatemala, Robert Burkitt acquired ethnographic ceramics, textiles, tools, hammocks, fans and gourds from

15308-409: The constructions of his predecessors, he erected a terrace of bricks, some 12 m high, covering a space of about 32,000 m . Near the northwestern edge, towards the western corner, he built a ziggurat of three stages of dry brick, faced with kiln-fired bricks laid in bitumen. On the summit stood, as at Ur and Eridu, a small chamber, the special shrine or abode of the god. Access to the stages of

15480-421: The contemporary cities of Caracol and Piedras Negras . The gallery also displays many Aztecan, Oaxacan, and Teotihuacano artifacts. On November 16, 2019, the Penn Museum launched a new exhibit entitled "The Mexico and Central America Gallery." This gallery features art and artifacts from eight Central American countries, including Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Specifically, one object of importance that

15652-453: The dynasties. Drehem or ancient Puzrish-Dagan , sometimes called a suburb of Nippur, is the best-known city of the so-called redistribution centers of the Ur III period . It is located some ten kilometers south of Nippur. Witnessed by thousands of cuneiform tablets, livestock (cattle, sheep, and goats) of the state was centralized at Drehem and redistributed to the temples, its officials and

15824-543: The dynasty of Ur, there were a lot of political and social issues associated with the temple. The excavations that led to the discovery of the remains of the temple of Nippur were conducted by Donald McCown in 1952. The temple was then excavated between 1954 and 1958, reaching the Early Dynastic II period level. In 1960-1961 the Early Dynastic I (with a large building on same plan) and then Jemdat Nasr and Uruk Period (private houses) levels were reached. Finds included

15996-474: The earlier explorers Niffer , divided into two main parts by the dry bed of the old Shatt-en-Nil (Arakhat). The highest point of these ruins, a conical hill rising about 30 m above the level of the surrounding plain, northeast of the canal bed, is called by the Arabs Bint el-Amiror "prince's daughter". The site reached a maximum extent of 130 hectares, this occurring in the Ur III period and again in

16168-473: The early 20th century, many archaeologists who studied past societies with direct continuing links to existing ones (such as those of Native Americans , Siberians , Mesoamericans etc.) followed the direct historical approach , compared the continuity between the past and contemporary ethnic and cultural groups. In the 1960s, an archaeological movement largely led by American archaeologists like Lewis Binford and Kent Flannery arose that rebelled against

16340-623: The edges of the ancient terrace, the courts of the temple were filled with houses and streets, and the ziggurat itself was curiously built over in a cruciform shape, and converted into an acropolis for the fortress. This fortress was occupied and further built upon until the close of the Parthian period, about 250 AD; but under the succeeding rule of the Sassanids it in its turn fell into decay. Nippur remained inhabited in Islamic times, and

16512-643: The empirical evidence that existed for the understanding of the past, encapsulated in the motto of the 18th century antiquary, Sir Richard Colt Hoare : "We speak from facts, not theory". Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment period in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. In Imperial China during the Song dynasty (960–1279), figures such as Ouyang Xiu and Zhao Mingcheng established

16684-644: The established cultural-history archaeology. They proposed a "New Archaeology", which would be more "scientific" and "anthropological", with hypothesis testing and the scientific method very important parts of what became known as processual archaeology . In the 1980s, a new postmodern movement arose led by the British archaeologists Michael Shanks , Christopher Tilley , Daniel Miller , and Ian Hodder , which has become known as post-processual archaeology . It questioned processualism's appeals to scientific positivism and impartiality, and emphasized

16856-633: The evolutionary trends in human artifacts, was of enormous significance for the accurate dating of the objects. His most important methodological innovation was his insistence that all artifacts, not just beautiful or unique ones, be collected and catalogued. William Flinders Petrie is another man who may legitimately be called the Father of Archaeology. His painstaking recording and study of artifacts, both in Egypt and later in Palestine , laid down many of

