Philadelphia archaeology museum discovers 1930s artifact in its store room

WilliamBoyd8

Active member
From AP (Associated Press):

An archaeology museum in Philadelphia has made an extraordinary find in its own storage rooms.

The Penn Museum, part of the University of Pennsylvania, announced Tuesday that it had rediscovered a 6,500-year-old human skeleton believed to have been a man at least 50 who stood 5 feet, 9 inches (1.75 meters) tall. The remains were originally excavated from southern Iraq around 1930.

Museum officials said the complete human skeleton had been stored in a coffin-like box but with no trace of identifying documentation
No doubt Top Men are working on it.

:)
 

Pale Horse

Moderator
Staff member
WilliamBoyd8 said:
From AP (Associated Press):


No doubt Top Men are working on it.

:)

It's Jonah. And thank goodness: now that the ISIS blew apart his tomb. Little did they know that a grave robber stole it in the 30's and all that they 'destroyed' was a tourist attaction.
 

Attila the Professor

Moderator
Staff member
Here's another version of the piece, from Philadelphia Magazine:

The Penn Museum recently announced it has re-discovered a skeleton in its own archives. The skeleton, which had been in a ?coffin-like? box in the basement of the museum for 85 years, is thought to be about 6,500 years old.

The museum knew it had a ?mystery? skeleton in the basement for years now, but it had lost the identifying information on it. It simply sat there, unidentified and untouched. It wasn?t until the museum began a project to digitize records from archaeological expeditions to Ur (what is now southern Iraq) in the ?20s and ?30s that it was able to identify the skeleton.after an expedition was marked as missing in 1990. But William Hafford, who led the digitization effort, and Janet Monge (recently named Best of Philly), the curator of the physical anthropology section of the museum, were able to connect this record of a skeleton.

A visual inspection made by Penn Museum archeologists revealed the skeleton was that of a man, who lived to about 50 and was "well-muscled." The museum has about 2,000 complete human skeletons in its collection.

And here's a link to the rest of the Associated Press piece William quoted from above.

The Penn Museum is truly excellent, by the way. I heartily recommend it if any of you are ever in Philadelphia. Some very nice Buddhist pieces, and better African galleries than many museums. The rotating, photography-oriented displays on archaeological history are also a nice feature. And if you make it there, consider a stroll down to Capogiro for some of the best gelato I've ever had. Nut and herb flavors are always a good call.
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
Last year the Penn Museum hosted a Last Crusade remote watch party with a resident expert:
Katy Blanchard is the Fowler/Van Santvoord Keeper of the Near Eastern Collections at the Penn Museum. She studied Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at Bryn Mawr College before completing her master’s thesis, on Mussolini’s use of Augustan monuments for Fascist propaganda, at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. She has worked as a field archaeologist for over 20 years, digging at archaeological sites in Italy, Syria, and Israel. In 2015 she traveled with the Ark of the Covenant from Fort Worth to Edmonton as part of an Indiana Jones exhibit sponsored by Lucas Films. She was serenaded by a mariachi band at the border to Canada when the agents got excited about the contents of the truck. In spite of all this, she has never dressed as Indiana Jones—however she did dress as Willie Scott (from Temple of Doom) as part of an archaeology fashion show in college.
 
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