One thing you should add to your bucket list is visiting Punxsutawney to see the groundhog ceremony once. It is an experience. I visited in 2015 when it was 54 degrees so that was great. I visited Staten Island Chuck the last two years at the Staten Island Zoo.
I returned to Punxsutawney, PA in the Winter of 2024 and it was a much bigger festival than before, More places for breakfast, more places open and much more events over the weekend. I think the town learned a few things over the last eight years.
Downtown Punxsutawney, PA on Groundhog’s Day morning
Downtown Punxsutawney, PA on Groundhog’s Day
Phil statues are all over the downtown
The Governor of Pennsylvania introducing Phil at Groundhog’s Day 2024
I was working on a new project for the Lodi Memorial Library to have a Groundhog’s Day celebration but try to find a groundhog in New Jersey. No zoo or natural group had one so we revamped the event for the first day of Spring and will have a rabbit (See Lodi Larry comes to the Library Day: Day Forty MywalkinManhattan). When the event fell through and all this talk of Groundhog’s Day I decided to go to the source and off I went to celebrate Groundhog’s Day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.
Punxsutawney is about five hours from my house so it was not the quickest trip but it is all straight highway down Route 80 until you get to Route 219 and then a turn off onto Route 119 South where you twist and turn until you get to Punxsutawney, a sleepy little former coal mining and coke town.
Monday: 10:00am-1:00pm/Tuesday through Friday: 8:30am-4:30pm/Saturday and Sunday: 10:00am-4:30p
Fee: Adults $18.00/Seniors $16.00 (over 65)/Children 17-5 $13.00/Military and Children under 5 and Members Free/Penn Museum Members/Penn Card Holders/HUP/CHOP Employees: Free
The entrance to the Penn Museum at 2360 South Street
Looking for a tranquil place to study or relax? Try the Museum’s garden’s and galleries or the Museum Library. For a bite to eat, stop by the Pepper Mill Café. Come by during Reading Days and Exams for free coffee and tea and extra study space on campus (from the Penn website).
The University of Pennsylvania Museum and Gardens
Museum Shop: A wide selection of books, games, fine jewelry and crafts from around the world can be purchased at the Museum Shop. Open during Museum hours.
The museum gift shop
I visited the Penn Museum on days I have come to Philly for the Penn versus Cornell games and for the Christmas holidays (the museum is across the street from the football stadium.
When I visited Philadelphia recently, I was able to visit the museum at more length rather before and after a football game. I really got a chance to see all the displays and look at all the artwork. It is a fascinating museum with many artifacts found on digs conducted by the university. It takes a lot of time to explore each culture.
The museum has three floors of exhibition space which is broken into different centuries. The museum has a lot of artifacts from their digs over the last two hundred years. Many of the artifacts are on display have the background of where the artifacts were found and how they researched. Each room has a different area of the world they are coming from.
On the Upper floors is the Asian, Egyptian and Roman exhibitions on artifacts, the Mid-level is the Middle Eastern, African, Egyptian, Mexican and North American/Native American Galleries.
The History of the University of Pennsylvania Museum:
(from the College website)
The Penn Museum is one of the premier international museums of archaeology and anthropology right here on the University of Pennsylvania campus. An active research and teaching center, the Penn Museum has teams engaged in more than 50 expeditions and research projects worldwide. Three floors of public galleries feature art, artifacts and remarkable stories from every inhabited continent on earth.Here is a selection of the interesting artifacts and art that I saw at the museum:
The Eastern Mediterranean Gallery:
The Eastern Mediterranean Galleries of Roman and Greek art
Transforming understanding of the human experience. Home to over a million extraordinary artifacts and archaeological finds from Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Mediterranean, the Penn Museum has been uncovering our shared humanity across continents and millennia since 1887.
The Greek Galleries
The Roman/Italian Galleries:
The entrance to The Roman Galleries
The Roman Galleries
The Roman Galleries
The Roman Galleries tell the story of the influence of Ancient Roman on the Mediterranean Sea. trade routes to the the Middle East and Asia and the influence of the Roman Empire on the world at the time.
The Pre-Columbian Gallery:
The Pre-Columbian exhibition is based on artifacts from the Mayan, Aztec and Incan civilizations. The artifacts show very advanced societies in both education, science and art.
