Featured Exhibitions

Much like today, ancient “consumers” were connected to distant markets. Both basic and precious goods from faraway lands “shipped” to royal palaces, elite estates—sometimes even rural households—and technological advances in craftsmanship and commerce transcended boundaries of language, religion, or culture to spread rapidly. Mediterranean Marketplaces: Connecting the Ancient World explores how the movement of goods, peoples, and ideas around the ancient Mediterranean transformed the lives and livelihoods of people at all levels of society, driving innovations that had lasting impacts—even on the modern world. Open at the Harvard Museum of Ancient Near East.

Muchos Méxicos explores Mexico’s rich history as a site of human innovation, creativity and cultural diversity. Featuring Mexican objects from the Peabody Museum collections, this bilingual exhibit tells the story of Mexico as a multicultural and geographic crossroads—one where the exchange of resources, products, and ideas among Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas before the Spanish invasion, and then with cultures around the globe—have all created a vibrant nation. Open at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology.

Over their fifty years creating the Glass Flowers, Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, father and son, continually experimented with materials and methods that pushed the boundaries of glassworking. Years later, their complex and varied practices presented unique challenges for the conservators preserving and protecting the models, which led to a suite of conservation processes nearly as varied as the Blaschka’s techniques. From the Hands of the Makers explores what it takes to both make and conserve a model and investigates the lingering mysteries surrounding the making of the glass flowers—closely held secrets that only modern technology can reveal. Open at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.