The African collection at the Penn Museum is one of the largest collections in the country. The collection includes approximately 15,000 ethnographic and 5,000 archaeological objects and most of the collection was obtained between 1891 and 1937. A large part of the collection was purchased in 1912 from art dealers in London and Hamburg; many of these objects were collected in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) by the famous German ethnographer Leo Frobenius. A fair amount also came from missionaries working in Africa during the first three decades of the 20th century. This collection of sculpture, masks, textiles, utilitarian objects, armaments and ceramics dates from 17th century to the 20th century are recognized as superb examples of the canons of African Art. The exceptional holdings are from all regions of Africa, with a concentration of artifacts from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Angola, Morocco, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Madagascar.

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The collections of the American Section are the largest of the Penn Museum and number approximately 300,000 archaeological and ethnographic specimens. The collections span the continents of North and South America from Alaska to Argentina, and document human habitation and history from the ancient past to the present day. More than half of the American collection is archaeological in nature, and much of the collection was acquired on more than 100 archaeological and ethnographic collecting expeditions initiated by Museum and University faculty and staff as early as 1895. Objects of everyday life including weapons and tools, hunting and fishing equipment, boats, clothing, medicines, raw materials, musical instruments, ornaments, toys and games, house models, and ceremonial items are included. In addition to collections acquired through research, a large number of items have come to the Section through donation, and we continue to receive donations today. The American Section is actively collecting on a limited bases, primarily in North America and as opportunities arise. Due to the size of the collection, only a few of its highlights are mentioned below.

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The Asian section at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology covers all of Asia and has a little over 25,000 objects. Most of our objects are kept in storage and used for research and classroom purposes; only about 1% are on display at any time. Unlike many other sections of the museum, the Asian collection has little archaeological material as our focus is largely on ethnographic collections.

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The Babylonian Section houses a collection of almost 30,000 clay tablets inscribed in Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform, making it one of the ten largest collections in the world.  The vast majority of the texts derive from the Museum's excavations at Nippur in the latter part of the 19th Century along with smaller excavated groups of tablets from Ur, Billa, Malyan and Fara.  The collection contains the largest number of Sumerian school tablets and literary compositions of any of the world's museums, as well as important administrative archives ranging from 2900 to 500 BCE.

Penn Museum houses one of the largest collections of Egyptian and Nubian material in the United States, numbering in excess of 42,000 items. Assembled through nearly a century of archaeological research, this collection is unusual is that the vast majority of the objects were obtained through archaeological investigations in Egypt and entered the museum through a division of finds with Egypt’s Antiquities Service.

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The Penn Museum began acquiring prehistoric European archaeological collections in 1892. These collections were housed in the General Ethnology/American and Prehistoric Archaeology Curatorial Section until 1913 when the European Curatorial Section was formally created as a separate entity.

The European Collection holds an estimated 20,000 objects most of which are exclusively archaeological. The major prehistoric periods represented are Paleolithic (c. 3,900 objects); Neolithic (c. 7,950 objects) and Bronze Age (c. 1,049 objects). Additionally, some historic Iron Age (236 objects), Italic (15 objects), Roman (78 objects), and Medieval (76 objects) have also been identified. In addition, few modern lithics as well as approximately 50 modern tools and raw materials from the 19th century Brandon Flint Quarries are included in the sections holdings. The section can be subdivided into three distinct collections.

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The Historical Archaeology Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum is the oldest such section in the United States, dating back to the early 1970s. Since the subject matter of Historical Archaeology involves the study of the Modern World (AD 1400 to the present), such collections in North America date either to the Colonial Period or to the 19th-20th centuries. The section at Penn has some purely 19th century holdings, especially the Walnut Prison assemblage from Philadelphia; however, it major collections are from the active South Jersey Project centered around a 19th-20th century community in southern New Jersey. These collections, which are still coming out of on-going field excavations (2001 to the present), are currently being worked on in laboratories at the museum. When the South Jersey Project collections are formally acquisitioned they will consist of 19th century materials (1861 to 1900) but will also include one of the best early 20th century (ca. 1900 to 1940) archaeologically recovered assemblages in an American museum.

The Collections of the Mediterranean Section of the Penn Museum comprise some 34,000 objects of Greek, Roman, Etruscan, Cypriot, and Bronze Age Aegean origins, as well as small numbers of artifacts from related culture areas.

The classical world and the acquisition of objects from classical lands, especially excavated archaeological material, was a primary interest of the Museum at its founding in 1887 and its formative years. This was a reflection of a general intense interest in classical antiquity in the late 19th and early 20th century in America. This interest was fostered by an educational system that emphasized classical literature and languages, and it was fueled in the 1870s by a fascination with Heinrich Schliemann’s search for Homer’s Troy. The majority of the objects from excavations sponsored by the Museum were acquired before World War II when the laws governing the export of antiquities from the country of origin made it possible. A large body of archaeological material from Kourion and Lapithos became part of the Museum’s collection with the permission of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus. Material from Crete, particularly from the site of Gournia, was acquired by the Museum through a permit from the Greek government at the time of excavation. The Roman site of Minturnae, between Rome and Naples, was excavated by the Museum under the direction of Jotham Johnson, and the Museum received a division of the finds.

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The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has a long history of field work in the Middle East, beginning with the late 19th century excavations at Nippur, early Mesopotamia’s pre-eminent religious center, in what is today Iraq. The Nippur excavations were the first American archaeological project in that part of the world. Since that time the Museum has worked in nearly every country in the Middle East, with research including not only archaeological surveys and excavations, but also ethnographic studies. The Near East Section was originally part of the Babylonian Section and maintains close ties with it today. The Babylonian Section houses more than 35,000 cuneiform tablets, many derived from the early Nippur excavations, and its curators/scholars focus largely on the study of the language, history and literature of the ancient Near East. The Museum Near East collections include nearly 90,000 artifacts housed in three main storage areas: Mesopotamia, Syria-Palestine or the Levant and Iran.

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The Oceanian collections of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology include over 22,000 objects from all the major island groups of the Pacific (Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia), insular Southeast Asia, and Australia. Except for a very limited number of archaeological specimens, the collections are ethnographic, representing the material culture of the Pacific peoples from the mid-19th century to the present.

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The Physical Anthropology Section curates extensive skeletal human and primate collections from all around the world. In total, approximately 10,000 individuals in various states of preservation with both historic and archaeological materials.

The most extensive historic collection is the Samuel Morton collection of over 1500 human crania amassed in the middle of the 19th Century.

Two large skeletal collections, both from Iran, form the core of the collection: Tepe Hissar (excavated in 1931 by Erich Schmidt) and Hasanlu (excavated from 1957 to 1977 under the leadership of Robert Dyson). Both collections contain over 250 well preserved skeletons each.

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