17028-437: The extant building include a dramatic rotunda , multiple courtyards and gardens, a fountain, reflecting pool, glass mosaics, iron gates, and stone statuary. The Penn Museum was designed by a team of Philadelphia architects, all of whom taught on the faculty of the university: Wilson Eyre , Cope & Stewardson and Frank Miles Day . The first phase was completed in 1899 and housed the discoveries from an expedition sponsored by

17200-538: The father of the discipline of art history . The father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington (1754–1810). He undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798, funded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. Cunnington made meticulous recordings of Neolithic and Bronze Age barrows , and the terms he used to categorize and describe them are still used by archaeologists today. Future U.S. President Thomas Jefferson also did his own excavations in 1784 using

17372-906: The field of Maya Studies. The museum's South American collections are as varied as the regions from which they come – the arid coast of Peru, the Andean Highlands, and the tropical lowlands of the Amazon Basin. The collections include anthropological materials from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela. The American Section's ethnographic holdings from South America are strongest in materials from Bolivia, Brazil, Guyana, and Peru. The Aymara , Quechua , and Yuracaré of Bolivia are represented in early collections acquired by Max Uhle and William Curtis Farabee . More than thirty indigenous tribes from Brazil are represented in ethnographic collections acquired by Farabee and Vincenzo M. Petrullo in

17544-765: The fifteenth century, and the general accuracy of his records entitles him to be called the founding father of modern classical archeology." He traveled throughout Greece and all around the Eastern Mediterranean, to record his findings on ancient buildings, statues and inscriptions, including archaeological remains still unknown to his time: the Parthenon , Delphi , the Egyptian pyramids , the hieroglyphics . He noted down his archaeological discoveries in his diary, Commentaria (in six volumes). Flavio Biondo , an Italian Renaissance humanist historian, created

17716-475: The first curators at the Penn Museum, contributed many items from Japan and India including a set of Kalighat paintings from India that represent almost the entire Hindu pantheon. The Asian Gallery is mounted in Harrison Rotunda, which measures ninety feet across and ninety feet from the floor. Since its completion in 1915, this gallery has showcased the Chinese collection. One of the central figures

17888-528: The first history books of India. One of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey (1626–1697) was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other field monuments in southern England. He was also ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings. He attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture, costume, and shield-shapes. Excavations were also carried out by

18060-506: The foundation deposits of the temples of Šamaš the sun god, the warrior goddess Anunitu (both located in Sippar ), and the sanctuary that Naram-Sin built to the moon god, located in Harran , but he also had them restored to their former glory. He was also the first to date an archaeological artifact in his attempt to date Naram-Sin's temple during his search for it. Even though his estimate

18232-481: The house of Murashu capitalized on the enterprise of renting substantial plots of farmland having been awarded to occupying Persian governors, nobility, soldiery, probably at discounted rates, whose owners were most likely satisfied with a moderate return. The business would then subdivide these into smaller plots for cultivation by indigenous farmers and recent foreign settlers for a lucrative fee. The house of Murashu leased land, subdivided it, then subleased or rented out

18404-485: The human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies around the world. Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. Derived from Greek, the term archaeology means "the study of ancient history". The discipline involves surveying , excavation , and eventually analysis of data collected, to learn more about

18576-475: The ideas behind modern archaeological recording; he remarked that "I believe the true line of research lies in the noting and comparison of the smallest details." Petrie developed the system of dating layers based on pottery and ceramic findings , which revolutionized the chronological basis of Egyptology . Petrie was the first to scientifically investigate the Great Pyramid in Egypt during the 1880s. He

18748-472: The importance of a more self-critical theoretical reflexivity . However, this approach has been criticized by processualists as lacking scientific rigor, and the validity of both processualism and post-processualism is still under debate. Meanwhile, another theory, known as historical processualism , has emerged seeking to incorporate a focus on process and post-processual archaeology's emphasis of reflexivity and history. Archaeological theory now borrows from

