arts & culture
New Penn Museum Exhibit
Adds Context to
Jewish History
Jarrad Saff ren | Staff Writer
Photos by Jarrad Saff ren
W e tend to think of Jewish
history as isolated, as the
story of a chosen people, as
the plight of a fallen kingdom with no
nation (until the return to Israel in the
20th century).

But Judaism’s origin story is far
more expansive than that, according
to a new exhibit at the Penn Museum
on the University of Pennsylvania’s
campus. Like Judaism today, the religion’s
founding and development cannot
be separated from the larger context
in which it exists. Th ere were three
monotheistic religions — Judaism,
Christianity and Islam — that emerged
in the Eastern Mediterranean region
that includes modern Israel, Jordan
and Syria, among other nations. All
three spread, as one museum display
puts it, “throughout the world.”
Yet they were all born and raised in
the same vibrant and eclectic region.

And it was that territory’s melding of
diff erent cultures and ideas that led to
such an impactful legacy, according
to the Penn Museum’s new Eastern
Mediterranean Gallery.

Th e exhibit opened on Nov. 19 and
includes “nearly 400 artifacts from the
Middle Bronze Age (2,000 to 1,600
B.C.E.) to the Ottoman Period (the
1800s),” according to a press release
from the museum. Th e gallery “reveals
how innovation was rooted for more
than 4,000 years” in that area. As vis-
itors walk through the 2,000-square-
foot space, they should gain an
understanding of “how their own lives
are impacted by concepts fi rst intro-
duced in this region.”
“Th e new Eastern Mediterranean
Gallery showcases a territory that has
always been central to the human story,”
Penn Museum Director Christopher
Woods said. “Today, of course, but also
in antiquity.”
When you fi rst walk into the gal-
lery and turn right, you see a display
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Lauren Ristvet, the lead curator for the new Eastern Mediterranean Gallery at
the Penn Museum in Philadelphia
about how, before the emergence of the
monotheistic religions, deities took on
specifi c forms. But over time, the idea
of a formless deity emerged.

It’s an important lesson that clarifi es
the timeline behind the key concept
that unites all three of these religious
traditions. But it’s not the only rea-
son for Jewish residents of the greater
Philadelphia area to visit the new gal-
lery, according to Lauren Ristvet, the
exhibit’s lead curator and a Penn pro-
fessor of anthropology.

Th ese are some others.

A Large Collection of Objects
from Israel
Th e exhibit includes the largest col-
lection of objects from Israel in the
United States and Canada, accord-
ing to Ristvet. It’s also the third-larg-
est such collection in the world. Th e
Penn Museum has led excavations
into Israel, Jordan and other Eastern
Mediterranean countries since the
period following World War I.

More Historical Context about
the Torah
“Basically, the early period that we’re
looking at, the period from 1800 B.C.E.

to 1150 B.C.E., is the period that’s really
represented in stories in Genesis and
Exodus,” Ristvet said.

But the stories only happened during
that period. Th ey were not yet written
down. Th at would come later. First,
though, from around 1150 B.C.E. to about
700 B.C.E., Jews started craft ing “a lot of
the historical books” about the Kingdom
of Judah, which lasted for almost 400
years during much of that same era.

Th is was a time when Jews had an
empire, both the Kingdom of Judah
and the Kingdom of Israel. Th ough by
this point, they were likely separate
instead of united as they had been in
the time of Saul, David and Solomon.

“Th ey are really starting to write.

Th ese people invented the alphabet,”
Ristvet said of the 1150 to 700 stretch.

“We have early Hebrew inscriptions.”
And then from 700 B.C.E. to around
330 B.C.E., the Torah as we know it was
“edited, put together,” she added.

“A lot of religious traditions and
thought are really formed during this
period,” Ristvet concluded.

More Historical Context about
Beit She’an
Th is ancient Israeli city played an inter-
esting role during the Roman Empire
period, according to Ristvet. It was
home to a multi-faith community that
used both synagogues and churches.

Th ere were plenty of diff erent groups
living in the city at the time.

Th e Penn Museum has “pretty cool
material” from this period showing the
changes that took place aft er the destruc-
tion of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by
the Romans. Th e Romans took Jerusalem
in 70 C.E., forcing the Jews to become the
wandering tribe we know today. Aft er the
destruction, Jews had to settle in multi-
faith places like Beit She’an. Roman era
Beit She’an is an early example of the way
Jews would go on to live for almost 2,000
years ... until the creation of modern Israel
aft er World War II.

“We get a little bit in the end of
what’s happening in that later phase,”
Ristvet said of the gallery. JE
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
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