Expedition Magazine: FALL/WINTER 2021 | VOL. 63, NO. 3

FALL/WINTER 2021 | VOL. 63, NO. 3

THE MAGAZINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY

RETURN TO THE FIELD: Greece, Italy, and Turkey LOCATING A VENETIAN MOLE • WHAT CAN A DOOR SOCKET TELL US?

“Stepping into an outfit can be one of the most powerful acts of self-expression.” —CNN STYLE

Buddhist Crown, 16th century CE, Nepal, A1285

2,500 years of style.

250 remarkable objects.

Timeless stories connecting us through the ages.

ON VIEW NOW MEMBERS SEE IT FREE

WWW.PENN.MUSEUM/STORIESWEWEAR #STORIESWEWEAR

Contents

14

Critical Conversations: Reimagining the 21st-Century Museum

16

Pamela Hearne Jardine: An Appreciation

FALL/WINTER 2021 | VOLUME 63, NUMBER 3

By Jeremy A. Sabloff

18

Deinstalling a Gallery

By Katy Blanchard

12

Return to the Field Investigating Roman Foods at Lechaion Harbor, Greece

By Chantel White

Repairing Damage Inflicted by the Persians 2,500 Years Ago

By C. Brian Rose

Mapping the Urban Plan of Ancient Motya

By Jason T. Herrmann and Jackson Clark

26

46

Underwater Archaeological Treasures in Modon Bay

DEPARTMENTS 2 From the Publisher 3 From the Williams Director 46 In the Labs 48 Academic Engagement 50 Learning and Community Engagement 52 Artifact Perspectives 54 Membership Matters 56 Alumni Note 58 Welcome News

By Patrice Foutakis

38

What Can a Door Socket Tell Us?

PENN MUSEUM 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6324 Tel: 215.898.4000 | www.penn.museum

By Sajjad Alibaigi, Alireza Moradi-Bisotuni, and Nourollah Karimi

The Penn Museum respectfully acknowledges that it is situated on Lenapehoking, the ancestral and spiritual homeland of the Unami Lenape.

Hours Tuesday–Sunday: 10:00 am–5:00 pm.

Closed Mondays and major holidays.

ON THE COVER: Penn Anthropology and Classical Studies undergraduate Jackson Clark recording GPS points on Motya’s fortification wall overlooking the Necropolis as part of fieldwork with the Center for the Analysis for Archaeological Materials (CAAM). The waters of the Marsala Stagnone can be seen in the middle distance with the islands of Marettimo and Favignana in the background.

Guidelines for Visiting The Museum prioritizes a safe and enjoyable experience for all. Learn more about our guidelines for visiting, including booking timed tickets, at www.penn.museum/plan-your-visit.

Admission Penn Museum members: Free; PennCard holders (Penn faculty, staff, and students): Free; Active US military personnel with ID: Free; K-12 teachers with school ID: Free Adults: $18.00; Seniors $16.00; Children (6-17) and students with ID: $13.00; Children 5 and under: Free.

Museum Library Call 215.898.4021 for information.

FALL/WINTER 2021

1

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Beyond the Labs

I

n September 2014, we opened the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM), housed in a renovated and well-equipped suite of teaching labs, to train Penn students in archaeological science disciplines used in the field. As readers will see many times in this issue, students in CAAM are now applying research methods learned in CAAM to understand local as well as international historic sites, including undergraduates Jackson Clark (page 22) and Ashley Ray (page 46).

A month later, in October 2014, with lead funding from GRoW@Annenberg we officially launched a partnership program with the School District of Philadelphia, Unpacking the Past, offering a multi-stage program for free to students and teachers in every seventh-grade class in the District. Seven years on, Unpacking the Past, offers tracks in ancient Rome, Mesopotamia, and China as well as its original ancient Egypt track. Teachers have returned with their new classes year after year. The program serves on average 93 schools per year, and has served over 51,000 individual students—for free. This deep impact inspired Penn President Amy Gutmann to announce a Presidential Challenge Match to endow the program earlier this fall (see page 58).

Also in this issue, we are pleased to share new research and its conclusions by Patrice Foutakis in the Modon Bay, off the coast of Greece, and at Quwakh [insert straight line over a] Tapeh by Sajjad Alibaigi, Alireza Moradi-Bisotuni, and Nourollah Karimi, following earlier Penn Museum field work at those sites in the 1960s and the 1930s respectively, and how Brian Rose and his team at Gordion, Turkey, did their best to repair the damage to the site caused by the Persians 2,500 years ago.

GUEST EDITOR

Alisha Adams

ARCHIVES AND IMAGE EDITOR

Alessandro Pezzati GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Hanna Manninen COPY EDITOR

Page Selinsky, Ph.D. PUBLISHER

Amanda Mitchell-Boyask ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

Emily Holtzheimer

ACADEMIC ADVISORY BOARD

Marie-Claude Boileau, Ph.D. Richard Leventhal, Ph.D. Simon Martin, Ph.D. Janet Monge, Ph.D. Kathleen Morrison, Ph.D. Lauren Ristvet, Ph.D. C. Brian Rose, Ph.D. Page Selinsky, Ph.D. Stephen J. Tinney, Ph.D. Jennifer Houser Wegner, Ph.D. Lucy Fowler Williams, Ph.D. CONTRIBUTORS

Jessica Bicknell Marie-Claude Boileau, Ph.D. Kris Forrest Tina Jones Kevin Schott Tena Thomason Jo Tiongson-Perez Alessandro Pezzati Anne Tiballi PHOTOGRAPHY

Francine Sarin Jennifer Chiappardi (unless noted otherwise) INSTITUTIONAL OUTREACH MANAGER

Thomas Delfi

AMANDA MITCHELL-BOYASK PUBLISHER

2

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

© The Penn Museum, 2021 Expedition® (ISSN 0014-4738) is published three times a year by the Penn Museum. Editorial inquiries should be addressed to expedition@pennmuseum. org. Inquiries regarding delivery of Expedition should be directed to membership@pennmuseum.org.

Unless otherwise noted, all images are courtesy of the Penn Museum.

FROM THE WILLIAMS DIRECTOR

Connecting with Our Neighbors Dear Friends, Last issue I shared with you the Penn Museum’s expanded commitment to community consultation and partnership as we create more accessible galleries and programs. By working hand in hand with our neighbors, we learn about our community and its history—and are better positioned to meet its needs.

Working with partners including the Black Bottom Tribe Association, the People’s Emergency Center CDC, and University City Arts League, we recently launched Heritage West: The West Philadelphia Community Archaeology Project (page 50). The multi-year program invites our neighbors to consider what local heritage means to their community. Over the next two years, participants will work with Museum staff, students, and faculty to develop and share their unique perspectives. In this way, local residents will collaborate with the Museum to confront issues of racial and social injustice as they relate to archaeological research. So far, neighbors have created a historical timeline of West Philadelphia and attended several Museum open houses and family days.

These events are opening the doors for exploration and consultation toward a formal excavation at a location determined by the community, most likely in spring 2023.

Future archaeologists at Penn are also engaging in service-based learning, using archaeological research tools to interpret African American cemeteries in greater Philadelphia. Fall semester, students in CAAM’s Introduction to Digital Archaeology class honed digital field mapping skills at the historic Mt. Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church, Devon, PA. Their instructor, Kowalski Family Teaching Specialist Dr. Jason Herrmann, presented some of the class’s findings at the Pennsylvania Hallowed Grounds annual meeting (page 5), where I delivered a keynote.

Dr. Herrmann and colleague Dr. Chantel White, Teaching Specialist for Archaeobotany, are working together with Penn students to better understand The Woodlands—the former country seat of William Hamilton, now a cemetery and much-visited green space a short walk from campus. They hope to uncover the original site of Hamilton’s famed tropical greenhouse—the first and largest of its kind in the U.S.—among other structures.

A local resident adds to a West Philadelphia timeline at Heritage West’s mobile pop-up booth at PARK(ing) Day in September 2021. PARK(ing) Day invites people across the world to temporarily repurpose street parking spaces for art, play, and activism. Photo by Megan Kassabaum.

Having mentored numerous students on international excavations (page 12), now Dr. Herrmann and Dr. White are applying similar teaching and research methods to understand the past that is right next door.

In a wonderful campus partnership, aligned with the October opening of Penn Medicine’s state-of-theart Pavilion (page 60), we’re delighted to relaunch the University of Pennsylvania Health System-sponsored free admission program for all hospital patients, visitors, and staff. And in the Pavilion’s curved 33rd Street atrium, adjacent to a spectacular Maya Lin sculpture, “Decoding the Tree of Life,” hospital visitors are able to explore objects from our collection in three exhibition cases curated on themes of protection, healing, and nourishment.

Winding between our Museum and the Pavilion, a new Discovery Walkway leads from the Penn Medicine SEPTA station to 33rd Street, where a beautiful new terraced Harrison Garden by our Harrison Auditorium entrance will be a stunning outdoor event space. I look forward to greeting members there in the spring.

Warm regards,

CHRISTOPHER WOODS, PH.D. WILLIAMS DIRECTOR FALL/WINTER 2021

3

Critical Conversations:

Reimagining the 21st-Century Museum MUSEUMS EVERYWHERE have been at the center of contemporary cultural issues, social change, and calls for social justice. The Penn Museum participated in two fall conferences that responded to these calls at local and global scales.

SETTLER COLONIALISM, SLAVERY, AND THE PROBLEM OF DECOLONIZING MUSEUMS

practices, how museums can build on NAGPRA’s success, and ways forward for processes of decolonization, indigenization, and anti-racism.

The Critical Museum Studies Working Group, comprising Penn graduate students affiliated with the Center for Experimental Ethnography, moderated a conversation on reimagining the 21st-century museum. In her virtual performance, “Dreaming as a R-evolutionary Act: A Creative ‘Talkshop,’” artist Coral Bijoux led participants through activities to rediscover their personal and community heritage; activist Hladini Mensah offered reflections. During the conference’s concluding panel, Dr. Thomas reflected on the process of decolonization: “We’ve been reminded that restitution should be a methodology, not an event, the beginning of a conversation rather than the end—and that it should be grounded in relationships in which we are being responsive to the living.”

“Settler Colonialism, Slavery, and the Problem of Decolonizing Museums” was a hybrid international conference co-presented by Penn’s Center for Experimental Ethnography and the Penn Museum.

Drawing from the insights and experiences of scholars, museum practitioners, and educators, the conference addressed questions of colonialism and collections from cross-cultural perspectives. “In North America, conversations around repatriation and decolonizing and repair tend to focus on Native American groups and settler colonialism and Indigenous populations.

In Europe, the emphasis has tended to be more on imperialism and, to some degree, the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the long-term effects of empire. I thought it would be important to bring those two conversations together,” said conference organizer Dr. Deborah Thomas, the Center’s director and R. Jean Brownlee Professor of Anthropology at Penn.

Keynote speaker Dr. Laura van Broekhoven launched the four-day program on October 20 by sharing her own efforts as director of the University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum to reshape the display and interpretation of the museum’s collection in collaboration with Indigenous communities and artists. That evening, Williams Director Chris Woods joined anthropologists Michael Blakey, Carlina De La Cova, Joseph Jones, and Rachel Watkins in conversation about the ethical stewardship of human remains. The following days’ panel discussions explored how Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, Devon, PA, historian Bertha Jackmon recounts the history of the Mount Zion AME cemetery to the dual histories of settler colonialism and Introduction to Digital Archaeology students. slavery influenced collection and exhibition

4

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

HALLOWED GROUNDS Throughout Pennsylvania, African American cemeteries are often vulnerable to loss or destruction. To remedy this, the all-volunteer Pennsylvania Hallowed Grounds (PAHG) conserves, interprets, and honors the burial sites of Pennsylvania’s United States Colored Troops and the cemeteries in which they are interred. PAHG’s chair, Barbara Barksdale, kindly invited our Museum to participate in its annual meeting, “Reclaiming African American Cemeteries in Your Community.”

Williams Director Chris Woods’ keynote addressed current issues in discovering and repatriating human remains through the lens of our Museum’s longstanding NAGPRA program, and its commitment to shaping ethical institutional policies that prioritize the human dignity of African American remains. Dr. Woods also shared our ongoing work to deepen our relationships with local Philadelphia communities through meaningful stakeholder consultation, learning programs, and community archaeology.

Dr. Jason Herrmann, Kowalski Family Teaching Specialist in the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM), and Julia Byrnes, our summer Bloomberg Arts Intern, presented their work with PAHG’s Dr. Steven Burg to create an interactive, online

TOP: Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church ruin, East Whiteland Township, PA. Site of Introduction to Digital Archaeology student fieldwork.

map of African American cemeteries across Pennsylvania that will become a resource for people working in historic preservation. Dr. Herrmann also spoke about his work with Penn students in collaboration with the University’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships.

In his Academically Based Community Service courses Introduction to Digital Archaeology and Geophysical Prospection for Archaeology, African American cemeteries and the 18th-century archaeology and history of African Americans in greater Philadelphia are case studies for learning about archaeological methods. In this way, Dr. Herrmann puts to use the knowledge, methods, and technologies used at international historic sites such as ancient Motya, Sicily (see page 22) in service of local community priorities.

The conference also featured live music performed

by Joe Becton; a presentation by Kelly Lizarraga, Advocacy Director of Cultural Heritage Partners; and updates from PAHG’s dedicated volunteer cemetery stewards, including Samantha Dorm, Lebanon Cemetery, York County; Dr. Leroy Hopkins, Lancaster County cemeteries; Anna Smith, Lewistown’s African American Cemetery, Mifflin County; and Lisa Money, Franklinville, New Jersey. Learn more about PA Hallowed Grounds at pahgp.org.

Elevation map of the cemetery grounds at Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church ruin created through photogrammetry.

BOTTOM: Aerial image of Historic Eden Cemetery, Collingdale, PA.

FALL/WINTER 2021

5

Pamela Hearne Jardine: An Appreciation

BY JEREMY A. SABLOFF

THIS IS NOT AN OBITUARY but an appreciation of all that Pam Jardine (1939–2021) accomplished and contributed during her many years of extraordinary service at the Penn Museum.

Pam Jardine had major impacts on the Penn Museum, both tangible and intangible during her Penn Museum career that spanned more than a quarter century. Here are just some of the highlights.

First, and most important, was her interactions with colleagues, students, and visitors. Pam, in her roles as Keeper of the American Section and the Assistant Director for Museum Services, was a superb person to work with. She was warm, supportive, and a good listener. She helped launch and advance the careers of

Display from Beauty from the Earth, a major exhibition of the Penn Museum’s Pueblo Indian pottery curated by J.J. Brody which, under Pamela’s direction, was on display at the Museum from November 1990– December 1991 and then at several museums across the U.S.

6

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

Pamela Hearne (later Jardine) with Curator-in-Charge of the American Section Robert Sharer, preparing the exhibition River of Gold: Pre-Colombian Treasures from Sitio Conte, 1988. They are examining the jaguar pendant, object no. 40-13-27.

others, and she always had the welfare of the Museum in mind. To put it succinctly, she was a cheerful, outgoing, and positive person, who helped inspire those around her and was dedicated to the Museum.

Second, in the realm of collections management, Pam was a key figure in the ongoing professionalization of collections activities and practices in the American Section in particular, and the Museum in general. She was interested in registrarial activities and strove to have all the objects in the Museum’s collection as fully catalogued as possible. Key Museum areas such as conservation, exhibit preparation, and the archives also grew in strength and prominence under Pam’s watch. She welcomed consultations with Native American tribes.

She also was concerned with the safe use of perishable collections that had been doused with chemicals, such as arsenic, earlier in the Museum’s history in order to preserve objects while, unfortunately, putting people who handled the collections at potential risk. She worked diligently to make sure that those who handled such objects were protected.