18920-525: The inscriptions of the kings of various dynasties of Ur and Isin . It seems to have suffered severely in some manner at or about the time the Elamites invaded, as shown by broken fragments of statuary, votive vases, and the like, from that period. Rim-Sin I , the king of Larsa , styles himself "shepherd of the land of Nippur". With the establishment of the Babylonian empire, under Hammurabi , early in

19092-923: The interwar years, Edgar B. Howard excavated some of the oldest items in the collection from the American Southwest . His excavations in 1932 and 1933 near Clovis, New Mexico , are significant in identifying the Clovis Point , and in proving the co-existence of humans and extinct animals such as the bison and mammoth . The North American ethnographic holdings number approximately 40,000 heritage items attributed to approximately 200 Indigenous nations and organized within eleven geographic regions (Arctic, Sub-Arctic, Northwest Coast, Plateau, California, Great Basin, Southwest, Great Plains, Southeast and Northeast). The strongest collections are those systematically created via ethnographic collecting expeditions in Alaska,

19264-446: The late 19th century and early 20th century, while others were purchased or donated by reputable collectors. In 1896, Frank Hamilton Cushing excavated wolf, deer and human masquettes that he found in the waters off of Key Marco, Florida. The masquettes were unfortunately distorted upon removal from the water, but they and the numerous tools and practical items had an unusually high level of preservation due to their underwater location. In

19436-446: The library and libraries worldwide. Within twenty years the library's collection more than doubled its capacity from nearly 20,000 volumes in 1945 to over 46,000 volumes in 1965, and by 1971 the breadth of the collection was well over 50,000 volumes increasing by 14,000 volumes annually. The range of disciplines featured in the collection is specific to the museum itself and incorporates all divisions of anthropology and archaeology. There

19608-645: The library holdings was the Furness Building until they were transferred to the museum building in 1898. They were relocated to the Elkins Library up until 1971 upon when they were moved to their final home in the university extension of the museum. Prior to its move in 1971 the collection was built upon the support of museum curators contributing their personal monographs, negotiations with affiliate institutions here and abroad as well as endowments by philanthropic individuals. The library collection

19780-445: The library include desktop and laptop computers. Other services encompass a range of printing and scanning utilities as well as accommodating seating for 154 individuals. The library supports two quiet rooms for patron study, a space to examine photographs, a room designed specifically for microform research, and a collection of audio and video materials. Penn Museum's extensive collections fall into three main divisions: archaeology ,

19952-469: The line of Naram-Sin's walls. The restoration of the general features of the temple of this, and the immediately succeeding periods, has been greatly facilitated by the discovery of a sketch map on a fragment of a clay tablet . This sketch map represents a quarter of the city to the east of the Shatt-en-Nil canal. This quarter was enclosed within its own walls, a city within a city, forming an irregular square, with sides roughly 820 m long, separated from

20124-444: The lives and interests of the populace. Writings that were produced by people more representative of the general population were unlikely to find their way into libraries and be preserved there for posterity. Thus, written records tend to reflect the biases, assumptions, cultural values and possibly deceptions of a limited range of individuals, usually a small fraction of the larger population. Hence, written records cannot be trusted as

20296-671: The locations of monumental sites from the local populace, and excavating only the plainly visible features there. Gordon Willey pioneered the technique of regional settlement pattern survey in 1949 in the Viru Valley of coastal Peru , and survey of all levels became prominent with the rise of processual archaeology some years later. Survey work has many benefits if performed as a preliminary exercise to, or even in place of, excavation. It requires relatively little time and expense, because it does not require processing large volumes of soil to search out artifacts. (Nevertheless, surveying

20468-538: The middle of the 7th century BC, we find Ekur restored with a splendour greater than ever before, the ziggurat of that period being 58 by 39 m. After the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire Ekur appears to have gradually fallen into decay, until finally, in the Seleucid period, the ancient temple was turned into a fortress ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : Νιππούρ , Nippoúr ). Huge walls were erected at

