Museum Collections and the Story of Life on Earth

How do we really know what happened before we were here?

Objects are the key to understanding the story of life on earth. Many of us have personal collections that remind us of the past - people, places, and experiences. At the Burke Museum, we care for 15 million objects (and counting!) in our natural and cultural collections.

We gather and hold these objects as a record of nature and culture – and use them to generate new knowledge and celebrate our shared heritage (see some of these objects in our ever-growing Facebook album).

What can objects tell us about the world around us, and the life before us? These are the questions that motivate Burke researchers every day.

Watch this short video for a glimpse into our collections and the people who care for, and learn from, these objects to help better understand the world around us:

Meet the Squirrels! (And other mammals, too)

Squirrels – you probably see them every day in the Seattle area and may even overlook their presence, but these common creatures have an interesting history. The University of Washington Daily's "Double Shot" sought to find out more about the squirrels on UW's campus. They came to the Burke's mammalogy collection to speak with Collection Manager Jeff Bradley and talk about changes in the local squirrel populations over time. Watch the video to find out more!

You can see some of the Burke Museum's squirrel specimens and hundreds of other specimens for yourself at Meet the Mammals on Saturday, November 12, 10 am – 4 pm.

Moving Giants

Sometimes at the Burke Museum, we move giant things. From whale skeletons to dinosaur bones, our collections vary and all require some expert moving skills. So how do you move an art piece that is really tall—as in over 15 feet tall? And not only one piece, but two?

The Burke’s exhibit team was given this unique challenge with two giant parade dolls for our newest exhibit ¡Carnaval! They mirror the style of the giant dolls (or boneco gigante in Portuguese) from the Olinda, Brazil Carnival and were made by local artists as part of a collaboration between the Burke Museum and the Brazil Center.

So how do you move them? The team put the “Midnight Man” and the “Woman of the Day” dolls on a wheeled platform to maneuver them. Dipping is an important skill to learn, not just for dancing, but for getting the dolls through a door frame that’s a few feet too short.

Once through the doorways, the dolls take a quick trip in the Burke’s famous elevator up to the special exhibits gallery that will be their home for the next few months.

The dolls are then taken off of the wheeled platforms and lifted to their mounts. A scissor lift helped steady the “Woman of the Day” doll, which had the higher mount.

Clamps are put in place to temporarily stabilize the dolls, which are then drilled securely into place. And voila! The dolls are ready for their costumes and final touch ups.

You can see these amazing giant dolls yourself in the Burke’s newest exhibit ¡Carnaval! On October 1, come celebrate with the dolls during our ¡Carnaval! Opening Celebration!
 

Posted By: Andrea Barber, Communications

The Story of the Stabbing Cat

Ben Witte had always said he wanted to find a “stabbing cat.” Though trained as a classical pianist, Ben was an avid amateur fossil hound and his holy grail was the skull of a saber-toothed cat. In the summer of 1963, he was looking forward to another trip to the rich fossil beds in the Badlands of South Dakota with his wife, Bev and a small party of friends. In those days, Bev was an artist, experienced in both commercial and fine art.

When the group arrived, Ben and a friend went off to search. At that time, you didn’t need a permit to search for (or cart off) fossils. Ben and his friend split up to examine either side of a rocky ridge. Nosing along, he noticed something protruding from the ridge that looked suspiciously like the two long canine teeth of a small cat.

“There they were,” recalls Bev, “just sticking out of the rock… the teeth of his stabbing cat.” Ben had been in such a hurry to get to the search that he didn’t even have a backpack with him. He and Bev returned with enough sacks to carry off “every bit of rock that looked like it might hold a bone.” It took over an hour and a half to gather it all, but when they did, they had enough to one of the most complete specimens of Hoplophoneus ever found at that time.

Hoplophoneus fossil

 

It took several years for Ben's discovery to be displayed at the Burke. Bev didn’t begin to volunteer at the museum until 1964 so before she was hired as a preparator in 1968, Hoplophoneus waited at home. The large concretionary hunks of stone in which the fossil was embedded had to be removed by sandblaster and small bits needed removal with a vibrating tool. When the fossils were cast, Bev made molds of the skull and pelvis and Camille Evans and Steve Nelson helped with the rest of the bones. For assembly, the team relied on books describing cat anatomy, as well as in-house training provided by the museum. A placement challenge was a strange long, thin piece that turned out to be a piece of the clavicle. Later, they heard from well-known paleontologist Robert Bakker that the arms should have been placed elbows slightly out, given the arboreal nature of the animal. “We always meant to reposition those arms,” said Bev, “but never got around to it.”

