15 Most Impressive College Museums

Most people realize that colleges typically offer research facilities, libraries, and athletic resources. But what may not be obvious is the incredible collections that many colleges house in their museums. From archeology to art, these college museums are worth a visit ... [Read more here]

1. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology
2. Smith College Museum of Art
3. Lincoln Heritage Museum
4. Williams College Museum of Art
5. Science Museum of the University of Coimbra
6. Wellesley Davis Museum and Cultural Center
7. Naval War College Museum
8. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
9. Homewood Museum
10. Trinity College Old Library
11. Harvard Museum of Natural History
12. Spelman College Museum of Fine Art
13. Collegium Maius
14. Fogg Museum
15. Mills College Art Museum

Opening: BLM Museum Curator

Job Title: Museum Curator
Department: Department Of The Interior
Agency: Bureau of Land Management
Sub Agency: BLM - BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT
Job Announcement Number: WO-DEU-2011-0021

SALARY RANGE: $74,872.00 - $115,742.00 /year
OPEN PERIOD: Thursday, February 17, 2011 to Monday, March 21, 2011
SERIES & GRADE: GS-1015-12/13
POSITION INFORMATION: * This position will be filled on a full-time permanent basis, 40 hours a week.
PROMOTION POTENTIAL: 13
DUTY LOCATIONS: few vacancies - Washington DC Metro Area, DC
WHO MAY BE CONSIDERED: All U.S. Citizens - No previous Federal Service is required.

JOB SUMMARY:
BLM is seeking a dynamic and energetic individual to join our team to provide technical expertise as a Museum Curator.

[More information here]

Aboriginal Training Program in Museum Practices

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
Canadian Museum of Civilization
Aboriginal Training Program in Museum Practices

DEADLINE MARCH 15, 2011

Gatineau, Quebec, February 15, 2011 — The Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation is now accepting applications for its Aboriginal Training Program in Museum Practices. This eight-month program offers professional and technical training in museum practices to First Nations, Métis and Inuit people from across Canada. The deadline for applications is March 15, 2011.

All training is under the supervision of the Museum’s professional staff in a variety of fields, including research, collections, exhibitions, public programs, public affairs and publishing, development and museum services. The objective of this internship is to offer practical experience for Aboriginal people who would like to broaden their skills in various aspects of museum work. Training is available in both official languages.

This is the eighteenth consecutive year for the Aboriginal Training Program in Museum Practices. It was established by the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation in September 1993 in response to recommendations in the 1992 Task Force Report on Museums and First Peoples. Since its inception, some 80 Aboriginal trainees have completed the program successfully.

To learn more about the program, please contact Jameson C. Brant at 819 776-8270; by e-mail jameson.brant@civilization.ca; or consult the website at www.civilization.ca/aboriginaltraining.

Yale To Return Inca Artifacts To Peru

by NewsDesk - iWireNews ™ (iWireNews ™ and OfficialWire)

LIMA, PERU

Yale University has agreed to return thousands of ancient Inca artifacts removed from Peru in 1912 by a U.S. archaeologist and explorer.

The objects are to be housed in a new International Center for the Study of Machu Picchu and Inca Civilization to be run jointly by Yale and San Antonio Abad University in Cuzco, Peru, the BBC reports.

Hiram Bingham III, a Yale professor and later a U.S. senator from Connecticut, rediscovered Machu Picchu in 1911. The city, high in the Andes 50 miles northwest of Cuzco, had been the capital of the Inca Empire but had been forgotten by everyone except residents of the valley below it.

Peru has argued for years that the thousands of objects Bingham brought to Yale were on loan. Yale said everything Bingham borrowed had been returned.

"This agreement ensures the expanded accessibility of these Machu Picchu collections for research and public appreciation in their natural context," Yale President Richard Levin said.

UA Fieldschool at Rock Art Ranch

The University of Arizona School of Anthropology is launching a new summer field school during the first summer session of 2011 (June 6 through July 7) for undergraduate and graduate students at all skill levels. The participants will learn both archaeological survey and excavation techniques. For survey, participants will learn site identification, location and mapping using GPS; artifact identification, collection and processing; soil and plant identification; and artifact analysis and sourcing. For excavation, the participants will learn mapping at all levels of the site, feature identification, the principles of stratigraphy and their application to the archaeological record, seriation techniques, artifact identification and typology, and basic laboratory procedures. Finally, students will be shown how by combining the techniques of survey and excavation, a more complete understanding of human society in the past can be achieved.

[More here]

San Gemini Preservation Studies Program Field School

Dear Colleague,

I would like to inform you about our summer 2011 field school, the San Gemini Preservation Studies Program, now in its 12th year, which is dedicated to the preservation of cultural heritage and offers students the opportunity to study and travel in Italy. This year, we continue with our courses on architecture, ceramics and art restoration, and have added a course on paper restoration.

Courses offered:

· Introduction to Art and Building Restoration in Italy
· Surveying and Analyzing Historic Buildings
· Introduction to Conservation of Archeological Ceramics
· Introduction to Paper Restoration
· Traditional Painting Methods and Restoration Techniques
· Restoration Issues and Theory in Italy

Field Projects:

· Restoration of the Porta Burgis
· Surveying the 12th Century San Giovanni Battista Church complex
· Surveying the Church of Santo Gemine
· Archaeological survey of the public baths in Carsulae

To find out more about our program and review the syllabi, please visit our website: http://sangeministudies.org

Our courses are open to students from various disciplines, both undergraduate and graduate. All lessons are taught in English.

If you know any students, scholars, or others interested in this type of study, please inform them about our program. We would appreciate it if you could list our program on your organization's website as an available educational resource.

