UMMAA’s collections are held at the Research Museum Center, south of central campus. This climate-controlled building houses a remarkable collection of three million archaeological and ethnographic objects. Only a tiny percentage of them have a photographic record. This spring (March 2023), Bruce Worden, the Museum’s illustrator, began working with UMMAA collection managers Andrea Blaser and Jim Moss to remedy that. Each week, he photographs hundreds of objects and adds them to what will become a public-facing database. In these posts you can follow the archival photo project, otherwise known as WIBPTW—what is Bruce photographing this week?
In this photo, the darker ceramic pots were recovered from burials during the 1922–1925 U-M Philippine Expedition. The red pots were purchased in Cjamarca, Peru, in 1872.