The entrance to the Pre-Columbian galleries
The Pre-Columbia room
The Pre-Columbian galleries
The ‘Margarita’ panel
The ‘Margarita’ panel
I also got a quick tour of the Sphinx Gallery on my way out. On my most recent trip to the museum, I only had about an hour so I concentrated on the Egyptian Galleries and the special exhibition “The Stories We Wear”.
The Egyptian Galleries:
For a small museum, the Egyptian Galleries were pretty extensive. Much of the artifacts had come from Penn digs in Egypt back in the last century when museums used to sponsor and then fill their museums with artifacts.
There is a selection of small statuary, jewelry and decorative objects. Some of the collection highlights are the Sphinx of Ramesses the Great from Memphis, Egypt 1293-1185 BC located in the Egypt (Sphinx) Gallery.
The Sphinx Gallery is very interesting
The Sphinx guards the Gallery
Egyptian Gallery artifacts
The main Egyptian Gallery
On my first trip to the museum as well as my most recent, I was able to quickly tour the Mexican Galleries with the statues of the Sun and Water gods and the stone calendars. The Standing Figure located in the Mexico and Central America Gallery from Veracruz, Mexico from 500-700 CE. The Gallery has one of the largest collections of Mayan Stone statues in the world.
In the Special Exhibition Gallery, “The Stories We Wear”:
The exhibition was based on how what we wear and change into transforms us into someone new. The exhibition featured sports uniforms, Chinese Opera gowns, Princess Grace Kelly’s formal dress, drag performers costume as well as an array of accessories that adorn people.
From Groundbreaking excavations to ongoing innovation. Our journey as an institution began with an excavation of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Nippur, the first American excavation in the Middle East and a groundbreaking undertaking in the history of archaeological research.
Ancient works of art
Since that time, over 300 field excavations and anthropological research projects around the world have set us apart as an active research and educational institution. Today, our mission is fulfilled by 22 curators, 5 teaching specialists and over 150 affiliated consulting scholars.
The Mesopotamians Galleries
We are stewards of our remarkable history and humanity. Out vast and varied collection of archaeological finds and ethnographic objects is organized in eleven curatorial sections documenting the peoples of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas.
The art from Ur
Harp from the City of Ur
Ram hiding in the thicket from the City of Ur
The Queen Puabi display
These holdings as well as the Museum Archives of excavation and research projects, are used by researchers and borrowing institutions worldwide. And our curators and interpretive planners draw on these rich resources to provide compelling context to our galleries, where visitors can travel the globe in a day.
Middle Eastern works with a Roman influences
The Penn Museum Mission:
In bridging archaeology, the study of objects made by humans, with anthropology, the science of humanity, we chart a course for finding one’s own place in the arc of human history.
We are dedicated to telling powerful stories that emerge from excavations and research across the world. And nowhere else in the Western hemisphere will you be greeted by a 3000 year old, 15 ton Egyptian sphinx!
If there is one thing that 10,000 years of human history have taught us, it is that we have more in common than we think. In the canon of human existence, our past, present and future paths are inextricably intertwined.
What does the Code of Hammurabi have to do with the U.S. constitution? How can archaeology help to predict climate change? And what radical social changes accelerated by ancient plagues could be replicated in a post-COVID world?
Information about the museum:
Group Tours: Discounts are available for groups of 10 or more. Private tours and lectures are offered. Call (215) 746-8183 or email grouptickets@pennmuseum.org for information and reservations.
Public Gallery Tours: Penn Museum docents offer tours most Saturdays and Sundays at 1:30pm and Wednesdays at 6:30pm. Please check our website, http://www.penn.museum, for topics (Tour topics are subject to change; cancellation of tours may occur).
Parking & Transit: Visit http://www.penn.museum/directions-and-parking for parking information. Parking meters and lots are nearby. The Museum is near SEPTA bus routes 21, 30, 40 and 42 and the SEPTA University City Station (Regional Rail trains).
The Penn Museum sparks curiosity, wonder and endless exploration. We invite everyone to join our incredible journey of discovery and dig deeper. The museum is also a nice place to relax at after the games were over and walking all over the Penn Campus. The front of the museum has nice gardens and seating area right near the museum’s fountains and pool. There is a lot more I want to explore at the museum but that is for my next trip to Philadelphia.
Visiting a Museum: The Unique, Unusual, Obscure and Historical 