In keeping with Pam’s constant concern with improving the care and accessibility of the Museum’s large and diverse collection, she also was a strong supporter

of the major effort to first conceive and then build the Mainwaring Wing for collections research and storage to better house the Museum’s key but vulnerable perishable collections and provide new offices for section keepers.

Third, she was a tireless promoter of both upgrading exhibitions in the Museum and helping organize travelling exhibitions that would show off the Museum’s incredible collections and make them available to a broader public outside of the Philadelphia region, as well as enhance the image of the Museum throughout the country and the world.

Whether she curated an exhibition herself or worked with Penn Museum or visiting curators and scholars to produce an exhibition, she always strove to have the exhibition meet the highest professional standards, be aesthetically pleasing, and help educate the publics that viewed it.

Some examples of her great successes in travelling exhibitions include the popular River of Gold: Precolumbian Treasures from Sitio Conte exhibition that showcased the striking gold objects that were uncovered in the Museum’s excavations at the Sitio Conte site in Panama. Working with Robert Sharer, the Curator-inCharge of the American Section, Pam helped put together a beautiful exhibition that travelled to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, among other important venues. Other key travelling exhibitions that were created under her watch included Pomo Indian Basket Weavers, Their Baskets, and the Art Market, curated by Sally McLendon and Judith Berman, which featured some of the beautiful, well-documented baskets in the

Museum’s collection. The programming surrounding the exhibition spotlighted contemporary Pomo basket weavers and the environmental problems they faced in obtaining the materials for their weaving. Most importantly, the exhibition travelled to the Grace Hudson Museum in Ukiah, California, in the modern homeland of the Pomo people. The blockbuster exhibition Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur, curated by Richard Zettler, which travelled to such venues as the Morgan Library in New York, was a major triumph during Pam’s tenure, as was Searching for Ancient Egypt: Art, Architecture and Artifacts from the University of Pennsylvania Museum, jointly organized with the Dallas Museum of Art and curated by David Silverman, which travelled with great acclaim to many venues from Dallas to Honolulu. Finally, working with Ruben Reina of the American Section, Pam helped put together a 1985 exhibition of Guatemalan huiples for a show at the Arthur Ross Gallery on campus entitled Silent Language of Guatemalan Textiles (1985).

In sum, Pam’s importance to the Museum cannot be overstated. She was well liked and highly respected.

Today’s Penn Museum owes much to Pam’s great efforts in modernizing and professionalizing many of the Museum’s core activities. She will be long remembered for these important achievements.

Jerry Sabloff C64, a 2014 recipient of the Penn Museum’s Lucy Wharton Drexel Medal, was Williams Director of the Museum from 1994 to 2004 and is the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, at Penn and an External Faculty Fellow and Past President at the Santa Fe Institute.

A Lodge Hanging (the interior wall of a tipi), PM 45-15-709, part of a collection of 267 objects made on the Blackfeet Reservation (Pikuni or Piegan Blackfeet) by Charles Hallowell Stephens, a Philadelphia artist who spent four months in the summer of 1891 living among the Pikuni who gave him the name “Picture Maker” at his adoption. His time there was the focus of Pamela’s doctoral dissertation. Her admiration for him and work with that collection occupied a special place in her heart.

FALL/WINTER 2021

7

Deinstalling a Gallery BEHIND THE SCENES WITH A MUSEUM KEEPER

ON NOVEMBER 19, 2022, the Penn Museum will unveil our newest gallery, replacing the Canaan and Ancient Israel Gallery installed in 1998. The Eastern Mediterranean Gallery, subtitled Crossroads of Cultures, will display our collection from the region known by archaeologists as the Levant—today including Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian Territories, and Cyprus— with objects highlighting the region’s confluence of cultures from the Early Bronze to the Iron Ages.

Expedition’s Guest Editor Alisha Adams sat down with Katherine Blanchard, Fowler/Van Santvoord Keeper of Collections, Near East Section, to learn what went into deinstalling this gallery and preparing for the next. While permanent galleries are typically up for the lifetime of a keeper, Katy has had the unique experience of deinstalling three galleries in the last decade alone. Here she shares the joys and challenges of deinstalling, storing, and mounting ancient objects—particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

important about this Museum. It’s the world’s collection, I just happen to be its caretaker right now.

Because of the pandemic, I had three longterm researchers who were not able to come. I also had four museum studies interns right at the start of the pandemic. We had just started systematically photographing and inventorying everything from the site of Beth Shean so that it would be available online for my curators as they were working towards the new gallery.

But I work in a basement and there’s no air circulation, so due to Penn regulations literally no one else is allowed in this space when I’m in here.

It was difficult that I couldn’t have a curator come in for an afternoon. While I know the collection very well, it was hard for me to suggest pieces because I don’t know how they fit into the story that the curators are telling. It was a lot of me with my phone going down aisles, hoping I had enough internet connection to show them the objects.

There was also a lot of work from books. Thankfully, in the 1920s, when much of the Near East collection was excavated, they were really good about publishing. It was wonderful for the curators to be able to discover a sketch of an object in a publication, then ask me to take a photo.

AA: HOW DID THE PANDEMIC IMPACT YOUR WORK AS A KEEPER? KB: As keeper of the Near East collections, my job is to facilitate their use. I facilitate use for about 100 researchers a year, most of them international. We’re very open-access; I say yes to everybody. And I think that is really

8

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

Penn Museum’s Canaan and Ancient Israel Gallery, 1998–2021.

AA: WHAT WENT INTO DEINSTALLING THE CANAAN AND ANCIENT ISRAEL GALLERY? KB: A deinstallation involves months of planning and then daily surprises. But I knew what types of problems to anticipate. From a storage perspective, you have to find room for everything. And a lot of these pieces are so large that they’ve kind of always been on display, or they were in fragments and reconstructed to be put on display.

In August, when we scheduled the deinstallation, the most time-sensitive priority for the Exhibitions and Preparations Departments was the installation of The Stories We Wear [on view in the Merle-Smith Galleries, Lower Level, through June 12, 2022], so it was just me alone in the gallery every day. Because this is not my first de-install, I know my pace and what’s possible. I usually did one cart a day—or, depending on the size of the case, one or two cases—and I was able to put everything away as I went, which was my goal. Everything that came to storage got photographed before it was returned to a shelf.

Still, a deinstallation is never just one person. I worked closely with the Exhibitions and Preparations teams. I worked very carefully with [Special Projects Manager] Bob Thurlow. And when I needed a hand in the gallery, I could text the keeper of the Mediterranean Section on the third floor to come help. I also worked with the conservators to see if there was anything that they wanted to oversee in the deinstallation. I tagged every single mount so Conservation knew whether or not it was earmarked to go into the new gallery. They could then decide if conservation standards had changed since 1998 and note if a piece would need new padding, or should be installed with a deck mount as opposed to a wall mount.

AA: WHAT CHALLENGES DID YOU FACE DURING THIS DEINSTALLATION? KB: I had to move carts full of objects, including vault objects, through public galleries, which is something we try not to do. And because I couldn’t de-install only on Mondays [when the Museum is closed to the public], I had to consider when and how I was removing objects from their cases. If I was going into an alarmed case, I needed to let Security know in the morning. And one day I did set off an alarm and Security came up to make sure I was okay!

TOP: Blanchard’s object photography station, in Near East Section store rooms.

BOTTOM: Object mounts carefully tagged by Blanchard to assist Conservation colleagues in their assessment of new storage or mount needs.

Another challenge was that I didn’t really have any mount notes from when the previous gallery was installed. I spent a lot of time looking through the glass trying to figure out which pieces I might need tools to take apart. I knew that sometimes jewelry was tied on with fishing wire, so I needed to have small scissors.

Sometimes there is a small screw. Sometimes the numbers are wrong on the label. Fortunately, I had the luxury of knowing my predecessors who installed the previous gallery, so I called them and asked, “What were your biggest headaches?”

FALL/WINTER 2021

9

DEINSTALLING A GALLERY

The site of Beth Shean, in modern-day Israel, at time of Penn Museum excavation in the 1920s (PM Image 144005) and in 2019, when Blanchard was able to visit while excavating nearby at Tel Yaqush.

10

AA: WHICH OBJECTS WERE MOST DIFFICULT TO DEINSTALL?

AA: WHAT WILL VISITORS FIND IN THE NEW EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN GALLERY?

KB: We knew that the large stone pieces from an Egyptian doorway were going to be heavy. We made sure that everything else was out of the way and we had enough bodies on hand. I pulled a similar piece from storage and we lifted it and put it on a scale so we could better anticipate its weight and how to move it. Because sometimes it’s tufa (a variety of limestone sometimes known as travertine) and it’s really light, and sometimes it’s steatite (also known as soapstone, a type of metamorphic rock) and it’s really dense.

One of the funniest things I had to do involved a display of a reconstructed burial. It had a medical skeleton and a bunch of objects in it, including very small scarabs. And they were set in a mixture of sand and kitty litter. So I had to use a sifter and go through it carefully.

You don’t want to miss a scarab!

Not a single object broke during the de-install.

Which is remarkable because there were 479 objects with unknown issues. But that’s the beauty of years of experience: you know how to anticipate the questions and handle the material.

KB: In the Canaan and Ancient Israel Gallery, as well as the new gallery, Beth Shean is the heart of it because that site enables you to tell the story of archaeology.

The Museum excavated at Beth Shean [now a national park in Israel] basically the same years as we excavated at the site of Ur [in modern-day southern Iraq], which is our big famous site, so people kind of forget about Beth Shean. But it has everything from 5,000 years ago through to Islamic mosques from 800 CE. There’s this beautiful, chronological sequence showing how many people indeed have occupied the exact same space for all of history.

The new gallery will show how that part of the world is a crossroads of the Eastern Mediterranean. You can’t talk about any of these areas without thinking about trade, transport, and how ideas travel from near and far.

For example, there was an Egyptian garrison because it was a giant outpost during the rule of Ramses II. There are beautiful hieroglyphs and giant structures. It also has a large Roman cemetery, so you get beautiful Roman period glass. You get things with Greek inscriptions and

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

AA: WHAT ARE YOU MOST EXCITED ABOUT IN THE NEW GALLERY?

The forthcoming Eastern Mediterranean Gallery will display familiar objects, like the early Iron Age sarcophagus lid (PM 29-103-789) from Beth Shean , as well as objects not before seen, like this large stone cup with square handle (PM 62-30-761), from the site of Gibeon, today in the Palestinian West Bank Territories.

others with Latin on them. And then later there are giant columns that were found lying down with Arabic and Hebrew inscribed on them.

The biggest and best material will still be on display.

You are going to have some familiar faces—literally, because sarcophagus lids will be up. But at the same time, you’ll have new faces from other time periods.

KB: There’s also a lot of material that will be on display from Cyprus, from our Mediterranean Section. We had really great excavations take place there at the turn of the last century, including by women. It’s very rare for women today to be the permit holders on a site, let alone in 1900.

Another thing is that we’ve always had a large sarcophagus on display and we always display it upright.

That’s the way that they’re displayed in the museums in Jerusalem. But they were used like coffins and laid flat, so the new gallery will display them like that. I’m really excited anytime something gets to be seen in the way it was used versus the way that we want to see it.

Something so simple can help docents, classes, and your average visitor understand the object better.

As an archaeological museum, we have this embarrassment of riches when it comes to material.

Why not show it in the context in which it was used and deposited and found?

Katherine Blanchard, M.A., is Fowler/Van Santvoord Keeper of Collections, Near East Section.

As shown in this rendering, the Eastern Mediterranean Gallery will display sarcophagi laid flat like coffins, as they were used.

FALL/WINTER 2021

11

Dr. Paola Sconzo, Field Director of the University of Palermo expedition to Mozia and co-director of “Space and Identity in Ancient Motya,” discussing ceramic finds with Jackson Clark and University of Palermo student Marco Cangemi. Photo by Jason Herrmann.

n r tu e R

to the FIELD

Wind mills and salt flats in the Marsala Stagnone, Sicily.

12

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

T

HE PANDEMIC FORCED Penn Museum archaeologists and their students to put much of their international excavation and site conservation projects on hold for more than a year. Happily, in May of 2021, travel restrictions eased and our curators and specialists were able to resume fieldwork overseas, pursuing research, analyses, and repairs across their diverse specialties. We invited three of these experts to give us a firsthand look at this summer’s return to the field—and share their exhilarating findings.

Archaeobotanist Chantel White, Ph.D., and her Summer Archaeobotany Field Program students explored the everyday diets of ancient dockworkers along the canals at Lechaion Harbor, Corinth—a major hub for international cargo in the Ancient Mediterranean. The flavorful recipes they uncovered illuminate the daily lives of the Greek lower classes. Our Ferry Curatorin-Charge of the Mediterranean Section, C. Brian Rose, Ph.D., returned to Gordion, Turkey, where he has directed excavations for 15 years, to conserve two monumental citadel gates, and to restore defensive walls damaged 2,500 years ago in a Persian attack. And digital archaeology expert Jason Herrmann, Ph.D., traveled with undergraduate Anthropology and Classical Studies student Jackson Clark to Mozia, a small island off the west coast of Sicily, to conduct a geophysical survey of the ancient buried city of Motya. Collectively, what these experts have shared brings both the ancient world and modern archaeological techniques to life in vivid detail.

TOP: Students sorting archaeobotanical samples, Lechaion, Greece.

Photo by C. White.

BOTTOM: Conservator Murat Cura removing the fiberglass shell from the Roman pithos during conservation at Gordion, Turkey.

Photo by Osman Ekinci.

FALL/WINTER 2021

13

Return to the Field

Investigating Roman Foods at Lechaion Harbor, Greece THE HUMBLE RECIPES OF ANCIENT DOCKWORKERS

BY CHANTEL WHITE

HISTORICAL RECIPES For someone fascinated by food history, what could be better than tasting an ancient recipe? Food engages all the senses and the act of eating helps us form a sensory connection with the past. Imagine smelling the fragrant spices suggested by Roman epicurean Apicius, or tasting the sesame and honey-coated cakes described by Galen.

Ancient recipes offer a unique window into the foods

Google Earth view of the ancient harbor and inland canal system at Lechaion.

14

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

1st-century mosaic from Pompeii depicting fresh fruit, fish, and squid.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

of past people and through a single bite we can be transported.

Yet the recipes documented in historical sources provide us with only part of the story. In many cases, specific instructions were omitted by ancient authors because the cooking techniques were already widely known. Recipes may also focus on the exotic ingredients

and sumptuous meals of the elite, leaving us to wonder about the ordinary foods eaten as daily meals. For an archaeologist interested in the diets of everyday people, historical texts may overlook the most common foods, such as humble porridges and stews, that nourished people in the past.

AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL APPROACH TO FOOD The archaeological record is an accumulation of debris from human activities. The most frequently occurring activities are the most likely to be incorporated into the archaeological record, including the remnants of daily cooking. To put this into perspective, a meal eaten every single day is 365 times more likely to be preserved than a special holiday dish consumed just once a year.

Remnants of foods containing plant and animal ingredients can be collected and studied by archaeologists. Ancient cooking fires may actually preserve foods if the conditions are right—hot enough to burn the food, but not so hot as to turn it into powdered ash. For example, if you were to accidently burn a piece

of toast, it would no longer be edible, but it would still retain its toast-like structure. Under the microscope of an archaeobotanist—a person who studies plant material recovered from archaeological sites—the burned toast would still contain tiny grain fragments, plant cells, and a porous texture from leavening. The earliest breads ever detected, dating to 14,000 years ago, were identified by an archaeobotanist using these very characteristics.

Cooking activities in the past led to the accidental burning (or, in archaeological terms, “carbonization”) of foods. Fortuitously, carbonized foods no longer possess any nutritional value and are thus uninteresting to bacteria, insects, and rodents—the typical agents of decay. This lack of decay is the key to preservation during thousands of years buried in the soil. Through the careful study of carbonized food residues, archaeologists can begin to illuminate the long history of cooking and baking practices.

