invme Place
Everywhere
All cities · Everywhere →
EN
ENEnglish RURussian FRFrench DEGerman ITItalian ESSpanish PTPortuguese PT-BRBrazilian Portuguese ES-MXLatin American Spanish FR-CACanadian French EN-GBBritish English UKUkrainian PLPolish JAJapanese NLDutch KOKorean SVSwedish DADanish NBNorwegian FIFinnish CSCzech HEHebrew ELGreek ZH-HANTTraditional Chinese HUHungarian RORomanian HRCroatian SKSlovak SLSlovenian ETEstonian LVLatvian LTLithuanian BGBulgarian TRTurkish

Penn Museum

Museums ·Philadelphia ·Closed
4.73.5K
#6Museums in Philadelphia
  • Ideal for kids, teens
Get tickets
Make a plan here
Directions Website Call Bookmark

Sign up free — See who's going and message them.

Is this your place? Get the badge for your website

About

Penn Museum is Penn’s archaeology and anthropology research museum in Philadelphia’s University City, spanning the first Middle Eastern cities to Native American communities today.

More photos 3

1 / 3
Penn Museum — Carved stone relief of a horse from the museum collection

Penn Museum — Carved stone relief of a horse from the museum collectionPenn Museum — Decorated pottery vessel displayed against a pale backgroundPenn Museum — Reconstructed lyre with a curved wooden frame and strings

What's on here

Penn Student Making Workshop Penn Student Making Workshop Thursday · All day Teacher Workshop Teacher Workshop Friday, 18:0075 USD Penn Museum Gala Penn Museum Gala Saturday, 17:301.35 USD The Deep Dig The Deep Dig Until 23 Nov130 USD The Deep Dig The Deep Dig 1 Dec – 15 Dec100 USD Artifacts in Action Virtual Lecture Artifacts in Action Virtual Lecture Wednesday · All day15 USD Archaeology Institute of America Lecture Archaeology Institute of America Lecture Thursday · All day Teen Workshop Teen Workshop Saturday · All day Show more

Why go

  • Stela 14, a ten-foot limestone monument carved with Maya glyphs and excavated at Piedras Negras.
  • Two Tang dynasty horse reliefs from Emperor Taizong’s mausoleum, commemorating horses that helped unify China.
  • The bull-headed lyre among the crowns, figures and musical instruments in the Royal Tombs of Ur collection.
  • Native-led stories of resilience and resistance to erasure in a gallery covering 13,000 years across four U.S. regions.

Opening hours

Today10:00 – 17:00Show all
MondayClosed
Tuesday10:00 – 17:00
Wednesday10:00 – 17:00
Thursday10:00 – 17:00
Friday10:00 – 17:00
Saturday10:00 – 17:00
Sunday10:00 – 17:00

Don't miss

  • Ceramic LuohanA ceramic statue thought to belong to a group of eight or ten cave statues from Yizhou, dated 947–1234 CE.Rotunda947–1234 CE
  • Guatemalan textilesComplete outfits for men, women and children, collected across villages.
  • Tikal stelaeSeveral stelae from the museum’s excavation of Tikal.1956–1970
  • Chinese galleriesAncient paintings, sculptures, jewelry and vases.Basement Chinese galleries

Know before you go

  • Families may bring their own meals to eat in the gardens or Group Dining areas.

What's inside

  • The collections include Egyptian and Greco-Roman artifacts.
  • The Asian collection holds nearly 30,000 objects, including Buddhist art.
  • The galleries include Aztec, Oaxacan and Teotihuacano artifacts.
  • The African collection holds about 196 artifacts from the 1897 Benin Expedition, including Benin Bronzes.

With kids

  • Cartifacts lets visitors handle artifact reproductions and ask museum experts questions.
  • Families can explore at their own pace and pause in a favorite gallery.
  • Kids’ meals are available to purchase in the Museum Café.