20640-724: The most effective way to see beneath the ground. Magnetometers detect minute deviations in the Earth's magnetic field caused by iron artifacts, kilns , some types of stone structures , and even ditches and middens. Devices that measure the electrical resistivity of the soil are also widely used. Archaeological features whose electrical resistivity contrasts with that of surrounding soils can be detected and mapped. Some archaeological features (such as those composed of stone or brick) have higher resistivity than typical soils, while others (such as organic deposits or unfired clay) tend to have lower resistivity. Although some archaeologists consider

20812-668: The museum hosts the Graduate Group in the Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World . On November 19, 2008, the Penn Museum's administration terminated eighteen Research Specialist positions in archaeological and anthropological research in the Mediterranean world, the Middle East, and Americas sections, effective May 31, 2009. The scientific research center MASCA (Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology)

20984-454: The northeast wall and one entrance on the southwest wall. Floors were paved with baked-brick square bricks with size of 37 cm. 2 substructures built beneath the paved floor with 1.3 m elevation. Walls that the thickness varied from 3.35 to 3.95 m were constructed with straw-tempered unbaked bricks and mud mortar. There was no indication for windows walls above floor level were not preserved but windows were required for additional lighting in

21156-443: The now-destroyed archaeology and is used in describing and interpreting the site. Once artifacts and structures have been excavated, or collected from surface surveys, it is necessary to properly study them. This process is known as post-excavation analysis , and is usually the most time-consuming part of an archaeological investigation. It is not uncommon for final excavation reports for major sites to take years to be published. At

21328-529: The original research objectives of the archaeologists. It is then considered good practice for the information to be published so that it is available to other archaeologists and historians, although this is sometimes neglected. Before actually starting to dig in a location, remote sensing can be used to look where sites are located within a large area or provide more information about sites or regions. There are two types of remote sensing instruments—passive and active. Passive instruments detect natural energy that

21500-595: The other quarters, and from the country to the north and east, by canals on all sides, with broad quays along the walls. A smaller canal divided this quarter of the city itself into two parts. In the south-eastern part, in the middle of its southeast side, stood the temple, while in the northwest part, along the Shatt-en-Nil, two great storehouses are indicated. The temple proper, according to this plan, consisted of an outer and inner court, each covering approximately 8 acres (32,000 m ), surrounded by double walls, with

21672-655: The palace of the Pharaoh Merenptah . These were excavated by a museum expedition to Egypt in 1915. In the late 1970s Karl-Theodor Zauzich (attendant of the Egyptian section) discovered 3 missing fragments of the Insinger Papyrus in the museum's collections. The museum's most important collection is arguably that of the Royal Tombs of Ur , which The University of Pennsylvania co–excavated with

21844-682: The past. In broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, and has since become a discipline practiced around the world. Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Since its early development, various specific sub-disciplines of archaeology have developed, including maritime archaeology , feminist archaeology , and archaeoastronomy , and numerous different scientific techniques have been developed to aid archaeological investigation. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology ,

22016-698: The people who produced them, monetary value to collectors, or strong aesthetic appeal. Many people identify archaeology with the recovery of such aesthetic, religious, political, or economic treasures rather than with the reconstruction of past societies. This view is often espoused in works of popular fiction, such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Mummy, and King Solomon's Mines. When unrealistic subjects are treated more seriously, accusations of pseudoscience are invariably levelled at their proponents (see Pseudoarchaeology ) . However, these endeavours, real and fictional, are not representative of modern archaeology. There

22188-410: The permanent galleries, but may be used for research and temporary exhibits. None of the items in the physical anthropology collections are on display, but they are used for research. The Penn Museum has one of the largest collections of African ethnographic and archaeological objects in the country. Mostly obtained from 1891 to 1937, the collection contains objects from all regions of Africa, but with

22360-562: The possession of the famous Ekur temple of Enlil. Ninurta , son of Enlil, also had his main cult center, the E-shumesha temple, in the city-state. According to the Tummal Chronicle , Enmebaragesi , an early ruler of Kish , was the first to build up this temple. His influence over Nippur has also been detected archaeologically. The Chronicle lists successive early Sumerian rulers who kept up intermittent ceremonies at

