Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved visiting museums. My first museum memory is of the tiny Egyptian collection at the Buffalo Museum of Science (I think it consisted of two mummies and some broken pots!). Since then, I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to visit some of the greatest museums in the world. But there’s one in particular that will always hold a special place in my heart: the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
When I lived in Pennsylvania, I managed to drag my parents to the Penn museum with alarming frequency. Although the museum has a wide ranging collection that includes artifacts from China, Mesopotamia, Rome and Mesoamerica, our excursions were almost always confined to the spectacular Egyptian galleries. Even now, I can close my eyes and picture in vivid detail the monumental statues of Ramesses II, the mummies in their creepy blue-lit ‘dioramas,’ and the spectacular remains of Merenptah’s palace. The Penn museum’s Egyptian collection truly has a bit of everything.
I also love the fact that the Penn Museum is totally old school. You won’t find multimedia kiosks, cartoon characters, or colorful dioramas of daily life here. Everything is presented in a formal, business-like manner. The Penn Museum seems to remember that it’s there to educate, not entertain. Also, because it isn’t as much of a tourist destination as, say, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, you
could go there and explore without being crammed in with 5,000 other people. My family and I would often be the only ones in a gallery, which made it feel like it was my own personal museum.
I’ve been to museums with much larger and more impressive Egyptian collections, but they’ll never displace Penn’s place in my heart.
Codex Lochianus 
I like this museum as well. I went there a few years ago when I was at a museum conference in Phili. I’m a Mesopotamia-phile so this museum was on the top of my list to go see (the other being the Oriental Museum in Chicago). It does have an impressive collection. The museum was going through some renovations when I was there. Some wings were pretty beat up including the Egyptian one (the Mesopotamian wing had a hole in the floor, it was kinda scary). I remember being blown away by the China collection.
Like you said, this museum is really old school. I worked in museums for about eight years and have seen many ways of interpreting exhibits. IMO, the Penn Museum is one of the few museums who can be old school because the artifacts they have are so amazing.
I wish I lived closer to this museum.
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