Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East

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Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East

We are a FREE museum that explores the rich history of cultures connected by the family of Semitic languages.

Founded as the Harvard Semitic Museum in 1889, the museum moved into its present location in 1903. From the beginning, it was the home of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, a departmental library, a repository for research collections, a public educational institute, and a center for archaeological exploration. Among the Museum's early achievements were the first scientifi

c excavations in the Holy Land (at Samaria in 1907-1912) and excavations at Nuzi and Tell el-Khaleifeh in the Sinai, where the earliest alphabet was found. During World War II, the Museum housed Naval offices and was closed to the public. In the 1970's, academic activities resumed in the museum, which is again home to the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and to the University's collections of Near Eastern archaeological artifacts. These artifacts comprise over 40,000 items, including pottery, cylinder seals, sculpture, coins and cuneiform tablets. Many are from museum-sponsored excavations in Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Cyprus, and Tunisia. In 2020, the museum was renamed the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East to better reflect the diversity of its collections. The museum remains dedicated to the use of these collections for the teaching, research, and publication of Near Eastern archaeology, history, and culture. Exhibitions include a full-scale replica of an Iron Age house, life-sized casts of famous Mesopotamian monuments, authentic mummy coffins, and tablets containing the earliest forms of writing. Like the artifacts it displays, the museum itself has a rich and nuanced history.

04/29/2026

When soldiers in Napoleon’s army came across a stone slab in the Egyptian city of Rashid (called Rosetta by the French), a race was launched to crack the code of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The stone showed the same text in three languages: Greek and two forms of Egyptian. Once deciphered, the stone was revealed to be an official decree carved in 196 BCE to celebrate King Ptolemy V.

The original stone is in the British Museum, and the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East has a copy. Chief curator Adam Aja and Collections Manager Jasmine Shevell created a more sturdy copy of the copy by making a fresh silicone mold, pouring resin into it, and painting the hardened resin to resemble the original. See their handiwork on the museum’s second floor.

04/21/2026

Meet Vanessa, one of our Harvard student tour guides. A member of the Class of 2028, Vanessa is concentrating in Social Studies and Human Biology, Behavior & Evolution. She gives tours in the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

Vanessa describes her tour-giving style as interactive, fun, and interesting. She especially enjoys the way children interact with the exhibits, noting that "anytime that I have kids on the tours, they ask the funniest and most curious questions." If you find yourself on one of her tours at the Peabody, she might point out her personal favorites: the large Maya monument sculpture casts and the Resetting the Table exhibitions, both located on the 3rd floor.

When she isn't at the museums, you might find her reading (she’s a Harvard student, so no surprise there), involved with research, or tutoring local 4th–6th graders. See the tour schedules: https://tinyurl.com/PeabodyTours
https://tinyurl.com/HMANETours

04/16/2026

Meet Xiaoying, a first-year master’s student at Harvard Divinity School and one of our dedicated HMSC tour guides.
Xiaoying joined our team last fall and leads tours at both the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East.

Her tour-giving style is interactive, energetic, and passionate, as she loves narrating the background stories of different objects. "Each time, it leaves me with a sense of wonder and amazement," she says of the experience of stepping into histories previously unfamiliar to her.

On her tours, Xiaoying enjoys sharing about shadow puppets—like this garuda figure—on the fourth floor of the Peabody Museum, giving meaning to their shapes and vibrant colors. She even keeps a shadow puppet bookmark given to her by her Indonesian teacher.

Visitors might be surprised to learn that Xiaoying finds the temporarily empty display cases on the fourth floor to be one of the most striking parts of the museum. She views these spaces not as a waste, but as a powerful representation of ethical stewardship and an intentional choice to respect the origins of objects and their communities. See museum websites for the schedules: https://tinyurl.com/PeabodyTours
https://tinyurl.com/HMANETours

04/13/2026

Queen Khensa was a Nubian royal and principal wife of King Piankhy, the Kush*te ruler (664–653 BCE) who conquered Egypt and established the 25th Dynasty. She was buried in a pyramid tomb whose contents were largely plundered in antiquity. Even so, her burial still contained a variety of intriguing objects, from precious-metal vessels and fine jewelry to tools, figurines, and natural history specimens. The function of many of these items remains a mystery.

In this free hybrid evening talk on April 14, Denise M. Doxey, Norma Jean Calderwood Curator of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will present what survives of Khensa’s mortuary offerings and discuss new ideas about how these treasures may have functioned in royal Nubian funerary ritual and belief.

Advance registration recommended:
https://tinyurl.com/NubianQueenLecture
Free parking is available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage starting at 5 pm.

04/07/2026

Journey from the Stone Age to the American colonial era at our annual Amazing Archaeology Fair at Harvard!
https://tinyurl.com/AmazingArchFair2026

On Sunday, April 12, from 1:00 to 4:00 pm, you can meet experts in Egyptian tombs, cave art, and ancient chemical mysteries across two museums. Check out the Zooarchaeology Lab activity, where you can meet specialists in animal bones and learn how researchers identify species from the past 🦴 🦷 🐕

This event is perfect for curious minds of all ages and includes a souvenir from each museum you visit. Regular museum admission rates apply, with free event parking available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage starting at 12:00 pm.

