Old bones, digital narratives: Investigating the Peter B. Cornwall Collection in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum

Abstract

A joint team of archaeologists from the University of California, Berkeley and Sonoma State University are examining a collection of artifacts and skeletal material excavated by Peter B. Cornwall in Bahrain and eastern Saudi Arabia in the 1940s and accessioned in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum. Motivated by modern innovations in the examination of skeletal materials and a greater awareness of broader Near Eastern history, we are considering this collection from a contemporary bioarchaeological perspective and in terms of the personal history of Peter B. Cornwall. In this article we discuss our progress, summarizing our analytical work on the objects and human remains, as well as our plans to document our research and the collections using a number of on-line platforms.