Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology facts for kids
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University
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| Established | 1866 |
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| Location | Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| Type | Archaeology museum Ethnographic museum |
| Accreditation | American Alliance of Museums |
| Founder | George Peabody |
| Owner | Harvard University |
| Public transit access | Harvard (MBTA) |
| Nearest parking | Street |
The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is a cool museum at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. It opened way back in 1866, making it one of the oldest and biggest museums about human cultures and history. The museum focuses on anthropology, which is the study of humans, their societies, and cultures. It has a special interest in the ethnography (study of cultures) and archaeology (study of past human life) of the Americas.
The Peabody Museum takes care of over 1.2 million objects. It also has about 900 feet of documents, 2,000 maps, and around 500,000 photographs. You can find the museum on Divinity Avenue on the Harvard University campus. It is one of four Harvard Museums of Science and Culture that are open to everyone.
Contents
Museum History
The museum was started thanks to a generous gift on October 8, 1866. A rich American businessman named George Peabody gave $150,000. He was from South Danvers, which is now called Peabody, Massachusetts, after him.
George Peabody wanted the money to be used for a few things. It was to create a special job called the Peabody Professor-Curator. It also helped buy amazing artifacts and build a place to keep all the collections. He asked that a "fireproof museum building" be built on land given by Harvard University for free.
In 1867, the museum showed its first exhibition. This display had a few old artifacts from the Merrimack Valley. These were shown in Boylston Hall at Harvard. By 1877, the museum building was finally finished and ready. The building that holds the Peabody Museum was made even bigger in 1888 and again in 1913.
Amazing Collections
The Peabody Museum has huge collections of items from many countries. These include archaeological finds, cultural objects, and human and animal bones. They cover millions of years of human culture, society, and biology. The museum especially focuses on cultures from North and South America and the Pacific Islands. It also has collections from Africa, Europe, and Asia.
North America
The museum has a lot of archaeological and cultural items from North America. These make up over a quarter of its total collections. You can find artifacts from all over the continent, some as old as 10,000 years. This includes early finds from the Northeast and Mimbres items from the Southwest. There are also beautiful California baskets and objects from the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Central America
The museum's Central American collection focuses on ancient items. These come from eastern Honduras, Nicaragua, lower Central America, and the Caribbean islands. There are also many objects from Central Mexico. The museum has a large collection of Mayan cultural items. These include stone sculptures from Copán and amazing artifacts from the Sacred Cenote of Chichen Itza. There are also 600 plaster copies of important monuments from Central American sites.
South America
Some of the Peabody's first items were collected by Louis Agassiz and his son Alexander Emanuel Agassiz. These form a big part of the South American cultural collections. You can see 19th and 20th-century featherwork headdresses from the Amazon Basin. There are also Andean textiles and items from Bolivia and Peru. Important archaeological collections include pottery from the Chimú, Nazca, and Moche peoples. There are also metalworks from the Inca and Chimú, plus ancient textiles.
Asia
The museum's Asian collections include some of the earliest items made by the Ainu people, who are native to Japan. You can also see Japanese and Chinese ceramics and porcelains. There are colorful textiles from the Kachin people in Myanmar and the Shan people. Siberian hide costumes and carved wooden household items are also on display. The Asia collections mostly feature archaeological materials. These include many excavated items from Tepe Yahya (Iran) and Tarsus (Turkey).
Africa
The museum has over 20,000 items from Africa. Three main collections come from Liberia, southern Cameroon, and Uganda. These were gathered in the first half of the 20th century. They include many different objects used in daily life or for rituals. A fourth collection has over 200 musical instruments, like drums and hand pianos. Ancient items from Africa include finds from George Andrew Reisner's digs in Egypt and Nubia.
Oceania
This collection has 23,000 items gathered by Boston merchants and researchers. They explored the Pacific in the 18th century. You can see Easter Island tapa figures and carved wooden statues. There are also Hawaiian feather cloaks and feather helmets. Maori carved door panels, bowls, and human figures are also here. Other items include Javanese wayang shadow puppets and Micronesian canoes and shell jewelry.
Europe
The European collection includes items from the Paleolithic period in France. These are from places like Abri Pataud, where Cro-Magnon people once lived. There are also materials from the Neolithic through the Iron Age Europe. A notable collection is from the Duchess Marie Antoinette of Mecklenburg. These items were found at the Hallstatt Archaeological Site in Vače, Slovenia. The collection also has parts of French archaeologist Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet’s collections. You can see a Venus figurine from Italy and Neolithic stone tools from northwestern Europe.
Art and Drawings
The museum has nearly 200 paintings and 950 works on paper. These artworks add to the object collections. About half of them are from the David I. Bushnell, Jr. Collection of American Art. This includes works by artists like George Catlin and Charles Bird King. There are also over 130 oils, watercolors, and drawings by Seth Eastman. He was a pictorial historian of native North Americans. Other important pieces include works by Jean Charlot showing ancient Mesoamerican buildings. You can also see 20th-century works by Native American artists and many Inuit prints.
Museum Archives
The museum's archives hold records and photographs. These help us understand the work of the anthropologists and archaeologists. The papers and manuscripts include museum records and special collections. They also have materials from over 70 expeditions and many researchers. The photo collection has about half a million images. These show the archaeology and cultures of many countries. There is a strong focus on Native American cultures, Mexico, Central America, China, and Africa.
Bone Collections
The Peabody Museum has collections of human and non-human bones. These come from over eighty countries on six continents. They include human and non-human primate remains, fossils, and casts. Most of these are from the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa. The museum also has collections for teaching about anatomy and casts of early human ancestors. The museum works with Native American communities to care for and return ancestral remains and cultural items.
- A feejee mermaid bought by P.T. Barnum is also one of the museum's interesting collections.
Exhibitions to Explore
The Peabody Museum has several exciting exhibitions. Some are always there, and others change over time.
Permanent Exhibitions
- Change & Continuity: Hall of the North American Indian
- This exhibit explores cultures of North America. It shows objects made by indigenous peoples of the Americas in the 19th century. It looks at how native peoples and Europeans interacted during a time of big social change.
- Day of the Dead/Día de los Muertos
- This display includes a Day of the Dead altar, called an offrenda. It is in the "Encounters with the Americas" gallery. It shows the holiday's original Aztec roots and the Roman Catholic symbols added later.
- Digging Veritas: The Archaeology and History of the Indian College and Student Life at Colonial Harvard
- This exhibit uses archaeological finds from Harvard Yard. It also uses old maps and other sources. It shows how students lived at colonial Harvard. It also explains the role of the Indian College in Harvard's early years.
- Encounters with the Americas
- This exhibit explores the native cultures of Latin America. It shows what life was like before and after Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492.
Temporary Exhibitions
- Wiyohpiyata: Lakota Images of the Contested West
- This exhibition uses sounds, motion, and scents. It also features historic and modern Great Plains art. It brings to life 19th-century Lakota drawings from a warrior's ledger. These drawings were collected at the Little Bighorn battlefield. This exhibit shares Lakota views on westward expansion.
- All the World Is Here: Harvard’s Peabody Museum and the Invention of American Anthropology
- This exhibit traces the Peabody Museum's early days. It focuses on its second director, Frederic Ward Putnam. It also shows the museum's role in the 1893 World's Fair. There are over 600 objects from Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.
See also
In Spanish: Museo Peabody de Arqueología y Etnología para niños
