Archaeology University of Michigan
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KELSEY MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SPRING 2010 NEWS NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR sTaFF What a year it has been! From nonstop preparation by the staff and curators over the Sharon Herbert, Director summer and fall for the spectacular opening of the Upjohn Wing on November 1 to Lauren Talalay, Associate Director ongoing planning for optimal use of our wonderful new spaces. We have begun to work Curators with other departments to bring in small, short-term special exhibits. The first of these Suzanne Davis, Conservation opened the evening of April 13. It is “Personae,” a School of Art & Design MFA thesis Elaine K. Gazda, Hellenistic and Roman Sharon Herbert, Greek and Hellenistic show by Libyan-American artist Reem Gibriel. The exhibition plays on the tension Janet Richards, Dynastic Egypt between museums’ goals of preservation and the inevitable decay of materials. It features Margaret Cool Root, Greece and Near East newly made amphora crafted to disintegrate during the time of the exhibit. The show Lauren Talalay, Academic Outreach Terry Wilfong, Graeco-Roman Egypt will be up until April 26 and is well worth seeing. In the fall of 2010 we will be putting on display in the Meader gallery Ahmet Research Associates/Affiliates Ertug’s spectacular color photographs of Byzantine church frescoes from Turkey. These Sussan Babaie Lisa Nevett Gary Beckman Christopher Ratté were last displayed in 2006 at the World Monuments Fund Gallery in New York City. Traianos Gagos Ann van Rosevelt We plan a series of lectures on the Byzantine and medieval periods both in Europe and Artemis Leontis Carola Stearns Asia in conjunction with this exhibition. Meanwhile curators and staff are hard at work Laura Motta Nicola Terrenato choosing and preparing hundreds of objects for display in the gallery storage drawers. Support Staff We will be having a series of “drawer openings” as these get filled. Helen Baker, Museum Administrator Our collection and field research programs continue to flourish, with curators Kate Carras, Assistant Registrar Claudia Chemello, Conservator lecturing around the world on the Kelsey’s collections. We will have three projects in the Sebastián Encina, Coordinator of Museum Collections field this summer: my own excavation at Kedesh in Israel, Nic Terrenato’s work at Gabii Michelle Fontenot, Collections Manager near Rome, and Chris Ratté’s in the Republic of Georgia. Todd Gerring, Community Outreach Supervisor Lance Johnston, Security Officer In our public outreach programs we have been working on raising our profile and Margaret Lourie, Editor bringing in more visitors by establishing a presence on Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace Sandra Malveaux, Secretary (story on page 7). The new Museum Shop is up and running and will soon be a positive Scott Meier, Museum Exhibition Coordinator Jackie Monk, Assistant Financial Manager revenue source (story on page 10). As another means to support our public programs, we Barret Roebuck, Exhibits Technician have been renting out our lecture hall and public programs spaces for evening events. Lorene Sterner, Graphic Artist, Gifts Manager We continue to give school tours and send out kits to schools. We also mounted a very Alex Zwinak, Student Services Assistant successful Family Day on April 17th. Our final event for the year will be the Associates’ Gallery Hours Spring Meeting at 6:00 on May 20. After a short business meeting Curator Terry Wil- Tuesday–Friday 9 am–4 pm fong will talk about the selection of objects for the display drawers in the Upjohn Wing. Saturday–Sunday 1 pm–4 pm This is a fascinating process of “excavating” the Museum’s storage area. All in all this is an exhilarating and transformative time for the Kelsey Museum. I INFrI o MaT oN Web site: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/kelsey/ am pleased to serve as director at this time and have just signed on for a final three-year phone: 734.764.9304 term. I hope to see you May 20th and at events to follow. email: [email protected] Sharon Herbert, Director uNIversITy oF MIcHIGaN reGeNTs Julia Donovan Darlow Andrea Fischer Newman Laurence B. Deitch Andrew C. Richner Denise Ilitch S. Martin Taylor Olivia P. Maynard Katherine E. White Mary Sue Coleman, ex officio DesIGN sTeveN DrIscoll HIxsoN THE WILLIAM E. UPJOHN EXHIBIT WING OPENS TO THE PUBLIC Whether your taste runs to Near Eastern Mary Meader donated $8.5 million to regular basis. Now on view in that space magical amulets, Egyptian mummies, fund the new exhibit wing. As an under- are photographs documenting the Mead- Greek pottery, or Roman sculpture, if graduate in the 1930s, Edwin Meader had ers’ extraordinary lives of adventure and you are fascinated by ancient artifacts, the