Opening Weekend Festival: Penn Museum Middle East Galleries

Enjoy the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the region, past and present, during this two-day festival to mark the opening of the Middle East Galleries!  Saturday begins with a ribbon cutting ceremony at 11 am. There’s a puppet show with scenes from the Epic of Gilgamesh and a children’s story time with Middle Eastern tales; ancient cuneiform tablet, cylinder seal, and Arabic calligraphy workshops; and film, lectures, and Exchange-with-an-Expert sessions. A Middle East Bazaar features tea, food and craft vendors, and a spice cart beckoning guests to smell, touch, and learn about the region’s spices. Zoo on Wheels brings in animals from the Middle East, while outside, a local Middle Eastern Unity Cup team demonstrates football (soccer), a favorite sport of the region. Farah Siraj, internationally renowned Jordanian virtuoso vocalist, performs on Saturday and Al-Bustan Ensemble offers up “An Afternoon of Classical & Contemporary Arab Music” on Sunday afternoon.

Creative engineering activities invite guests to build structures from unorthodox materials (marshmallows or spaghetti, anyone?), or to build cities at a Lego building station, connecting with the galleries’ millennia-long journey to the city. The landscape of the Middle East—and some of Penn Museum’s excavation sites— can be explored via Google Cardboard. A cities-focused Instagram Scavenger Hunt, a matching game exploring the region’s biodiversity, and a Middle East art activities station, round out the activities.