This was the second time I have spent time in the Penn Museum of Anthropology. On my first visit I only got to look at the Egyptian collection so getting to explore the entire museum was exciting. The Penn Museum was the first of its kind. Prior to the museums founding, history as presented in museums was divided by science and art. The Anthropological Museum was a new idea which wanted to examine human culture. Prior to this idea, people were never presented as objects themselves at a museum. The Chicago Worlds Fair in 1893 was the first time that people were ever put on exhibit. The Penn Museum basically created the academic field of Anthropology and still continues to fund research in the field.
The museum was broken up into different time periods and geographical boundaries. I found the exhibits which focused on Asia to be the most interesting. The room which housed the artifacts from japan was absolutely huge. A wonderful byproduct was that the items in this room were way bigger than any others on display. There were large murals and statues, also the second largest crystal ball in the world. I also enjoyed seeing the second largest sphinx outside of Cairo. Another thing that was interesting about the Penn Museum was that it covered such a large span of time. They had artifacts from thousands of years ago but also seemed to be constantly adding to their collections with exhibits on 9/11 and the homeless.
