Kelsey Museum of Archaeology

The history of the museum begins before the museum was established. The founder of the university's collection of artifacts was Francis Kelsey, a professor of Latin at the University of Michigan from 1889 until his death in 1927. Kelsey began acquiring artifacts in 1893 in order to help his students understand the ancient world. In 1893, he made his first acquisitions: 108 lamps, vases, and building materials from Alfred Louis Delattre, the Jesuit priest and archaeologist who was conducting an excavation at Carthage in Tunisia, and another 1,096 objects from dealers in Tunis, Rome, Capri, and Sicily. It was designed by the Detroit architectural firm of Spier & Rohns. Construction began in 1888 and was completed in 1891. The building is described as a "massive, asymmetrical Richardsonian Romanesque building of rough-cut, randomly placed local fieldstone." During that time, a new third floor was added in space formerly occupied by a choir loft (from the building's Christian Association period) and a new climate-controlled Sensitive Artifact Facility and Environment space was added to maintain "appropriate storage, humidity, and temperature requirements for optimal artifact longevity." At the time, this was the largest gift in the history of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. The Chicago-based architectural firm of Hammond Beeby Rupert Ainge Inc. designed the new addition. The wing was named after Mary Meader's grandfather William E. Upjohn, the noted pharmacist. ==Collection==

The Kelsey Museum's permanent exhibition on display in the William E. Upjohn Exhibit Wing features many artifacts and artworks from the ancient and medieval world in the Mediterranean and Near East. The collection includes ancient Egyptian, Near Eastern, Greek, Roman, Etruscan, Coptic, Persian, and Islamic archaeological artifacts. In addition to its more than 100,000 artifacts, the collection is also home to some rare objects important to the study of archaeology, excavation records, and an archive of 25,000 archaeological and fine arts photographs." Among the museum's most significant holdings are: • Some 45,000 daily-life objects from the Graeco-Roman Egyptian town of Karanis, the largest in the world outside of the Cairo Museum. • Around 8,500 items of Parthian pottery, one of the largest outside Iraq. • Around 375 Latin inscriptions, the largest in the West. • Around 5,900 early Byzantine and Islamic textiles. • 1,300 provenanced glass fragments and vessels. • More than 40,000 ancient coins, including ancient Greek coins. • A nearly complete edition of the ''Description de l'Égypte'' produced during Napoleon's 1798 campaign in Egypt and Syria. • A noted collection of Roman brick stamps. • A collection of Egyptian mummy masks. • 7,400 albumen prints and 25,000 archival photos related to late 19th- and early 20th-century Mediterranean archaeology. • A large watercolor representation of the Villa of the Mysteries murals from ancient Pompeii. The collection also includes a colorfully-painted ancient Egyptian mummy; amulets; a variety of glass vessels, ancient Greek pottery; and ancient Roman sculpture. ==Fieldwork==

The Kelsey Museum has conducted fieldwork for nearly 100 years. Its past excavations and other fieldwork have taken place at the following archaeological sites: • Antioch of Pisidia, Turkey: 1924 • Carthage, Tunisia: 1925 • Karanis, Egypt: 1924–35 • Dimé (Soknopaiou Nesos), Egypt: 1931 • Terenouthis, Egypt: 1935 • Seleucia-on-the-Tigris, Iraq: 1927–32, 1936–37 • Sepphoris, Israel: 1931 • Saint Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai, Egypt: 1958, 1960, 1963, 1965 • Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi, Syria: 1964, 1966, 1969–71 • Apollonia, Libya: 1965–67 • Cyrene, Libya: 1969, 1971 • Dibsi Faraj, Syria: 1972 • Tel Anafa, Israel: 1968-73, 1978–86 • Paestum-Poseidonia, Italy: 1981–86, 1995–98 • Coptos and the Eastern Desert, Egypt: 1987–95 • Leptiminus Archaeological Project, Leptiminus, Tunisia: 1990–99 • Pylos Regional Archaeological Project, Pylos, Greece: 1991–96 • Southern Euboea Exploration Project, Euboea, Greece: Michigan involvement: 1996, 2000, 2002, 2005 • The Vorotan Project, Armenia: 2005 The Kelsey Museum is currently sponsoring the following fieldwork: • Abydos, Egypt: from 1995 - led by Janet Richards • Tel Kedesh, Israel: from 1997 - led by Sharon C. Herbert and Andrea M. Berlin • Gabii, Italy: from 2007 - led by Nicola Terrenato • Aphrodisias, Turkey: from 2007 - led by Christopher Ratté • Vani, Republic of Georgia: from 2009 (partnership between U-M and Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University) - led by Christopher Ratté • S. Omobono Sanctuary, Rome, Italy: from 2009 - led by Nicola Terrenato • El-Kurru, Sudan: from 2013 - led by Geoff Emberling == In popular culture ==

The indie rock band The Kelseys, formed in 2016 by University of Michigan students, is named after the museum. ==See also==