University of Pennsylvania Finding Aids

Alison Frantz, born in 1903, was a classicist and photographer. She attended Smith College and Columbia University. She first went to Greece in 1929 as a member of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. In 1934 she joined the staff of the newly begun excavations of the Athenian agora. Frantz became the official photographer for the excavations there in 1939 and remained in that position until 1964. During her time as official photographer, Frantz also served as a Cultural Attaché for the U.S. Embassy in Athens from 1946 to 1949.

The American Section was one of the first to evolve during the early development of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The University Archaeological Association established in 1887 and later, the American Exploration Society, established in 1892, exhibited several small collections in College Hall before the building campaign for the museum began. Charles Abbott was the first curator of the section succeeded by Henry C. Mercer and then Stewart Culin who was also named Director in 1899. Each succeeding curator was responsible for adding collections, many of them representing their own expeditions in the United States, Alaska, Mexico, Central America and South America. Records in the files are dated from 1826 through the 1980s. The transfer of materials to the Archives took place piecemeal and without a central organization. The current re-processing placed the files into three series, Deaccessions and Loans, Collectors and Collections and Exhibits.

From 1929 to 1936, Howard conducted field expeditions in Texas and New Mexico in the quest of finding links to early man. His investigations included Burnet cave in the Guadelupe Mountains and sites along the Blackwater Draw between Clovis and Portales in eastern New Mexico. His discoveries added to the knowledge of the "Folsom Complex" and included the Folsom flints, mammoth and sloth bones and early fauna. The Early Man Project records consist of five folders of correspondence, some financial records and the original research proposal.

Alexander Scott was born in 1854 in Camberwell, Surrey, the son of the famed British portrait painter for the Illustrated London News, Thomas Dewel Scott. He became known as a world traveler, landscape painter and collector of Asian antiquities. This collection was donated to the Penn Museum in 2011 by Anne Bowbeer, the wife of Alexander Scott's nephew, following the death of Mabel Scott Hall, Alexander Scott's widow

Although classical, including Etruscan, collections had been donated to the University of Pennsylvania Museum since the early 1890s it was in 1896 that the Museum formally authorized excavations in Italy and the acquisition of Etruscan tomb groups, as well as individual objects, for the Museum. Professor Arthur L. Frothingham of Princeton, then Secretary of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome, was commissioned to represent the Museum in Italy. Most of the tomb groups which Frothingham obtained are from Narce and Vulci, although there are objects from many other sites including Cerveteri, Orvieto, and Civita Castellana. The textual records from the excavations in Italy consist of one linear foot of correspondence, notes, financial accounts, and photographs related to the excavation of Etruscan tombs through which the Museum obtained the majority of its Etruscan collections.

The Asian Section collection includes correspondence and receipts all dealing with the donation or sale of artifacts to the Penn Museum from 1890 to 1969. Artifacts are mostly from China, Korea, and Japan. Notable donors include Stewart Culin, William Pepper, Phoebe Hearst, and Worch of Paris, C.T. Loo, and Yamanaka and Co.

The Asian Section collection includes correspondence and receipts all dealing with the donation or sale of artifacts to the Penn Museum from 1890 to 1969. Artifacts are mostly from China, Korea, and Japan. Notable donors include Stewart Culin, William Pepper, Phoebe Hearst, and Worch of Paris, C.T. Loo, and Yamanaka and Co.

Gunn moved to the University of Pennsylvaniz Museum in 1931 as curator of the Egyptian section. His time there was short. In 1934, Gunn was given an honorary M.A. degree from the University of Oxford, opening the way for an appointment as Professor of Egyptology there, a position he held until his death in 1950. The Battiscombe Gunn Egyptian Section records consist of one folder of correspondence dating from 1931 to 1934.

Charles Hallowell Stephens (1855-1931), followed several careers; illustrator, art teacher, collector of American Indian artifacts, and amateur anthropologist. Born and raised in Philadelphia he attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts studying under the tutelage of Thomas Eakins. The importance of Stephens for the Penn Museum resides in his extensive collection of Native American artifacts that was estimated to have about 2000 items, about 1700 of which were acquired by the Penn Museum in 1945. The collection is divided into eight series: Correspondence, Blackfoot, Sioux, Collection Materials, Correspondence on Data, Visual Material, American Pageant Association, and Photographs.

