A $134,000 federal grant to the BYU Museum of Peoples and Cultures this month has inspired the museum's curator to unearth stored pottery from an ancient civilization.

BYU students will catalog pottery from the Casas Grandes culture of Chihuahua, Mexico. The pottery collection, which is dated from the 1200s, has been exhibited several times in the past, but has never been adequately described and published said Glenna Nielsen, museum curator.

"We have a very notable collection of Casas Grandes pottery," Nielsen said. "It needs to be researched, exhibited and published. It is part of a shared heritage with Native Americans, Mexico and the United States."

The exhibition is tentatively titled "Wealth of the Lost Red City," and will be on display from May 2007 to April 2009. Students will work closely with professionals to put it together.

"Students will be doing most of the work but under professional supervision," said Rebecca Olsen, museum promotions manager.

Through the Museum Practices Program, which began two years ago, any graduate student interested in museum practices that is accepted into the Certificate Program is allowed to work with the museum and gain hands-on experience in creating an exhibition. This new project allows students to help sustain a cultural heritage by generating collections of documentation, an exhibition and a publication for the museum.

"This project falls right in line with our mission," said Marti Allen, museum director. "We are BYU's teaching museum and want to allow students as much learning and hands-on experience as possible."

The museum is also going to start a publication, thanks to the grant money, that will be available by Spring 2008. Students will write the catalog descriptions of the objects in the collection and take pictures for the publication. It will then be peer-reviewed by experts in the field. The final project will be a web-based catalog through the museum's Web site.

"This allows us to preserve the artifacts even more," Olsen said. "Not only will they be on exhibit, but, through the publication, they will be able to be accessed all over the world."

The museum, which functions as BYU's archaeology and ethnology museum, received the grant money through Museums for America, a grant program sponsored by the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services. Out of the 500 museums nationwide which applied, 177 received grants.

Museums for America is the Institute's largest grant program for museums and provides more than $17 million in grants to support the role of museums in American society.

"Museums for America will help strengthen museum service in communities across the United States," said Anne-Imelda Radice, director of the institute. "These awards will support hundreds of hands-on, educational programs; the digitization of thousands of objects in museum collections; and exciting ventures using new technology."



Copyright Brigham Young University 31 Jul 2006