Archives @ University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

"The value of an educational Museum...largely depends upon the accuracy of the record kept of the history of its collections..." --Daniel Baugh, President, Department of Archaeology and Palaeontology, University of Pennsylvania (1899)

The archival collections of the University of Pennsylvania Museum focus on archaeological and anthropological field work and research, as well as the administrative and collections history of Penn Museum.

Penn Museum has sponsored or participated in over 350 projects of archaeological and/or anthropological significance that have resulted in artifact collections primarily from ancient civilizations and traditional cultures. The archival collections are a valuable resource for serious researchers, as the records document the recovery of the artifact collections. Recently, the Museum Archives completed a project to digitize J. Alden Mason's field notes from his excavations to Sitio Conte, Panama, and worked with the University of Pennsylvania Library (SCETI) and the University of Pennsylvania African Studies Center on "Daily Life in Sierra Leone: The Sherbro in 1936-37," which makes available one of the UPM's major ethnographic collections.

Archival collections include more than 2,000 feet of textual records, more than 300,000 individual photographic items, and several special collections. Photographic collections include glass plate and film negatives, lantern slides, moving images such as motion picture films and videotapes, stereograph cards, color transparencies, and vintage photographic prints.

bonfils photo, ca.1880
A cameleer of the Sinai. Photo by Bonfils, ca. 1880.

The Notable Photographers Collection includes the work of photographers such as Bonfils, William Henry Jackson, Edward S. Curtis, Jessie Tarbox Beals, and others. These collections contain ethnographic portraiture and architecture, with work by American and European nineteenth- and twentieth-century photographers of the American West, the Near East and Egypt, the Classical Lands of the Mediterranean, and Central America. Online preview: Excavating Voices: Photographs of Native Americans, a volume of arresting photographs of Native Americans from the Notable Photographers Collection.

Special collections include items such as books, journals, and exhibition catalogues published by or about the Museum, its research and collections; maps; archaeological site plans; art on paper; press clippings; posters, post cards and graphics; recorded sound media (phonograph records, reel to reel and cassette tapes); and even oil paintings and sculpture relating to Museum history.

Researchers may consult A Guide to the University Museum Archives of the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1984); the Index to American Photographic Collections (New York, 1995); and Anthropological Resources: A Guide to Archival, Library and Museum Collections (Garland Publishing, 1998). Finding aids for specific collections are available upon request for a nominal photocopying charge. Researchers may consult the collections by appointment only, Tuesday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Direct inquiries to the following staff:

The Museum is also home to the University of Pennsylvania Museum Library, which houses more than 100,000 volumes related to archaeology and anthropology.