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Museum Shop, Second Site Shop and Pyramid Shop:
Shop the World this Holiday Season

This Indonesian puppet is one of the countless gifts available
from around the world at UPM.

 

At the three shops of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (The Museum Shop, the Second Site Shop, and the Pyramid Shop for children), visitors can survey the continents and never leave Philadelphia. At holiday time, the shops provide distinctive gift-giving opportunities with items from around the world.

This holiday season the UPM Shops are extending a special 15% discount to the public Saturday and Sunday, December 6 and 7. Penn faculty and staff as well as HUP and CHOP employees, with I.D. card, receive the 15% discount on Friday, December 5, as well.

Shoppers can feel especially good about their UPM holiday purchases, as the three shops put the spotlight on their Fair Trade vendors, selected because of their practice of working closely with groups and villages around the world to improve local economies and aid in developing self-sufficient communities. UPM Shops offer a variety of clothing, jewelry and gift items created by women in Afghanistan, craftspeople in Africa, village collectives in Central America, and Tibetan refugees.

With the opening of UPM's vividly colorful new exhibition, Mythic Visions: Yarn Paintings of a Huichol Shaman, the Shops are offering many Central and South American goods. Visitors can enhance their experience of this new exhibit by purchasing vibrant, one-of-a-kind yarn paintings or beadwork, handcrafted by the Huichol Indians of northwestern Mexico.

Peoples and cultures of Asia are well represented in the Museum's Buddhism and Chinese Rotunda galleries, and in the Shops. Shoppers can come face to face with Burmese life-sized puppets and smaller Indonesian puppets, or find distinctive handmade paper to write that special note. Buddha has many forms in the Shops. Shoppers can find the right items to set up a mini-altar, buy a sympathetic Quan Yin, or protect their house with the jolly Chinese god Hotei. Beads and china shards from China help create necklaces and boxes that are beautiful and unique.

The Museum's African gallery features materials and cultures from throughout that diverse continent; artisans of the African continent are well represented in the Shops, as well, with stone and tin sculptures of real and fanciful animals. Fabulous masks, woven baskets, purses, and lidded containers from throughout the continent make both useful and artistic gifts.  Books detailing the history and cultures of Africa are on sale, as well as reproductions of ancient Egyptian and Nubian artifacts, and jewelry inspired by the Pharaohs.

What would the holidays be without nativity scenes and warm clothing for the long winter ahead? The Shops feature ceramic nativity scenes from South America, cornhusk scenes from Africa, and Tibetan scenes with wooly yaks. There are also fabulous mittens and hats made from combinations of wool and silk. Fashionable scarves represent many cultures past and present. Boiled wool purses, both large and small, are must-have accessories, but shoppers should hurry...they sold out early last year.  Also back by popular demand, the Shops feature hand-loomed jackets and vests from Nepal, with profits from these items going to support the needs of Nepalese children.

Last but certainly not least, shoppers will find a sumptuous selection of old and new, not borrowed, but definitely blue, lapis lazuli tribal jewelry from Afghanistan. The stones are from the very same mines as the ones found in the jewelry adorning the ancient princesses of Mesopotamia. One can choose from earrings with a contemporary flare to authentic tribal necklaces.

With three distinctive shops, UPM shopping is more fun than ever before--and visitors can always shop for free. The Second Site Shop, off  the refurbished Trescher Entrance, and the larger Museum Shop on the second floor, feature jewelry, books, crafts and clothing from around the world. Second Site Shop hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 12 to 4:30 p.m.; Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m. The Museum Shop closes 15 minutes before the Museum.

The Pyramid Shop for children includes books, games and activities for children, teachers and families, and sports a new look and almost twice the space it had before. Pyramid Shop hours: Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m. 

Online shopping is available for some items, www.museum.upenn.edu/new/shop/index.shtml.                  

For more information, or to order by phone, call (215) 898-4040 or toll free 877-359-4695.

Proceeds from all purchases at the UPM Shops go towards the many public programs and research efforts of the Museum.