But the biggest obstacle was Ben’s attachment to the skull. Even though he and Bev had already generously donated two brontothere mandibles they had collected, he was loath to part with this iconic piece of his fabulous find, his “stabbing cat.” Now his “stabbing cat” is on display for all to enjoy.

About Bev Witte: Married to Ben Witte, Bev worked for the Burke as a preparator from 1968 till her retirement in 1998. She said she got the job because she had already learned how to use the preparation as a volunteer. After retirement she volunteered two days a week at the Burke for many years, only recently cutting back to one.

Bev Witte with fossils at the Burke Museum

Submitted by: Peg Boettcher, Communications

We thank Bev Witte for her time, patience, and wonderful story.

How to Make a Fossil Cast: A 10-step Guide

If you came to Dino Day this past weekend, especially if you came with a kid, you probably saw the Burke’s brand new fossil dig pit.  In the dig pit was a cast of an ichthyosaur fossil from the museum’s paleontology collection.

And you may have wondered: What steps go into creating a cast of a fossil?

Creating a fossil cast is a multi-step process (I’ve reduced it here to 10 steps). Over a few days in January, I followed around fossil preparator Bruce Crowley and his team of volunteers as they worked on creating the mold and pouring the cast of the ichthyosaur.

Step 1: Get the original fossil out of storage and uncrate it.

Step 2: Identify the area around the fossil that is going to be cast; build a barrier and apply a layer of silicone to the fossil -- this will easily come off later (the silicone in this picture is purple).

Step 3: After covering the rest of the exposed fossil with plastic (gotta protect it!), begin to spread on a layer of plaster (in this case, a material known as Hyrdocal). While spreading the plaster, add criss-crossing layers of fiberglass sheeting—this will reinforce the Hyrdrocal and make a nice plaster jacket for the fossil. Be sure to work fast and don’t forget to wear gloves and a mask.

Step 4: Come back the next day and the plaster jacket is complete!

Step 5: Very carefully, remove the plaster jacket from the silicone layer.

Step 6: Remove the silicone layer from the fossil. See, I told you it would come off easily!

Step 7: Back in the lab, place the silicone layer (aka the mold) on top of the plaster jacket (for reinforcement) and build a wall around the silicone. If this step is overlooked, the material used to pour the cast will spill over and onto the floor!

Step 8: Pour the cast into the mold! (Again, using a brand of plaster known as Hydrocal) When done, the cast will look like this:

Step 9: Remove the cast from the mold.

Step 10: Paint the cast…it helps accentuate the different parts of the fossil!

There you have it! It’s a perfect cast of a real ichthyosaur fossil! And the kids at Dino Day loved uncovering it in the dig pit.

Posted by: Julia Swan

Video: How does a new exhibit get installed at the museum?

The latest Burke exhibit Weaving Heritage: Textile Masterpieces from the Burke Collection opened on Saturday. It's a beautiful exhibition, artfully displaying 130 of the most aesthetically and culturally significant textiles from the museum's collection of over 2,000 textile pieces.

Some might wonder, what does it take to install a major exhibit like this? The day after the last exhibit closed, our exhibit prep team was hard at work preparing for Weaving Heritage. Take a look at this short video to see the transformation of the special exhibit gallery from an empty room to a complete museum exhibit:



Weaving Heritage is on view through February 27, 2011. Keep an eye on our website for a list of special weekend weaving demonstrations and other events.

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications

How to Preserve Marine Algae

During a recent behind-the-scenes tour of the Burke Museum Herbarium, the museum’s curator of botany Richard Olmstead and herbarium collections manager David Giblin told me about the collections, research and scientific contributions from their collection. One thing that stood out to me is that preservation of plant specimens is a delicate art. In the video below, Richard discusses the methods used to preserve marine algae. The process results in beautiful scientific specimens that can be studied for countless years to come.



Find more behind-the-scenes videos and get insider access to the Burke Museum on our Youtube page!