Photo © Tony Rinaldo

04/03/2026

Meet Laurel Shugart ‘27, one of our dedicated Harvard student tour guides at Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East. Laurel studies Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology. They joined our team in October 2024 and also lead tours at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

Laurel’s passion for the museums is contagious. "I love spending time in the museums!" they say. "The best part of being a tour guide is getting to show other people why they should too!" When you join a tour, be sure to ask about favorite spots. Laurel says, “My favorite object is the rat hidden in the back of the ship cutout in the Mediterranean Marketplaces exhibition! It's a great Easter egg and nod to the fact that a lot more than just material goods were being transported (diseases, ideas, etc.)!”

When not giving tours, Laurel says, “I do research to better understand how axolotl salamanders regenerate their limbs in the Whited lab, Harvard Department of Stem Cell & Regenerative Biology. When I'm not in the lab, I spend most of my time editing news coverage for our student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. I'm also involved in a lot of programming for First Generation and Low-Income students at Harvard, including through our program for incoming first years, FYRE!”

Come say hi to Laurel on your next visit! Tours are drop-in and available at 1pm on Sundays through April 26, 2026. Tours meet in the lobby and last approximately 45 minutes. See museum websites for the full schedules: https://tinyurl.com/PeabodyTours and https://tinyurl.com/HMANETours

03/26/2026

Amanda Chang became a Harvard Museums of Science & Culture volunteer in 2023, as a high school sophomore. Now a high school senior, she created an interactive StoryMap inspired by her experiences in the "𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘚𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘦: 𝘙𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘔𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴” exhibit at Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East.

She says, "One of the things I’ve noticed is how eager some of the younger museum goers are. They always ask the best questions. The StoryMap is an answer to many of these. I used animation and modeling to bring scenes to life, so that everyone can watch chariots race, lions leap, and laws be inscribed!”

We asked her a few more questions about her passion for ancient history; see her answers below. Explore her StoryMap to trace three thousand years of shifting empires and evolving ideas using an interactive timeline and map:
https://tinyurl.com/FromStonetoSiliconeStoryMap.

𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙣𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙖𝙨𝙩? On my desk at home, I have a miniature replica of the ‘Flood Tablet’ from the Epic of Gilgamesh, inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform with one of the earliest known flood narratives! I’ve always found it incredible to spend my weekends at the museum looking at the earliest evidence of writing, law, and urban civilization. They’re a sign of the continuities of human experience and our gradual progress.

𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙢𝙤𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙣 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙡 𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙞𝙧𝙧𝙤𝙧 𝙨𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙚𝙩𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙥𝙖𝙨𝙩? I like to think that we’ve made progress since the Code of Hammurabi; we no longer practice an ‘eye for an eye,’ and the law is the same for everyone. What hasn’t changed is the importance of living in a society governed by laws and ensuring they’re enforced. All of that started here!

𝘼𝙧𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙧𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙚𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙮 𝙤𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙝𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙨 𝙖 𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙧? Yes, I am interested in Ancient History, Classics, and Near Eastern studies, particularly in how digital preservation and digital media can be used to stage cultural history.

03/25/2026

Lyric Opera of Orange County joins Assyrian artists to transform the ancient tale into a sweeping multimedia production.Before there were Marvel superheroes, before there was Tarzan, before there was even Noah and his ark, there was Gilgamesh, a superhuman (two-thirds god and one-third human) from a...

03/06/2026

Meet Your HMSC Student Tour Guides! Ever wonder who is leading the way through our galleries? Our student guides come from diverse academic backgrounds and bring their own unique perspectives to every tour.

𝐋𝐚𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐥 𝐒𝐡𝐮𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐭 (Class of 2027) is a Human Developmental (Harvard Graduate School of Education) and Regenerative Biology (Harvard Stem Cell Institute) student who loves showing visitors the Fiji Mermaid. Fun fact: Laurel says she was shy as a child, but now thrives on connecting with museum guests.

𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐫 (Class of 2029) is currently pursuing a Master of Architecture at the Graduate School of Design Caspar has a "Cambridge connection" on both sides of the Atlantic, having studied in both Cambridge, UK, and Cambridge, MA.

𝐕𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚 (Class of 2028) is studying Social Studies and Human Biology, Behavior & Evolution. She especially likes to see how children interact with the exhibitions.

𝐒𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐚 𝐊𝐚𝐨 (Class of 2028) is a Neuroscience and Linguistics () concentrator who speaks five languages. She is especially interested in how museums use ethical stewardship to contextualize their collections.

𝐗𝐢𝐚𝐨𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 (Harvard Divinity School) is a 1st-year master's student who brings an energetic and passionate style to her tours. She views the empty display cases in the museum as a striking mark of respect for the objects’ origins and the communities they came from.

See museum websites for the schedules: https://tinyurl.com/PeabodyTours /
https://tinyurl.com/HMANETours. We hope to see you in the galleries!

03/03/2026

Could some of our familiar ideas about the ancient Egyptian afterlife be more Christian than Egyptian? Recent studies suggest that themes we often assume to be central, such as judgment, salvation, and eternal life, were profoundly shaped by the Christian expectations of early Egyptologists. How should we think about ancient Egyptian religion when our basic framework has been shaped so strongly by Christianity rather than by Egyptian evidence?

During a FREE hybrid evening lecture on March 11 Rune Nyord, Associate Professor and Chair, Emory University Art History Department, proposes a new way forward that re-centers the social setting of the ancestor cult and considers funerary texts such as the Book of the Dead as ritual texts.

Advance registration is recommended:
https://tinyurl.com/FutureEgyptAfterlife

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6 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, MA
02138

Telephone

+16174954631

Website

https://hmane.harvard.edu/

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