Clarence S. Fisher was born in Philadelphia in 1876 and attended the University of Pennsylvania, attaining a degree in architecture in 1897 but devoting his entire life to archaeology. His first archaeology field experience was as the architect for the initial Babylonian expedition to Nippur from 1898 to 1900. This was followed by a research fellowship in Babylonian archaeology at the University Museum. Fisher also worked as an assistant to Harvard Archaeologist, George Andrew Reisner in Egypt and Samaria. From Reisner, Fisher learned archaeological techniques and the methods of meticulous record keeping he would use in his later work. Fisher was appointed a curator of the Egyptian section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum by George B. Gordon in 1914. He spent the next nine years in the field collecting data in Dendereh, Giza, Memphis, and Dra Abu el-Naga. Fisher's expedition to the cemetery at Dendereh re-worked a site that had been explored by Charles S. Rosher and W.M. Flinders Petrie, producing more precise data and a wealth of objects from the burial sites. The Clarence S. Fisher Dendereh expedition records consist of seven archival boxes of correspondence, diaries, notebooks, plans, post-excavation notes and photographs. Additional material includes three card files with tomb notecards and object cards. In addition, there are seven large object register books stored in two boxes and oversize materials stored in the map case.

Clarence S. Fisher was born in Philadelphia in 1876 and attended the University of Pennsylvania, attaining a degree in architecture in 1897 but devoting his entire life to archaeology. His first archaeology field experience was as the architect for the initial Babylonian expedition to Nippur from 1898 to 1900. This was followed by a research fellowship in Babylonian archaeology at the University Museum. Fisher also gained experience as an assistant to Harvard Archaeologist, George Andrew Reisner in Egypt and Samaria. From Reisner, Fisher learned archaeological techniques and the methods of meticulous record keeping he would use in his later work. Fisher was appointed a curator of the Egyptian section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum by George B. Gordon in 1914. He spent the next nine years in the field collecting data in Dendereh, Giza, Memphis, and Dra Abu el-Naga. The Clarence S. Fisher Memphis excavation records consist of six archival boxes of correspondence, notes, field cards, diaries, catalogues and photographs. In addition there is a card file with object notes. Oversize drawings, maps, plans, watercolors and financial records complete the collection.

Daniel Garrison Brinton is considered one of the founders of modern American Anthropology. He was also the first to hold a professorship in Archaeology in the United States. His library, which includes the Carl Hermann Berendt collection of manuscripts in the indigenous languages of Mexico and Central America, is considered the core of the University of Pennsylvania Anthropology Library. Among the collection are 4515 items; rare illustrations, contemporary photographs, portraits of individual authors, and texts in Spanish, French, Italian, and German. Brinton gathered his information from archival and library studies and did not participate in any archaeological expeditions. This small collection, attributed to Brinton by J. Alden Mason of the University Museum, consists of thirteen folders. Two contain linguistic notes on the Maya languages and another two contain drawings of pottery, objects, sites, and maps of Maya regions, primarily in Mexico. Some of the drawings are believed to be those of Carl Hermann Berendt, purchased by Daniel Brinton for the library at the University. The collection also has four scrapbooks and a book of poems written by Dr. Brinton. The collection is in fragile condition and many of the items are in need of conservation assessment, particularly the Berendt drawings.

Edith Hayward Hall Dohan (1877-1943) curated the Mediterranean collection from 1912 to 1915 and from 1920 to 1943. A classical archaeologist, she received her A.B. from Smith College in 1899 and her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr in 1908. A classical archaeologist, she received her A.B. from Smith College in 1899 and her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr in 1908. In 1904, she joined Harriet Boyd Hawes and Richard Seager in excavating Gournia in Crete, from which experience she developed her doctoral thesis, The Decorative Art of Crete in the Bronze Age, completed in 1907. Dohan returned to two other archaeological sites in Crete in 1910 and 1912, working under the auspices of the Penn Museum before becoming assistant curator of the Mediterranean Section in 1912. The records in the Edith Hall Dohan curatorial subgroup consist of four series: (1) correspondence; (2) collections; (3) administration; and (4) research. Records within each folder are arranged chronologically.

The Education Department was responsible for organizing and administering many of the Penn Museum's public outreach and educational programs between 1921 and 2010. The department was also responsible for maintaining the Penn Museum's film collection from the 1920s to 1987 and for administering the sale of books and objects for children between 1930 and 1972. Holdings span from 1919 to 2002 and include a wide variety of materials created by the department's staff including, but not limited to: administrative reports, correspondence, inventories, press clippings, press releases, information packets, teaching aids, and radio scripts.

