05-23-2013, 02:00 PM
For those in the Philadelphia PA region, I plan to use this helmet as well as all my other reproductions in free educational presentations focusing on the material culture of Ancient Greece and pre-Imperial Rome. Although helmets and swords are among the most popular objects I provide for the students to handle, and yes I allow them to paw all over the objects in order to gain an intimate appreciation of them, I also have many non-military related objects so that kids can understand that the ancient world was as much about strigils and spindles as helmets and spear heads.
I do have some artifacts with established provenances, but I don't want to encourage the collecting of ancient objects through illegal means, so I prefer to use quality replicas and encourage everyone to visit the nearby Univ. of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (where I give tours in the Greek gallery) to view authentic ancient artifacts, but of course you can't touch them. The Met in NY City and the Walters in Baltimore are also close by and have excellent collections. What makes the Penn museum unique is that it is a cutting edge Archaeology Museum with long-term digs ongoing around the world, and has an Ivy League University caliber archaeology and ancient history program across the street. It's quite easy to strike up a conversation with some of the worlds leading classical archaeologists at the Penn Museum. They are the ones with dirt still under their finger nails.
I do have some artifacts with established provenances, but I don't want to encourage the collecting of ancient objects through illegal means, so I prefer to use quality replicas and encourage everyone to visit the nearby Univ. of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (where I give tours in the Greek gallery) to view authentic ancient artifacts, but of course you can't touch them. The Met in NY City and the Walters in Baltimore are also close by and have excellent collections. What makes the Penn museum unique is that it is a cutting edge Archaeology Museum with long-term digs ongoing around the world, and has an Ivy League University caliber archaeology and ancient history program across the street. It's quite easy to strike up a conversation with some of the worlds leading classical archaeologists at the Penn Museum. They are the ones with dirt still under their finger nails.
Joe Balmos