FOODS FROM LECHAION HARBOR When famed geographer Strabo wrote about the prosperous city of Corinth, he stated that its wealth was

The stone-lined canals at Lechaion are still filled with water today.

Photo by C. White.

FALL/WINTER 2021

15

Return to the Field

INVESTIGATING ROMAN FOODS AT LECHAION HARBOR, GREECE

ABOVE: Students dine on Roman recipes at Tassos Taverna, Ancient Corinth.

LEFT: Students operating the water-recycling flotation system.

Photos by C. White.

due to its two harbors, both full of imported goods. One harbor facilitated commerce with Asia, while the other, known as Lechaion Harbor along the Gulf of Corinth, supplied the city with cargo from Italy and the western Mediterranean.

A stone-paved road connected Corinth to Lechaion Harbor two miles away. Roman writer Plutarch noted the road was crowded with shops and pedestrians, suggesting busy commerce from the port. Archaeologists also detected the presence of countless buried buildings along the Roman canal system. To learn more about this bustling port in antiquity, archaeological excavations adjacent to the inner harbor began in 2016.

For the past five summers (2016-2019, 2021), Penn students have taken part in the Lechaion project as participants in the Penn Museum’s Summer Archaeobotany Field Program. The program builds on a foundation of coursework and lab research in the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Material (CAAM), and it offers students the opportunity to collect, process, and identify archaeobotanical samples. As part of the threeweek experience in Summer 2021, students built and operated a flotation system to retrieve carbonized plant material from Lechaion, and they sorted artifacts such as coins, glassware, and ceramics found in the same samples.

Our focus at Lechaion began with a research

16

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

question about the foods entering and leaving Lechaion Harbor as international cargo. Might it be possible to find heaps of stored cereal grain, as noted by Greek author Xenophon? Or might we find amphorae filled with highquality imported wine, as noted by Athenaeus? What other sorts of exotic foods and spices could be identified?

The foods uncovered through archaeobotany are not, however, high-status imports. Instead, the food residues likely reflect the humble diets of the 3rd to 5th century CE dockworkers who made their livelihoods among the shipsheds and canals at Lechaion. Based on our archaeobotanical findings, their daily meals consisted primarily of pulses (dried lentils and broad beans) and the hardy cereal crop of rye. These ordinary foods are strikingly different from the high-status Roman foods identified at the nearby Temple to Poseidon at Isthmia.

At the temple, fruits such as pomegranates and dates were offered to the Roman gods, yet not a single broad bean or rye grain was found.

TASTING A ROMAN MEAL This summer, the Lechaion archaeological project teamed up with Soulis and Evangalia Kondyli, the proprietors of Tassos Taverna in Ancient Corinth, to recreate a Roman meal. An excellent and respected cook, Evangalia made several dishes based on the botanical

ingredients identified from archaeobotanical research at Lechaion Harbor.

Fresh salads were topped with figs to correspond with carbonized fig fruit fragments identified during our analysis, and wine and raisins (Corinthian currants) represented carbonized grape seeds. Lentils were showcased within a tasty lentil soup and beans were served boiled along with rye bread. Olives played another important role in the meal since several hundred olive pit fragments were recovered from the archaeological excavations.

The opportunity to smell and taste these dishes dispelled any speculations about flavorless, boring

meals being consumed by the dockworkers at Lechaion. Instead, this sensory exercise elevated our understandings of how modest ingredients may have been crafted into tasty stews and porridges during the Roman period. While often unrecognized and underappreciated, the food residues of the middle and poorer classes are an important means of reconstructing ancient diet and of understanding daily life in the past.

Chantel White is the Teaching Specialist for Archaeobotany in the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM). She is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology and Director of the Summer Archaeobotany Field Program.

1. The Lechaion Harbor and Land Settlement Project (LHSLP) is a synergasía (cooperation) between the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and the Corinthian Ephorate of Antiquities under the direction of Konstantinos Kissas, Ephor of the Arcadian Ephorate of Antiquities; Paul Scotton of California State University, Long Beach; and Angela Ziskowski, Assistant Director, Coe College; and with the cooperation Paniota Kassimi, Ephor of the Corinthian Ephorate of Antiquities, and the Corinthian Ephoria.

A salad topped with fresh figs and pomegranate arils.

Photo by C. White.

Greek beans boiled with carrots and spices. Photo by C. White.

FALL/WINTER 2021

17

Return to the Field

Winch moving the conserved stones of the citadel’s South Gate (9th century BCE) back to their original position, looking north. Photo by Zekeriya Utğu and Alican Kırcaali.

Repairing Damage Inflicted by the Persians 2,500 Years Ago SUMMER 2021 ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVATION WORK AT GORDION, TURKEY

1.

2.

BY C. BRIAN ROSE

F

IELDWORK AT GORDION in 2021 focused on architectural conservation, object conservation, and research for a wide variety of manuscripts dealing with material from the Bronze Age through the Roman period. There was only limited excavation because of the pandemic (our excavation supervisors are British and the COVID-19 variants there prompted the Turkish

18

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

(1) Conservation at the citadel’s East Gate (9th century BCE), looking west. Photo by Brian Rose. (2) Conservation of the East Gate’s South Bastion, looking south (9th century BCE). Photo by Brian Rose.

government to ban travel between Britain and Turkey). This was not a serious setback, however, because we have excavated buildings faster than our conservation team can restore them and by the end of the summer we accomplished everything we set out to do.

Our architectural conservation priorities were the two monumental The 2021 Gordion Project team. Photo by Bedirhan Demirel. citadel gates: the Early Phrygian East Gate and 4. the multi-period South Gate, both of which were built in the mid-9th century BCE and subsequently damaged by earthquakes. This year we completed our multi-season conservation program for the 10 m (33 feet) high East Gate, the highest and best-preserved Iron Age citadel gate in Asia Minor. The South Gate, which we have been excavating since 2013, has a monumental approach road along which King Midas himself will have passed. The gate was built ca. 850 BCE, refurbished in the 8th and 6th centuries BCE, then rebuilt again in the 4th century CE, The South Gate, looking north (4) with arrow indicating the damaged section of the wall. Photos by Brian Rose. (5) Angelo Lanza and Nahit so it was in operation for over 1,200 years. The approach Yılmaz stabilizing the wall stones at the South Gate with the damaged road was over 65 m (213 ft) in length, making it the section of the wall behind them; (6) Nahit Yılmaz, Angelo Lanza, and Alican Kırcaali moving a conserved wall stone back into its original longest known approach road of any citadel gate in Asia position on the South Gate. Photos by Elisa del Bono.

5.

6.

FALL/WINTER 2021

19

Return to the Field

REPAIRING DAMAGE INFLICTED BY THE PERSIANS 2,500 YEARS AGO

7.

8.

(7) The newly conserved north wall of the South Gate (9th century BCE), with the conserved segment on the left (compare to figure 5). The arrows indicate vertical offsets in the wall. (8) The newly conserved north wall of the South Gate (9th century BCE), with the glacis (stepped revetment wall) in the foreground. Photos by Brian Rose.

Minor, and the fortification wall on the road’s northern side still rises to a height of nearly 4.4 m (14 ft).

In general, the defensive walls lining the gate’s approach road have survived relatively well during the last 3,000 years, but one stretch was so badly damaged that our excavators were forced to leave a large rectangle of earth in front of it so that the stones would be protected until the conservators had an opportunity to restore it. During the first week of the season, we excavated this section of earth (measuring 6 x 4 m [19 x 13 ft]) and exposed the badly damaged wall behind it where an earthquake had caused most of the facing stones to collapse. The core of the wall was still preserved to a height of nearly 3 m (10 ft). Conservation began immediately after the excavation ended and was completed by the end of the season.

Each of the stones had to be consolidated before we repositioned them on the wall and the restored facing courses were then anchored to the rubble core by steel straps. Altogether, 43 newly stabilized stones were assembled in 12 wall courses, and the northern side of the approach road is once again defined by the same handsome limestone facing it once possessed.

One reason why the wall was so badly damaged is that Gordion’s masons in the 9th century BCE had 20

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

placed rows of juniper logs between every three courses of stone, apparently to provide greater flexibility in the event of an earthquake. This measure works relatively well, unless there is a war that causes the building to catch fire, which is what happened when the Persians attacked Gordion ca. 540 BCE. This was a siege of unknown duration, but in the end, the Persians won.

In the course of the conflict, however, the juniper logs burned from end to end within the wall, weakening the stones around them and causing their faces to shear off over time. We have therefore done our best to repair the damage caused by the Persians 2,500 years ago.

Other conservation projects included renewing the poa grass “green caps” above the conserved walls of the 9th-century BCE Terrace Building and adding new galvanized fencing along the visitor circuit on the Citadel Mound.

We completed the first phase of laser scanning the Tumulus MM (Midas Mound) tomb chamber, the oldest standing wooden building in the world, including all of the chamber’s interior and much of the exterior (to be finished in 2022). The aim is to produce a comprehensive and accurate record of the monument as well as a digital reconstruction of what it looked like ca. 740 BCE during the funeral of a man whom we identify as King Midas’s

father. The digital model will also be of great value to cultural heritage management in that we will be able to more effectively monitor deterioration that may occur over time. Furthermore, we can prepare an interactive tomb exhibition by using virtual and augmented reality technology. In this way, Gordion’s many visitors can tour the burial chamber for the first time, something that was impossible before due to restricted access to the fragile wooden chamber.

This season marked the seventh year of the Cultural Heritage Education Program (CHEP) Program, directed

by Ayşe Gürsan-Salzmann (Penn Museum) in tandem with Halil Demirdelen (Ankara Ethnographic Museum) since 2014. The program’s main goal is to inform and educate local village communities, high school students, teachers, and members of the local municipal government about the historical and humanistic values of the Gordion region. The program started with an orientation for 21 participants, of whom 14 were high school graduates, two were regional directors of historic tours, and two were high school principals.

One of our most important projects involves Turkey’s application to UNESCO for Gordion’s

inscription on the List of World Heritage Sites, which would officially recognize Gordion’s unique cultural and archaeological significance. We completed the nearly 300-page nomination file in the fall of 2020. The onsite evaluation, by UNESCO expert Dr. Cynthia Dunning Thierstein of Archaeoconcept in Switzerland, took place in early August. It included tours of the proposed site protection zone, ancient city, and tumuli; a full day of lectures by the Gordion team and Turkey’s Cultural Heritage Department; and interviews with local village households about their attitudes toward the ancient monuments. The evaluation was a positive experience for everyone involved and we are optimistic about Gordion’s addition to UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

C. Brian Rose is the Ferry Curator-in-Charge of the Mediterranean Section and James B. Pritchard Professor of Archaeology in the Department of Classical Studies. A former president of the Archaeological Institute of America, he is currently President of the American Research Institute in Turkey, trustee of the American Academy in Rome, and Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth University. He is the director of excavations at Gordion and the former co-director, for 25 years, of the excavations at Troy.

Günce Öçgüden preparing to scan the interior of the Tumulus MM tomb chamber.

Photo by Michael Barngrover.

FALL/WINTER 2021

21

Return to the Field

Mapping the Urban Plan of Ancient Motya SUMMER 2021 GEOPHYSICAL SURVEY AT ISOLA SAN PANTALEO, SICILY

BY JASON T. HERRMANN AND JACKSON CLARK

W

HEN UNIVERSITY TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS were lifted and international borders reopened in May, we traveled to Isola San Pantaleo, a small island in the Marsala Stagnone, a protected bay on the west coast of Sicily midway between the cities of Marsala and Trapani.

The stagnone is flanked by low vineyard-covered hills on the Sicilian mainland, the source of the famous Marsala wine. Ancient saltpans line the stagnone’s shore, where windmills are still used to move seawater in and out of the evaporation basins.

Isola San Pantaleo (or in colloquial Italian, Mozia) is best known as the location of the ancient city of Motya, a Punic center with close ties to Carthage that met abrupt destruction in 397 BCE when it was sacked by Syracusan Greeks at the end of the Siege of Motya. Today, Mozia is an archaeological park where elements of the ancient

Eastern coastline of Mozia. Photo by Jason Herrmann.

city still stand tall after more than 2000 years, including monumental buildings, a ceremonial pool, and the remains of imposing fortifications that follow the islet’s coastline. Elsewhere, more humble remains such as potsherds and fragments of architecture peek out through flowering gardens and vineyards that produce awardwinning Grillo wines.

The historic record of occupation on Mozia, and the period most relevant for our fieldwork, begins in the 8th century BCE when Phoenician merchants from modern-day Lebanon established an outpost on the island. These pioneers recognized the advantages that a small island in a protected lagoon provided for exchange with Indigenous Sicilians and Greek colonies, and as a waypoint for ships traveling between the eastern and western extremes of the Mediterranean Sea. Over the next few centuries, the settlement expanded from what

Aerial view of Mozia looking northwest over the course of the ancient causeway leading from Porta Nord.

22

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

was likely an unfortified trading post to a city that covered the entire 45 hectares of the island in the 6th century BCE. At its height, Motya is thought to have been a dense concentration of workshops, sanctuaries, and public buildings surrounded by massive fortifications and connected to the mainland by a masonry causeway via the main gate at the north end of the island.

The ethnic and cultural diversity of Motya’s citizenry, and that of other Phoenician Aerial Map of Mozia and key landmarks. Figure by Jason Herrmann. and Punic settlements the central and eastern Mediterranean (Delgado and in the central Mediterranean, has been a longstanding Ferrer 2006). Likewise, genetic material collected from point of interest. Archaeologists are making inroads on burials at Mozia and from other Phoenicio-Punic sites this issue by using new scientific methods to reassess in the central and western Mediterranean show that old results and to carry out fieldwork. For example, Indigenous populations mixed with Levantine peoples reanalysis of ceramic forms from Motya’s earliest and potentially comprised a larger part of the population remains demonstrates that the city was a multiin these settlements (Matisoo-Smith et al. 2018). ethnic mix of people practicing Levantine Phoenician Our project, “Space and Identity in Ancient traditions with materials and forms indigenous to Motya,” co-directed by Dr. Paola Sconzo (University of Tübingen) and conducted as part of the University of Palermo project at Mozia (under Professor Aurelio Burgio, University of Palermo), emphasizes geophysical survey combined with limited test excavations to map the layout of the city with minimal disturbance of the archaeological remains. Our goal is to connect urban planning concepts and architectural forms with known cultural traditions in the Mediterranean and Western Asia. In doing so, we hope to tease out the way the city developed over time and identify the ethnic orientations of Motya’s inhabitants by how they used space. This research builds on a prior geophysical survey at Mozia in which we used magnetic gradiometry to map a section of the city plan. Major support for that research and this Jason Herrmann taking a break from survey at Mozia. iteration are provided by the Gerda Henkel Foundation.

Photo by Jackson Clark.

FALL/WINTER 2021

23

Return to the Field

MAPPING THE URBAN PLAN OF ANCIENT MOTYA

FAR LEFT: Jackson Clark using GPS to record the location of survey benchmarks overlooking the necropolis. Photo by Jason Herrmann.

LEFT: Electrical resistance survey is more physically demanding and time consuming than magnetic gradiometry, but proved its worth as a second perspective for buried features. Photo by Jackson Clark.

ABOVE: Jackson Clark and Jason Herrmann collecting data with a multichannel GPR array.

These bulky instruments are usually mounted on or towed by vehicles, but this was not feasible at Mozia. Photo by Jackson Clark.

GEOPHYSICAL SURVEY Geophysical survey methods use digital sensors in the air or on the ground to measure physical properties of materials at or below the ground surface. The data collected by these instruments are used to create images that have the potential to reveal evidence of archaeological remains or changes in the landscape.

