Restructuring the University Museum of Pennsylvania
Responding to pressure from the University of Pennsylvania, which is faced with both an evaporating endowment and a woefully inadequate response from the state government, newly appointed director of the University Museum, Richard Hodges has cancelled funding to the Museum Applied Science Center. Despite an outcry from archaeologists all over the world, Hodges maintains that the museum must become financially viable by becoming a “tourist magnet” with refurbished exhibits and a high-end restaurant to lure in the paying public.
The Museum Applied Science Center
Since the nineteen forties, the University Museum, and its archaeological expeditions, has pioneered the use of techniques that are now standard in archaeology and forensic medicine such as radiocarbon dating, seed and pollen analysis and CT scans. Radiocarbon dating allows scholars to verify dating of past time periods, arrived at by deduction, by measuring the decay of radioactive material in organic materials. Seed and pollen analysis focuses on what were once regarded as waste materials from settlement sites and human and animal remains to better understand ancient agriculture and its natural environment. CT scans produce a series of x-rays by means of computerized axial tomography. They allow scientists to examine human remains from remote periods in a non-invasive and respectful way that provides far more information than a conventional autopsy. These scientifically enhanced techniques have allowed researchers working on human heritage sites all over the world to recover information that would otherwise be lost forever.
Termination of Center and its Research
Among those facing layoff this March is Naomi Miller, a world authority on plant and animal remains, who has revolutionized our understanding of early agriculture, and Patrick McGovern, a chemical archaeologist, who has identified traces of the world’s oldest wines and beers. While Miller’s dismissal has provoked a outcry among scholars, the closing of the Museum Applied Science Center means the end of many other projects, including Aubury Baadsgaard’s CT scans of sacrificial victims from the elite tombs at Ur, which threw important new light on Sumerian funeral ceremonies.
Is there a Future for the University of Pennsylvania Museum?
The basic rationale of the restructuring is questioned by Oscar Muscarella. The retired curator from the Metropolitan Museum in New York and graduate of UPenn told Faye Flam of the Philadelphia Enquirer (December 17): “He's firing the very people who are making the university museum an important academic institution.” However, Director Hodges has suggested that researchers can stay on if funding is found (Science Insider, December 16). The question is where is it going to come from in a global financial meltdown?
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