Arizona State Museum

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📍 Located at the University of Arizona

1013 E University Blvd, Tucson, AZ 85721

About the Museum

The Arizona State Museum a beautiful building, was founded during 1893. It is located on the University of Arizona campus in Tucson, Arizona. This museum is operated and owned by the University of Arizona, and is the oldest and largest anthropological museum in the Southwest. Arizona State Museum (ASM) serves as its official archaeological repository and as the permitting authority for archaeological activity on state land. The museum holds unique pottery, jewelry, baskets, textiles and clothing from the past. It also has many Ethnological items, which are items that are not acquired by excavation. This means that these items have been further donated by the Native American Tribes or acquired from other individuals. The Arizona State Museum is a place that is sacred for research, learning, and understanding history. The museum has also been serving the state, university, and the community for 127 years!

Other key factors which make this museum special compared to others:

Being the largest anthropological museum, standing at 38,00 cubic feet
The museum holds artifacts that date back as far as 13,000 years
Contains the worlds largest Native American basketry (35,000 specimen) and pottery collection (24,000 specimen)
ASM has one of the largest conservation lab's and preservation programs that hold work-renowned titles
Holds regular program's and instruction for people of all ages where they can learn about the history of the museum and the artifacts inside of it.
Arizona State Museum is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution and accredited by the American Alliance of Museums

ASM Research, Zooarchaeology, and Preservation

Many of the archaeology, anthropology, design and art students use the libraries provided by this museum. The Office of Ethnohistorical Research conducts research on southwest United States and northern Mexico people. This library holds over 8,000 sources of information ranging from indexes to important archive collections, maps, and more. The Office of Ethnohistorical Research also includes Documentary Relations of the Southwest which is an online index with over 17,000 documents. All of the documents from the Documentary Relations of the Southwest are generated from the Spanish Colonial period. These documents hold a lot of history about the relationship between the Native Americans, Spanish Colonials, and catholic missionaries related to each other. The Point of Pines Pottery Research is another one of ASM's most renowned research project. It developed in the 1940's and 50's, the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation and helped the museum recover one of the largest and unique pottery collection. This research, comprised of professionals, grad students, and Native Americans helps people understand the migration of the Native American as well as the art and history. The connection the museum has with native tribes helps preserve and understand the native communities that are so prominent in the Southwest region of the U.S.

Martin H. Welker is the Assistant Curator of Zooarchaeology at the Arizona State Museum where he explores human-decision making processes. He also looks at the interaction between human communities with wild and domesticated animals. Zooarchaeology is the study of non-human animal remains that specifically relate to the identification of animal species. Zooarchaeologists are interested in the relations between animals and humans. They study the human diet, food procurement, domestic animals, economics and trade, use of animals in rituals and more. Zooarchaeologists also study the genetic and physical changes of animals as a result of being domesticated. In order to identify the remains of animals from archaeologist sites, Zooarchaeologists use skeletal reference collections.

Zooarchaeology is connected to the Stanley J Olsen Laboratory of Zooarchaeology collection with a total of

4,000 vertebrate specimens of 600 different species including fish, bird, reptile, mammal etc. The Olsen laboratory includes a small collection of references that are also available for researchers to use. It is even open to students, staff and the public. The collection has been used for years in the past as reference to many courses at the University of Arizona.

Martin H. Welker | School of Anthropology

Here is a YouTube video on more information on the National Impact of Stanley J. Olsen Laboratory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ7f51-wVq8&t=78s

Preserving is key for what makes Arizona State Museum so special. The ASM Preservation Division, was ran by Nancy Odegaard (retired January 1). She gave professionals, graduate students, and scholars an opportunity to experience a real-world and hands-on experience to analyze and preserve historical artifacts that are given to the museum. The museums conservation lab was first established in the 70's. Nancy Odegaard completely transformed the art of conserving at the ASM by combining chemistry, engineering, anthropological principles and scientific methods to conserve objects like pottery, clothing, photographs and art. The conservation lab researches artifacts, works on mitigating pesticides/residue on museum objects, upkeep on objects already obtained by the museum, and by taking protocols for the care of human remains in academic institutions. The museum holds workshops for students and volunteers who want to learn more and have a hands-on experience to artifact preservation.