Geophysical methods can be considered part of a broader suite or approaches termed remote sensing, which includes data from aerial and satellite sensors. Remote sensing approaches provide two primary advantages over traditional archaeological methods: the ability to detect physical changes over time or space that are invisible to the naked eye and the ability to investigate archaeological sites and landscapes non-invasively, that is, without destructive excavation.

Our work in the summer of 2021 relied heavily on the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials’ (CAAM) capacity for digital recording in the field, including survey-grade GPS receivers and two geophysical instruments: a magnetic gradiometer and an electric resistance meter. In addition, a frequencystepped multichannel ground-penetrating radar (GPR) 24

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

array was used to survey open ground that was not under cultivation. With multi-channel GPR, a set of integrated antennas produces a near-3D image of buried materials and structures by measuring how radio waves reflect off buried materials. The combination of a wide swath covered by multiple antennas and GPS integration also provides the benefit of rapid survey coverage, enhancing overall efficiency of data collection.

The majority of our 2021 results come from our magnetic gradiometry survey, which records minute variations in the intensity of the Earth’s magnetic field.

These variations are influenced by the distribution of iron-bearing materials in soils, affected by adding or removing magnetic soils or materials in construction, depositing iron-rich organic materials, or burning.

Using CAAM’s magnetic gradiometer, we were able to drastically expand upon the 2017 coverage to reveal almost all of the east half of the ancient city (Herrmann and Sconzo 2020). Our latest results found that a gridded plan oriented to the central axis road that we first mapped in 2017 does extend outside of the northeast quarter. However, we also found that the farther one gets from the central axis, the more likely structures are

Comparison of magnetic gradiometry and electrical resistance results over the same structure. A strong magnetic feature in the gradiometry data is seen in the resistance data as a circular installation, indicating that the magnetic feature is a built structure rather than a piece of magnetic rubbish at or near the surface. Figure by Jason Herrmann.

to be distributed according to the landscape rather than an orthogonal grid. We also were able to identify larger structures on the island’s interior, many of which seem to be dotted with clusters of pyrotechnic installations that we interpret to be primarily kilns.

The idea that pyrotechnic installations are regularly distributed across the buildings at Motya has been suspected since the initial magnetic gradiometry survey, which recorded a number of highly magnetic circular features throughout (Herrmann and Sconzo 2020). The shape and intensity of these magnetic features, however, were strikingly different from the surrounding patterns, and the influence of modern activity, specifically the presence of metal rubbish, could not be ruled out as the source of these signals.

An electrical resistance survey carried out over one of the large buildings mapped with magnetic gradiometry in 2021 helped us to verify our interpretation of these features as pyrotechnic installations. Electrical resistance surveys record the ease at which an electric current passes through the soil near the surface. Differences in soil density, salt content, and moisture influence the ease by which a current is transmitted and reveal patterns in the way materials are arranged below ground.

The resistance survey results confirmed the shape and location of the walls mapped with the magnetometry and showed that one strong magnetic anomaly is a buried archaeological feature, rather than a piece of strong magnetic detritus on the surface. This small area of resistance survey does much to advance our interpretation of the expansive magnetic gradiometry survey results and helps us to extend this interpretation to similar circular magnetic features at Motya.

FUTURE PROSPECTS We hope to build upon the success of our work in the summers to come with an extensive surface collection that will match the extent of the geophysical surveys as well as with limited test excavations to verify key features visible in the geophysical prospection results. The research we have planned will be conducted jointly by the Penn Museum and the University of Palermo with the hope of providing students from both institutions with opportunities for training, experience, and intercultural exchange.

AUTHORS: Jason Herrmann, Ph.D., is Kowalski Family Teaching Specialist in Digital Archaeology in the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM) and a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology. Jackson Clark is an undergraduate student studying anthropology and classical studies in the College of Arts and Sciences.

CITED AND RELATED ARTICLES

Delgado, Ana, and Meritxell Ferrer. 2006. “Cultural Contacts in Colonial Settings: The Construction of New Identities in Phoenician Settlements of the Western Mediterranean.” Stanford Journal of Archaeology 5: 18–42.

Herrmann, Jason T., and Paola Sconzo. 2020. “Planning Punic Cities: Geophysical Prospection and the Built Environment at Motya, Sicily.” Antiquity 94 (376): 983–98. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2020.97.

Isserlin, B.S.J., and Joan du Plat Taylor. 1974. Motya, a Phoenician and Carthaginian City in Sicily. Vol. 1. BRILL. Matisoo-Smith, E., A. L. Gosling, D. Platt, O. Kardailsky, S. Prost, S. Cameron-Christie, C. J. Collins, et al. 2018. “Ancient Mitogenomes of Phoenicians from Sardinia and Lebanon: A Story of Settlement, Integration, and Female Mobility.”

PLOS ONE 13 (1): e0190169. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0190169.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Our work at Mozia is only possible with permission and valuable support from Fondazione Giuseppe Whitaker and the Soprintendenza per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali di Trapani, and financial support from the Gerda Henkel Foundation.

FALL/WINTER 2021

25

UNDERWATER Archaeological Treasures in Modon Bay

BY PATRICE FOUTAKIS

A MONUMENTAL SARCOPHAGUS from the Assos necropolis, carved on all four sides and especially well preserved, 100-200 CE.

26

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

Photo courtesy of Dimitris Smyrlis.

VIEW OF MODON CASTLE FROM THE SOUTHEAST. The medieval mole is below sea level. The fortifications in the foreground are the octagonal tower of Saint Nicholas.

LOCATION OF A VENETIAN CURVED MOLE constructed in the 14th and 15th centuries on the Greek and Roman mole, now underwater.

THE BAY OF MODON (the name given by the Venetians to the town of Methoni, Messenia, in Greece) connects three topics examined in this article: a Venetian mole (or stone quayside) with its Turkish octagonal tower, a shipwreck with sarcophagi, and another shipwreck with columns.

The two shipwrecks were first examined in 1962 by an expedition team from the Penn Museum. The provenance of the sarcophagi was identified in 1967, although the provenance of the columns was not. My own field research in Turkey, Greece, and Lebanon confirms the origin of these sarcophagi and suggests an earlier dating than previously proposed.

Chronicles from the 12th century as well as my archaeological fieldwork in Tyre and Baalbek reveal where these columns were taken from and by whom, and the reason they now lie in Modon Bay. In addition, a previously unexamined report from 1500 CE and a manuscript drawing with its text from 1515–1520, together with my fieldwork in the Bay, allowed me to identify a second Venetian mole, today destroyed by sea currents, and to date its construction as well as that of the tower erected on the first mole.

FALL/WINTER 2021

27

UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGICAL TREASURES IN MODON BAY

IDENTIFICATION OF THE SECOND VENETIAN MOLE

M

ODON IS LOCATED STRATEGICALLY at the southwesternmost extremity of the Peloponnese in Greece. References to her port date back to antiquity, and the port is depicted on a Roman coin. The medieval mole was constructed on the ancient Greek and Roman one, and the moles are under sea level today. A few months before August 9, 1500, when Venice lost the castle of Modon to the Ottomans, there had been defensive efforts: the port was fortified, a second mole was constructed, and a small entrance was left to control ships coming in (Bembo, II, V, § 27-8). A Roman coin depicting the Modon bay from the Caracalla period, 198-217 CE. Below the inscription ΜΟΘΩΝΑΙΩΝ, meaning belonging to the inhabitants of Modon, is a semicircular mole with a building at each end holding a statue, most likely for the god or goddess each temple was dedicated to. At the center of the port is the goddess Fortuna, holding a boat tiller with her right hand and Amalthea’s horn with her left. Below Fortuna is a ship. The depiction implies that when maritime trade is well organized and carried out, wealth will be the reward. Photo: Copyright LHS Numismatics Ltd.

letter dated July 9, 1500, by Antonio Zantani, military chief of Modon, explains that they erected a curved mole and kept two ships at the entrance of the port to sink them in case of danger (Sanudo, III, col. 574).

Scholars do not agree on where exactly at the port of Modon this second mole could have been constructed.

Some conclude that there was only one mole erected by the Venetians during the 15th century on the ancient one (Kraft and Aschenbrenner, p. 30), creating two ports and an octagonal tower built up to protect the entrance (Tamari, pp. 530-31, 533-4, 545, 548, 550-51), likely at the northern end of the mole (Lianos, pp. 65, 69, 71). One scholar suggests that the second mole stretched from the northern beach towards the original mole, also with a narrow entrance for ships. This scholar also suggests that the Venetians erected the lower part of the octagonal tower before 1500 and the Turks added the main part of the tower after 1500 (Pepper, p. 37). Yet another scholar proposes that this tower was entirely built and finished

by Venetians at the end of the 14th century (Gertwagen, pp. 138-42).

In 2000, archaeologists working in Modon located wooden poles embedded in the seabed near the northern sandy beach of the castle. When I examined them, I

Two of the three rows of wooden poles for the second medieval mole embedded in the sand of the seabed.

28

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

found that they have four sides of 14-17 cm per side, are embedded into three rows with an average width of 4-5 m, and they continue in a curved line towards the end of the old mole. From 1515–1520, the Ottoman admiral and cartographer Piri Reis prepared a manuscript containing charts, maps, and navigational information about ports and cities of the Mediterranean Sea: Kitab-i Bahriye, Book of Navigation. In a section on Modon, he writes that when the Sultan Bayezid II conquered Modon Castle, he built one more big fortification facing the sea at the end of the rocky cap on which it stands (Piri Reis, II, p.

653). His illustration of Modon clearly depicts a castle with two moles—the second stretching from the northern sandy beach towards the old mole.

The text and illustration by Piri Reis lead me to several conclusions. The port of Modon had two moles.

Consequently, the underwater poles embedded in the

1

2

The castle and port of Modon around 1550. Mole 1, built on an ancient Greek and Roman mole, was developed by the Venetians in the 14th and 15th centuries. Mole 2 was rapidly constructed by the Venetians in 1500, and destroyed soon after by sea currents. Drawing by the author.

seabed where Piri Reis’s depiction shows the second mole formed its foundation. Moreover, the curved mole that the military chief of Modon wrote about in his letter on July 9, 1500, was in fact this mole The drawing by depicted on Piri Reis’s illustration.

Piri Reis of the castle and port of Since Piri Reis insists that the big Modon with two fortification at the southernmost moles, 1525. Kitab-i Bahriye, fol. 156v°, point of the castle was built by supplément turc 956, Bibliothèque Bayezid II, the octagonal tower was nationale de finished before the sultan died in France, Paris.

1512. The admiral would have been an eyewitness of this construction as he stayed in Modon several times from 1500 onwards. Piri Reis’s depiction shows that the octagonal tower was built as a whole from the beginning—with all levels, canon embrasures, and crenelated walls—and not progressively as suggested. Besides, a careful architectural study of the tower reveals that it was built as a complete fortification in homogeneous masonry (Foutakis 2017, pp. 416-7).

The correspondence between the Venetian officers of the island of Zante and the Senate of Venice mentions the octagonal tower by the name of Saint Nicholas (Sanudo, LIV, cols. 604, 606-8). On September 3, 1531, the knights of the Order of Malta, following a plan drawn up by knight Frà Antonio Bosio (Foutakis 2020, pp. 207-10), tried to take the castle from the Turks, but they only succeeded in controlling Modon from dawn to midnight of that day (Foutakis 2015, pp. 44-9; 2020, pp. 210-13). By means of a letter to Venice dated September 8, 1531, the provveditore (district governor) of Zante, Troiano Bon, informed his government of the failed coup and explained that when the knights started attacking Modon, they tried to avoid the artillery of the tower of Saint Nicholas on the mole (Sanudo, LV, col. 11). Therefore, the Turkish name for the octagonal tower, Bourtzi, is to be abandoned and the more accurate original name, tower of Saint Nicholas, must be used.

THE SARCOPHAGI SHIPWRECK Dozens of shipwrecks in Modon Bay are identified by the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities of Greece (Dellaporta, pp. 1259-60). Two of them are of particular interest because their stone cargo is in a perfect state

FALL/WINTER 2021

29

UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGICAL TREASURES IN MODON BAY

1962-63). The shape of the sarcophagi, along with fragments of pottery, Roman roof tiles, and a Roman glass unguent jar found among them, date this cargo and the wreck to the 2nd or 3rd centuries CE (Throckmorton and Bullitt, p. 23).

The assumption that it was archaeologist Michael Ballance who concluded in 1966 that they are made of mineral from Assos in Asia Minor (Pliny the Elder, XXXVI, pp. 209-210) is incorrect; in fact Ballance mentions nothing about the mineral of the Modon sarcophagi.

It was John Bryan Ward-Perkins 1962 drawing of the sarcophagus wreck in Modon Bay by Pierre Goumain for the mission of who linked the volcanic mineral in Throckmorton and Bullitt. Courtesy of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, College Station, Texas.

Assos, examined by Ballance, with the mineral of the Modon sarcophagi (Ward-Perkins, pp. 129-30).

In mineralogy, the official name of this stone is andesite. Although it has been located at places in addition to Assos, the results of petrographic and geochemical research with samples taken from sarcophagi at archaeological sites or museums in Italy, Greece, Albania, Turkey, Lebanon, and Egypt, along with samples from quarries in Assos, Lesbos, and Pergamum, confirm that the geochemical composition of andesite for sarcophagi from these countries is from the quarries in The four sarcophagi in andesite of Assos, Asia Minor, from the wreck in Modon Bay. The Assos (Lazzarini and Visonà, pp. 371sarcophagus with the interior looking towards the observer is 2.32 m in length, 0.88 m in width, and 0.80 m in height without the lid. The measurements were made in 2017 by rural and surveyor 73). Therefore, the four sarcophagi engineer George Michailidis for his three-dimensional photogrammetric survey on the Modon shipwrecks. into the waters of Modon Bay undoubtedly come from Assos.

More thorough research revealed several more and they lay in the sea at a rather shallow depth. The findings. All four sarcophagi of the Modon shipwreck first real survey on them was carried out in 1962 by an bear the same type of garlands, round bucrania, and altarexpedition initiated by the Penn Museum and led by shaped inscription tablets. The lids are carved in the form diver Peter Throckmorton and professor John Bullitt of a gable roof with an acroterion (a decorative sculpture (Papathanasopoulos, p. 93). They located, photographed, placed on the top and at the corners of ancient temples) drew and examined four sarcophagi (Throckmorton

30

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

at all four angles. All four sides of the sarcophagi are carved, whereas most sarcophagi at the time were carved on only three sides. A four-sided ornate sarcophagus was meant to be placed at the center of a funeral chamber or at an open-air necropolis, unlike three-sided carved sarcophagi, which were placed against a wall.

The same type of Modon sarcophagi are also located in Alexandria, Thessaloniki, at the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, Mytilini, and Methymna at Lesbos, the Al-Bass necropolis of Tyre, and the National Museum of Beirut. The sarcophagi in Assos, where this andesite comes from, was cut and carved in local workshops. As I verified in situ, almost all sarcophagi at Assos necropolis

and the 16 sarcophagi at the Al-Bass necropolis of Tyre, coming from Assos, are carved on four sides. This specificity explains why the four sarcophagi of the Modon shipwreck are also carved on all sides.

The period 180-250 CE is suggested as a general date of the Assos sarcophagi (Ward-Perkins, p. 133). For this type of sarcophagus, I would propose an earlier period.

The characteristic altar-shaped inscription tablet is a serious indication for dating. The altar, carved out on the long sides of these sarcophagi, suggests the period of big ash chests and grave altars evolved over the course of the first century CE (Davies, pp. 29-39, figs. 1.1-1.7), which was the period immediately before sarcophagi. A more

1

2

3

4

5

SARCOPHAGI IN ANDESITE OF ASSOS 1: Archaeological museum of Thessaloniki, Greece. Length 2.25 m, width 0.89 m, height with the lid 0.98 m. Carved on four sides with partial П-shape iron clamps still in the clamp holes; there is no inscription on the altar-shaped tablet.