We have a 2011 flyer that you may wish to post on your department notice board or forward to interested parties. You can print this from our website, on our About Us page (http://sangeministudies.info/contac-us/about-us). Please let us know if you have any problem printing and we can email you the PDF.

Thank you very much.

Cordially, Max Cardillo
Director, San Gemini Preservation Studies Program
International Institute for Restoration & Preservation Studies
US Tel: (718) 768-3508
www.sangeministudies.org

Plateau Peoples' Web Portal

A new website -- check it out!

The Plateau Peoples' Web Portal is an interactive, educational portal that provides access to Plateau peoples' cultural materials. The content in this portal has been chosen and curated by tribal advisers working in consultation with Washington State University's Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections (MASC) and the Museum of Anthropology. The categories by which you may browse through the materials were chosen by the tribes to best reflect their own understandings of the significance of the items in the collections.

See it here

Former Gilcrease Museum director Paul Rossi dies at 81

From cowboys and Indians to mountain men and cavalry soldiers, nobody ventured far in the Old West without a horse and saddle.

In creating his "Great Saddles of the West" series of miniature bronzes, the goal of Paul Rossi, a former Gilcrease Museum director and nationally known Western artist, was to tell the story of the Western horse and rider through the evolution of their equipment.

Read more here

Research Experience for Undergraduates

Western Apache Ethnography and GIS Research Experience for Undergraduates

The White Mountain Apache Tribe Heritage Program and the University of Arizona announce opportunities for student participation in the second season of the Western Apache Ethnography and GIS Research Experience for Undergraduates field school, a National Science Foundation-supported program, June 6-July 15, 2011.

Students participating in this REU will contribute to the creation of a Western Apache cultural and historical Atlas. Participants will learn field research techniques that will include:

• Creating research plans and documenting research efforts;
• Conducting archival, interview, survey, and participant-observation research;
• Identifying the locations of historical sites and land modification areas from archival maps, photographs, and land inspections;
• Collecting and conducting initial analysis of qualitative and quantitative data relating to historical and cultural use of landscapes and natural resources;
• Applying Geographic Information Science (GIS) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) tools and technologies to mapping and field data collection.

These tools will provide a firm analytical foundation for the systematic evaluation of cultural data. Students will design research projects, and will work collaboratively with fellow students, cultural advisors, and Tribal personnel to complete research projects that will result in draft entries for inclusion in the Atlas.

Participants will receive room and board at the Fort Apache/Theodore Roosevelt School campus, and a weekly stipend of $500 ($3,000 total for 6 weeks). Non-local students will be responsible for transportation to and from Tucson at the beginning and end of the program and will be expected to arrive in Tucson by Sunday, June 5, and to depart no earlier than Saturday, July 16.

6 hours of course credit from the University of Arizona will be available to participants who successfully complete the program (ANTH 395B Special Topics in Cultural Anthropology: Application of Geographic Information Systems to Cultural Anthropology and ANTH 495B Special Topics in Cultural Anthropology: Ethnographic Field Methods). 2011 U.A. Summer School tuition and fees are anticipated to be approximately $3,200 for 6 hours of coursework; tuition scholarships may be available. Successful applicants will be required to enroll in the University of Arizona summer school in order to receive course credit for the program. This will require an admission fee (anticipated to be $50 for Arizona residents/$65 for non-residents) and submission of proof of current MMR vaccination. Program staff will provide additional information and guidance.

All participants in the National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates must be enrolled in an undergraduate degree program at an accredited college or university (i.e., have completed courses in an AA/AS or BA/BS program during the spring 2011 term and/or be enrolled for courses for the fall 2011 term).

A total of 8 students will be admitted to this program annually, 2010-2012. Members of the Western Apache Nations (White Mountain Apache Tribe, San Carlos Apache Tribe, Tonto Apache Tribe, Camp Verde Yavapai-Apache Nation) will be given first consideration for this program, but other Native and non-Native students are encouraged to apply. Applications received before March 18, 2011 will be given first consideration. Applications will continue to be accepted until the program is full.

For more information please contact REU Director Dr. Karl Hoerig at khoerig@fortapachearizona.org. This announcement and application form also available online at:
http://anthropology.arizona.edu/content/summer_research_experience_undergraduates_ethnography_and_gis.

Best and Worst Jobs In America

Although certainly dubious in methodolgy, nonetheless an interesting result for us in the field! The Wall Street Journal's Best and Worst Jobs 2010:

47 ANTHROPOLOGIST
50 ARCHEOLOGIST
51 MUSEUM CURATOR

Egypt's Antiquities Fall Victim to the Mob

[Ed. note: Follow the link and note the subtitle to this piece!]

When Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, came to work at the Egyptian Museum on Saturday, he found that looters had broken in and beheaded two mummies—possibly Tutankhamun's grandparents—and looted the ticket booth. Reports indicate that middle-class Egyptians, the tourism police and later the military secured the museum. But now it appears that many other museum's and storehouses have been looted, along with archaeological sites. A vast, impoverished underclass seems less taken with either the nationalist narrative of Egyptian greatness that stretches back to the pharaohs, or the intrinsic value of antiquities for all humanity, and more intrigued by the possibility of gold and other loot. For his part, Mr. Hawass has now been appointed state minister for antiquities by President Hosni Mubarak. [Read more here.]

New Exhibit at Denver Art Museum

To many museum regulars, those who turn out mostly for impressionist landscapes or Rembrandt portraits, American Indian art can at first seem a little exotic and even off-putting.

The symbols, techniques and materials, like feathers or porcupine quills, can certainly vary from those in European-derived art, and there are fewer household names, like Monet or Rubens, to guide the way.

But a tour of the overhauled American Indian galleries opening Jan. 30 on the third story of the Denver Art Museum's original building makes clear that this aesthetic world is not so different after all. [Read more here]