Peabody receives $150,000 grant

The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology has been awarded a $150,000 Museums for America Grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services. Over the next two years, staffers will catalog, document, inventory, and photograph the Peabody’s most important archaeological collections with the grant.

“Our collection will be more accessible to researchers, especially educators,” said Senior Collections Manager David DeBono Schafer, who will manage the project. “These are among our most requested materials. Now researchers will be able to quickly determine exactly which archaeological objects are in the collection.”

The collection of approximately 20,000 objects includes stone tools from the Leakey excavations in Africa, organic archaeological materials (such as textiles, wood, leather, and basketry), ceramics from the American Southwest, and many historic artifacts from three decades’ excavations in Harvard Yard.