Posted By: Andrea Barber, Communications

A Day in the Life of a Museum Collections Manager

Many of the people on our staff do not hold jobs that are primarily focused on exhibits or public programs, which are the two ways most members of the general public tend to interact with the museum. For all of the exciting things happening in the public spaces of the Burke, there are just as many exciting things going on behind the scenes in the museum collections spaces. Our collections managers and curators across 11 divisions are devoted to caring for over 12 million objects and specimens at the museum that represent the natural and cultural heritage of this region and for making those objects and specimens accessible to researchers and others.

A few weeks ago, Rebecca Andrews, collections manager in ethnology here at the Burke, approached me about making a video that showcases some of the many things she must consider each day in order to best store and protect the Burke ethnology collection of 45,000 objects.

I followed her around for an hour and put together this short video, "A Day in the Life of a Museum Collections Manager." It shows a side of the museum that many people never get to see!



NOTE: If you are having trouble viewing the full video, watch it here.

Watch more behind-the-scenes videos about the Burke Museum collections here.

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications

Going Behind the Scenes in the Fisheries Collection

Located on the South end of UW’s campus is a fish enthusiast’s dream: the Burke Museum’s Fisheries facility. With over 7 million specimens, the Burke Museum’s fish collections contain the largest number of juvenile and adult fish specimens on the West Coast.

In order to find out more about these diverse collections, I went on a guided tour of the Fisheries facility with curator of fishes Ted Pietsch and collections manager Katherine Maslenikov. Below is a behind-the-scenes video of the tour that includes just a few of the amazing stories I heard about specimens and research in the Burke’s Ichthyology department.



If you are interested in seeing more of the Burke behind the scenes, become a Burke Museum member before our members’ only Behind-the-Scenes Night on April 20th. On that night, members head into the collections storage areas of the museum to meet Burke experts and view collections that aren’t on display in the galleries. It’s a unique opportunity to get up close to some amazing objects and specimens!

Posted By: Andrea Barber, Communications

Celebrating milestones

It's a week of milestones at the Burke Museum: Saturday is the 25th Annual Dinosaur Day and today marks the 300th post to the Burke Blog! To celebrate, we've compiled some of our favorite entries from the past 100 posts.

Behind the scenes with Ray Troll gave a look at how the Burke Museum prepared for the exhibit Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway.

Q: How does one go about moving 650 pieces of ceramic pottery from the Burke Museum to a new storage facility? A: Very, very carefully detailed how the ethnology department prepared to safely move the ceramic and pottery collection to another storage facility (without breaking anything along the way!).

Favorite New Acquisitions Part 1 and Part 2 listed our curators’ favorite new acquisitions to the collections.

Where can kids dig in Washington? offered parents tips about where their kids can participate in mock archaeological digs around the state.

How can a museum reduce its environmental impact? reflected on the discussions being held around the museum about how to function in the most sustainable way.

Twilight series thrusts Quileute Tribe into spotlight examined the Quileute Tribe’s relationship to the Twilight book and movie series.

The Burke Blog contributors work hard to offer insight into the inner workings of the Pacific Northwest’s only major natural history museum. Thank you for reading the Burke Blog and we look forward to the next 100 posts!

The Case of the Double-Edged Swords

In this behind-the-scenes video, Burke Museum exhibit specialist Arn Slettebak discusses some of his favorite objects in the ethnology collection: a set of pattern-welded steel swords. Arn describes the features of the swords that make them high-quality pieces and talks briefly about each of their histories. Take a look:

New storage compactors arrive!

This week, the back rooms of the Burke Museum are filled with the sounds of drilling, hammering, and other cacophonous noises associated with a construction project. But it's with great excitement that we allow these sounds to flood our offices because it means the museum is finally moving forward with the installation of brand new storage compactors that will help keep ethnology collections at the Burke safe from potential earthquake damage and long-term degradation due to light and dust. The new storage compactors, which are being installed over the next two weeks, will also make much more efficient use of our very limited space than the open shelving units that were previously being used.

The ethnology collections staff has been hard at work preparing for this and has been documentating the process:

Photos: (top) The space where Native American art curator Robin Wright stands is typically filled with objects, but room has been cleared for the new compactors. (middle) Working on the installation of the compactors. (bottom) The new storage compacters are installed on tracks so they can roll open and closed as need.

Once the work is done in ethnology, the same process will happen in the geology collection space. Read more about the entire project here.

