hroughout the gallery are items that range in size and age and purpose, including gems, jewelry, coins, tools, ceramics, figurines of gods, as well as architectural elements such as tops of stone columns, sections of ancient doorways, and portions of a mosaic tile floor. The oldest object dates to 2100 BCE and the most recent to 1800 CE.[Penn Museum Williams Director Christopher] Woods says that most of the artifacts in the new gallery were excavated by Penn archaeologists, many from the Beth Shean site in Israel in the 1920s and 1930s, which resulted in about 8,000 objects. The Museum has more than a million objects, with a very small percentage on display. “Whenever we can bring those objects out of the storerooms, that's always an exciting endeavor,” Woods says.
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