Located approximately 12 miles west of Jerusalem, this site was originally excavated in 1911 and 1912 by Duncan Mackenzie for the Palestine Exploration Fund. Under the sponsorship of Haverford College, Haverford professor Elihu Grant undertook excavation at this mound from 1928 to 1931 and again in 1933. When the Bet Shemesh (Ain Shems) artifacts, known as the Haverford Collection, were purchased by the University Museum in 1962, the field notes, notes on pottery, plans, drawings, photographs, and correspondence relating to these finds were also acquired.

Elizabeth Lyons was a native of Michigan who received her B.A. at the University of Michigan and M.A. at Michigan State University. She studied Fine Arts at the Fine Arts Institute at N.Y.U., the Musee Anquantenaire, Brussels andthe Ecole du Louvre, Paris. He rtenure with the University of Pennsylvania Museum began in 1968 following a term as lecturer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. While working in the Asian section of the museum, Ms Lyons took a leave to work for the FOrd Foundation in their program of assistance to Southeast Asia art and archaeology. she returned to the Museum as Keeper of the Asian Section. The Elizabeth Lyons papers are four archival boxes of materials related to her professional career, personal writings, research, and photographs. A large amount of correspondence is filed with the correspondeing series.

Ellen L. Kohler (1916-2008) taught classical archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania (Roman and Etruscan) from 1958 until 1980. Her early field work included excavations at Kourion, Cyprus (1949, 1951, 1955) and at Sybaris (1962), but her principal work was at Gordion, Turkey, where she assisted project director Rodney Young and later Keith DeVries during 18 seasons variously between 1950 and 1982, and in 1992. Her research interests included early Phrygian animal-style carvings in wood and ivory, but she later worked almost exclusively with the inventory of 6th to 7th century Gordion tumulus burial objects. Her principal report, The Lesser Phrygian Tumuli, Part 1, was published in 1995. Dr. Kohler also served as Assistant Curator of the Mediterranean Section of the University Museum from 1958 to 1965, Registrar from 1965 to 1977, and Research Associate from 1968 until her death in 2008. She also served as Executive Editor of Gordion Publications from 1977 to 1987, and as Archivist of the Gordion Project Archives at the University Museum from 1987 to 2005.

From 1931-1933, The University Museum sponsored Erich Schmidt's excavations and survey at Tepe Hissar and sites around the city Damghan, both in Northwestern Iran, near the Caspian sea. These sites were unique because they were the first American excavations in Iran, but more particuarly because of the long time span represented in the archaeological record. Remains from the Bronze Age to the Islamic era were collected, but Schmidt focused his investigation on the Bronze Age and Sassanian eras.

Ernestine Wieder Singer, the daughter of Dr. Henry S. and Josephine M. Wieder of Philadelphia, was a Master's student at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Anthropology during the 1930s. Wieder Singer studied the woven nets produced by the Indians of South American during her Master's program. Her thesis, "Analysis and Distribution of Netting Techniques Among South American Indians," conducted under the direction of Dr. Alden Mason, was completed but not published. The Ernestine Wieder Singer papers consist of five folders of information related to her special interest in South American netting techniques.

Eugene Alexandrovich Golomshtok was an emigre from Russia who arrived in the U.S. in the wake of the revolution in Russia at the age of 20. He had been a student at Kazan University and graduated from the University of California. He became affiliated with the Penn Museum under the championship of Horace Jayne then the Director. Golomshtok opened doors to archaeology in Russia and participated in two expeditions before being refused a visa in 1934 for a third. The Golomshtok Papers consist primarily of correspondence between Horace H. F. Jayne (Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum) and Golomshtok, and between the University of Pennsylvania Museum (in the person of Golomshtok and/or Jayne) and Russian authorities and institutions concerning the expeditions (1931, 1933, "1934") and other related matters (1930-1944).

The Museum collections, initially displayed in the University Library in the Furness Building, were transferred to the new building in 1898. In the years that followed, the collections and the space available continued to grow and the Museum prepared both permanent and loan exhibits. The earliest Museum exhibits can be found in the records of the individual sections. An exhibit staff member was appointed in 1940; the staff remaining relatively small. Although exhibit catalogs date from 1892, few files were kept, and the photographic collections are often helpful in documenting past exhibitions. The files are arranged chronologically. Exhibit catalogs are filed separately (see Special Collections— Publications).

Excavation at Fara, initiated by German excavators between 1902 and 1903, was resumed in 1931 by Erich Schmidt, an archaeologist working under the aegis of the University Museum. Since the Museum’s participation was limited to one season which took place between February 15 and May 19, the records pertaining to this excavation are not numerous. The textual records at Fara include general correspondence, field notes, indexes and catalogues, and publications. Where possible, a chronological order was imposed on the records.