For thousands of years before the arrival of European settlers, the area known today as Mexico and Central America was home to a wide variety of distinct and long-lasting cultures. The artifacts they created embody the breadth and immensity of their knowledge and achievements.
The stories of these ancient civilizations, and the people who comprised them, are coming back to life at the Penn Museum—where a newly reimagined Mexico and Central America Gallery opens this November as part of the ongoing Building Transformation Campaign. More than 250 objects spanning nearly 4,000 years of regional history will be on display, the majority of which were excavated by Penn’s own archaeologists and anthropologists through the Museum’s various research projects conducted throughout the region.
Penn’s work in Mexico and Central America began more than a century ago, catalyzed in part by then-Museum Director George Byron Gordon, who worked in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula in 1910-11. In the following decades, Penn led excavations at sites such as Piedras Negras, Guatemala and Sitio Conte, Panama, unearthing remnants of the powerful cultures that once dominated these lands—such as a magnificent, 1,200-year-old limestone monument archaeologists dubbed “Stela 14,” which played a key role in the decipherment of Maya glyph writing and has since become one of the Museum’s most famed objects.
Numerous monumental artifacts found during these research projects were displayed in the gallery’s previous iteration (originally installed in 1946). In the new gallery, visitors will view these objects more vividly than ever before, thanks to modern lighting updates and a months-long process of careful restoration at the hands of the Museum’s talented conservators.
“This is the largest and finest collection of Maya monuments in the U.S.,” says Simon Martin, lead curator of the new gallery. “To see such a collection, one would otherwise have to travel to Mexico or Guatemala.”
Many objects in the new gallery will be on display for the first time at the Penn Museum, including a bright, beautiful array of 20th-century textiles from Guatemala. These colorful pieces will be rotated periodically to give visitors deeper exposure to the collection, and will serve as a backdrop for programs with modern-day artists who still follow the same traditional weaving techniques. Artifacts on long-term loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, created by the Aztec and Olmec peoples, will help tell a thorough story of the region’s long and diverse history.
The new gallery will play a major role in the Museum’s rich programmatic offerings, such as the innovative Global Guides program, which creates employment opportunities as gallery guides for individuals who recently immigrated to the United States from the Mexico/Central America region. It will host thousands of students each year who visit the Museum for field trips, and will enrich popular family events such as the annual Día de los Muertos Celebration.
The Mexico and Central America Gallery opens to the public on November 16, along with several more transformed spaces: a suite of Africa Galleries, a restoration of the historic Harrison Auditorium, and a redesigned Main Entrance and adjacent Sphinx Gallery, where the 12.5-ton sphinx of Ramses II will greet visitors. All these changes come as part of the Penn Museum’s Building Transformation Campaign—an ambitious project that is reimagining 75% of the Museum’s gallery spaces, presenting new programming and amenities, and allowing for the stories of human history to be told and appreciated in vibrant new ways.
You can be among the first to experience these remarkable new spaces as a guest at the Museum’s upcoming Golden Gala on November 9—a once-in-a-century celebration of this world-renowned institution and its grand reopening. Tickets are available online, with proceeds supporting the Museum’s ongoing research projects, educational and public programming, and collections stewardship.
The next phase of the Building Transformation Campaign is already underway, with plans for a complete renovation of the ever-popular Egypt and Nubia Galleries. By supporting the Campaign, you help to position the Penn Museum as not only an indispensable resource for the Penn community, but also as a global destination for tourism and scholarship.
Support the Building Transformation Campaign