2: Used as a fountain in Methymna, Lesbos, Greece. Length 2.10 m, width 0.85 m, height 1.04 m.

3: Al-Bass necropolis of Tyre, Lebanon. Length 2.32 m, width 1.02 m, height with the lid 1.35 m. Carved on four sides with partial П-shape iron clamps still in the clamp holes.

Erosion prevents seeing whether there is an inscription on the altar-shaped tablet.

4: Assos necropolis, Turkey. Length 2.97 m, width 1.30 m, height with the lid 1.80 m.

Carved on four sides with clamp holes and an inscription on the altar-shaped tablet. It is a monumental sarcophagus compared to others of the necropolis which are 2.10 to 2.35 m in length.

5: National Museum of Beirut, Lebanon. Length 2.14 m, width 0.89 m, height with the lid 1.02 m. Carved on four sides with П-shape iron clamps still in the clamp holes.

Erosion prevents seeing whether there is an inscription on the altar-shaped tablet.

Measurements were made by the author.

FALL/WINTER 2021

31

UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGICAL TREASURES IN MODON BAY

amphorae found among the columns indicate the late Roman period (Throckmorton and Bullitt, p. 20). The Roman origin and dating for the column wreck was contested because the existence of Roman amphorae is a general characteristic of the seabed in Modon Bay. The years 1493–1494 were proposed as the latest date for the wreck, assuming that a similar reddish granite column was placed in Modon Castle by the Venetian officer Francesco Bembo to celebrate the reconquest of Modon by Venice (Papathanasopoulos, p.

93). Papathanasopoulos was misled by this incorrect assumption (Andrews, pp. 81-2).

1962 drawing of the column wreck in Modon Bay by Pierre Goumain for the mission of There was no reason to celebrate a reconquest Throckmorton and Bullitt. Courtesy of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, College of Modon by Venice in 1493-1494: the Station, Texas.

Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia (Republic of accurate dating for the sarcophagi of Assos bearing an Venice) continuously held Modon from 1207 altar-shaped inscription tablet would thus be 100–200 to 1500. The reddish granite column standing at the main CE because big ash chests and grave altars with tablets square of Modon Castle bears an inscription that was bearing inscriptions appeared during the second half of previously wrongly deciphered. The name of the officer the first century CE, while from the third century CE mentioned in the inscription is Francesco Bragadin, and onwards, securely dated sarcophagi do not present altarthe year mentioned, 1493, refers to the date Pietro da shaped inscription tablets anymore.

Canal completed fortification work started by Francesco Bragadin in 1485 (Foutakis 2005, pp. 100-104; 2015, pp.

THE COLUMNS SHIPWRECK

The Throckmorton-Bullitt expedition also photographed, drew, and examined a group of columns that lie scattered over an area approximately 20 m wide by 30 m long on the rocky bottom. The shallowest point of the wreck lies in 7 m of water and the deepest in 12 m (Throckmorton 1969, p.1). The mission counted only one complete column and 33 more pieces of broken columns. Some of the columns still keep their astragal, the molding profile made of a half-round surface at the top and the low end of the column shaft. Six of the 33 columns lay at a distance of approximately 60 m from the main wreck, but their material and diameter are more or less the same as those of the other pieces of columns (Throckmorton and Bullitt, p. 19). The only unbroken column is 8 m long with a diameter of 0.95 m for the astragal and an estimated weight of 13.5 metric tons.

A mineral analysis determined that the material is granite from Egypt (Throckmorton 1962-63, report 16/3/1962 [1963]). Handles from about ten identical 32

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

The reddish granite column in Modon Castle, dragged off the wreck by the Venetians before 1417. The capital was added by the Venetians and bears an inscription celebrating the completion of fortification work for the citadel started by Francesco Bragadin in 1485 and finished by Pietro da Canal in 1493. Measurements: shaft length 3.67 m, shaft diameter range from 0.78 to 0.83 m.

33-6). As for the column, it was dragged out of the sea and placed at the main square of the Venetian castle in order to bear official announcements by the Venetian government. The oldest testimony for this use of the column was in 1417, and it certainly dates to before this year (Foutakis 2017, p. 345).

IDENTIFICATION OF THE COLUMNS SHIPWRECK When I examined the columns wreck in Modon, I realized that some pieces of columns present different forms of astragals, suggesting that the columns in this ship were taken from different parts of a construction or even different buildings. This suggestion is also supported by the fact that the standing column in Modon Castle has a single astragal with a curved surface, unlike some columns of the wreck. This column’s material and diameter indicate that it comes from the cargo of the columns wreck in Modon Bay. Monolithic granite columns, like those in Modon, were shaped and used during the Roman period for public buildings in different parts of the empire. Nevertheless, some light can be shed on the origin of the columns in Modon by means of historic events; there is a specific place in the Near East connected both to Modon and Venice.

In August 1122, the Doge of Venice, Domenico Michiel, left his city to command a powerful army to help Christians of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Sanudo, p.

181). When he conquered Tyre, it was divided into three sectors for Doge Michiel, the count of Tripoli, and the

The low part of the reddish granite column in Modon Castle. The single astragal of the base end of the shaft is 0.95 m in diameter.

king of Jerusalem, Baldwin II, so that each ruler could profit from the city’s wealth as he pleased (Fulcher of Chartres, pp. 225-37, 240, 243; William of Tyre, XIII, 1-14; Dandolo, p. 234). It is stressed that ‘‘everyone ran to his own sector, most pleased and delighted’’ (William of Tyre, XIII, 14), but no information is given about how each winner made use of the wealth of Tyre. On his way back to Venice in the spring of 1125, Michiel stopped at Modon and plundered and destroyed the place (Dandolo, p. 235).

Doge Michiel’s presence in Modon before returning to Venice, his role in the siege of Tyre, his share in the city’s wealth, and the existence there of various archaeological sites with numerous monolithic granite columns, all prompted me to research the Roman constructions in Tyre. The nave of her cathedral is delimited by single-piece reddish granite columns and stands diagonally across an ancient Roman road that had columns on both sides (Gatier 2011a, p. 1537). Broken pieces of monolithic columns in reddish granite, with the same composition as the monolithic granite columns in Modon, are scattered on the ground, including three larger pieces. The first of these three pieces has kept its astragal and all three have the same shaft and astragal diameters as some columns of the wreck and the column standing in Modon Castle. Many smaller pieces of columns of the same material are spread on the ground of the cathedral, and they all have a consistent diameter of 0.82-0.86 m. The two monolithic single columns standing on their modern white pedestals were reconstructed partially with broken pieces from the original columns,

The central group of granite columns from the wreck in Modon Bay.

FALL/WINTER 2021

33

The medieval cathedral of Tyre, Lebanon, from the east (12th and 13th centuries). In the foreground are the remains of the apse: monolithic columns in reddish granite from Aswan stand on modern white pedestals and new big plinths. None of these columns were accurately measured before, although precise dimensions of many architectural features of the cathedral are made (Pringle, p. 169-81; Gatier 2011a, p. 1542). Therefore, all measurements for the columns in Tyre and Baalbek were made for this research with a tape and a laser measure.

and only one of them presents its astragals, likewise partially reconstructed with a total height of 8.05 m.

The monolithic reddish granite columns of the cathedral were not enough for the Venetian cargo.

According to the estimate of the 1962 Penn expedition, the unbroken column and the other 33 broken pieces in the shipwreck come from at least 16 columns (Throckmorton and Bullitt, p. 20). The Hexagonal Forecourt of the Baalbek complex, constructed in 195-217 CE (Lohmann, p. 232), had 30 monolithic reddish granite columns. There are two groups of many broken pieces of

Two single columns in reddish Aswan granite, standing on modern big plinths and white pedestals at the medieval cathedral of Tyre. They were reconstructed, partially with broken pieces from the original columns. The height of the column bearing a capital is 8.05 m, including the upper double and the low single astragals.

34

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

Butrint and its surrounding landscape.

A Roman column of the second or third century CE of reddish Aswan granite, reused at the medieval cathedral of Tyre in the 12th and 13th centuries. Broken length 5.05 m, diameter of the shaft 0.81-0.82 m, diameter of the astragal 0.96 m. The dowel hole and the channel for lead casting ensured the stability of the standing column on its plinth.

reddish granite on the ground with measurements that correspond to the diameters of the single astragal and shaft of some columns of the wreck, as well as the column standing in Modon Castle.

The Great Courtyard of Baalbek, completed in 117-161 CE (Lohmann, p. 232), presented 84 monolithic reddish granite columns. By measuring standing and broken columns on the ground, I again found shaft and astragal diameters similar to some columns of the wreck and the column standing in Modon Castle. The standing columns at the Great Courtyard of Baalbek, including the single and double astragals, are 8.10 m high. Only three of 44 columns of the 12 exedras (semicircular rooms where people may sit and converse) are standing today with their capitals on them. One column is reconstructed with original pieces and the two others are of singlepiece reddish granite. These three standing columns and broken pieces on the ground also have diameters similar to columns of the wreck.

There must have been more than one ship of the Venetian fleet carrying granite columns. If this assumption seems arbitrary, it is far more arbitrary to claim that there was only one ship, because in this case it would mean the doge carried away only one complete granite column, which is most unlikely, if not absurd.

The measurements taken in Tyre and Baalbek for this research reveal that although monolithic reddish granite

UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGICAL TREASURES IN MODON BAY

columns can be of quite different dimensions, there are columns with identical material and dimensions at the medieval cathedral of Tyre, the peristyle of the Hexagonal Forecourt of Baalbek, the peristyle and the exedras of the Great Courtyard of Baalbek, and in Modon. Therefore, Michiel took reddish granite columns from at least these places in Lebanon, and maybe from other sites, on more than one ship of his fleet. They were lavish and tempting items to embellish Venice. The color of this kind of granite is not only suitable for decorating public and private places, but also close to the red background of the banner of the Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia bearing the lion of Saint Mark. However, one of the ships carrying

columns sunk in Modon Bay when Michiel stopped there on his way back to Venice. The price he paid by losing one or two ships in Modon was not very high compared to the destruction of the castle that he accomplished.

Patrice Foutakis, Ph.D., graduated from the Université de Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne. He is the author of books and articles about the Golden Ratio in Ancient Greek architecture, Venetian heraldry and paleography, the castle of Modon, the medieval Le Viste family, Norman reliefs of the 11th century, the Lady with the Unicorn tapestries, and the Order of Malta. All images are by the author unless otherwise specified.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities of Greece for permission to visit the underwater sites in Modon Bay, and to the Direction Générale des Antiquités du Ministère de la Culture in Lebanon for permission to examine, measure, and photograph sarcophagi and columns at the National Museum of Beirut, the site of Tyre, the Al-Bass Necropolis, and the Baalbek archaeological site. My sincere thanks to the Penn Museum Archives and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology Archives, College Station, Texas, for Peter Throckmorton’s correspondence, field notes, and records. My gratitude to the Rural and Surveyor Engineer George Michailidis for sharing the results of his three-dimensional photogrammetric survey on the Modon shipwrecks, although they are not yet published. I also thank the Louvre Museum, Paris, the National Archaeological Museum and Kerameikos Archaeological Museum, Athens, and the Archaeological Museum, Thessaloniki, for the permission to study, measure, and photograph TOP: Columns in reddish Aswan granite of the southeastern corner for the peristyle of the Great Courtyard (117-161 CE) in Baalbek, Lebanon. The standing columns were reconstructed with original pieces, while many broken columns of the peristyle are on the ground. The height of the standing columns is 8.10 m, including the single and double astragals.

sarcophagi displayed there.

BOTTOM: Standing columns of the southern central exedra and broken columns on the ground from the southern peristyle of the Great Courtyard (117-161 CE) in Baalbek.

FALL/WINTER 2021

35

UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGICAL TREASURES IN MODON BAY

The northwestern semicircular exedra of the Great Courtyard (117-161 CE) in Baalbek. The one-piece reddish Aswan granite column on the right is 0.85 m in diameter for the single astragal of the base end of the shaft, 0.77 m in diameter for the low part of the shaft, and 7.25 m in height including the single and double astragals

36

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

REFERENCES

Andrews, Kevin. Castles of the Morea. New Jersey: Princeton Press, 1953.

Ballance, Michael H. “The Origin of ‘Africano’.” Papers of the British School at Rome, 34 (1966): 79-81.

Barry, Fabio. “Disiecta membra: Ranieri Zeno, the Imitation of Constantinople, the Spolia Style, and Justice at San Marco.”

In San Marco, Byzantium, and the Myths of Venice, edited by Henri Maguire and Robert S. Nelson, pp. 7-62. Washington, D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2010.

Bembo, Pietro. History of Venice. Transl. from the latin

by Robert W. Ulery, 3 vols., 12 books. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007-09.

Dandolo, Andrea. “Chronica per extensum descripta.”

In Raccolta degli storici Italiani, edited by Ludovico Antonio Muratori, 12.1, pp. 1-681. Bologna: Nicola Zanichelli, 1938-58.

Davies, Glenys. “Before Sarcophagi.” In Life, Death and Representation: Some New Work on Roman Sarcophagi, edited

by Jaś Elsner and Janet Huskinson, pp. 21-54. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2011.

Dellaporta, Ekaterini. “Υποβρύχιο Αρχαιολογικό Πάρκο Μεθώνης.” [Underwater Archaeological Park of Modon].

Archaiologikon Deltion, 60 (2005): 1259-60.

Foutakis, Patrice. “The granite column in Modon: how to make a stone say what you want it to say!” Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 24.1 (2005): 89-105.

Foutakis, Patrice. “Did the Greeks Build According to the Golden Ratio?” Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 24.1 (2014): 71-86.

Foutakis, Patrice. “De l’aube à minuit: les Hospitaliers au château de Modon.” Société de l’Histoire et du Patrimoine de l’Ordre de Malte, 33 (2015): 17-55.

Foutakis, Patrice-Panayotis. Η Μεθώνη και η Ιστορία, η Βενετία και η Εξουσία. [Modon and History, Venice and Power].

Athens: Kapon editions, 2017.

Foutakis, Patrice. Les trois saisons : un carrosse sur le chemin du chevalier Antonio Bosio. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2020.

Fulcher of Chartes. “Histoire des Croisades.” In Collection des Mémoires relatifs à l’Histoire de la France, edited by François Guizot, pp. 1-275. Paris: Brière, 1825.

Gatier, Pierre-Louis. “Nouvelles recherches archéologiques dans la ville de Tyr (Liban).” Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 155.4 (2011a) : 1499557.

Gatier, Pierre-Louis. “Tyr l’instable: pour un catalogue des séismes de l’Antiquité et du Moyen Âge.” In Sources de l’Histoire de Tyr, edited by Piere-Louis-Gatier, Julien Aliquot and Lévon Nordiguian, pp. 255-65. Beyrouth: Presses de l’Université SaintJoseph, 2011b.

Gertwagen, Ruth. “Venetian Modon and its Port, 13581500.” In Mediterranean Urban Culture 1400-1700, edited by Alexander Cowan, pp. 125-48. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000.

Kraft, John C. and Aschenbrenner, Stanley E. “Paleogeographic Reconstructions in the Methoni Embayment in Greece.” Journal of Field Archaeology, 4 (1977): 19-44.

Lazzarini, Lorenzo and Visonà, Dario. “Lapis Sarcophagus and the Provenance of its Mediterranean Sarcophagi.” In ΛΕΥΚΟΣ ΛΙΘΟΣ. Marbres et autres roches de la Méditerranée antique: études interdisciplinaires, edited by Philippe Jockey, pp.

369-88. Actes du VIIIe Colloque international de l’Association for the Study of Marble and Other Stones used in Antiquity (ASMOSIA), Aix-en-Provence: 12-18 juin 2006. Paris: Karthala, 2011.

