Kelsey Museum of Archaeology

Kelsey Museum of Archaeology Kelsey Museum of Archaeology College of Literature, Science, and the Arts The University of Michigan: An Encyclopedic Survey Copyright © 2015 by the Regents of the University of Michigan The University of Michigan: An Encyclopedic Survey was first published beginning in 1942. For its 2017 Bicentennial, the University undertook the most significant updating of the Encyclopedia since the original, focusing on academic units. Entries from all versions are compiled in the Bicentennial digital and print-on-demand edition. Contents 1. The Francis. W. Kelsey Museum of Archaeology 1 (1942) E. E. Peterson, Frank E. Robbins, Louise A. Shier, Leroy Waterman, Orma F. Butler, Elinor M. Husselman, and Herbert C. Youtie 2. The Kelsey Museum of Archaeology (2013) 35 Christopher Ratté [1] The Francis. W. Kelsey Museum of Archaeology (1942) E. E. Peterson, Frank E. Robbins, Louise A. Shier, Leroy Waterman, Orma F. Butler, Elinor M. Husselman, and Herbert C. Youtie THE archaeological collections at the University of Michigan owe their origin and development to Francis W. Kelsey, Professor of the Latin Language and Literature at the University from 1889 to the time of his death in 1927. During his long and distinguished service to the cultural life of the University, Professor Kelsey was both zealous and discriminating in the acquisition of archaeological material to illustrate the life and times of the ancient Mediterranean World. No separate museum was organized to care for these collections, but they were administered by Professor Kelsey and his very competent assistant and colleague in the Latin Department, Dr. Orma Fitch Butler. It was not until the autumn of 1928 that definite steps were taken to organize a museum for the care, exhibit, and study of the 2 Kelsey Museum of Archaeology archaeological collections, which, by this time, had increased markedly, due mainly to the acquisition of objects from the field excavations in Egypt, organized by Professor Kelsey in 1924. Thus a Museum of Classical Archaeology was established as a unit in the group of the University Museums. John G. Winter, Professor in the Department of Latin and Greek, served as Director of the Museum from the time of its inception until his retirement in February, 1951. Dr. Orma Fitch Butler was Curator until the time of her death in 1938. In the autumn of 1940 the Museum became a separate administrative research unit of the University under the name Museum of Art and Archaeology. In 1946 it became the Museum of Archaeology, on the establishment of a Museum of Art as a separate unit in the University. Early in 1953 the present name, Francis W. Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, was adopted by the Board of Regents in honor of its distinguished founder. Prior to 1924 collections now in the Museum were acquired by purchase and by gift. The first of the purchases by the University was of a collection of 109 objects, including lamps, vases, and building materials, from the Musée Lavigerie in Carthage in 1893. They were duplicate specimens of antiquities gathered from various excavations in and around Carthage, over a period of some forty years, by R. P. Delattre, of the Order of the White Fathers. At the time, Professor Kelsey was on leave of absence from the University, studying numerous archaeological sites in the Mediterranean world. A warm and lasting friendship sprang up between the American scholar and the priest of the Hill of Byrsa. As a lasting reminder of the kindness shown him, Professor Kelsey assigned accession number one in the Museum records at the University to a fragment of an ancient Roman lamp included in the purchased collection. It was the discovery of this lamp that had induced Father Delattre in the early years of his life in North Africa to undertake the careful excavations of Roman sites at ancient Carthage. On this same trip Professor Kelsey obtained from dealers, mainly in Rome, Sicily, Capri, and Tunis, 1,096 other archaeological specimens, building materials, pottery, terracotta figurines, lamps, painted stucco, glass, tombstones from Pompeii, and one Latin inscription. Thus began the collections The Francis. W. Kelsey Museum of Archaeology (1942) 3 at the University of Michigan of original archaeological specimens from Mediterranean lands. Previously, only casts or photographic representations of ancient objects had been available for use as illustrative material in teaching in the departments of Latin and Greek. The next acquisition of antiquities occurred in 1898 through the services of Professor C. L. Meader of the University, who was then a Fellow in Christian Archaeology at the American School of Classical Studies in Rome. This was a miscellaneous collection of 387 objects, mainly lamps, lamp handles, pottery, and some glass. In the following year Professor Duane Reed Stuart, who was a student in the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, purchased