Category Archives: Objects and their Stories
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: A Living Document
This post is the remarks given by Dr. Michael Brescia at the opening of the exhibit of pages from the original Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, on loan from the National Archives. The pages and related materials are on display at Arizona State Museum only through the month of February. Please do not cite or quote [...]
Beyond the Crown
Today’s blog is written by Candace Begody, who wears many hats, or shall I say, crowns. She is a member of the Navajo Nation from Cross Canyon, Arizona; a senior majoring in journalism and minoring in Native American studies at the University of Arizona; a fieldtrip guide at the Arizona State Museum; founder/president of the [...]
Ancient Calendar
Today’s blog is written by ASM archaeologist Dr. E. Charles Adams. Dr. Adams runs the Homol’ovi Research Program. My favorite object story begins on a typical summer day in northeastern Arizona at the ancient Hopi village of Homol’ovi II, just outside Winslow. Homol’ovi is the Hopi word used to describe the Winslow area and means [...]
Life as Expressed in Death
Today’s blog is written by ASM’s bioarchaeologist Dr. James Watson. I was recently asked by archaeologists at the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia Sonora (INAH: National Institute of Anthropology and History) to come to Hermosillo to analyze several prehistoric human skeletons that had been recently recovered from several archaeological investigations throughout the state. Skeletal [...]
Archaic Origami
The amazing thing about museum collections is that their objects represent people, real people. Someone once made or used the objects and they hint at lives lived and stories to tell. This past weekend I was at the Grand Canyon. At the Visitor’s Center in Tusayan, a National Geographic IMAX film shows a scene with [...]
Making Connections
“Its interesting. I’ve never seen a picture of him before,” pondered Chental Spencer my student employee, after catching sight of her great grandfather John Willie, Jr. in ASM’s newest exhibition on Navajo Code Talkers. She also saw a picture of another of her great grandfathers, Richard Thomas. Chental recalled when he was awarded the Congressional [...]
Relatives of Sid the Ground Sloth (Ice Age)
Sid the ground sloth in the Ice Age movies is adorable, a pain in the neck with his shenanigans, but pretty appealing as a character, specially with the mothering instincts exhibited in Ice Age 3. Arizona is no stranger to this Pleistocene animal. The Shasta Ground Sloth was widespread in the Western United States up [...]
Riding Our Faith
Hard economic times make me depressed, make everyone depressed as we struggle to figure out what to cut, how to cope. But there is always hope, a word that keeps jumping out at me. Hope that the legislature and our governor will create a budget that supports education and the arts. Hope that the K-12 [...]
Moving Museum Experiences
I subscribe to another blog about museum audience research. Today’s entry was about emotion, and the power of museums to provoke emotion in their visitors. The people commenting are all folks who work in museums. I thought I’d share a few of their comments and ask for yours—Do you remember a visit to a museum [...]