Lianos, Nikolaos. “Il Castello da Mare di Methoni.” In Dieci Tesi di Restauro (1982-1985), edited by Giovanni Carbonara and Franca Iole Pietrafitta, pp. 61-74. Roma: La Sapienza, 1987.

Lohmann, Daniel. Das Heiligtum des Jupiter Heliopolitanus in Baalbek; die Planungs- und Baugeschichte. Rahden/Westfalen: Leidorf, 2017.

Papathanasopoulos, George. “Αρχαιότητες Μεσσηνίας.”

[Antiquities of Messenia]. Archaiologikon Deltion, 18 (1963): 91-5.

Pepper, Simon. “Fortress and Fleet: The Defense of Venice’s Mainland Greek Colonies in the Late Fifteenth Century.” In War, Culture and Society in Renaissance Venice: Essays in Honour of John Hale, edited by David Chambers, Cecil H. Clough and Michael E. Mallett, pp. 29-55. London: Hambledon Press, 1993.

Piri Reis. Kitab-i Bahriye. 4 vols. Istanbul: The Foundation for Establishing and Promoting Centers for Historical Research and Documentation, 1988.

Pliny the Elder. Naturalis Historia. Book XXXVI. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1981.

Pringle, Denys. “The Crusader Cathedral of Tyre.” Levant, 33 (2001): 165-88.

Sanudo, Marino. “Le vite dei dogi.” Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. Raccolta degli Storici Italiani, 22.4 (1900): 1-572.

Tamari, Shmuel. “The Venetian-Ottoman fort Castel da Mare in Modon (Morea, Peloponnese).” Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, (serie 8) 33 (1978) : 527-52.

Throckmorton, Peter. Correspondence. Penn Museum Archives, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 3/14/11, box 10, folders 1-5, box 11, folders 6-9.

1959-71.

Throckmorton, Peter. Collection. Institute of Nautical Archaeology Archives, College Station, Texas. Drawer 9-A, folder M-1. 1962-63.

Throckmorton, Peter and Bullitt, John M. “Underwater Surveys in Greece: 1962.” Expedition, 5.2 (1963): 16-23.

Throckmorton, Peter. “Simple Underwater Surveys.”

In Surveying in Archaeology Underwater, edited by Peter Throckmorton, Edward T. Hall, et al., pp. 1-20. London: Bernard Quaritch, 1969.

Ward-Perkins, John Bryan. “Marmo ‘Africano’ e ‘lapis sarcophagus’.” Atti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia. Rendiconti, 39 (1967): 125-33.

William of Tyre. Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum. Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1844.

FALL/WINTER 2021

37

What Can a Door Socket Tell Us? Intriguing Discoveries at Quwākh Tapeh

BY SAJJAD ALIBAIGI, ALIREZA MORADI-BISOTUNI, AND NOUROLLAH KARIMI

IN 1992, the accidental discovery of a ceramic vessel at Quwākh Tapeh, a historical key site along the Silk Road (Great Khurasan Road) in Kermānshāh, western Iran, revealed 141 coins dating back to the 4th through 3rd centuries BCE. In recent visits, in addition to a series of surface potsherds dating from the 3rd millennium BCE to the Sassanid period, a decorated stone door socket and several carved stones were found, indicating the existence of an extremely important monument, such as a palace or an administrative center, from the NeoAssyrian period.

Aerial view of Quwākh Tapeh in western Iran.

Photo by Reza Azizi.

FALL/WINTER 2021

39

Quwākh Tapeh. Photo by Sajjad Alibaigi.

T

HE GREAT MĀHIDASHT PLAIN is the largest, best watered, and most fertile plain in the Zagros area. These features, along with its mild climate and, most importantly, its location on the Silk Road, have been a constant draw for human groups and important settlements have been established there. In the Great

The location of Quwākh Tapeh in western Iran.

Map by Saeid Bahramiyan.

40

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

Māhidasht region, numerous studies by Erich Schmidt and George Miles, Aurel Stein, Robert Braidwood, Ali Akbar Sarfarāz, Louis D. Levine, Abbās Motarjem, Shahin Kermājāni, Yousef Morādi, Abbās Rezāeiniā, and Maryam Dehghān have identified 550 archaeological sites from ancient Paleolithic to historical times, some of which are registered on the Iran National Heritage List owing to their importance.

One of the major settlements of the Great Māhidasht Plain is Quwākh Tapeh in the north of Māhidasht and southeast of Kuzarān, which has been studied and visited several times by archaeologists. However, little is known about this site and, despite the occasional discovery of a small treasure trove of ancient coins, it remains less known due to the lack of archaeological excavations. In recent visits, in addition to a number of potsherds that indicate the settlement continuity of the site, a large stone door socket was discovered that certainly belonged to an impressive building, suggesting the importance of the site in the past.

WHAT CAN A DOOR SOCKET TELL US?

Iron Age III, Parthian, and Sassanid period potsherds from Quwākh Tapeh. Courtesy of Sumayeh Zeinali.

QUWĀKH TAPEH Quwākh Tapeh is a relatively large mound located 43 km west of Kermānshāh and a little more than 4 km southeast of the small town of Kuzarān. The site comprises a large prominence 330 m long, 220 m wide, and 17 m taller than the surrounding lands (Great Central Mound). There are numerous small or large prominences both near to and far from the mound, indicating a large archaeological site measuring 500 m2 with a current area of approximately 25 ha. The existence of a water canal in the eastern part of the mound and a dried-up spring in the southwest show that these two sources provided the water needed for inhabitants of the area.

The mound was first identified in Erich Schmidt’s 1934 surveys for the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, locating Quwākh Tapeh on a map published in 1940 in Flights Over Ancient Cities of Iran. Some years later, in the 1940s, the site was surveyed and visited by Stein. Ali Akbar Sarfarāz and colleagues reexamined the site in the surveys of the Great Māhidasht Plain in 1968.

On July 10, 1969 they succeeded in registering the site as number 865 on the Iran National Heritage List. In 1998, during the investigations of Abbas Motarjem in Kuzarān

plain, Quwākh Tapeh was revisited. In his report, Motarjem described Quwākh Tapeh as a site dating back to the Parthian period.

FINDINGS Except for Abbas Motarjem’s report, there is not much information about Quwākh Tapeh and previous studies have mentioned only the name of the site. Motarjem, while pointing out the importance of the site, mentions

Small gray Clinky ware from the Parthian period, found by locals from Quwākh Tapeh.

Photo by Sajjad Alibaigi.

FALL/WINTER 2021

41

WHAT CAN A DOOR SOCKET TELL US?

the presence of many Parthian potteries and maintains that Quwākh Tapeh was a large settlement during the Parthian period.

In 2014, with the agreement of the Cultural Heritage Office of Kermānshāh, the authors visited and began Drawing of an Alexander studying the coins discovered at III tetradrachm by Naser the site. After a three-year interval, Aminikhah. the authors visited again and this time new findings were observed on the surface of the site.

Exact location of the coin treasury, revealed by floods after a canal was dug in the mound. Photo by Sajjad Alibaigi.

Map of Quwākh Tapeh showing (1) the location of the coin treasury, (2) the previous location of the Neo-Assyrian door socket, and (3) the current location of the door socket. Map by Reza Azizi.

42

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

TREASURY OF COINS Nearly 30 years ago, a student accidentally found a small ceramic vessel containing a highly important treasure 205 m east of the central high mound of Quwākh Tapeh. Shortly thereafter, the incident was reported to the Kuzarān police and the Cultural Heritage Office of Kermānshāh then became aware of the discovery. This is how the treasure was kept safe from plunder and all of its contents were collected and made available to the government.

A very brief two-line newsletter published in 1993 in the Iranian Journal of Archeology and History by Ali Rouhbakhshan and Kamyar Abdi reads: “On December 16, 1992 in the Quwākh Tapeh of Kuzarān, Kermānshāh province, 141 coins were obtained that belong to the Seleucid period and date back over 2,000 years.”

According to locals, this small treasure was found about 1 m deep at 130 m east of the Great Central Mound of Quwākh Tapeh and was revealed by floods after a canal was dug in the mounds. The ceramic vessel contained 141 silver coins featuring Alexander the Great, the Seleucid king (either Antiochus I or II), and Mazaeus the Achaemenid/Macedonian Satrap of Babylon, some of which are Athenian Owl type imitations. The authors had access to 124 of these coins, which are held in the Museum of Anthropology of Kermānshāh at Tekyeh Moaven al-molk and described in more detail on page 32.

This treasure has a total weight of roughly 2 kg and the very small amount of green oxide on the coins shows they were minted with high-grade silver. It seems likely that the treasure was deposited during the Early Seleucid

The Neo-Assyrian door socket of Quwākh Tapeh.

Photo by Sajjad Alibaigi.

Drawing and Reconstruction of the Neo-Assyrian door socket of Quwākh Tapeh by Naser Aminikhah.

period, given the time span of the discovered coins and the lack of specimens more recent than the Antiochus I or II period. In 2011, Dr. Mehdi Daryaei registered several coins from different periods for the Museum of Anthropology of Kermānshāh at Tekyeh Moaven al-molk, including Quwākh Tapeh coins.

STONE DOOR SOCKET On our first visit to the eastern slope of Quwākh Tapeh in 2014, we found four pieces of white limestone, one of which was used as a staircase, in the courtyard of a deserted and half-ruined house. Near another house to the south of the site were several other carved stones, one of which, if not an obelisk base, is probably a small stone casket. Our recent visit revealed that the owner of the abandoned house had removed the stone staircase to the edge of his farmland. Examination showed that this carved and ornamented stone was not an ordinary

Naser Aminikhah drawing the door socket.

Photo by Sajjad Alibaigi.

stone fragment, but a very large door socket in the style of the Neo-Assyrian period. Similar door sockets were uncovered in Neo-Assyrian palaces or temples of the Mesopotamia, including the temple of Nebo in Khorsabad, Neo-Assyrian palaces at Nimrud and Khorsabad, and Neo-Assyrian provincial capitals such as Arsalanatash, Till-Barsib, and Ziyaret Tepe. This monumental door socket indicates that Quwākh Tapeh was not an ordinary village, but rather a place with important constructions, the most important of which was likely a complex dating back to the Neo-Assyrian period.

SIGNIFICANCE The results of our investigation into Quwākh Tapeh— especially the extent of archaeological deposits and the existence of numerous and varied pottery collections and stone objects—indicate that Quwākh Tapeh was

FALL/WINTER 2021

43

ALEXANDER III OF MACEDON COINS: The Alexander III coins consist of 46 tetradrachms and 7 silver two drachms. The tetradrachms are between 16.6-17.5 g in weight, 24.1-29 mm in diameter, and 3.0-3.5 mm thick. The two drachms weigh 8.0-8.6 g and are 3-3.5 mm thick and 21-22.1 mm in diameter. On the obverse (front face) of all these coins, the bust of Heracles with a lion headdress can be seen. On the reverse (back face), Zeus is seated on a throne, turned to the left, and holding an eagle in his right hand and a scepter in his left hand with the legend (engraved words) Αλεξανδρου (of Alexander).

THE ANCIENT COINS OF QUWĀKH TAPEH

Coins from Quwākh Tapeh dating back to the 4th–3rd centuries BCE. Courtesy of Saeid Sa’edi and Farid Sa’edi.

44

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

COINS OF MAZAEUS (THE LION COINS): In the collection, there are 26 silver tetradrachms of Mazaeus, the Satrap of Babylon during the rule of Alexander (331-328 BCE). These coins weigh 16.8-17.2 g and are 20-26 mm in diameter and 4.5-6 mm thick. On the obverse of the coin, Baal is shown sitting on a throne and holding a scepter.

Behind Baal there is a short inscription in Aramaic that reads “Baal tarz (the lord of Tarsus).” On the reverse is a walking male lion. In the upper space behind the lion, a short inscription is written with the title MZDY (Mazaeus). In some cases, a mark is engraved on the top of the lion’s body instead of the inscription. Some of these coins do not have any inscriptions.

COINS IMITATING THE ATHENIAN OWL STYLE: There are 44 silver tetradrachms in the collection.

Each features a right-side profile of Athena with a helmet, earrings, and a hairless face, imitating the Athenian Owl tetradrachm of the 5th century BCE. On the reverse is the right-side profile of an owl. To the right of the owl are two olive leaves and three letters: ΑΘΕ (Athens). These coins weigh 16.2-17.2 g and are 5-6 mm thick and 21.5-24 mm in diameter.

Samples with a maximum diameter of 28 mm and thickness of 7.5 mm can also be seen. Some coins have a short inscription to the right of the owl: the legend MZDY (Mazaeus).

SELEUCID COIN: There is a coin from Antiochus I or II in the collection. The king’s right-side profile is engraved on the obverse, and on the reverse, Zeus sits on the omphalos (a rounded stone representing the center of the world) with a bird perched on his right hand. A short inscription, βασιλέωσ αντιόχου, is engraved on both sides of Zeus. This coin weighs 16.6 g and is 28 mm in diameter and 3.5 mm thick.

WHAT CAN A DOOR SOCKET TELL US?

an important center in the Neo-Assyrian period and that it contains significant archeological remnants. The discovery of the door socket in the Neo-Assyrian period is particularly interesting. If this door socket belongs to the Assyrian period, it is in fact the second Zagros site, after Tapeh Giyan in Nahavand, to reveal remnants of the Neo-Assyrian Empire of the 8th century BCE. Given that the Assyrian cuneiform texts speak of the conquest of the region and its annexation to the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the discovery of this finding may be important to tracing the Assyrian settlement in Iran, which is frequently mentioned in the texts, but missing from archaeological remnants.

The discovery at Quwākh Tapeh of a small treasure trove of ancient coins dating back to the 4th through 3rd centuries BCE is also significant. The finding of the Athenian Owl-type coins in the heart of central Zagros, far from their minting location, is important in itself, and will bring forth various topics for further study. The most recent coin in the collection dates back to the early Seleucid period (the time of Antiochus I or II). This suggests that the treasure found at Quwākh Tapeh was likely deposited in the early Seleucid period (before 245 BCE).

for further reading Levine, Louis D. 1974. “Archaeological Investigations in the Māhidasht, Western Iran.” Paléorient 2: 487-90.

Motarjem, A. 1998. Gozaresh-e avalin fasl-e barresihay-e bastanshenasi dasht-e Kouzaran (Report of Archaeological survey in the Kouzaran Plain), Unpublished Report in the Archive of the Cultural Heritage Handicraft Organization of Kermānshāh Province (in Persian).

Schmidt, E. 1940. Flights over Ancient Cities of Iran.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Stein, S.A. 1940. Old Routes of Western Iran: Narratives of an Archaeological Journey. New York: Greenwood Press.

Rouhbakhshan, A. and Abdi, K. 1993. “News.” Iranian Journal of Archeology and History 7 (13-14): 138-144 (in Persian).

Sarfarāz, A.A., Sarraf, M. and Yaqmaei, E. 1968. Barresihay-e Ostan-e Kermanshahan (Archaeological Surveys in Kermānshāh Province), Unpublished report in the Archive of the Cultural Heritage Handicraft Organization of Iran (in Persian).