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications

Behind the scenes with Ray Troll

Ever painted a giant T-Rex onto a wall? I have! With expert instruction from celebrated Alaskan artist Ray Troll, a group of volunteers came together this week in a make-shift studio down in Magnuson Park to paint five large wall murals for the upcoming Burke exhibit Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway, featuring Troll’s latest work.

Troll has hunkered down in Seattle for the past two weeks to create these murals showcasing some of his favorite subjects: dinosaurs, killer pigs, hamburgers, and giant ammonites. The fantastical murals will ultimately hang in the gallery alongside dozens of actual fossils from the Burke’s own paleontology collections beginning December 19th --when the exhibit opens.

The Burke Museum is partnering with Ray Troll and Seattle-born paleontologist Kirk Johnson (who together wrote a book called Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway) to present this new exhibit exploring the abundance of fossils in our midst - and specifically in Washington State - and how fossils shed light on Earth’s past.

As you can see, Ray Troll’s recent “art happening” was both fun and productive:

Ray's team of friends and volunteers worked tirelessly to produce large mural reproductions, such as "Sleeping with the Ichthyosaurs"

Ray Troll grabs a paintbrush for some detail work on "Night of the Ammonites"

Once finished, these murals will hang in the Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway gallery alongside real fossils

I'm not the only one who learned to paint with Ray. Burke Museum director Julie Stein also jumped at the chance to pick up a paint brush. When I asked her how it went, she told me, "My friend Edie and I were afraid we would paint outside the lines. Ray showed us how he adds highlights and we discussed how he comes up with these ideas (he dreams about them!). This was very fun!"

P.S. - Mark your calendars for opening day of Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway Saturday, December 19, when Ray will be on hand to give tours of the exhibit.

Posted by: MaryAnn Barron Wagner, Communications

New "walking fish" named for UW donor Maggie Walker

University of Washington alumnae, donor, and volunteer Margaret (Maggie) Walker will soon be honored with the naming of a newly discovered species of fish. The Burke Museum’s curator of fishes Ted Pietsch and his graduate student Rachel Arnold, are facilitating the naming process, which, it turns out, is no small feat! Why is that? According to Ted, “Once a new species of fish is discovered, a specialist has to describe and illustrate the specimen, prepare a manuscript and then submit the manuscript for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The plant or animal cannot be officially declared to be new until the description is accepted for publication and this process might take six months to a year.” In other words, it’s a lot of work! So the Burke is happy to announce that this process has begun for the soon-to-be named “Maggie Walker fish.”

This new species actually suits the name it will soon receive, as this fish is known to “walk” along the bottom of the ocean, rather than swim. The newly discovered fish species is part of the family Antennariidae, commonly known as frogfishes. This family is unique in that they carry their clutch of eggs wrapped in their tail, until just before they hatch, when they drop them on the seafloor and 'miniature adults' hatch out.

The "Maggie Walker fish"

The “Maggie Walker fish” was recently discovered by UW Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences graduate student Rachel Arnold, who has collected both morphological and molecular (DNA) evidence to support her claim that this species is indeed new to science.

Why go to all this trouble to honor Maggie Walker? Maggie has been an active and passionate donor and volunteer for the UW for over 20 years and she visits campus several times a week to attend to her many volunteer commitments. Her interests and volunteer service extends beyond the University to other important causes and organizations. She and her family have traveled extensively throughout the world. They share a love of animals, art, nature, natural history, and being in the outdoors, which Maggie has expressed through her service to art, zoological, and environmental organizations throughout the Seattle-area.

Maggie Walker’s commitment to the University of Washington has benefited innumerable students, faculty, and community members. And now, her name will grace a newly discovered species of fish! Thanks Maggie!

Posted by: Nicole Robert, Communications

Saber teeth, killer pigs, ancient fish, oh my!

Although it doesn't open for another four months, many of us here at the Burke are already quite busy preparing for the next major exhibition, Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway. Read all about the exhibition, which combines whimsical artwork by Ray Troll with real fossils from the Burke's collection to answer (and ask!) questions about evolution, extinction, and geologic time.

I'm quite excited about the fact that several of the fossil specimens that will be on display in this exhibit have never before been exhibited to the public. Some of these fossils are among the best in our entire paleontology collection! For example:

Hoplophoneus, an Oligocene-era saber-toothed cat

Entelodont, an omnivorous pig-like mammal, also from the Oligocene

Many ancient fish, like this one, millions of years old

I realize its not every job that requires you to set up a fossil photo shoot, but really, it was just another day at the natural history museum!