22532-550: The precise locations of objects and features, known as their provenance or provenience, be recorded. This always involves determining their horizontal locations, and sometimes vertical position as well (also see Primary Laws of Archaeology ). Likewise, their association , or relationship with nearby objects and features , needs to be recorded for later analysis. This allows the archaeologist to deduce which artifacts and features were likely used together and which may be from different phases of activity. For example, excavation of

22704-473: The process of being heavily looted. Sargonic period tablets found there suggest the ancient name of that site was as Maškan-Ili-Akkade. The excavation is now in the process of being published. Preliminary efforts to restart work at Nippur began in 2018 under McGuire Gibson. Excavation work at Nippur began in April 2019 under Abbas Alizadeh . Initial focus at Nippur was on a major Parthian period building and

22876-530: The production of ceramics in Guatemala in the 1960s and 1970s, and collected ceramics and textiles from the region. The Section houses a large collection of Guatemalan masks amassed by James Moore in the 1960s. The Penn Museum conducted an excavation of the Mayan city of Tikal , Guatemala from 1956 to 1970. Many important artifacts from this excavation are on view in the museum, along with several stelae from

23048-624: The royal palaces of Sumer . The temples of nearby Nippur were the main destinations of the livestock. The city was founded by Shulgi , king of Ur . Some of its cuneiform archives are at the Royal Ontario Museum , Toronto. The nearby site of Dlehim (Dulaihim, Delehem, Dlehem, Dlihim) is about 40 hectares in area, separated in eastern and western sections by an ancient 50 meter wide canal bed, and currently described as being 2.5 meters in height. It lies about 21 kilometers south of Nippur and about ten kilometers south of Drehem. The site

23220-562: The seat of an Assyrian Church of the East Christian bishopric until the late 900s, when the bishopric was transferred to the city of Nil , further northwest. Nippur itself may have remained occupied even later, since ceramics found among the ruins display underglaze sgraffiato drawings, which were not used much prior to the end of the 10th century. By the time of Yaqut al-Hamawi in the early 1200s, Nippur had been definitively abandoned, although Yaqut still recognized its ruins as

23392-515: The site of a famous place. On the upper surface of these mounds was found a considerable Jewish town, dating from about the beginning of the Arabic period onward to the 10th century AD, in the houses of which were large numbers of Aramaic incantation bowls . Jewish names, appearing in the Persian documents discovered at Nippur, show, however, that Jewish settlement at that city dates in fact from

23564-408: The site. Four bricks (three re-used for a later drain and one in a temple area) of Ur III ruler Amar-Sin were found at the site. Extended traces of Ur III period buildings including an oval temple with central terrace were detected by drone flights and surface surveys. The presence of modern military berms were also noted. The Qadis survey, through imagery and sounding, determined that the site had

23736-410: The smaller parcels, thereby simply acting as an intermediary. It thereby profited both from the collected rents and percentage of amassed credit reflective of that year's future crop harvests after supplying needed farming implements, means of irrigation, and paying taxes. In 423/422 BC, the house of Murashu took in "about 20,000 kg or 20,000 shekels of silver". "The activities of the house of Murashu had

23908-475: The sub-discipline of historical archaeology . For many literate cultures, such as Ancient Greece and Mesopotamia , their surviving records are often incomplete and biased to some extent. In many societies, literacy was restricted to the elite classes, such as the clergy , or the bureaucracy of court or temple. The literacy of aristocrats has sometimes been restricted to deeds and contracts. The interests and world-view of elites are often quite different from

24080-473: The temple mound. A true arch , one of the world's earliest examples, was also found. In the Parthian layer a box containing fragments of votive axes made of glass from the Kassite period were found. Several late Kassite rulers are represented including Kurigalzu II . Nippur was excavated for 19 seasons between 1948 and 1990 by a team from the Oriental Institute of Chicago, joined at times by