seen rare artifacts, pottery, and sculpture, philanthropy (see story on page 10). gala opening of the Kelsey Museum’s new excavated by U-M scholars in the Medi- Most of the Museum’s 100,000 objects William E. Upjohn Wing was the place terranean and Near East, being delivered have been in storage for decades, partly to be on November 1, 2009. The many to what was then called the Museum of because of insufficient exhibition space. guests who crowded into the Museum Classical Archaeology (later the Kelsey The new Upjohn Wing allows us to not only marveled at the new custom- Museum of Archaeology) and said to him- display about four times as many of built displays but also listened to music by self, “These things deserve a better place.” these holdings as we could in the old harpist Rochelle Martinez and purchased The new 20,000-square-foot wing, space. Visitors will find more than 1,100 mementos from the new museum shop named in honor of Mary Meader’s grandfa- artifacts on the two floors of the Upjohn staffed by Kelsey Associates (see story on ther, realizes that seventy-year-old dream galleries. page 10). of a better place. By the end of January Soon even more of the Kelsey’s col- A highlight of the reception held in the 2010, nearly 5,000 visitors had explored lection will be available for visitors to original Kelsey building was the delicious the new installation that the Meaders’ gift examine. These additional items will food based on ancient recipes that was made possible. be installed in the open storage draw- prepared and described by docent Dan Located on Maynard Street behind ers located in the base of some exhibit Centurione of Great Harvest Bread Co. the turreted stone building at 434 S. cases. Altogether forty-four such drawers Guests feasted on various Near Eastern, State Street, the new wing provides will eventually contain objects related Egyptian breads, and Roman breads and study, storage, and display space in a to those on display in the cases above Ma’Moul (a sweet treat made of butter- climate-controlled facility that now them. Museum-goers will be invited to enriched dough filled with fruits and holds all of the Kelsey collections. The open each drawer to glimpse the hidden nuts), as well as hummus and olive relish. old building currently houses adminis- treasures within. Labels alongside the dishes revealed, for trative and curatorial offices as well as instance, that the oldest known recipe in providing meeting rooms for classes and the world—from the Near East in the public events. Guests at the Upjohn opening enter the Museum after the ribbon cutting. second millennium bc—explains how to In addition to the permanent exhibi- prepare mersu, a sweet bread or tart with tion, the new display space includes the LS&A Dean Terry McDonald, Kelsey Director a fruit or nut filling. Edwin E. Meader and Mary U. Meader Sharon Herbert, and Provost Teresa Sullivan cut This festive occasion could take place Special Exhibition Gallery, dedicated to the ribbon to open the Upjohn Wing. only because in 2003 the late Edwin and special exhibitions that will change on a Photos M. Harvey curaTors exPlIcaTe uNDerlyING THeMes For NeW exHIBITs IN THe uPjoHN WING Kelsey curators worked together for sev- section is the multiple lives that objects eral years to develop the new permanent may have. For instance, the seals used to exhibition. One of their chief consider- ratify written records and worn as valued ations during this planning phase was personal adornments were often handed to ensure that the assemblage of objects down as heirlooms by their original own- would highlight interconnections among ers. Because of their value they might also the cultures and peoples of the ancient be placed many years after their manufac- Near East, Egypt, and the world of the ture in wall niches to serve as good luck Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans. They charms. Such is the case with a banded also wanted to foreground certain com- agate cylinder seal in Babylonian style mon themes. dating to the Persian period (550–330 bc) To that end, Margaret Root, who that was found embedded in a mudbrick curated the exhibits on the ancient Near wall at Seleucia-on-the-Tigris, Iraq. That East, positioned a cast of the Bisitun brickwork dates to at least 500 years after Monument to greet visitors as they enter the seal was made. the exhibition. Her aim was partly to introduce the powerful symbolic associa- THeMes FroM MyTH aND DaILY lIFe tions cultivated by Near Eastern kings Lauren Talalay, who curated the Cypriot to express their collaboration with the and Greek cases, points out that one of natural forces of earth and sky. the great joys of looking at Greek pottery The text for this display reveals that is the wonderful images painted on them on Mount Bisitun in northwestern Iran, by the ancient artists.