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications

How to beat the heat: have a weeding party!

A weeding party to "beat the heat"? Doesn't that seem counter productive? No, as it turns out, not when it is 97 degrees outside, your offices are not air-conditioned, and the weeding can be done in the shade. This week Seattle has been having nearly record-breaking heat, but that didn't stop about a dozen Burke staff and board members from getting down and dirty in the Erna Gunther Ethnobotanical Garden for a weeding party. We made quite a lot of progress and actually had some fun in the process. The garden looks so much better now!

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications

Q: How does one go about moving 650 pieces of ceramic pottery from the Burke Museum to a new storage facility?

A: Very, very carefully!

As the Ethnology Department staff prepare to move the pottery collection to a new storage facility, one student looks back on the project with fond memories.

Posted by: Sarah Bishop, Ethnology

The packing project took our staff 4 months to complete, over 40 HUGE bags of biodegradable packing peanuts and resulted in a nearly 10-foot-high "box mountain" in the Ethnology storage area.

So, out of all the artifacts we have here in Ethnology, why move the pottery collection to this new storage space? The ceramic and pottery collections are not prone to insect damage and are relatively stable to small environmental changes (temperature and relative humidity). But it is also easier to care for similar types of objects when they are all stored in the same area, so a decision was made to put all of the pottery together. This will make it easier for researchers, students, artists and scholars to access and study the collections, and make comparative analysis between pottery styles.

Improper handling is the number one cause of damage to ceramics and pottery, so proper packaging for transport is extremely important. We tightly packed each ceramic object in biodegradable packing peanuts and sheets of Ethafoam (polyethylene foam). Each pot was wrapped in tissue paper to keep all of its pieces together in case of physical damage during transport. Extremely fragile ceramic objects needed to be stabilized before moving to prevent further damage. After each pot was packed, we wrote down the box number on inventory sheets so we could track which pots are in each of the boxes. This inventory is very important to ensure no artifacts are lost during the big move.

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After sealing each box with packing tape, we stacked them in the Ethnology Collection to await transport to the storage facility. After several games of Tetris at the video arcade the previous weekend, I was inspired to create "box mountain." The tower is secured (and protected from damage from earthquakes) with copious amounts of packing tape and is raised above the floor by two-by-fours to protect the ceramics in case of flooding. This stack of boxes saves invaluable collections space for us in the Ethnology Division. Now that the pottery collection is all packed up, it is currently awaiting transport to its new home!

Meanwhile, the collections manager and curator had to secure some necessary funding to purchase storage equipment for the pottery collections to be housed in. It is important to have strong equipment for the heavy pots to sit on, and large storage cabinets with closed doors to reduce dust. And of course, having been through minor earthquakes in the Seattle area, we need to make individual storage mounts for each piece of pottery so it doesn't roll or shake around too much.


Photos: Burke Museum collections staff and student assistants take great care in moving the museum's pottery collection to another storage facility. Sarah Bishop (bottom right) thinks creatively about how to store all of the boxed pottery pieces while they await transport.

A whale of a job

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications

See our skeletons on the move:



See even more cool mammal specimens this Saturday at Meet the Mammals!

Taking a look Behind the Scenes of the Burke

Posted by: Julia Swan

If you attended Members' Behind the Scenes night last week (or even if you didn't!), check out the photos from the evening. It was a lot of fun! I had the honor of following around our wonderful photographer, which was great, because I got to see just about everything that was going on.

If you see a photo of yourself or someone in your family, please email me at burkepr@u.washington.edu, and I'll send you a copy!

- Julia

All photographs are courtesy Storms PhotoGraphic.

Now installing: Indigenous Philippine Art

Posted by: Rebecca (Durkin) Whitham

The Burke exhibitions crew is right now installing some gorgeous Philippine textiles and jewelry in the New Acquisitions case in the Pacific Voices gallery.

The showcased collection features colorful and unusual beadwork, brass work, and ikat weavings representing the indigenous folk art of the T’boli and Yakan peoples of the Philippines. Seen above is a T'boli woman's embroidered shirt.

Here is a close up of the geometric patterns on a tubular skirt known as a pinantupan, made by the Yakan from Basilan Island.

Click on the two object photos to find out more about them through their collections records in our online database. Or come see the real thing now through August.

- Rebecca