Prewitt-Allen Archaeological Museum
Encyclopedia
The Prewitt-Allen Archeological Museum is a small archaeology
museum at Corban University in Salem, Oregon
, United States. Founded in the 1950s, the museum is located in the school’s library on the rural campus. Artifacts and replicas come mainly from the Eastern Mediterranean
and include replicas of the Rosetta stone
and the Code of Hammurabi
, alongside a collection of ancient oil lamp
s and an internationally known papyrus palimpsest
. The free museum has over 900 items in its collections.
. He thought the artifacts could assist in his classroom teachings. That same year he bought a fragment of papyrus
from the 5th century C.E., which is now known as the Allen Papyrus. In 1964, Allen began a seven year tour around the world including stops in 39 countries from the Middle East to Europe. During this journey he collected artifacts for the museum, returning to the college in May 1971.
Originally the museum was named the Robert S. Allen Archaeology Museum. The museum loaned out the Allen Papyrus to the California Institute of Technology
in 1975 for research using the software used to reduce static on pictures coming from the Mariner probes
sent to Mars and other planets. The research was to study how to better view the writings that had been erased from the original papyrus when it was reused by later scribes. The collection at the museum grew to around 600 pieces by 1998. Adrian Jeffers took over as curator that same year. In March 2008, the museum acquired a full-scale replica of King Tut’s mask. In late 2008, a mid-19th century Torah scroll valued at $90,000 was donated to the museum. The tanned leather scroll stands 17 inches (43.2 cm) tall and came from what is now Iraq
. The museum’s collection had grown to more than 900 pieces in 2009.
The Prewitt/Allen Archaeological Museum is located inside Corban College’s library. Located on the second floor, the displays line the hallway of the library. The museum is open the same hours as the library, with free admission. Artifacts in the collections come primarily from the region around the Eastern
Mediterranean Sea
. This includes the modern nations of Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, and Egypt among others, as well as the ancient lands of Sumer
ia, Mesopotamia, and Palestine. According to the museum it is the only museum of its kind between Vancouver
, B.C. and San Francisco.
The museum includes a collection of oil lamps that date back as far as the Bronze Age
. This collection shows the evolution of the lamp and includes newer versions dating from the Iron Age
and Medieval times
. Other everyday items held by the museum include hand tools, scrapers, pottery, arrowheads, tear bottles, cups (including a kylix
), perfume bottles, coins, and clay tablet
writings. These pieces demonstrate what life was like in ancient times in Egypt, Greece, Palestine, and Mesopotamia.
A palimpsest
parchment from around 700 A.D. is the most prized piece in the museum’s collection. Palimpsests are documents whose original text was erased and a new recording was written over the older text. This artifact has Coptic
writings concerning the Wisdom of Solomon overwriting older writings of a glossary of Virgil’s Georgics written in Greek. Known as the Allen Papyrus or Allen Palimpsest, the original writings date from the 5th century A.D., and is named after the museum founder who acquired it in Egypt.
The museum’s other significant pieces date back as far as 3000 BC. Pottery shards dating to this time are the oldest pieces in the collection. Other pottery pieces include a tablet from 2700 B.C. written in Sumarian
that came from Beersheba
to as recent of items as those from the 1st century AD. Another is an Amphora
that came from a shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea
.
Other items on display include several related to mummification
in Egypt. One is a display of alabaster Canopic jar
s used for storing the internal organs
of mummies that are in the shape of a gorilla. Another is a mummy of falcon that dates back to 1500 BC. This includes a casket, with the falcon wrapped up into the shape of Osiris, an Egyptian god.
Prewitt/Allen includes several large replicas in its collections. This includes a full-size copy of the Rosetta stone
that was cast from a mold created from the original. Another replica is of the Code of Hammurabi
that stands 6 feet (1.8 m) tall. The copy is based on the law of the Babylonian King and is inscribed into black basalt. Other replicas include the Obelisk of Shalmaneser
, jewelry of Queen Nefertiti
, and a gold bust of King Tutankhamun. In addition to artifacts, the museum has copies of all the pages of the New Testament
from all the main manuscripts of that work.