Museum Exhibits

"Papago Activity's" Quilt: Goldie Richmond's Lens on Reservation Life

. This online exhibit highlights the handiwork of a most remarkable woman from Arizona’s recent past, Goldie Richmond. A big woman in many ways--an animal trapper and Native goods trader, Goldie stood 6 feet 4 inches tall. Her stature as well as her incredible exploits, such as being on the winning end of a wrestling match with a bobcat, made her somewhat of a legend. Goldie Preston was born in Kansas in 1896. When she was 31, Goldie married Marion Tracy, becoming his third wife. In 1927, the couple came to the remote desert country of southwestern Arizona. Goldie was 31 and Marion was 68 and in declining health. The Tracys tried to earn a living through prospecting, but when the Depression hit, they switched to trapping in the unending effort to survive in the harsh country.

In 1932, Goldie and Marion opened Tracy's Trading Post at San Simon, 110 miles west of Tucson on the Tohono O'odham (formerly known as Papago) Reservation. Goldie learned to speak the Tohono O'odham language, and was widely known as one of the most respected Anglo traders on the reservation. Rosamond Spicer, an anthropologist who worked with the O'odham, wrote that people went miles out of their way to trade at Goldie's store.

After Marion's death in 1936, Goldie kept the trading license and continued to run the store. She married Jim Richmond in the 1940s, and the two of them stayed in San Simon another 20 years. Goldie always stitched quilts to sell in the trading post. After her marriage to Jim, she had more time to develop her exceptional pictorial designs, which won blue ribbons and cash prizes at state and county fairs. Goldie's original appliqué quilts depicting scenes of Tohono O'odham daily life are magnificent fabric portraits of the Sonoran Desert and its people. The sale of her prize-winning quilts to passing tourists provided valuable income.

In the late 1960s, Goldie and Jim sold Tracy's Trading Post and retired to Mesa, Arizona. Goldie died there in 1972. By the time word of her death reached the reservation, it was too late for people to make the trip to town to attend her funeral. As a tribute to her life and friendship, a number of her O'odham friends held their own memorial service on the reservation where she is still spoken of with respect and affection.

Goldie in downtown Phoenix . Goldie Preston at the time of her marriage to Marion Tracy in 1927

Tohono O'odham (formerly known as Papago) deeply value their basketry traditions, and today produce more basketry than any other Indian tribe in the nation. The continued vitality of this craft is the result of years of individual and group efforts within the community, coupled with efforts from the outside by traders, government agencies, and religious organizations.

One government program emerged during the New Deal Era. With the election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, Federal Indian policies took a decided turn in philosophy and direction. After decades of efforts to assimilate Indian people into the mainstream, programs were put in place to encourage preservation of native culture, including the traditional arts. Combining this desire with a need to provide employment opportunities in a Depression economy, Indian Commissioner John Collier pushed to create an Indian Arts and Crafts Board for assisting Indian communities in reviving, promoting and marketing their handmade products.

A New England Yankee anthropologist, Gwyneth Harrington, was hired by the Indian Arts and Crafts board and sent to work with the Tohono O'odham in 1938. She was already familiar with the tribe, as she had investigated and published a report on their cattle industry several years earlier. Gwyneth traveled the reservation, from sunup to sundown according to one account, purchasing baskets from weavers, which were then marketed to the outside world through retail networks. She consulted with the newly formed Tohono O'odham Tribal Council to create an all-Indian Tohono O'odham Arts and Crafts Board, which could take over for her once her tenure was completed. Mrs. Harrington had the pleasure of securing both Tohono O'odham and Akimel O'odham (Pima) baskets for a groundbreaking exhibition of Indian Art at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1940.

During this same period, Goldie Richmond was actively promoting basketry and other craft sales. Described by anthropologist Bernard Fontana as "Goldie's own New Deal program," she bought and sold 20,000 O'odham baskets a year for three consecutive years in the 1930s, selling baskets to curio and department stores from coast to coast.

The combined tribal, private and public efforts served to provide essential support to Tohono O'odham basket weavers, assuring that their artistic productions would find an appreciative buying audience. The continued richness of the basketry arts among the Tohono O'odham is due in great measure to the work of Gwyneth and Goldie, the Papago Arts and Crafts Board, and the dedicated basket weavers for whom their work is a link to the O'odham Himdak, or Way.

A Medicine Man - Row 3 A Baby Swing or Bed - Row 2 Brining in the Cactus Fruit - Row 1 Asleep in the Shade - Row 5

19th Century Navajo Weaving at ASM

Barbara, Sierra, and Michael Ornelas are three artists at different stages of their careers, linked by their mutual respect and dynamic sharing of ideas. All three are award-winning weavers of fine tapestries in the Two Grey Hills style. In this creative family, traditional Navajo values combine with fresh outlooks and contemporary approaches to art and life.

Dr. Ann Lane Hedlund is a cultural anthropologist and well-known author who has worked with southwestern weavers and museum collections for three decades. She and the Ornelas family have known each other since the 1980s.

