Evocative objects used by Indigenous people long ago, such as painted clothing made of animal skins, beaded belts, woven baskets, along with the tools they used to create them, are the focus of research and outreach by Penn anthropologist Margaret Bruchac.. The Penn Museum houses one of the world’s greatest collections of ancient artifacts combined with the best research, technology, teaching and programming. Penn Museum’s exploration has taken us across six continents and positioned us as a leader in the international scholarly community. Access the Collections . Watch over 1,100 lectures, archival, and produced films. Penn Museum Collections. Read 1700+ articles. Access the Collections Since its founding in 1887, the Penn Museum has collected nearly one million objects, many obtained directly through its own field excavations or anthropological research. The Museum's vast and varied collections are in active service to the University of Pennsylvania community and researchers from all over the world. Search over 389,000+ object records, representing over 1.3 million objects with 279,000+ images.

Margaretta Hinchman donated this painting to the Penn Museum upon her death, one of 28 items all currently housed in the Penn Museum’s Collections Storage. Sometimes objects in a museum’s collection can tell us more about what we don’t know than what we do. Penn’s collections, mainly located at the Library at the Katz Center, as well as a collection at the Penn Museum, cover hundreds of years of medieval Mediterranean Jewish and Fatamid history and culture.