. Prewitt was a professor of Bible at the college for 50 years. Allen was a postal carrier, amateur archeologist, and an adjunct instructor in archaeology at the college from 1956 to 1969.
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
museum at Corban University in Salem, Oregon
Salem, Oregon
Salem is the capital of the U.S. state of Oregon, and the county seat of Marion County. It is located in the center of the Willamette Valley alongside the Willamette River, which runs north through the city. The river forms the boundary between Marion and Polk counties, and the city neighborhood...
, United States. Founded in the 1950s, the museum is located in the school’s library on the rural campus. Artifacts and replicas come mainly from the Eastern Mediterranean
Eastern Mediterranean
The Eastern Mediterranean is a term that denotes the countries geographically to the east of the Mediterranean Sea. This region is also known as Greater Syria or the Levant....
and include replicas of the Rosetta stone
Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek...
and the Code of Hammurabi
Code of Hammurabi
The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code, dating to ca. 1780 BC . It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a human-sized stone stele and various clay...
, alongside a collection of ancient oil lamp
Oil lamp
An oil lamp is an object used to produce light continuously for a period of time using an oil-based fuel source. The use of oil lamps began thousands of years ago and is continued to this day....
s and an internationally known papyrus palimpsest
Palimpsest
A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped off and which can be used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin palimpsēstus from Ancient Greek παλίμψηστος originally compounded from πάλιν and ψάω literally meaning “scraped...
. The free museum has over 900 items in its collections.
History
Robert Allen began a push for a museum in 1953 at what was then Western Baptist Bible College when the school located in CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. He thought the artifacts could assist in his classroom teachings. That same year he bought a fragment of papyrus
Papyrus
Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
from the 5th century C.E., which is now known as the Allen Papyrus. In 1964, Allen began a seven year tour around the world including stops in 39 countries from the Middle East to Europe. During this journey he collected artifacts for the museum, returning to the college in May 1971.
Originally the museum was named the Robert S. Allen Archaeology Museum. The museum loaned out the Allen Papyrus to the California Institute of Technology
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
in 1975 for research using the software used to reduce static on pictures coming from the Mariner probes
Mariner program
The Mariner program was a program conducted by the American space agency NASA that launched a series of robotic interplanetary probes designed to investigate Mars, Venus and Mercury from 1963 to 1973...
sent to Mars and other planets. The research was to study how to better view the writings that had been erased from the original papyrus when it was reused by later scribes. The collection at the museum grew to around 600 pieces by 1998. Adrian Jeffers took over as curator that same year. In March 2008, the museum acquired a full-scale replica of King Tut’s mask. In late 2008, a mid-19th century Torah scroll valued at $90,000 was donated to the museum. The tanned leather scroll stands 17 inches (43.2 cm) tall and came from what is now Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
. The museum’s collection had grown to more than 900 pieces in 2009.
Collections
Eastern Mediterranean
The Eastern Mediterranean is a term that denotes the countries geographically to the east of the Mediterranean Sea. This region is also known as Greater Syria or the Levant....
Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
. This includes the modern nations of Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, and Egypt among others, as well as the ancient lands of Sumer
Sumer
Sumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age....
ia, Mesopotamia, and Palestine. According to the museum it is the only museum of its kind between Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, B.C. and San Francisco.
The museum includes a collection of oil lamps that date back as far as the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
. This collection shows the evolution of the lamp and includes newer versions dating from the Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
and Medieval times
Medieval Times
Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament is a family dinner theater featuring staged medieval-style games, sword-fighting, and jousting performed by a cast of 75 actors and 20 horses. Each location is housed in a replica 11th-century castle, with the exception of the Toronto location, which is housed...