“Because the Navajo reservation is so big, our stories are similar but each is a little different. For what people know in New Mexico, people in Arizona have a different version. So, it's really hard to pinpoint the true meaning behind any particular rug. Rugs are like a verse in the Bible—there are 365 ways of interpreting one verse; Navajo weaving is like that, too. Every rug here is completely different and made by an individual, but they all fall under one category—Navajo weaving. This is just like people—we are all Navajo, but we are each different. Our weaving reflects individual differences, too.” —Barbara Ornelas, Master Weaver

Dr. Ann Lane Hedlund . Sierra Ornelas, Barbara Ornelas, Michael Ornelas

Ancestral Pueblo Flutes from Broken Flute Cave

Ancestral Pueblo Flutes

In 1931, famed archaeologist Earl Halstead Morris (1889–1956, best known for his work at Aztec Ruins in northern New Mexico), then under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC, led an expedition to northeastern Arizona. Morris and his team explored fifteen cliff dwellings in the Prayer Rock district of the Navajo Nation. Among the thousands of artifacts collected and documented, were four wooden flutes dated to 620–670 CE (Common Era=AD), which placed them in the Basketmaker III period. These flutes are, in fact, the oldest known wooden flutes yet discovered in North America. In honor of the rare and important artifacts, the cave in which they were discovered, the largest of the 15, is referred to as Broken Flute Cave. The Carnegie Institution transferred the flutes, along with the other artifacts from the expedition, to the Arizona State Museum in 1957.

Bakkegard, B. M., and E. A. Morris.
“Seventh Century Flutes from Arizona.” Ethnomusicology, vol. 5, no. 3, 1961, pp. 184–186. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/924518

Morris, Elizabeth Ann.
“Basketmaker Flutes from the Prayer Rock District, Arizona.” American Antiquity, vol. 24, no. 4, 1959, pp. 406–411. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/276601

Ancient and Modern Arizona

This map shows the approximate boundaries of the region’s ancient cultures circa 1300 C.E. (C.E. = A.D.). This images shows the modern-day tribal communities of Arizona and lists Arizona's 22 federally recognized tribes.

Ancient Mediterranean Collections

Attic Black Figure Skyphos

This online exhibit presents highlights of ASM’s collection of some 520 ancient Near Eastern, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman objects. The vast majority of these were acquired in the early days of the museum’s history from the 1890s to the 1930s through exchange, donation, and less commonly, by purchase. Each has an individual story to tell—where it was made, where it was found, its historical importance, or of its collector.

Research for this display was conducted by Dr. Irene Bald Romano, ASM curator of Mediterranean archaeology, with UA graduate students Christopher C. Baker, Chantel N. Osborne, Emilio Rodriguez-Alvarez, Jessica Sue Wiles, as well as other students and UA colleagues. Study of these collections is ongoing.

More on Dr. Romano's research on ASM's ancient Mediterranean collections can be found here and in this video.

Cuneiform Tablet Sumerian, UR III period, 2056 BCE Tell Jokha, Iraq; ancient Umma, Mesopotamia, Baked Clay, Purchased from Edgar J. Banks, 1914, ASM 68

These wedge-shaped symbols, known as cuneiform (Latin: cuneus = wedge), represent one of the earliest forms of writing. The language on this clay tablet is ancient Sumerian, and it records a court proceeding concerning the non-delivery of barley to the threshing floor of the ruler’s palace. It is the oldest legal text in Arizona.

Attic Black Figure Skyphos

The technically sophisticated black figure technique of decorating Greek pottery was perfected in the region of Attica, in and around Athens, in the 6th century BCE. This very large drinking cup is one of the many decorated by a group of painters known as the CHC (CHariot Courting) Group, named for scenes such as this with a four-horse chariot team wheeling around, flanked by seated sphinxes and Amazons wearing tall, pointed caps.

Ancient Egyptian senet board fragment from ASM's permanent collections.

This rare, wooden slab-style Egyptian senet board was given to the Arizona State Museum in 1922 by Lily S. Place, an American who lived in Cairo in the 1910s and 1920s and purchased ancient Egyptian objects from dealers and in the bazaars; it has no ancient provenience. Using a multi-disciplinary approach, a team of UA and other scholars have provided a reading and interpretation of the incised hieroglyphs, established a radiocarbon date for the game board from 980 to 838 BCE, identified the wood as Abies (fir), probably Abies cilicica, demonstrated that the board was fashioned from freshly-cut wood, and identified the inlay substance as a green copper-wax pigment. Read much more about this piece here.

