People around the world have been piercing, tattooing, and painting their bodies for ages. There's excellent evidence of this in the galleries of the Penn Museum, some of it dating as far back as the 9th century B.C. Body modification and what it means is personal and cultural.

This exhibit asks the questions:

What's the big stink over a little ink?

Pierced ears? Before there were malls?

Can you see any better with a forehead dot?

Is Madonna a mehndi wannabe? Are you?

Body modification takes many forms world-wide, from temporary painting and dying of the skin to permanent modification of body shape or surface texture. Many groups in Africa use cicatrization (scarification) to produce permanent patterns on the skin, often starting in childhood and adding new designs throughout adult life. Scars may be produced by medical treatment, when medicinal substances are scratched or incised into the skin. They may also be purely decorative. Although some facial scars are thought to ward off disease or evil eye, they may also be markers of social status, personal traits, political rank, or religious and ritual authority. Among the Yoruba of Nigeria, body incising is a respected specialty, and practitioners owe allegiance to Ogun, the god of iron.

Visit The Real Me: Therapeutic Narrative in Cosmetic Surgery website

Greece is the southeasternmost region on the European continent. It is defined by a series of mountains, surrounded on all sides except the north by water, and endowed with countless large and small islands. The Ionian and Aegean seas and the many deep bays and natural harbors along the coastlines allowed the Greeks to prosper in maritime commerce and to develop a culture which drew inspiration from many sources, both foreign and indigenous. The Greek world eventually spread far beyond Greece itself, encompassing many settlements around the Mediterranean and Black seas and, during the Hellenistic period, reaching as far east as India.

Visit the Ancient Greek World website

Is there a primitive mentality essentially different from a civilized one? Or do people learn and mentally organize their experience in similar ways in spite of differences in their cultures and in the content of what they have to learn?

We know that all people, if raised in the appropriate environment, prove capable of learning to speak any language and to think and operate effectively in the context of any culture. But what about different people's traditional bodies of specialized lore? Are they organized in similar ways, or not? Cognitive psychologists are interested in understanding how specialists mentally process and store their knowledge so that they can retrieve it as needed.

Visit the Traditional Navigation in the Western Pacific website

Penn Museum's research includes a focus on the application of modern scientific techniques that will aid the interpretation of archaeological contexts and the materials recovered from those contexts, during both current excavations and past ones. Such materials' analysis often leads to a better understanding of ancient technologies, and the way in which changes in those technologies were effected by, or had an influence upon, the pace of development of past cultures. This website summarizes the Penn Museum's research in the following areas:

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The ancient Olympic Games were primarily a part of a religious festival in honor of Zeus, the father of the Greek gods and goddesses. The festival and the games were held in Olympia, a rural sanctuary site in the western Peloponnesos.

The Greeks that came to the Sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia shared the same religious beliefs and spoke the same language. The athletes were all male citizens of the city-states from every corner of the Greek world, coming from as far away as Iberia (Spain) in the west and the Black Sea (Turkey) in the east.

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Fermented beverages have been preferred over water throughout the ages: they are safer, provide psychotropic effects, and are more nutritious. Some have even said alcohol was the primary agent for the development of Western civilization, since more healthy individuals (even if inebriated much of the time) lived longer and had greater reproductive success.

This website introduces you to ancient wine-making practices in the neolithic period, in ancient Egypt, and mesopotamia.

Visit the Origins and Ancient History of Wine website

Fifty years ago, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology began excavations at the ancient Phrygian capital of Gordion in central Turkey. Within six years, the expedition had made one of the most spectacular archaeological discoveries of the 20th century. In the largest burial mound at the site, they located what has since been identified as the tomb of Gordion's most famous son, King Midas.

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This website offers an overview of the Penn Museum's excavations and takes visitors on a virtual tour through the Egyptian Galleries and Collections. Find out about hieroglyphs, gods and goddesses, and funerary practices, as well as answers to questions like:

What are hieroglyphs? What was the role of a pharaoh? Who were the gods and goddesses the ancient egyptians worshipped? What was life like for the average Egyptian citizen? How did Egyptian civilization originate? What are modern archaeologists excavating? What's a uraeus? When was the Second Intermediate Period? What's in the Museum's Egyptian collections?

Visit the New Look at an Ancient Culture website

This website explores several aspects of the history of glassworking throughout the six centuries of Roman domination of the Mediterranean world. Woven into this story is the place of glassware in everyday life, from the lady-of-the-house's cosmetic preparations each morning to the setting of the table for the evening meal. Glassware's use for storage of foodstuffs, wine, and perfumes among the furnishings of a Roman burial is also discussed.

Visit the Glassmaking in Roman Times website