Sajjad Alibaigi is Assistant Professor of Iranian Archaeology at Razi University, Kermānshāh. He graduated from the University of Tehran in 2014. His research interest is landscape archaeology of the Zagros area in the Iron Age and Neo-Assyrian period. Alireza Moradi-Bisotuni has extensive field experience at archaeological sites in western Iran’s Kermānshāh province and is an expert in archaeology working at the Kermānshāh Cultural Heritage, Handicraft and Tourism Office. Nourollah Karimi is former Head of Historic Properties Curator at the Kermānshāh Cultural Heritage, Handicraft and Tourism Office. He studied archaeology at the Miras-e Farhangi Institute, Tehran in the 1980s.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank Iran National Science Foundation (INSF) (Research Proposal No. 98029208), Iranian Centre for Archaeological Research, and Deutschs Archäologisches Institut (DAI), Tehran Branch, especially Dr. Judith Tomalsky, Director of DAI, for their support. We thank Mr. Ali Felegari, Saeid and Farid Sāedi, Naser Aminikhāh, Reza Azizi, and Farshid Safāeimanesh for their help, and Professors Michael Roaf, Louis D. Levine, John MacGinnis, Julian Reade, Karen Radner, David Stronach, Rémy Boucharlat, and John Curtis for discussions about the dating of the door socket. We also thank the people of Quwākh Tapeh, who provided us with detailed information on the coin discovery event and its exact location.

FALL/WINTER 2021

45

IN THE LABS

From Remote Learning to In-Person Research in CAAM

BY ASHLEY B. RAY

Ashley using the digital microscope to image an insect specimen.

Photo: Chantel White.

I

WANTED TO GET INVOLVED WITH CAAM ever since I was accepted to Penn. Archaeological science was a novel concept to me and the fact that I, as an undergraduate, could participate in this type of research was even more novel. Yet with COVID-19 keeping everyone inside their homes, and not knowing about available resources for first-gen students, I had no clue how to get involved in research—much less research in the archaeological sciences.

As the 2020-2021 academic year progressed, I was able to find a student mentor in a peer who was wrapping up a minor in archaeological science through CAAM. They gave me advice on which classes I could take to explore my interests and how to navigate the pre-professional programs at Penn. I also enrolled in anthropology courses, including ANTH148: Food and Fire, taught by CAAM zooarchaeologist Katherine

46

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

Moore. For someone who recently developed an interest in anthropology, this course, though remote, was very beneficial because it exposed me to the different fields of archaeological research along with their principles and techniques. In June when my mentor told me that CAAM archaeobotanist Chantel White needed a summer lab assistant, I was thrilled.

I worked in the lab over the summer and continued into the fall semester, becoming the Lab Manager. My work is to sort and identify material from the kitchen house at the historic Nathaniel Russell House. This home in Charleston, South Carolina was inhabited by the prominent Russell and Allston families from its construction in 1808 to 1870. However, the focus of this project is not the wealthy families that lived in the main house, but the enslaved individuals that lived and worked in the kitchen house. This project is unique because I am

(L-R) Ashley and Dr. White engaging with the public on International Archaeology Day at The Woodlands in West Philadelphia.

Photo: MarieClaude Boileau.

acquiring an understanding of their lives through food and other items collected from the kitchen house by rodents.

We are examining the nests and caches of 19th-century rodents that lived between the walls and the floors. While looking through these caches, one of our main goals is to find any materials that might provide information about the diets of the people who lived in the kitchen house.

My role in this endeavor is to sort the dried contents of these rodent caches. This involves using tweezers to separate the samples into different types of materials.

For example, the most common types that appear are bone, metal, botanical material, building material (brick, mortar, plaster), insect material, and animal droppings.

Once I finish sorting everything, I measure and record what I have found. While we are only in the beginning stages of this project, my work is contributing to a greater understanding of how rodent caches contain residue of human activity and how archaeologists can interpret preserved material from unlikely sources.

The benefits of working in a collaborative setting are countless. I am very aware of how lucky I am to be conducting in-person research. Also, as an undergraduate aspiring biological anthropologist, the experience is rewarding because I get to participate in real archaeological work. I have also become well acquainted with archaeological equipment and methods, such as flotation, that would have been much more difficult to learn remotely. And in a way, I also got to give anthropology a test drive and decide if I wanted to commit myself to this field. Seeing as I now get excited at the possibility of finding rodent teeth or seed fragments, I think it’s safe to say that I made the right choice.

Ashley B. Ray is Lab Manager in the Archaeobotany Lab, Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Material (CAAM), and a sophomore in the School of Arts and Sciences majoring in biological anthropology.

Ashley in the lab sorting samples based on material types. Photo: Marie-Claude Boileau.

Specimen of the insect order of Coleoptera.

Photo: Ashley Ray.

FALL/WINTER 2021

47

ACADEMIC ENGAGEMENT

Summer Internships A DEEPER DIVE MUSEUM EXPERIENCE

F

ROM JUNE TO AUGUST, I spent every weekday morning thinking of different ways to Linda Lo with summer campers in the Native American Voices Gallery. greet our summer campers. The younger campers usually had higher topics from Stephanie, our respective departments, and energy levels in the morning that other guest speakers every week. These topics covered the older campers often did not. My days consisted of the origins of the Penn Museum, current events such as interacting with 50 children a day and preparing fun the MOVE bombing, and the efforts towards decolonizing workshops and activities for them. I loved meeting the different campers and working with the camp counselors. museums. We discussed everything as a group and raised issues and questions around these topics.

My experience in the Penn Museum Summer 2021 Internship with Penn Museum Anthropology Camp was I have been involved with the Museum prior to my in-person, making it a much more interactive experience 2021 summer internship as a Visitor Service’s Intern than it was for my fellow interns. This also meant I was (2018), a Counselor-In-Training with Penn Museum able to explore the Museum and its new exhibits much Anthropology Camp (2019), and, currently, a part-time more in depth while discussing artifacts and histories with Public Engagement staff member. These roles have a variety of ages. The fifteen other interns and I worked allowed me to become more familiar and connected with in different departments ranging from Development Penn Museum while providing insight into what I want to Learning and Public Engagement. We were led by to do in the future. My internship during the summer Stephanie Mach, our Academic Engagement Coordinator. of 2021 allowed me to dive deeper into the Museum’s Throughout the summer, we learned about a variety of behind-the-scenes planning than in my previous roles.

Linda Lo giving her final presentation.

48

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

Our access to guidance and education through a variety of museum professionals cultivated a deeper understanding of the roles that museums play in communities.

As interns, we participated in conversations directly impacting the Museum through our departments’ responsibilities and roles, while also engaging in the implementation of ideas. It was an amazing experience to participate as idea transformed from a simple brainstorm into reality. I appreciate the experiences I have gained as it deepened my understanding of the interconnectedness of all the Museum’s departments and effort of teamwork that is not always visible. The care and consideration put into each department’s work was shown through the passion of interns when we discussed our current projects with the group.

Although all of us have never met in person, we were all connected through our interest in the Penn Museum. This was especially shown during our internship’s final presentation when we shared our experiences and summer projects. Our team leaders virtually cheering us on from their BlueJeans screen was very wholesome and added to the energy and excitement (thank you Tena, Allie, Joelle!). Despite our mostly virtual summer meetings, it was amazing to be in an environment where we could share common interests and passions with each other.

Penn Museum Summer Internship Program The Penn Museum Summer Internship Program gives college students the opportunity to learn by doing in their field of interest. Diverse populations are severely underrepresented in professional museum roles, and paid internships create access—offering the direct experience needed to launch meaningful careers.

Our first all-paid Summer Internship Program aimed to do just that. More than 275 students competed for sixteen positions, which represented an 87 percent increase in paid summer internship applications over the previous year. The selected cohort included 56% people of color, and interns joined the nine-week program from not only nearby New York and Pennsylvania but also eight states—from Michigan to Texas— farther afield.

Mentored by Museum staff across 13 departments and sections, interns conducted projects with real impact. These included helping to plan and promote inaugural artist-inresidence Carlos José Pérez Sámano’s Spanish-language poetry workshops; analyzing data on cultural heritage preservation in sites of conflict; and filming a Digital Daily Dig about the Olympics.

Linda Lo is a sophomore at Temple University studying Criminal Justice and History. She still works part-time in the Learning and Public Engagement Department and plans to return to Penn Museum Anthropology Camp for the 2022 season.

Intern group shot following the cohort’s virtual final project presentations.

FALL/WINTER 2021

49

LEARNING AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Heritage West: The West Philadelphia Community Archaeology Project

BY ZOË RAYN EVANS , MEGAN KASSABAUM, SARAH LINN, AND DOUGLAS SMIT

C

ONFRONTING THE TROUBLING HISTORIES of racial and social injustice in West Philadelphia, specifically those of the historically Black neighborhoods north of Market Street, has been top of mind for many residents, community organizations, and Penn students and staff in recent years. From the removal of hundreds of Black families in the 1950s under the auspices of “urban renewal” to ongoing gentrification, the status of the University of Pennsylvania as an elite urban institution is deeply intertwined The Penn project team (left to right) Zoë Rayn Evans, Megan Kassabaum, Sarah Linn, and Doug Smit. with the displacement and dispossession of these communities. Any step toward reparative justice requires collaboration a broader historical and material context. Community with trusted community organizations and a willingness archaeology aims to democratize the methods of to acknowledge the past in a public forum. Heritage West: archaeological research by seeking collaboration from The West Philadelphia Community Archaeology Project day one, relinquishing control so that the community may was developed from this conviction. In partnership with drive the research objectives and themes. Community the People’s Emergency Center CDC, the Black Bottom members and local leaders work alongside Penn Tribe Association, and University City Arts League, we Anthropology students Chrislyn Laurie Laurore, Chelsea created a multi-year community archaeology and heritage Cohen, and Robert Bryant; faculty members Megan program that links past and present through three Kassabaum and Doug Smit; and Penn Museum Research interrelated themes: the late 19th-century formation of Liaison Sarah Linn to develop and share their perspective Black communities, 20th-century struggles over homes in confronting these issues. and housing due to redlining and gentrification, and 21stLaunched publicly in September 2021 during the century community persistence and renewal. annual PARK(ing) Day—a global, public, participatory art project, where people across the world temporarily Heritage West builds on the legacy of previous repurpose street parking spaces and convert them to tiny and ongoing public history programs undertaken at parks and places for art, play, and activism—Heritage West Penn. However, our emphasis on an archaeological exhibited a mobile pop-up booth featuring a timeline of perspective that links the materials and heritage of West Philadelphia with a single prompt asking passersby the recent past with present communities is unique. to fill in the blanks using their own community, family, This archaeological perspective places contemporary and individual knowledge. Over the course of the day, problems of gentrification and systemic racism within

50

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

our team met dozens of individuals and families stopping to share anecdotes of the past. People contributed everything from holiday light shows to grandparents’ birthdays to the openings and closing of local businesses.

Some even paused to call family members asking what they would want to add to the timeline.

Over the course of the program, participants will explore our themes through conversations, a community archive, and a culminating local excavation at a location determined by the community.

Zoë Rayn Evans is executive director of the University City Arts League and former Penn Museum Collaborative Programs Manager; Megan Kassabaum, Ph.D., is the Weingarten Associate Curator for North America and Associate Professor of Anthropology; Sarah Linn, Ph.D., is Research Liaison in the Academic Engagement Department; Douglas Smit, Ph.D., is Senior Fellow, Department of Anthropology

The Heritage West collaboration recognizes West Philadelphia residents as experts on their own history. There is a sense of excitement at PEC to work on this project with community members, the Black Bottom Tribe Association, University City Arts League, and Penn Museum. It’s an opportunity to build relationships, learn from each other, and create a model for the future of anthropology and archaeology.

— LATIAYNNA TABB, Creative Placemaking Project Manager at the People’s Emergency Center At Heritage West’s mobile, pop-up booth at PARK(ing) Day in September 2021, local community members add to a West Philadelphia timeline and share histories with team members. Photos by Megan Kassabaum.

FALL/WINTER 2021

51

ARTIFACT PERSPECTIVES

Presence of a Fundamental Absence IN 2019, the Museum commissioned Muhsana Ali, a Philadelphia-born visual artist who lives and works in Senegal, and Amadou Kane Sy, a Senegalese multimedia artist, to create a piece for our new Africa Galleries. Benjamin Neiditz, Head of Preparations, worked with the artists on the planning and installation of their 12 by 18-foot sculpture, titled Presence of a Fundamental Absence.

WHAT IS PRESENCE OF A FUNDAMENTAL ABSENCE AND WHY IS IT MEANINGFUL TO YOU? BN: It’s a very large wall-mounted mosaic that covers the space between two display cases and then grows over the sides of these adjacent cases. Embedded in the surface of the mosaic are a variety of different items that the artists

collected around their studios in Senegal: animal bones, crushed cans, cookware, old tools, bits of rusty metal, and fragments of ceramic, to name a few.

Most of the time when we are creating exhibitions, we are striving to create environments that are ordered— that are as legible as possible and as clean as possible.

And it’s very refreshing to have this chaotic, messy, dirty

Presence of a Fundamental Absence (2019), EP-2019-7-4. Currently displayed in the Africa Galleries, the mosaic contains iron ore, animal bone fragments, and ceramic. Photo by Raffi Berberian.

52

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

LEFT to RIGHT: Interim Director of Exhibitions Jessica Bicknell; Interim Director of Learning and Public Engagement Kevin Schott; artist Muhsana Ali; Global Guide Clay Katongo; Curatorial Advisor Monique Scott, Ph.D.; and artist Amadou Kane Sy. Photo by Raffi Berberian.

assemblage looming over the cases in the gallery. It’s a real departure from the aesthetic that we’re usually trying to achieve. It brings an entirely different energy into the gallery space.

HOW DOES THE MOSAIC RELATE TO OTHER PIECES IN THE GALLERY? BN: The artists were interested in the flow of objects out of Africa and into Western museums. A lot of the objects in the gallery are considered to be highly valuable, whereas the objects in the mosaic are not; they are either found objects, garbage, essentially, or objects of daily life that are easily acquired and commonplace.

The title of the piece alludes to the way things of value are taken, how they are taken, and then what’s left behind, kept out, or disregarded. So the chaotic messiness is not only in contrast to the orderliness of the gallery environment, but it is also a bit of a counter perspective to the values of Western museums. For me, it gestures toward the violence inherent in separating objects from the contexts for which they were made. In the words of the artists: “The objects of our installation and the objects of the collection have something in common. They are all carriers of traces of energy, or of the spirit of the place that gave birth to them, where the rhythm of life has greatly manipulated them for various reasons (spiritual, cultural, economic, and commercial).”

WHAT CHALLENGES DID YOU ENCOUNTER INSTALLING THIS PIECE? BN: It was great to work with Muhsana and Kane Sy and figure out how to best execute their vision. The greatest challenge was very much a logistical one. The various sections of the mosaic needed to be constructed flat on the ground. Once all the objects were embedded and layers of grout were added, some of the larger sections were extremely heavy, but also very fragile.

The choreography of lifting and fitting them together vertically onto the wall, overhanging casework, fifteen feet from the floor, was a bit harrowing. It took the four of us—myself, Lead Fabricator Zach Fay, Muhsana, and Kane Sy—almost a full week on scaffolding to get the whole thing assembled on the wall.

DO YOU HAVE ANY FAVORITE ITEMS THAT ARE EMBEDDED IN THE MOSAIC? BN: It’s less about individual bits and pieces than it is about the overwhelming maximalism of all the bits and pieces together; it’s the totality that I like.

Benjamin Neiditz, Head of Preparations, is also an artist and designer whose work includes site-specific installations, artifact replicas, animatronic sculptures, and object-based exhibitions.

FALL/WINTER 2021

53

MEMBERSHIP MATTERS

Member Spotlight: Susan T. Marx, CW66 SUSAN T. MARX, CW66, is a member of the Penn Museum Director’s Council.

In addition to the Penn Museum, she also supports the Arthur Ross Gallery. She serves on the Trustees’ Council of Penn Women and as a volunteer for the Class of 1966. She received the Alumni Award of Merit, which honors outstanding leadership and service to the University, in 2007. She and her husband Philip Kivitz, live in New York City.

The physical space of the Museum was extremely significant to me because I took my history of art courses in the Harrison Auditorium. Those courses left an indelible mark on my life. It opened me up. They inspired a very lifelong love of art. What really sparked me were the classical Greek sculptures, and I am a stone carver as a result—and that all started in Harrison Auditorium.