24252-462: The temple's religious activities. On the temple's exterior, the excavators found that it was characterised by niches that supported the religious activities at the temple. The niches had special tablets inscipted with literature regarding the teachings at the temple. The Inanna temple had significant political influence in the Ur dynasty. It was built, supported by Sulgi and many subsequent kings, using it as

24424-574: The temple: Aga of Kish , son of Enmebaragesi; Mesannepada of Ur ; his son Meskiang-nunna; Gilgamesh of Uruk ; his son Ur-Nungal ; Nanni of Ur and his son Meskiang-nanna. It also indicates that the practice was revived in the Ur III period by Ur-Nammu of Ur, and continued until Ibbi-Sin appointed Enmegalana high priest in Uruk (c. 1950 BC). Inscriptions of Lugal-Zage-Si and Lugal-kigub-nidudu, kings of Uruk and Ur respectively, and of other early rulers, on door-sockets and stone vases, show

24596-505: The time also contributed to the North American collections. As a professor and chair of the anthropology department at the University of Pennsylvania , Frank Gouldsmith Speck was one of the most prolific donors to the museum's Sub-Arctic ethnology collections. In addition, Speck was an early adopter of audio recording technology with which he gathered examples of Creek and Yuchi songs. Individual donations significantly contribute to

24768-446: The time, Dr. Richard Hodges later offered positions as "Associate Curators" or "Research Project Managers" to eleven of the eighteen individuals affected. The museum affirmed its commitment to research, citing more than fifty active research projects spanning five continents that were engaging nearly 200 Museum-affiliated scholars—more than at any other archaeological and anthropological institute or museum in North America could claim at

24940-403: The time. The museum is housed in an Arts and Crafts and Eclectic style building that is one of the landmarks of the University of Pennsylvania campus. The existing original building (onto which have been grafted several later additions) is actually only approximately one-third of an ambitious design that would have created one of the largest museum buildings in the United States. Features of

25112-559: The tradition of Chinese epigraphy by investigating, preserving, and analyzing ancient Chinese bronze inscriptions from the Shang and Zhou periods. In his book published in 1088, Shen Kuo criticized contemporary Chinese scholars for attributing ancient bronze vessels as creations of famous sages rather than artisan commoners, and for attempting to revive them for ritual use without discerning their original functionality and purpose of manufacture. Such antiquarian pursuits waned after

25284-569: The university to the ancient site of Nippur . The rotunda, which houses the Harrison Auditorium, was completed in 1915. Charles Klauder designed the Coxe Memorial Wing, which opened in 1926 to house the museum's Egyptian collection. The Sharpe Wing was completed in 1929. The Coxe Memorial Egyptian Wing was added to the museum in 1924 through a bequest by former museum board president Eckley Coxe. The administrative wing

25456-576: The use of metal detectors to be tantamount to treasure hunting, others deem them an effective tool in archaeological surveying. Examples of formal archaeological use of metal detectors include musketball distribution analysis on English Civil War battlefields, metal distribution analysis prior to excavation of a 19th-century ship wreck, and service cable location during evaluation. Metal detectorists have also contributed to archaeology where they have made detailed records of their results and refrained from raising artifacts from their archaeological context. In

25628-472: The usual term for one major branch of antiquarian activity. "Archaeology", from 1607 onward, initially meant what we would call "ancient history" generally, with the narrower modern sense first seen in 1837. However, it was Jacob Spon who, in 1685, offered one of the earliest definitions of "archaeologia" to describe the study of antiquities in which he was engaged, in the preface of a collection of transcriptions of Roman inscriptions which he had gleaned over

25800-411: The vast majority of the Chinese collection was purchased or donated through dealers in North America. Nevertheless, it includes a significant number of high quality works of antiquity, such as the over 290 porcelain vases and sculptures collected by banking magistrate, J.P. Morgan . The Penn Museum acquired another important Asian collection from amateur collectors William and Isabel Ingram Mayer who made

