Current Exhibitions

Translating Encounters: Travel and Transformation in the Early Seventeenth Century

Opens March 25, 2010

Wonder, confusion, and curiosity: just a few of the responses by Africans, Native Americans, and Europeans in the age of exploration, as each struggled to comprehend the other. Inspired by collections of the Peabody Museum, Houghton Library, and the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, this exhibit broadly explores global mobility, encounter, and exchange in colonial encounters among peoples of Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
 

Sacred Spaces: Reflections on a Sufi Path
Through March 30, 2010

Samina Quraeshi, the Peabody Museum's 2008 Robert Gardner Visiting Artist, brings to life in photographs, calligraphy, and mixed media compositions a landscape and a culture that reverberate with the Sufi traditions of mystical Islam.

"Song for Children." Mixed media. Samina Quraeshi, 2009

See also the companion exhibition Sacred Spaces: The World of Dervishes, Fakirs, and Sufis at Harvard's Arthur M. Sackler Museum, on view through January 3, 2010.

Wiyohpiyata: Lakota Images of the Contested West
Through 2011

A recently discovered ledger holds colorful drawings by Lakota Sioux Plains Indian warriors. The exhibit presents drawings from the ledger with historic Lakota objects in a gallery designed by a contemporary Lakota artist.

Digging Veritas: The Archaeology and History of the Indian College and Student Life at Colonial Harvard
Through January 2011

Using archaeological finds from Harvard Yard, historic maps, and more, the Digging Veritas exhibition reveals how students lived at colonial Harvard, and the role of the Indian College in Harvard’s early years.

Digging Veritas Online

Storied Walls: Murals of the Americas
Through December 30, 2010

Throughout time and around the world, people have adorned the walls of their homes, palaces, tombs, temples, and government buildings with painted scenes and designs. Storied Walls explores spectacular wall paintings in Arizona, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru.

Masked Festivals of Canton Bo, Southwest Ivory Coast
Through September 30, 2010

Through rare drawings and photographs, along with masks from the Peabody Museum collections, Masked Festivals explores the different kinds of masked spirit forms and their performances.

Ongoing Exhibitions

Encounters with the Americas
Encounters explores the native cultures of Latin America before and after 1492, when the first voyage of Christopher Columbus initiated dramatic worldwide changes. (Left Seated figure from the Hieroglyphic Stairway, Copan, Honduras. Photo by Mark Craig. PM 93-27-20/C871.1.)

Day of the Dead/Día de los Muertos
The Peabody's exhibition of a Day of the Dead altar or offrenda is located in the Encounters with the Americas gallery. It represents the original Aztec origins of the holiday and the Catholic symbols incorporated into the tradition.

Change & Continuity: Hall of the North American Indian
Diverse North American cultures are explored through the objects produced by indigenous peoples of the nineteenth century. The Changes and Continuity exhibit considers historic interactions between native peoples and Europeans during a period of profound social change. (left Kaats and Bear totem pole. PM 2001.26.1. Photo by Mark Craig.)

Pacific Islands Hall
The Hall features a diverse array of artifacts from the Pacific Islands brought to the Museum by Boston’s maritime merchants.