Artifacts

The Penn Museum Just Floated a 12-Ton Sphinx Out a Window

Using air-dollies, the museum moved the largest sphinx in the western hemisphere 250 feet to a new entranceway

Burial Mound Found on Kindergarten Playground Was Used for 2,000 Years

Thirty sets of human remains from the mound in southwest France show locals buried their dead in the same spot from the Stone Age to the Iron Age

Historians Are Looking for Images of the HMS Beagle's Anchors

Researchers are hoping to confirm that they have discovered an anchor from the ship that carried Darwin stuck in the mud of an Australian river

Ring Containing Charlotte Brontë's Hair Discovered in Attic

The piece of mourning jewelry includes an inscription and a little door covering a plaited lock of the <i>Jane Eyre</i> author's hair

Much of the discussion has centered on the soon-to-be-finished Humboldt Forum, scheduled to open later this year that will house a large collection of ethnological artifacts.

Ministers From All 16 German States Agree to Move Forward With Restitution of Looted Treasures

Officials said they would collaborate with museums on researching and repatriating artifacts that were unlawfully taken during Germany’s colonial era

A drinking horn made from the horn of an aurochs bull.

Testing the DNA in Museum Artifacts Can Unlock New Natural History, but Is it Worth the Potential Damage?

Museums house a wealth of rare animal specimens, such as arctic clothing, medieval parchment and Viking drinking horns, but DNA testing can be destructive

Artifacts on display at Don Miller's farm in 2014. For more than seven decades, Miller unearthed cultural artifacts from North America, South America, Asia, the Caribbean, and in Indo-Pacific regions such as Papua New Guinea.

The F.B.I. Is Trying to Return Thousands of Stolen Artifacts, Including Native American Burial Remains

Five years after the F.B.I.'s six-day raid on a rural Indiana home, the agency is turning to the public for help identifying and repatriating the artifacts

American adventurer and archaeologist Wendell Phillips may have provided inspiration for the character of Indiana Jones.

The Complex Legacy of America's Lawrence of Arabia

Archaeologist Wendell Phillips traveled throughout Yemen in the 1950s, where he found ancient treasures and controversy

Researchers examine porcelain from the Java Sea Ship wreck using their "ray gun."

How an 'X-Ray Gun' Is Telling Us More About the Java Sea Shipwreck

Researchers used X-ray fluorescence to find the origins of porcelain recovered from the vessel to help pinpoint which port the ship first departed from

Oops: 4,500-Year-Old Stone Circle Turns Out to Be 1990s Replica

Discovered in Scotland last November, the recumbent circle was made by a local farmer interested in the ancient monuments

Woodside Mansion, home to the Rochester Historical Society since 1941

Rochester's 150-Year-Old Historical Society Hit Hard by Lack of Funding

The institution, which houses such precious relics as clothing worn by Susan B. Anthony, has furloughed its staff and suspended its programming

Heavily Abridged ‘Slave Bible’ Removed Passages That Might Encourage Uprisings

The rare artifact is the focus of a new exhibition at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.

Google Virtual Tour Preserves Collections Destroyed in Brazil Museum Fire

Back in 2016, the tech giant had begun working to digitize the museum’s collections

In 1911, demonstrators protested following the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City.

Why the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Makes for a Complicated History

Charged with manslaughter, the owners were acquitted in December 1911. A Smithsonian curator reexamines the labor and business practices of the era

Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar, Senegal.

Sprawling Museum of Black Civilizations Opens in Senegal

The launch comes as Senegal is requesting the repatriation of looted artworks from France

The train carrying President George H. W. Bush, following in the tradition of Lincoln, Garfield and Eisenhower, will travel along a published 70-mile route so that mourners can gather along the way to witness the journey.

The Somber History of the Presidential Funeral Train

This grand tradition has allowed Americans across the country to pay their respects to the chief executive

The breakthrough propeller, its blades shaped by hatchet and drawknife from two-ply spruce, was sheathed in linen and sealed with aluminum powder mixed into a heavy varnish.

Why Wilbur Wright Deserves the Bulk of the Credit for the First Flight

A new book advances a controversial theory about the singular contribution that went into the brothers’ pioneering achievement

At the Arc de Triomphe in 1919, Edwards blew “Taps” in honor of the fallen for their service and their sacrifice.

Hartley Edwards Played “Taps” on this Bugle After World War I to Honor the Fallen

But the bugler remembered the story a bit wrong. A century later, a curator sets the record straight

With elaborate coiffures and scarves and ceremonial garb, all the way down to beautifully designed sandals and the tinkling of gold bracelets, Senegalese women usefashion for sociopolitical and economic ends as well as celebrating their own history.

In Senegal, Female Empowerment, Prestige and Wealth Is Measured in Glittering Gold

The African Art Museum's new exhibition delves into a tradition that is both ravishingly beautiful and hauntingly fraught

“What I also want people to understand is that as difficult as this history is, it's ripe with optimism," says the museum's director Lonnie Bunch. "Because if you can survive that cabin, there's a lot more you can survive.”

This South Carolina Cabin Is Now a Crown Jewel in the Smithsonian Collections

The 16- by 20-foot dwelling once housed the enslaved; a new podcast tells its story

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