25972-423: The veneration in which the ancient shrine was then held, and the importance attached to its possession, as giving a certain stamp of legitimacy. On their votive offerings, some of these rulers designate themselves as ensis , or governors. Late in the 3rd millennium BC, Nippur was conquered and occupied by the rulers of Akkad , or Agade, and numerous votive objects of Sargon , Rimush , and Naram-Sin testify to

26144-554: The veneration in which they also held this sanctuary. Naram-Sin rebuilt both the Ekur temple and the 17.5 meter wide city walls. One of the few instances of Nippur being recorded as having its own ruler comes from a tablet depicting a revolt of several Mesopotamian cities against Naram-Sin, including Nippur under Amar-enlila . The tablet goes on to relate that Naram-Sin defeated these rebel cities in nine battles, and brought them back under his control. The Weidner tablet (ABC 19) suggests that

26316-500: The world. Today the museum's three floors of gallery space feature materials from the ancient Mediterranean World, Egypt, the Near East, Mesopotamia, East Asia, and Mesoamerica, as well as artifacts from the indigenous peoples of Africa and Native America. Since 1958, the Penn Museum has published Expedition magazine. ( ISSN   0014-4738 ) The excavations and collections of the museum provide resources for student research and

26488-585: The world. The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology was founded in 1887 following a successful archaeological expedition to the ancient site of Nippur in modern-day Iraq (then part of the Ottoman Empire ). Provost William Pepper persuaded the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania to erect a fireproof building to house artifacts from the excavation. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, North American and European museums regularly sponsored such excavations throughout

26660-412: The years of his travels, entitled Miscellanea eruditae antiquitatis. Twelfth-century Indian scholar Kalhana 's writings involved recording of local traditions, examining manuscripts, inscriptions, coins and architectures, which is described as one of the earliest traces of archaeology. One of his notable work is called Rajatarangini which was completed in c.  1150 and is described as one of

26832-407: The ziggurat in a cruciform shape with square-like large bricks, in which pieces of pottery are used to fasten the clay together. They extend 2.4 meters below the ziggurat foundation and 12 meters away, connected to the lowest stage of the ziggurat, which protects the ziggurat foundation from rain. The Temple of Enlil situated northeast of the ziggurat was excavated. Topography of the Temple of Enlil

27004-409: The ziggurat, from the court beneath, was by an inclined plane on the south-east side. To the north-east of the ziggurat stood, apparently, the House of Bel, and in the courts below the ziggurat stood various other buildings, shrines, treasure chambers, and the like. The whole structure was oriented with the corners toward the cardinal points of the compass. Ur-Nammu also rebuilt the walls of the city on

27176-525: Was a restlessly itinerant Italian humanist and antiquarian who came from a prominent family of merchants in Ancona , a maritime republic on the Adriatic . He was called by his contemporaries pater antiquitatis ('father of antiquity') and today "father of classical archaeology": "Cyriac of Ancona was the most enterprising and prolific recorder of Greek and Roman antiquities, particularly inscriptions, in

27348-491: Was acquired. This library contained an estimated 4,098 volumes of which the ethnology and linguistics of the American Indigenous peoples were the primary disciplines. This library also consists of a manuscript collection of nearly two hundred volumes relevant to the study of autochthonous Central American languages; most of which are either severely endangered or have completely disappeared. The original location of

27520-541: Was added in 1929. The Academic Wing, which provided laboratories for the Anthropology department and classrooms was opened in 1971. The most recent major addition was made in 2002, with the addition of the Mainwaring (Collections Storage) Wing. The Museum Library was established in 1900 when the personal library of University of Pennsylvania professor of American archaeology and linguistics Daniel Garrison Brinton

27692-496: Was also closed, although the MASCA scientists moved to other Sections within the museum. The decision elicited local and world-wide criticism among concerned scholars, who felt that it departed from the Penn Museum's historic mission as a research institution. Museum administrators attributed this measure to the 2008 financial crisis and the deep budget cuts that had resulted at the University of Pennsylvania. The museum's director at

