Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments
Surveillance: From Vision to Data
Opening Thursday, September 21, 2023, in the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments. This timely exhibit considers surveillance beyond the realm of cameras and their watchers, exposing the profound influence of data.
Learn about the historical instruments that have been used to transform individuals and landscapes into data. Uncover how powerful entities, from colonial empires to U.S. intelligence agencies, have harnessed surveillance data to produce and perpetuate social hierarchies. Immerse yourself in interactive critical artworks that challenge and resist surveillance through data. Look beyond vision and toward data to reveal an elusive, and now ubiquitous, form of visibility.
Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East
Mediterranean Marketplaces
Connecting the Ancient World
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 the Ancient Near East.
Harvard Museum of Natural History
The Blaschkas at the Microscope: Lessons in Botany
On view in the Glass Flowers gallery. Step back in time to the late 19th century and marvel at the exquisite craftsmanship of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, renowned creators of the mesmerizing Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants. Delve into their captivating educational models that meticulously illustrate the life cycles of non-flowering, spore-forming plants and fungi.
Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology
The Legacy of Penobscot Canoes: A View from the River
This exhibition explores the enduring importance of rivers and canoes in Penobscot tribal life and on relationships between the tribe and non-Indians. Native American birchbark canoes have often been described as one of the greatest inventions in human history and were copied by Euroamerican fur traders and sportsmen. This installation features a rarely seen full-size bark canoe purchased from Penobscot Indian Francis Sebattis in 1912, as well as stone tools collected by Henry David Thoreau, who described the Penobscot and their canoes in The Maine Woods.
Exhibit Spotlights
HMSC Connects! Exhibit Spotlights offer a virtual window into intriguing cultural and scientific concepts with online exhibits, selections from gallery exhibitions, and more.
The Groundbreaker: A Woman Archaeologist in a Field Led by Men
This exhibit highlights archaeological archives of Theresa B. Goell, director of an international field excavation site, detailing her travels and experiences as she worked in this male dominated field.
Cochineal: How Mexico Made the World See Red
This is the story of a color—one that began as an evolutionary tale, and evolved to shape the course of human history.
Cochinilla: Cómo México Hizo que el Mundo Viera el Rojo
Esta es la historia de un color que comenzó como un cuento evolutivo y evolucionó para dar forma al curso de la historia humana.
Women of the Museum 1860-1920: Behind-the-Scenes at the Museum of Comparative Zoology
This exhibit highlights women’s expertise and extensive knowledge of the museum’s collections may not have been fully appreciated by their contemporaries but today we recognize how their work allowed the museum to grow into its role as a center for research, teaching, and public programs.
The Interpretation of Drawings: Freud & the Visual Origins of Psychoanalysis
This exhibition invites the viewer to explore the role Sigmund Freud’s sketches and drawings played in the development of his psychoanalytic theories.
A World of Viruses
Learn more about viruses as we explore what they are, where they can be found, and how they behave in both a positive and negative way.
Sharks: Streamlined Swimmers
In this exhibit spotlight, learn how sharks’ body design has been honed over hundreds of millions of years to increase swimming performance.
Uncovering Pacific Pasts: Harvard’s Early Endeavors in Oceanic Anthropology
Learn how early Harvard scholars imagined Oceania and listen to Pacific Islanders reflect on Peabody Museum collections.
Rewilding Harvard
An initiative to restore biodiversity, Rewilding returns native plants to a planter in front of the Harvard Museum of Natural History.