for the University a collection of thirty-four lamps. They were specimens of types that originated in various parts of the Greek world and had been collected by Professor Rhoussopoulos of the University of Athens. The end of the century marked the successful conclusion of negotiations that had been carried on for some time for the purchase of a part of the famed Canon de Criscio collection of antiquities. The remainder was acquired later. The history of this collection is described hereinafter by Dr. Orma Fitch Butler. In 1900-1901 Professor Kelsey was on leave of absence from the University of Michigan to serve as annual professor at the American School of Classical Studies in Rome. He availed himself of this opportunity to arrange for the purchase of various groups of antiquities. They were valuable additions to the collections in the fields of Roman archaeology, architecture, economics, religion, and history. Among them were 463 brick stamps and ninety specimens of makers’ stamps on Arretine pottery. Also included were thirty-three ex-votos that had been found near an ancient temple of healing at Veii in Etruria. With wise foresight Professor Kelsey procured for the University at this time also an outstanding collection of ancient building materials that had been gathered together from ancient Roman and Greek sites. Numerous small, but important, antiquities were obtained, among them a bronze Lar from an ancient house shrine, a mason’s plumb bob, lead water 4 Kelsey Museum of Archaeology pipes, most of them bearing stamped inscriptions, lamps, and decorative terracottas. In the years before World War I, some additions were made to the Museum collections. As the War brought an end to study and research abroad as well as to the importation of antiquities from Mediterranean countries, Kelsey gave increased consideration to the possibilities of actual field work of excavation after the war at some ancient site in the Near East. The factor that caused special attention to be focused on such a project at this time was the study of papyri documents of Greco-Roman Egypt, which had come to the University some years earlier from the Egypt Exploration Society of London and Oxford. Thus the two aims that Professor Kelsey had in view when he was granted leave of absence from the University from 1919 to 1921 were to purchase objects for the collections and to investigate the possibilities of excavations at Greco-Roman sites. He visited the countries bordering the eastern Mediterranean from Italy to Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, and then went south and west throughout North Africa, with special attention to Greco-Roman sites in Egypt. During this period the Museum collections were enriched by several purchases and gifts. Fragments of Arretine ware and Rhine Valley pottery and some Roman glass were purchased from the Cologne Museum. Among the acquisitions were ancient lamps from Palestine and alabaster bowls, head rests, toilet articles, beads, and fine linen from the Egypt Exploration Society Excavations. Through the kind services of Mr. G. F. Allmendinger of Ann Arbor, funds were procured from the Michigan Millers’ Association for the purchase of a fine Roman mill, a large storage jar, and several small objects of bronze which had been found in the excavations of a villa a short distance to the north of Pompeii. The Paul Gottschalk collection of 130 vases, mainly from ancient Greek sites in Italy, was also purchased at this time. The year 1924 marked the establishment at the University of the Near East Research Fund, which was the culmination of years of planning and preparation on the part of Kelsey (see hereinafter the Institute of Archaeological Research). The fund, The Francis. W. Kelsey Museum of Archaeology (1942) 5 created by private gifts, made it possible to acquire antiquities both by purchase and by excavations in the field at Roman and Greco-Roman sites. In 1919 Professor Kelsey had noted on his visit to the Province of Fayoum, Upper Egypt, that the ancient city sites, from which so much valuable papyrological evidence had come to the world of scholarship, were being rapidly and ruthlessly destroyed, with little or no care taken to recover the antiquities or to record archaeological data. These ancient hills had become the source of excellent fertilizer (sebbakh), so necessary for the expanding acreage of cotton in Egypt. This situation caused Kelsey upon his return to Ann Arbor in 1921 to redouble his efforts to obtain funds for the systematic excavation of a Roman site in Egypt. The account of the excavations in the Near East is appended. During this visit to Egypt Kelsey arranged for the purchase of a large collection of antiquities, mainly of the Greco-Roman period, that had been gathered together by Dr. David L. Askren, a long-time resident of Medinet el Fayoum. Especially noteworthy in this group were the ancient glass and ostraca.

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