Finger Ring . Nubian Black-topped Red-polished Ware Beake . Mummy Cartonnage Fragment Seated Wooden Tomb Figure

Ancient to Modern: Continuity and Innovation in Southwest Native Jewelry

Nothing better captures the spirit of the American Southwest than jewelry of shell, silver, and turquoise crafted by the region’s Indigenous artisans. The story of this cultural art form is one of continuity and innovation. Over seventy outstanding examples from ASM’s collections of ancient, historic, and contemporary jewelry are on display. They tell of efforts by the region’s Indigenous peoples over the millennia to adorn themselves and their loved ones, engage in trade, and express their identities, cultural beliefs and values. The exhibit’s story is enlivened by comments from contemporary makers whose works are included. Enter and enjoy this online exhibit now.

turquoise jewelry on a black background

Wrapped in Color: Legacies of the Mexican Sarape

Through the language of color and design, the iconic Mexican Saltillo sarape expresses Indigenous, Spanish, and Mexican history, traditions, and textile techniques. Co-curated by ASM with Zapotec textile artist Porfirio Gutiérrez, this exhibit explores the origins, spread, and role today of the Saltillo sarape design. Learn about the cultivation of wild plants and insects for producing dyes and how the Porfirio Gutiérrez Studio is helping a new generation of weavers deepen their connection to Zapotec culture and embrace a path toward sustaining their identity for the future. Enjoy historic textiles from Mexico, New Mexico, and Indigenous communities, contemporary textiles, including six woven by Gutiérrez specifically for this exhibit, and related objects, photographs, and illustrations.

Porfirio Gutiérrez

Avery Collection of American Indian Paintings

Arizona State Museum is honored to be the home of the Avery Collection of American Indian Painting, 355 paintings.

Marjorie Pierce was born in Phoenix in 1923 (1923-2015) to a farming and ranching family. While attending the University of Arizona, she met and married Harlow Avery, who was to become a doctor. The couple settled in Pecos, Texas. In 1960, Mrs. Avery purchased a painting by Navajo artist Beatien Yazz and became hooked. By 1999, her world-class collection of original works by American Indian artists grew to over 500 paintings. That year she decided to share a significant portion of her collection with the people of Arizona and the public at large by donating 355 paintings to the Arizona State Museum. She also wanted to share stories about her collecting methods of the last forty years and the relationships or connections she built with the artists, whose strength of character and talents she greatly admired.

The paintings bracket the period 1935 to 1990, a time that brought many changes to reservation and rural economies. Tourism dating from the completion of a transcontinental railway system, was enhanced by interstate highways and improved infrastructure that brought customers looking for art and craft produced by the "first American" to rural and reservation communities. At the same time, expositions like the Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial and Santa Fe Indian Market in New Mexico and the American Indian Exposition in Anadarko, Oklahoma provided important venues for artists and buyers to meet and make connections and friendships. Museums, commercial galleries and international expositions were also instrumental in bringing American Indian art into public view. These and other venues provided a marketplace for collectors and patrons like Mrs. Avery.

Southwestern American Indian artists are well represented in the collection along with some excellent representative paintings from Oklahoma and Minnesota artists. Among the artists are: Fred Beaver (Creek), Harrison Begay (Navajo), Shonto Begay (Navajo), Michael Chiago (Tohono O'odham), Woody Crumbo (Potawatomi), Tony Da (San Ildefonso Pueblo), David Dawangyumptewa (Hopi), Patrick Desjarlait (Ojibwa), Carl Gorman (Navajo), R.C. Gorman (Navajo), Helen Hardin (Santa Clara Pueblo), Valjean Hessing (Choctaw), Raphael Medina (Zia), Al Momaday (Kiowa), Gernonima Montoya (San Juan Pueblo), Raymond Naha (Hopi), and Beatien Yazz (Navajo).

Navajo Maidens (1970) by Manfred Susunkewa

OnView, OnLine, OnDemand

The museum has online exhibits that people can access through their website due to COVID-19. You are able to virtually examine the museums exhibits, photographs, and artifacts which includes their pottery, woven basket collections, ceramics, native clothing, weapons, and their extensive photography collection. It also provides a place where teachers and students can access resources to learn about the museum. Finally, the museum included an on-demand feature on this part of the website, where people can take masterclasses, join visual tours/conversations and access over 70 different videos pertaining to the museum and the artifacts that inhibit it.

This YouTube video below is just one of many Behind-the-Scene online tours that the ASM has provided on its website, which talks about the basketry collection at the museum: https://www.youtube.com/embed/NQDaXGGgzIw