Blog

Welcome to the Collections Division Blog The Peabody Museum's Collections Division encompasses the departments of Collections Management and Research Access, Archives, Registration, and Conservation. Our blog shows you a bit of the daily work of museum professionals as we care for and make collections accessible. For more behind-the-scenes images, follow us on Instagram!
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16 results

16 results

Storytelling in Archival Contexts
Display Title: [No folder title]: John Marshall filming ≠Toma throwing an assegai (print is a cropped image) 2001.29.656 The Marshall Family Archives at the Peabody Museum is rich with stories. The collection as a whole tells us about a family that pushed...

The Marshall IMLS Grant and Resources for Reparative Description
Woman and her daughter standing, with Lorna Marshall squatting next to them, on Fritz Metzger's farm 2001.29.2352 Describing archival collections from marginalized and oppressed communities is hard work for archivists. It’s emotional and triggering when...

Connecting Pacific Communities with Collections
One of the largest Pacific Islander communities in the United States is based in and around the Salt Lake City area of Utah, home to more than 40,000 Hawaiians, Tongans, Samoans, Fijians, CHamoru, and other Micronesians. Two thousand miles away, Harvard’s...

Chac Mool installation
Mayan Chac Mool, 92-50-20/C1099 This plaster cast is a model of a Chac Mool statue originally found at the Post-Classic Maya site of Chichen Itza in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Along with approximately one thousand other casts in the collection, this one...

Marshall Family Archives Digitization Project
//Kushay telling Laurence, Ledimo, and John that //Ao has gone to the farms, 2001.29.621 In June of 1950, Laurence K. Marshall, former chairperson of Raytheon Company, and his 17-year-old son John trekked into the deserts of Southern Africa seeking the...

Inman Portrait Collections
Jaidyn Probst with a portrait of Rant-che-wai-me (Female Flying Pigeon), Iowa. 82-51-10/57030 A guest blog post from Jaidyn Probst, a second year Harvard student and member of the Lower Sioux Indian community. Jaidyn is a concentrator in Cognitive...

Egyptian Collections Research
Mesa'eed, one of the sites excavated by George Reisner and his associates. Mohammedani Ibrahim Ibrahim (expedition photographer), Mesaid, Cemetery from West, April 1, 1913, Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition photograph A886_NS The...

Salt Prints Research
Portrait of Wi-ga-sa-pi, 2004.1.125.33 As a research institution, the Peabody Museum hosts hundreds of research visits every year. This post from our Senior Archivist, Katherine Satriano, tells us about a past visit from Dr. Arthur McClelland of Harvard’s...

Conservation for Publication Photography
Yukuna headdress, 53-47-30/7499 Welcome to the Peabody Museum’s conservation lab! In the lab we treat and care for objects for a variety of reasons including exhibits, loans, and publication photography. For publication photography, we work...

Collections Management Highlights
The Peabody Museum is currently closed due to social distancing protocols and most Museum staff have shifted to working from home. During this time when the team is physically away from the collections, we will share some of the projects we have worked on...

Annex Catalog Crew
Welcome to the Peabody Museum’s Annex! The Annex is our main archaeological collection storage as well as a cataloging, research and teaching space. The Annex Catalog Crew is busy at work each day helping to make the inorganic archaeological collections...