Tips for your visit

  • Ask for sensory bags with tactile and calming materials at the Welcome Desk.
  • The 15-minute Daily Dig is an artifact talk led by museum specialists, including archaeologists and conservators.
  • Weekend drop-in tours are led by volunteer docents. Topics vary, from one culture or region to connections across continents and centuries.
  • Ask museum staff about objects in the galleries.

Tours and audio guides

Weekend drop-in tours
Volunteer-led; tour topics vary Topics may focus on one culture or region, or connect objects across continents and centuries.

Interesting facts4

1/4
  1. 1.3 million

    The museum houses more than 1.3 million artifacts.

    Penn Museum - Wikipedia
  2. 40,000 objects

    Its North American ethnographic holdings include about 40,000 objects attributed to roughly 200 Indigenous nations.

    Penn Museum - Wikipedia
  3. 30,000 Sumerian

    Its Babylonian section holds nearly 30,000 Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform tablets, including administrative archives dated 2900–500 BCE.

    Penn Museum - Wikipedia

  4. The collection includes a 13-ton granite Sphinx of Ramesses II.

    Penn Museum - Wikipedia

Shorts

History

The first building phase housed finds from the Nippur expedition. Charles Klauder designed the Coxe Memorial Egyptian Wing, funded by a bequest from Eckley Coxe. The Sharpe and administrative wings followed; the Academic Wing added laboratories and classrooms, and the Mainwaring Wing provided collections storage. The museum holds about 1,300 skulls collected by 19th-century physician Samuel George Morton. Separately, remains from the MOVE house were received for identification in 1986, used in a course in 2019, and became the subject of the museum and university’s apology in 2021.

  1. 1887The museum was founded after Provost William Pepper persuaded university trustees to build a fireproof home for finds from the Nippur expedition.
  2. 1896Frank Hamilton Cushing excavated preserved wolf, deer and human masks in waters off Key Marco, Florida.
  3. 1900The Museum Library acquired Daniel Garrison Brinton’s personal library.
  4. 1914The two Tang dynasty horse panels were stolen and smuggled out of China.
  5. 1915Columns and a sphinx from Pharaoh Merenptah’s palace arrived after a museum excavation. The Harrison Rotunda began showcasing Chinese works.
Show all
  1. 1932–1933Edgar B. Howard’s excavations near Clovis, New Mexico, helped identify the Clovis Point.
  2. 1958The museum began publishing Expedition.
  3. 1986Burned human remains from the MOVE house were given to the museum for identification.
  4. 1988–1991A crystal ball and an Egyptian statue of Osiris were stolen and later recovered.
  5. 2019The Mexico and Central America Gallery and a renovated African gallery opened. Remains held by the museum were used in an online forensic course without the Africa family’s permission.
  6. 2021In April, the museum and the University of Pennsylvania apologized to the Africa family and community over the use of the remains.
  7. 2024The remains of 19 African-American Philadelphia residents were buried at Eden Cemetery.

Sources: Penn Museum - Wikipedia · Philadelphia/West - Wikivoyage (see) · Home · Online Ticketing - Penn Museum · Plan Your Visit · University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeolog… · University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeolog… · Family Visits · Kids & Families · checked 3 Oct 2026

Where
3260 South St, PA, Philadelphia Pennsylvania

Plan from here: A day out →

Questions and answers

When is Penn Museum open?

Penn Museum is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00–17:00.

Can I buy Penn Museum tickets online?

Yes. Tickets are available through the museum’s website.

Are Penn Museum’s Egypt Galleries open?

They are closed for renovation, with reopening scheduled for December 12, 2026. The galleries are titled “Life & Afterlife”; Egyptian artifacts remain on display in three other museum areas.

How invme works
  1. See who's going — faces, not ticket counts.
  2. Write to someone who shares your interests — no swipes, no matches, no paywall.
  3. Pick the event or the place to meet at — and go together.
Join free

Reviews on invme

Sign in to review
Comment Share
Loading comments…