I got involved with the Director’s Council because of my admiration for the Museum, and my friend [Director’s Council member] John Hover. He really encouraged me to become more involved. I came to the Museum in December of 2019 for the reopening of the Harrison Auditorium. My husband and I were overwhelmed by the beauty of the renovation.

The collection is magnificent. I love the Middle East Galleries, and Queen Puabi in particular, she’s so spectacular and wonderful. I think the Museum is so important to the University and obviously by understanding the past one can understand the present

54

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

Susan Marx and Philip Kivitz.

and look to the future, which is why the Museum’s mission is so important think in five or ten years, many more people will know of the Museum’s existence, and what is in its collection, both in terms of the Penn community and the West Philadelphia community. I know you continue to expand and increase the diversity of your audiences, and there’s certainly a lot of great programs for school children. New technologies within archaeology and anthropology will help in the field and the labs, but also increase your audiences with better virtual programs.

It’s all about outreach. That is really important.

You need to get the Museum in front of as many kinds of audiences and as many diverse communities as possible. I think the word “museum” can connote stuffy and there’s a barrier for people. I think a goal of the Museum is to begin to break down that barrier. I don’t know that it can be done immediately, but with more and more outreach, yes it can.

Member News Upcoming Visionaries Events MEMBERS of the Museum’s brand-new donor recognition program—The Penn Museum Visionaries— have two exclusive opportunities this winter. On February 3, Visionaries will travel to New York City with Professor C. Brian Rose, Curator in Charge, Mediterranean Section, for a visit to the Metropolitan Museum’s stunning Greek and Roman Galleries to enjoy a guided tour from Seán Hemingway, John A. and Carole O. Moran Curator in Charge.

Terracotta volute-krater (bowl for mixing wine and water), attributed to the Painter of the Woolly Satyrs (namepiece), Greek, Classical, ca.

450 BCE, Terracotta; red-figure, 25 in. (63.5 cm). Purchase, Rogers Fund, 1907 (07.286.84).

On March 23, Visionaries receive special access and a behind-the-scenes look at The Penny and Robert Fox Historic Costume Collection at Drexel University.

The Fox Collection generously loaned three dresses, including a gown worn by Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco, to the exhibition The Stories We Wear.

Meet Your Membership Office Team THE PENN MUSEUM MEMBERSHIP OFFICE welcomes Emily Holtzheimer as our new Associate Director, Membership, Annual Fund, and Special Events, and Thomas Delfi as Membership and Gifts Coordinator. Emily brings to this new role her experience working with members as the Penn Museum’s Assistant Director, Special Events and Strategic Initiatives; Thomas started his museum career at New York’s Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum and is founder and CEO of Nerdtino Entertainment Studios LLC. Thomas and Emily are available to assist with any membership renewals, program registration, or other questions or concerns about your membership. They can be reached at 215.898.5093 or membership@pennmuseum.org.

Join Penn Museum Visionaries to provide leadership philanthropic impact and for a personalized membership experience, and invitations to events like these.

A selection of shoes from The Penny and Robert Fox Historic Costume Collection at Drexel University.

For more information, please contact Kristen Lauerman at lauerman@upenn.edu or 215.573.5251.

FALL/WINTER 2021

55

ALUMNI NOTE

Holiday Wishes, Brought by Penn-Trained Anthropologists

I

N ONE OF HER MOST CREATIVE TASKS as the Penn Museum’s Major Gifts Coordinator each year, anthropology major Zhenia Bemko, LPS16, curates images of an object from the Museum’s collections or an image from its archives to feature on the holiday card sent to friends and supporters.

In 2021, after provenance research and consultation with curators Eileen Devinney and keepers, Bemko identified the perfect object to embody the card’s “Warm Wishes” greeting: a pair of moose hide and beaver fur mittens, crafted and embroidered with exquisite glass

seed beading by Mrs. Annie Smith of the Kwanlin Dun First Nation, Yukon, Canada. The mittens were a 2018 gift of Edward J. Devinney in memory of his sister

Mittens by Annie Smith, Kwanlin Dun First Nation, shown in detail on the cover of the 2021 Penn Museum holiday card.

56

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

Eileen Devinney, C88, an anthropology major who went on to serve for 25 years as a cultural anthropologist and liaison to Native communities in Alaska for the National Park Service. Devinney received honorary names Cimiralria and Igaun from Yup’ik and Iñupiaq colleagues, respectively, and NPS national recognition in 2012.

Her 2017 obituary noted her treatment of others with understanding and respect, and the loss felt by many who loved her dearly. Among those are Penn Museum friends and colleagues who had the opportunity to work with her in her role as student-volunteer, intern, and staff member.

This year’s card includes the note: “The Penn Museum remembers Eileen fondly.”

It’s rare that Bemko is able to complement the image on the card with the stamp on its envelope, but in July 2021 the U.S. Postal Service released a new Forever Stamp, Raven Story, created by Tlingit/Athabascan artist Rico Worl, CGS05, C09.

As outlined in a June 2021 essay in The Pennsylvania Gazette, “The Raven and Rico Worl,” Worl came to the Penn Museum for a semester to explore the legacy of

Louis Shotridge, a Tlingit anthropologist and assistant curator from 1915 to 1932. Worl applied the next year to return as a full-time student. Back home in Juneau after graduation, he worked at the Sealaska Heritage Institute where he was surrounded by monumental Tlingit artwork, which in part inspired his shift to creative design. In 2014, with his sister Crystal Worl, he founded Trickster Company, creating apparel and paper, home, and sports goods that act as cultural objects and represent a modern Indigenous lifestyle.

Trickster started with sporting goods—Eagle and Raven skateboards—and it was a Trickster Raven basketball in the gift shop of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian that caught the eye of USPS art director Antonio Alcalá, leading him to tap Worl in 2018 to design a new postage stamp.

The thoughtful pairing by one Penn-trained anthropologist created our 2021 Museum holiday card that honors the work of two others, and of Northwest Indigenous design.

THE RAVEN STORY FOREVER STAMP was unveiled by the U.S. Postal Service at the Sealaska Heritage Institute in Juneau, Alaska, in July 2021.

The stamp was created by Tlingit/Athabascan artist Rico Worl, CGS05, C09, using formline, the traditional design style of the Indigenous peoples of the northern Northwest Coast, and is inspired by the traditional story of the Raven setting the sun, moon, and stars free.

FALL/WINTER 2021

57

WELCOME NEWS

Unprecedented Presidential Match for Unpacking the Past IMPACT: SEVEN YEARS OF UNPACKING THE PAST SERVING OVER 6,000 Philadelphia Title I middle school students each year in their own schools and on campus, Unpacking the Past is one of the highest impact programs in President Amy Gutmann’s commitment to Engaging Locally, part of her Penn Compact Commitment. Since the program launched in October 2014, with a lead grant from the GRoW @ Annenberg Foundation, Unpacking the Past educators have had the following impact: ✔ 93 average schools served per year ✔ 4,124 programs delivered ✔ 51,224 individual students served ✔ 96,253 student program touchpoints

Students from the General George Meade School incising their own clay tablets during their Unpacking the Past Ancient Mesopotamia track workshop.

58

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

PENN PRESIDENT AMY GUTMANN has announced a new $5 million Presidential Challenge Match for Unpacking the Past, the Penn Museum’s partnership program with the School District of Philadelphia launched in 2014. Unpacking the Past is a multi-stage program connecting Philadelphia’s Title I middle President Amy Gutmann with 7th grade students from the Penn school classrooms studying Alexander School in West Philadelphia, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, early participants in Unpacking the Past, at the program launch with Rome, or China with the Penn School District of Philadelphia Museum’s teaching resources and Superintendent William Hite in October 2014. Since then the program extraordinary collections. has served over 51,000 students.

The $5 million Presidential Challenge will provide a one-to-one match for endowment gifts of $25,000 that will ensure the program’s stability and continued high impact for generations to come. It will enable us to endow four positions: the program director, two lead educators, and an associate educator, ensuring the Museum’s ability to retain and attract outstanding educators. Through this match, lead supporters have a unique opportunity to name and endow positions at $250,000 to $750,000 instead of twice that amount. The Presidential Match also includes named endowed funds of $25,000 to $250,000, which may be designated to support program costs such as free transportation for students, workshop supplies, and teacher resources.

This unprecedented gift will build on the program’s seven years of growth and impact. In the 2020–21 school year alone, working with teachers to best understand and meet needs of students through the challenges of the pandemic, Unpacking the Past educators delivered 569 programs across 139 schools, serving a total of almost 17,000 students. As one Philadelphia public school teacher told us, “all my students have an opportunity to essentially see the rest of the world” at the Penn Museum. Unpacking the Past empowers children and their families to feel at home in museums throughout their lives.

For more information on supporting Unpacking the Past, please contact Therese Marmion, Director of Major Gifts, at tmarmion@upenn.edu.

Partnerships, Honors, Distinguished Visits C. BRIAN ROSE NAMED A MONTGOMERY FELLOW AT DARTMOUTH The Penn Museum congratulates Ferry Curator-in-Charge of the Mediterranean Section C. Brian Rose on being nominated a lifelong Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth.

Established by the Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Endowment in 1977, Montgomery Fellows Brian Rose examines the carved Assyrian reliefs from Nimrud in the Hood are outstanding Museum of Art at Dartmouth College.

Photo by Robert Ousterhout. luminaries from academic and non-academic spheres who spend varying lengths of time—ranging from a few days to a full semester—on Dartmouth’s Hanover campus during their incumbencies.

One of five Montgomery Fellows invited to the fall 2021 Heritage Management Series “Who Owns the Past?”, Dr. Rose gave seven lectures on “Archaeology, Museums, and War: Strategies for the 21st Century” during a residency from October 25 to November 5.

PARTNER PROGRAMS On September 25 the Penn Museum opened a new special exhibition, The Stories We Wear, showcasing 2,500 years of style and adornment through approximately 250 remarkable objects. Most are drawn from our own collections, exploring common threads that transcend language, culture, and time. The exhibition also includes loaned gowns from iconic Philadelphians including Metropolitan Opera soprano Marian Anderson and drag queen Eric Jaffe.

Partner programs with the Eric & Lili’s Night at the Museum

National Marian Anderson Museum and Jaffe/St. Queer Productions are strengthening community partnerships.

“Eric & Lili’s Night at the Museum” was a musical Museum tour offered at 6 and 8 pm every Thursday in October. Every performance sold out and a high percentage of ticket buyers were first-time visitors to the Penn Museum. The Museum looks forward to programs with the National Marian Anderson Museum and CEO Jillian Patricia Pirtle, including a special Valentine’s Day presentation on February 13, “The Letters—Marian and Orpheus: A Love Story Dramatic Reading” (see back cover for details).

NAVY SURGEON GENERAL VISITS PENN AND THE MUSEUM During a twoday visit to Philadelphia that included the VA Medical Center and Penn’s Working Dog Center and School of Nursing, Rear Admiral Bruce Gillingham, Surgeon General of the Navy, and Rear Admiral Gillingham (second from left) members of his discussing ancient Mesopotamian culture with C. Brian Rose in the Middle East Galleries, and staff visited the addressing members of Penn’s Naval Reserve Penn Museum Officers Training Corps in the Warden Garden.

Photos by Daniel Burke. to tour the Middle East and Classical World galleries with C. Brian Rose, Ferry Curator-in-Charge of the Mediterranean Section, on Friday, September 10.

Rear Admiral Gillingham was welcomed by Colonel Vincent J. Ciuccoli, Commanding Officer, Philadelphia Consortium Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps, and addressed the members of the Corps in the Museum’s Warden Garden after the gallery tour.

FALL/WINTER 2021

59

WELCOME NEWS

Penn Medicine Pavilion Opens to Patients THE PENN MUSEUM congratulates our partners at Penn Medicine on the opening of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania’s 1.5 million-square-foot Pavilion on Saturday, October 30.

The 17-story building, immediately to the Museum’s south, houses 504 private patient rooms and 47 operating rooms. One of the largest hospital projects in the United States and the largest capital project in Penn’s history, the Foster and Associates-designed building is centered around patient care. Design was informed by Penn Medicine’s own clinical experts as well as architecture, design, and construction professionals who specialize in health care. In the curve of the atrium, architect Norman Foster plays deliberately on the adjacent Harrison Wing, housing the Museum’s architecturally renowned Harrison Auditorium.

The Pavilion Atrium houses a 40-foot, tree-like sculpture, Decoding the Tree of Life, by Maya Lin, the artist best known for designing Washington D.C.’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Beginning early in 2022, Pavilion visitors will also be able to explore objects from the Museum’s collections in three cases near the Lin sculpture. In the first of a series of rotating displays, objects from across all of the Museum’s curatorial sections are themed by Tools for Healing, Nourishment, and Protection/Warding Off Sickness.

The Penn Museum and the Pavilion are connected both above and below ground. A shared loading dock

Members of the Museum’s Board of Advisors toured the soon-to-open Pavilion on October 1 and enjoyed views of Penn’s campus and the city beyond from the helipad. Photo by Melissa Smith.

60

EXPEDITION Vol. 63 | No. 3

This eagle face pot from Papua New Guinea for the storage of sago flour will be displayed in the case on Nourishment in the new Pavilion Atrium. Gift of David C. and Katrina Rilling, 2013, PM 2013-20-36.

area includes state-of-the-art new space for the Museum to safely move collections in and out of its building.

Above, the Discovery Walkway, a landscaped pathway with visitor seating areas spanning from SEPTA’s Penn Medicine Station and crossing above Convention Avenue to 33rd Street, offers access to both the Museum’s East Entrance and the adjacent parking lot. Early in 2022, visitors will also be able to step down from the Walkway into a new Harrison Garden to enjoy outdoor Museum programs. The Museum, with Penn Medicine, thanks Janet Haas, M.D., and John Otto Haas for recognizing in the Discovery Walkway the spirit of discovery and innovation that binds our two institutions and for so generously supporting, through the Otto Haas Charitable Trust, the advancement of knowledge and understanding throughout the years.

PENN MUSEUM/PENN MEDICINE FREE ADMISSION PROGRAM A new program supported by Penn Medicine, Penn Museum Passport, provides Penn Medicine employees, patients, and their families free admission to the Museum by entering a special promo code when booking online or mentioning the code to Visitor Services staff on arrival.

A rendering of the Harrison Garden on 33rd Street outside the Museum’s Harrison Entrance. The Garden will be open in 2022. Courtesy of Penn First.

PENN MUSEUM SHOP

Give the world with gifts inspired by the Penn Museum’s collection.

From exquisite jewelry and decor to toys, books, and apparel, find world treasures to inspire and delight family and friends.

Members save 15% on all purchases.

SHOP ONLINE DELIVERY OR CONTACTLESS PICK UP

www.penn.museum/shop FALL/WINTER 2021

61

NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE

PAID PERMIT #2563 PHILADELPHIA, PA 19104-6324, U.S.A.

3260 South Street Philadelphia, PA 19104 www.penn.museum/expedition

SPECIAL VALENTINE’S PARTNER PROGRAM

THE LETTERS— MARIAN AND ORPHEUS Sunday, February 13, 2022, 4:00 pm

Join us for a dramatic reading of the love letters between African American Metropolitan Opera soprano Marian Anderson and her husband, noted African American architect Orpheus King Fisher. This special reading will be accompanied by some of the greatest classical love song arias. Featuring award-winning actor Brian Anthony Wilson and soprano and actress Jillian Patricia Pirtle, and music from the Marian Anderson Scholar Artist Program.

Program only: $30 (Members $25); Program and reception: $50 (Members $45) Presented in partnership with the National Marian Anderson Museum; proceeds benefit both museums.

For details: www.penn.museum/events