What Do You Know About The Arizona State Museum?

When established in 1893, the original name of the museum was the Arizona Territorial Museum and it was placed on the campus of the only existing university in the territory at the time (the University of Arizona in Tucson, which was established in 1885). When Arizona achieved statehood in 1912, the name of the museum had to change, naturally, from Arizona Territorial Museum to Arizona State Museum. And that’s how it got a name that sounds to many Tucsonans as if it belongs up the road in Phoenix or Tempe.

Due to its ever-growing collections, the Arizona State Museum has had many homes on the University of Arizona campus. It has moved from a single room in Old Main (1893–1904) to a shared space with the library in the Douglass Building (1905–14), to Agriculture Hall (1915–29), to quarters in the lower regions of Arizona Stadium (1930–35), to a brand new building in 1936. In 1977, the museum expanded to a second facility — the former UA library building. Today, its two historic buildings are the first to welcome students and visitors as they enter the university's Main Gate.

The oldest North American objects in the museum are the Clovis spear points that Paleo-Indians used to hunt mammoth in a cooler, wetter southern Arizona around 13,000 years ago. (The oldest objects in the collections from anywhere in the world are Lower Paleolithic stone handaxes from South Africa from around 1.5 million years ago.)

There are approximately three million objects in the museum, both archaeological and ethnographic (i.e., historical and contemporary materials). As Arizona State Museum cares for millions of artifacts in perpetuity, it is home to the world’s largest and most comprehensive collections of Southwest Indian pottery (20,000+ whole vessels) and American Indian basketry (25,000+ woven and fiber objects) — both collections designated American Treasures.

Arizona State Museum has collections representing these cultures and others — including Patayan, Paleoindian and Salado — as well as curators and researchers who are among the world’s experts in them.

This is a granary basket used to store grain. It was found in McEuen Cave, Arizona during a 1934 expedition and is the oldest basket in the collection of Arizona State Museum, dating circa 1500 B.C. to A.D. 550.

This net is mostly made of knotted human hair with yucca fiber cordage and was used by a Hohokam community to corral and hunt jackrabbits. It is from Black Hills Rock shelter, Cerro Prieto Wash, Pima County, Arizona, and dates from circa A.D. 1300 to 1450. Rabbits — cottontails and jackrabbits — were an important source of food for ancient Southwestern cultures. In addition to their food value, rabbit skins were used to make blankets and clothing. In a study of 136 Hohokam culture sites, rabbits account for more than half of all animal remains found.

These are depictions of Hohokam people carrying burden baskets, a common theme on Hohokam pottery. In later O’odham culture burden baskets are made of saguaro stick frames with agave fiber cord lace coiling. A strap carried the weight on the forehead, while a pad protected the back. This vessel dates to circa A.D. 850-1000 and comes from Four Mile Site, Painted Rock Reservoir, Maricopa County, Arizona. It is on display in the Arizona State Museum’s Wall of Pots. The museum's collection of Southwest Indian pottery includes more than 20,000 whole vessels, which are housed in a large, climate-controlled vault. The oldest pot in the collection is a seed jar, or "tecomate," which dates back to A.D. 50-150. It was found at the Stone Pipe Site, near the Interstate 10 frontage and Prince roads in Tucson.

This portrait of Geronimo, the leader of the Apache Bedonkohe, was taken in Carlisle, Pa., in 1905. The photographer is Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952), a controversial photographer who took hundreds of posed photographs of Native American people at the beginning of the 20th century. The Arizona State Museum will open an exhibition in November 2013 of Curtis’ photographs, focusing on how he perceived and translated his experiences with Native people in Arizona, and how these images were, and are still today, received by both Native and Anglo audiences.

Other important items found at the museum include: a collection of more than 600 Mexican masks; and ancient Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Near Eastern and Egyptian objects. One interesting item is a clay tablet with cuneiform writing that is a court record of the failure to deliver barley to the threshing floor of a local Sumerian ruler, circa 2100-2000 B.C., at the site of ancient Umma in Iraq.

Some natural science specimens and ethnographic artifacts in museums were treated years ago with arsenic and mercury salts to prevent insect infestations. Today, conservators are attempting to remove these toxins from collections for the protection of anyone handling the objects, as well as for the environment.