Penn Museum

10/16/2026

🧘‍♂️ Mind & Mood Recharge is back!

Now in its fourth year, our Wellness Wednesdays are back with fresh experiences and feel-good programming designed to nourish mind, body, and vibes.

Starting November 4, every first Wednesday, our galleries transform into a sanctuary of self-care FOR ANYONE looking to hit pause mid-week and recharge with mind and mood boosters:

🧘‍♀️Monthly rotation of ALL-LEVELS wellness activities from local practitioners of yoga, meditation, and more (SPACE IS LIMITED! Advanced registration required)
🛍️ Wellness marketplace
🌿 Botanical bar (with zero-proof options and light healthy bites)

What's new:
👐 Tai Chi Workshop (November, January, March)
🎵 Afrobeats and Mindfulness (December, February, April)
😃 Wear Your Mood crafting

Kick-off perk on Nov. 4: First 100 guests enjoy a complimentary limited edition travel pouch designed with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs expressing a wish for eternal life, prosperity, and health.

Today's the day you prioritize your self-care: https://bit.ly/4z5UsIg

10/14/2026

100 years in the making, the long-awaited Egypt Galleries: Life & Afterlife open Dec. 12. Don’t miss the opening celebration. Book tickets: https://www.penn.museum/calendar/1744/egypt-galleries-opening-celebration

At the heart of the galleries will be the 4,300-year-old Tomb Chapel of Kaipure, a high-ranking treasury official during Egypt’s Old Kingdom (2625–2130 BCE).

Excavated more than a century ago at Saqqara—a cemetery site near modern-day Cairo—the Tomb Chapel served as a sacred space where priests performed funerary rites and placed offerings intended to sustain Kaipure in the afterlife.

It features a monumental five-ton “false door,” a symbolic threshold through which the deceased’s spirit could access offerings from the living world.

Following years of conservation, the original pigment is now more visible on its nearly 100 carved and painted limestone blocks, providing clearer depictions of everyday life, offerings, rituals, hieroglyphic inscriptions, and representations of Kaipure.

Explore this along with 1,000 artifacts on view, unearthing stories to reveal more about the lives and afterlife beliefs of ancient Egyptians at all levels of society—from pharaohs and officials to farmers and scribes.

10/13/2026

Mark your calendars for October 22 at 4:30 pm

🎥 Excerpts from "W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel with a Cause," a conversation with award-winning filmmaker Rita Coburn and Provost John L. Jackson Jr., plus special remarks from Tukufu Zuberi, Curator of the Penn Museum Africa Galleries.

Register today: https://bit.ly/3VF0gKn

📍 The ARCH Auditorium, Room 208
3601 Locust Walk

10/13/2026

How do we reconstruct the lives of people who lived thousands of years ago to understand what they believed, how they lived, what happened to their communities, and how they responded to a changing world?

The Deep Dig is back in session starting Nov. 3 with understanding ancient DNA, cultural identity, and so much more! https://bit.ly/4AWTU9t

Across four virtual sessions, Penn scholars share how they each use different intellectual tools to answer the same fundamental questions. Learn how different kinds of evidence—from literature and cultural heritage to environmental records and genetics—can be brought together to reconstruct the multifaceted lives of people who came before us.

🧩 The Deep Dig: Reconstructing the Past, Piece by Piece 🧩
Tuesdays, Nov. 3–24, 6:30 pm–8 pm

Week 1: Stories from the Ancient World with Dr. Sheila Murnaghan
Week 2: Memory and Community with Dr. Marc Marin Webb
Week 3: People and Environment with Dr. Kathy Morrison
Week 4: DNA That Connects Us with Dr. Theodore Schurr

Classes are now streaming on the Visual Experience Platform (VXP), allowing you to deep zoom, rotate, or pan digital images as you learn along during this virtual course. You’ll also have access to digital readings, videos, and online archival research, as you’ll receive recordings of the live class if you miss a session.

Register today: https://bit.ly/4AWTU9t

10/12/2026

🙏 Today, on , we are sending big appreciation to the Indigenous artists, performers, curators, students, and partners alongside the 1,000 visitors who joined us last Saturday for a free, daylong celebration!

We honored the First Peoples at our free community Firstival, in collaboration with Historic Philadelphia's 52 Weeks of Firsts and Penn & Philly 's 250 Years of Shared History as part of its year-round semiquincentennial programming.

Some of our favorite moments:

💙 Holly Wilson, Delaware Tribe of Indians, led an artist talk about "Native Futurism," a large-scale, site-specific artwork commissioned by the Penn Museum to transform its East Entrance.

💙 Lenape artist and designer Ben Scott Miller, who created the Penn Museum’s #1 sculpture for the city-wide 52 Weeks of Firsts, led an all-ages workshop focused on the meaning and making of Wampum bracelets—traditional jewelry pieces that carry deep cultural, historical, and spiritual significance for Indigenous communities.

