Friday, October 24, 2014

Woes of smaller museum collections

IT'S HARD: Biblical-Era Collections Suffer in a New World of Archaeology (Geraldine Fabrikant, NYT)
In recent decades, countries that house remains of the ancient world have become determined to keep archaeological finds within their borders. Partly as a result, many smaller archaeological museums at religious-affiliated schools across the United States, lacking the financial resources to buy works or borrow actively from other collections, are scrambling to increase the museums’ appeal.

“Today they are often filling those museums with information, rather than with objects,” said Aaron Brody, director of the Badè Museum at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif. In the process, they have become largely “legacy museums,” he said.
For the Tel Zayit Abcedary see here and links. The Siegfried H. Horn Museum has also been mentioned here, although the links have now rotted.