27864-421: Was also responsible for mentoring and training a whole generation of Egyptologists, including Howard Carter who went on to achieve fame with the discovery of the tomb of 14th-century BC pharaoh Tutankhamun . The first stratigraphic excavation to reach wide popularity with public was that of Hissarlik , on the site of ancient Troy , carried out by Heinrich Schliemann , Frank Calvert and Wilhelm Dörpfeld in

28036-423: Was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith , James Hutton and Charles Lyell . The systematic application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites. In the third and fourth decades of the 19th century, archaeologists like Jacques Boucher de Perthes and Christian Jürgensen Thomsen began to put

28208-421: Was developed as a result of increasing commercial development. The purpose of archaeology is to learn more about past societies and the development of the human race . Over 99% of the development of humanity has occurred within prehistoric cultures, who did not make use of writing , thereby no written records exist for study purposes. Without such written sources, the only way to understand prehistoric societies

28380-504: Was inaccurate by about 1,500 years, it was still a very good one considering the lack of accurate dating technology at the time. The science of archaeology (from Greek ἀρχαιολογία , archaiologia from ἀρχαῖος , arkhaios , "ancient" and -λογία , -logia , " -logy ") grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism . Antiquarians studied history with particular attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts, as well as historical sites. Antiquarianism focused on

28552-442: Was maintained by a staff comprising a single part-time librarian until 1942 when Cynthia Griffin became the first full-time librarian. It was under Griffin that the collection and library witnessed many developments. Prior to her arrival use of the library had been limited to employees of the museum and university professor; however, Griffin extended the accessibility to include students. She also augmented communication networks between

28724-594: Was one of a number of rescue excavation in response to the digging of the Main Drain Canal project. The site showed outlines of buildings and many artifacts on the surface. Remains were of the Isin-Larsa period and included clay sealings, cylinder seals, and a number of cuneiform tablets, mainly legal documents. The most prominent of the latter were 29 tablets found in a clay jar which contained year names of four rulers of Larsa, Abi-Sare, Sumu-el, Nur-Adad, and Sin-Iddinam (1785 BC to 1778 BC). The same team revisted

28896-406: Was partially abandoned due to economic crisis in 1739 B.C. and fully vacated in 1720 B.C. It served as a small community with residential buildings and some minor public infrastructures at that time. TA is full of small size, irregular buildings which create a community as a whole. Houses found in TA is generally one-storey which is a common feature at that period of time. Only three of the houses have

29068-515: Was retaken by Abī-ešuḫ by his 5th year, after he damned the Tigris river. Under the succeeding Kassite dynasty, shortly after the middle of the 2nd millennium, Ekur was restored once more to its former splendor, several monarchs of that dynasty built upon and adorned it, and thousands of inscriptions, dating from the time of those rulers, have been discovered in its archives. A new temple within Ekur,

29240-481: Was visited by John Punnett Peters in 1889 and (believing it was Drehem) by Edgar James Banks in 1903. It was first examined (along with Drehem) in 1925 by Raymond P. Dougherty on behalf of the American Schools of Oriental Research. The mound at the time rose to 25 feet above the plain and was fairly unremarkable with some baked bricks and flint saw-blades. In modern times it was surveyed by H. Fujii of

29412-467: Was well documented by Dr. Williams who also collected on behalf of the Smithsonian. On November 16, 2019, the Penn Museum debuted a newly renovated African gallery alongside many other new galleries and rooms. Penn professor of Sociology and Africana Studies, Dr. Tufuku Zuberi, was appointed as the head curator for the new Africa exhibit, and approached his former student Breanna Moore about designing

29584-427: Was yielded. By stratigraphic excavation, the chronological sequence of the temple could be constructed. The temple dated to Ur III period was constructed by Urnammu, restored and rebuilt by kings ruled Nippur for centuries. As the Temple of Enlil was rebuilt after Ur III, the architectural information provided was based on remains from the Ur III period. The rectangular temple measured about 45×21 m with one entrance on

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