💙 Jeremy Johnson, Delaware Tribe of Indians, Cultural Education Director and one of the eight Indigenous Consulting Curators who developed the Native North America Gallery joined its co-curator Megan C. Kassabaum for a panel discussion following the documentary film screening of In Pursuit: Philadelphia and the Making of America.

Missed Saturday's event? Visit the Penn Museum to continue learning about the nation's first peoples through the Native North America Gallery, East Entrance artwork, and the #1 sculpture on view all year round.

10/12/2026

🌟Educators, we have some perks in store for you: Earn a $75 stipend + Act 48 credits when you join our 11/7 Teacher Workshop.🌟

At the third annual Summer Teacher Institute, educators explored how Museum objects, Indigenous perspectives, and new approaches to teaching can bring history to life in the classroom.

Read "Object Lessons" in our most recent PENN MUSEUM VOICES blog post: https://bit.ly/4jA8ld6

Missed our Summer Teacher Institute and want to learn more about inquiry-based teaching strategies?

Join our next Teacher Workshop on Nov. 7 and EARN A $75 STIPEND PLUS ACT 48 credits by exploring new approaches to teaching Native American histories and cultures through primary sources and cultural items: https://bit.ly/4ABe7RQ

10/11/2026

💃 On Saturday, Oct. 24, get the family ready for CultureFest! Día de los Mu***os!

Join us for our annual daylong festival, commemorating Indigenous Mexican beliefs and traditions together with the Catholic celebrations of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day.

With roots in rituals dating back 3,000 years to pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, Día de los Mu***os is observed across Latin America and in Latino communities worldwide.

Enjoy an altar competition, an artisan market, dance and music performances, + so much more!

All included with Museum admission, book your tickets in advance: https://bit.ly/3U8Knem

10/09/2026

“I really think it’s important that we share the true story of the Delaware People and the true story of how the city was founded between William Penn and Chief Tamaned, and that’s how ‘Brotherly’ started. We were supposed to agree together or work together at that point, and something got off the tracks, and we’re here to rebuild it.” —Ben Scott Miller, Delaware Tribe of Indians and artist who created the #1 sculpture at the Penn Museum for the city-wide 52 Weeks of Firsts

TOMORROW! Saturday, 10/10 🎉 we are honoring the First Peoples at our "Firstival: Celebration of Indigenous Peoples' Day"—FREE & OPEN TO ALL!

Registration is encouraged: https://bit.ly/4gV3qAr

Billy Penn has the full story: https://bit.ly/3VysWVq

This free event is in collaboration with Historic Philadelphia's 52 Weeks of Firsts and Penn and Philly's 250 Years of Shared History as part of its year-round semiquincentennial programming.

Far before America was officially founded in 1776, there were many other inhabitants who shaped the area. Those peoples are the subject of this week’s Firstival.

10/09/2026

More than a thousand years ago, people living in the Andes along the western edge of South America used complex arrangements of knotted cords to preserve information through color, fiber, structure, and the placement of knots. Commonly associated with the Inca, these cords, called khipus, have a much deeper history.

On Nov. 4, join archaeologist and researcher Dr. Jeffrey Splitstoser for a fascinating exploration of Wari khipus, some of the earliest-known examples of this sophisticated technology.

During "Artifacts in Action," our virtual lecture series, look closely at how these deceptively simple cords were constructed and discover how researchers are working to decode the data contained within them.

Dr. Splitstoser will share what we know—and what we are still trying to understand—about how these remarkable objects were created, used, and interpreted.

Register today: https://bit.ly/4iRdsp2
$15 per lecture
Members enjoy FREE access to the entire lecture series

10/09/2026

"I believe in this idea of Native futurism. Even with everything that’s happened to us, we have an existence, we have a future.” —Holly Wilson, Delaware Nation Lenape and Descendent of the Delaware Tribe of Indians

On Saturday, 10/10 🎉 we are honoring the First Peoples at our "Firstival: Celebration of Indigenous Peoples' Day"—FREE & OPEN TO ALL!

Registration is encouraged: https://bit.ly/4gV3qAr

As the United States marked its 250th anniversary year, multidisciplinary artist Holly Wilson, Delaware Nation Lenape and Descendant of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, was commissioned by the Penn Museum to transform its East Entrance lobby with a large-scale, mixed-media installation. Wilson's contemporary artwork "I Am More Than Fluff" is also on view at the Museum's Native North America Gallery shaped in collaboration with eight Indigenous consulting curators.

Philadelphia Inquirer has the full story: https://bit.ly/4AVDgGX

This free event is in collaboration with Historic Philadelphia's 52 Weeks of Firsts and Penn and Philly's 250 Years of Shared History as part of its year-round semiquincentennial programming.