The finds from excavations sponsored by the University of Michigan in Egypt and the Middle East constitute the majority of the objects in the Kelsey Museum, most of them dating to the Roman period. In most cases, the original excavation records are also stored at the Museum. In addition, the Museum contains a representative collection of Classical, Egyptian, and Middle Eastern objects, dating from the Neolithic period to the Middle Ages, and an important collection of archival photographs.
Please note that not all objects are on view at all times. If you are interested in seeing a particular object or collection, please email the Registry Department to ask about its availability.
Some of our more notable collections are listed below.
The largest corpus of daily life objects from a Graeco-Roman Egyptian town (Karanis) outside of the Cairo Museum (ca. 45,000 items)
An important collection of provenanced glass fragments and vessels (ca. 1,300 items)
A valuable corpus of Middle Eastern seals and artifacts
Impressive examples of Egyptian mummy masks
More than 40,000 ancient coins
A distinguished assemblage of early Byzantine and Islamic textiles (ca. 5,900 items)
One of the largest collections of Parthian pottery outside Iraq (ca. 8,500 items)
A nearly complete edition of the “Description de I’Egypte” produced during Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt in 1798
A large collection of Latin inscriptions (ca. 375 items)
7,400 albumen prints and 25,000 archival photos related to late 19th- and early 20th-century Mediterranean archaeology
A well-known collection of Roman brick stamps
