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Penn Museum’s transformation revealed
sphinx in the archway of the museum entrance

Penn Museum’s transformation revealed

The main level reopens after a historic renovation featuring the relocated sphinx and completely reimagined Africa and Mexico/Central America galleries.

Louisa Shepard

A quest to restore cultural heritage in Iraq, one site at a time
people gathered around surveying iraqi destruction

A quest to restore cultural heritage in Iraq, one site at a time

Penn archaeologists, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Mosul and Iraq’s State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, seek to undo the terrible destruction ISIS wrought, particularly on targeted minority groups.

Michele W. Berger

Crowdsourcing 10,000 years of land use
A brown cow standing in a mountain landscape in the Italian Alps.

To predict what will happen in the future, its important to understand what happened in the past. Thats the idea behind ArchaeoGLOBE, a project that looks at land use around the world—like in the Italian Alps, seen here—during the past 10,000 years. (Photo courtesy: Lucas Stephens) 

Crowdsourcing 10,000 years of land use

More than 250 archaeologists from around the world contributed their knowledge to ArchaeoGLOBE, an effort to better understand the prevalence of agriculture, pastoralism, and hunting and gathering at different points in human history.

Michele W. Berger

The mystery of ‘Skeleton Lake’ gets deeper

The mystery of ‘Skeleton Lake’ gets deeper

Kathleen Morrison of the School of Arts and Sciences weighed in on the origins of human remains found in India’s Skeleton Lake. “I suspect that they’re aggregated there, that local people put them in the lake,” she says. “When you see a lot of human skeletons, usually it’s a graveyard.”

Through gemstones, a glimpse into ancient Egyptian civilization
In a room with stacks of books on bookshelves, a person sits at a table wearing rubber gloves to analyze materials sitting in a basket on her right. She holds them over two white papers, and to her left are a notepad, phone, and computer.

Doctoral student Shelby Justl studies the semiprecious stones of ancient Egypt in an effort to better understand the role that red jasper, carnelian, and others played in that society. Here, she is seen at the British Museum in 2018. (Photo: Courtesy Shelby Justl)

Through gemstones, a glimpse into ancient Egyptian civilization

Doctoral student Shelby Justl’s research expands what we know about who controlled semiprecious stones like red jasper and carnelian, plus their cultural and economic significance.

Michele W. Berger

Indigenous ethnologist
Gladys Tantaquidgeon seated on a beach with four other people and a black umbrella on the ground.

Gladys Tantaquidgeon kneeling in the foreground, interviewing Wampanoag elders in Aquinnah, Massachusetts, circa 1928. (Photo: The Pennsylvania Gazette)

Indigenous ethnologist

Gladys Tantaquidgeon, the first Native American student in Penn’s anthropology department, published a series of academic articles, authored a book on ethnobotany and accompanied the department chair as his assistant, interviewing tribes and collecting folklore.

Penn Today Staff

Adolph Reed is retiring. But he’s still got more to say
adolph reed, political science professor

Reed's broad influence extended to countless students, who say he was life-altering in the classroom. “I feel like Adolph provided a role model for how to be an academic and still act with integrity in the real world,” former student Gordon Lafer says.

Adolph Reed is retiring. But he’s still got more to say

After more than 40 years as a political science professor, incisive commentator, and mentor to countless students, Reed is ending his teaching career. Now, he can turn his full attention to writing, and the 2020 campaign.

Gwyneth K. Shaw

Training physician-scholars to see patients as people, not categories
Two people walking on a brick path, talking, in a courtyard surrounding by green bushes and a tree.

The anthropology M.D.-Ph.D. program, run by Adriana Petryna (left) of the Anthropology Department, in concert with Lawrence Brass of the Perelman School of Medicine, combines clinical and ethnographic training with an eye toward preparing students like Utpal Sandesara (right) to tackle health inequalities. Sandesara, who will graduate this month, is one of nine students in the 10-year-old program.

Training physician-scholars to see patients as people, not categories

The anthropology M.D.-Ph.D. program, recently graduating its first two students, combines clinical and ethnographic skills aimed at working with and caring for society’s marginalized.

Michele W. Berger