. Other everyday items held by the museum include hand tools, scrapers, pottery, arrowheads, tear bottles, cups (including a kylix
Kylix (drinking cup)
A kylix is a type of wine-drinking glass with a broad relatively shallow body raised on a stem from a foot and usually with two horizontal handles disposed symmetrically...
), perfume bottles, coins, and clay tablet
Clay tablet
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age....
writings. These pieces demonstrate what life was like in ancient times in Egypt, Greece, Palestine, and Mesopotamia.
A palimpsest
Palimpsest
A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped off and which can be used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin palimpsēstus from Ancient Greek παλίμψηστος originally compounded from πάλιν and ψάω literally meaning “scraped...
parchment from around 700 A.D. is the most prized piece in the museum’s collection. Palimpsests are documents whose original text was erased and a new recording was written over the older text. This artifact has Coptic
Coptic language
Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century...
writings concerning the Wisdom of Solomon overwriting older writings of a glossary of Virgil’s Georgics written in Greek. Known as the Allen Papyrus or Allen Palimpsest, the original writings date from the 5th century A.D., and is named after the museum founder who acquired it in Egypt.
The museum’s other significant pieces date back as far as 3000 BC. Pottery shards dating to this time are the oldest pieces in the collection. Other pottery pieces include a tablet from 2700 B.C. written in Sumarian
Samaria
Samaria, or the Shomron is a term used for a mountainous region roughly corresponding to the northern part of the West Bank.- Etymology :...
that came from Beersheba
Beersheba
Beersheba is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the seventh-largest city in Israel with a population of 194,300....
to as recent of items as those from the 1st century AD. Another is an Amphora
Amphora
An amphora is a type of vase-shaped, usually ceramic container with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body...
that came from a shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
.
Other items on display include several related to mummification
Mummy
A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...
in Egypt. One is a display of alabaster Canopic jar
Canopic jar
Canopic jars were used by the Ancient Egyptians during the mummification process to store and preserve the viscera of their owner for the afterlife. They were commonly either carved from limestone or were made of pottery...
s used for storing the internal organs
Viscus
In anatomy, a viscus is an internal organ, and viscera is the plural form. The viscera, when removed from a butchered animal, are known collectively as offal...
of mummies that are in the shape of a gorilla. Another is a mummy of falcon that dates back to 1500 BC. This includes a casket, with the falcon wrapped up into the shape of Osiris, an Egyptian god.
Prewitt/Allen includes several large replicas in its collections. This includes a full-size copy of the Rosetta stone
Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek...
that was cast from a mold created from the original. Another replica is of the Code of Hammurabi
Code of Hammurabi
The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code, dating to ca. 1780 BC . It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a human-sized stone stele and various clay...
that stands 6 feet (1.8 m) tall. The copy is based on the law of the Babylonian King and is inscribed into black basalt. Other replicas include the Obelisk of Shalmaneser
Shalmaneser III
Shalmaneser III was king of Assyria , and son of the previous ruler, Ashurnasirpal II....
, jewelry of Queen Nefertiti
Nefertiti
Nefertiti was the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for a religious revolution, in which they started to worship one god only...
, and a gold bust of King Tutankhamun. In addition to artifacts, the museum has copies of all the pages of the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
from all the main manuscripts of that work.
Namesakes
The museum is named after the Robert S. Allen and Frank Prewitt. Both helped found the museum in the 1950s at the college when it was located in El Cerrito, CaliforniaEl Cerrito, California
-Transportation:The city's primary transportation infrastructure consists of the El Cerrito Plaza and El Cerrito del Norte BART stations along with several local bus lines, operated by AC Transit, providing access to the surrounding area and the nearby cities of Albany, Berkeley and Richmond...
. Prewitt was a professor of Bible at the college for 50 years. Allen was a postal carrier, amateur archeologist, and an adjunct instructor in archaeology at the college from 1956 to 1969.