Not everyone realizes that the objects and specimens they see when they visit a museum exhibition are just a teeny tiny fraction of the entire museum collection. Nearly all museums keep and care for hundreds, thousands, or even millions of items that the average person rarely has the opportunity to see.
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
Q: How does a fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex premaxilla get from this point:
to this point?
Most vertebrate fossils are found enclosed in solid rock, with just a little bit of bone exposed. While it can take days to carefully collect a fossil in the field, it can often take weeks, months, or years to uncover enough of the fossil back in the lab so that it can be studied or exhibited!
At this year’s Dino Day event on Sat., March 1, fossil preparator Bruce Crowley (pictured above) will be up in the galleries working on the T. rex bone live in front of visitors. You can watch him up close as he uses miniature jackhammers, sand blasters and chisels to remove the enclosing rock and expose the fossil. It’s a fascinating process and one that rarely gets the spotlight in the glamorous world of fossil hunting. Don’t be afraid to ask him about his work – he doesn’t bite!
More on the fossil…
The premaxilla was put through a CAT Scan to produce this neat all-around view (the white parts are plaster):
Join us at Dino Day for a glimpse at this hunk of T. rex (actual fossil portion highlighted in brown below) and lots more dino and fossil goodness.
- Rebecca
Photos:
Top: Burke paleontologists uncovered the T. rex fossil in Wyoming, 2007. Photo by Christian Sidor.
Middle: Example of a T. rex premaxilla fossil, National Museum of Nature and Science, Japan. Photo by Christian Sidor.
Bottom: Bruce Crowley prepares a brontothere fossil bone. Photo by Rebecca Durkin.
I'm so proud of Miles!Q: What measures 21 feet in length, ways over a 1000 pounds, and takes 5+ hours to hoist onto a wall?
A: The Burke’s newest fossil – a 125 million year old ichthyosaur! Ichthyosaur means “fish lizard” in Latin, a name that describes well this fully aquatic marine reptile of the Mesozoic.
I didn’t push or lift a thing the whole time, but yesterday I witnessed the installation of this giant fossil from beginning to end, and found myself exhausted just watching the process which took hours.
After icy road delays, our friends at Artech arrived early at the Museum and unloaded the crated fossil, split into three pieces for manageability. First up the ramp was the most difficult piece, the 1200 pound body and center of the fossil. The lighter head and tail pieces flew up the ramp by comparison.
Museum staffers showed up to help with the pushing, pulling, and hoisting of the giant specimens, which were super tricky to maneuver through the doors of the Burke Room. (Sure I could have helped, but then who would have taken the photos?!)
I was surprised by how quickly the pieces went up once they were secured to the chain pulleys. The middle went up first and we finished with the head – a crowning for the day.
Want to watch the whole 5 hours of action condensed into one minute? Check out the video slideshow below.
Lots of cameras showed up to capture the process for local news – check out today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Seattle Times for feature photos in the B sections. KING, KOMO, and KIRO TV also featured the story on last night’s news.- Rebecca
Photos
Top: Ichthyosaur in Burke Room
Bottom: Scan from The Seattle Times, 1/16/2008, (The Seattle Times photo by Steve Ringman).
The new year brings us a new friend on the UW campus.
Next week we install a 21-foot-long (!!!), 125 million year old ichthyosaur in the Burke Room, also donated by the Hart family. The scoop on that with lots of photos will be coming up soon on Burke Blog.Top: Burke Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology Christian Sidor (left) and Fossil Preparator Bruce Crowley (Right) put finishing touches on the new mosasaur installation in Hitchcock Hall.
Last week I joined the curatorial team for an object photo shoot behind-the-scenes in our Ethnology collections lab. We’re gearing up for the January opening of two shows that look at Plateau Arts & Culture: Peoples of the Plateau (historic photography) and This Place Called Home (cultural materials from the Burke’s Plateau collections).
This Place Called Home guest curator Miles R. Miller (Yakama) is a beadwork artist inspired by the traditional motifs of the Plateau region. He’s pictured here along with a selection of objects from the exhibit, including a stunning buckskin coat (capote) with beaded details, a cradle board, and two hats that showcase two approaches to a similar motif.
These will be the first exhibits to celebrate Eastern Washington Plateau culture at the Burke in over 20 years. Many of the objects will be on exhibit for the first time ever thanks to Miles’ hard work and collaboration with Burke staff. Exciting times.
- Rebecca
Photos by Mary LevinThe Burke’s collections total over 12 million objects, many of which are partial fossils or pieces of artifacts. But if you think that incomplete means insufficient, check out the excellent interview with Burke paleontology associate Bax Barton from Monday’s Herald (Everett, WA) .
Presented with a possible mammoth molar recently found on Hat Island, Barton takes us through the stages of paleontological research to show us what can be learned from this small piece of an enormous puzzle.
From the one tooth alone, Barton determined the specimen to be a Columbian mammoth (one of four North American species) and that the animal was roughly 21 years of age at death. With further lab study, the tooth could reveal when the animal lived, what the temperature and precipitation was like in its environment, and the diet of the mammoth.
Do you have a fossil that needs to be identified? You can make an appointment with Burke paleontologists to learn more about your fossil. Or join us on Sat., Feb. 9, 2008 at our annual Artifact ID Day and check out what other fascinating goodies community members have to inspect.
- Rebecca
Photos:
Top: Fossilized mammoth molar, photo by Suzanne Schmid, courtesy of The Herald.
Bottom: Mastodon (Mammut americanum) on display in the Burke Museum, Life and Times of Washington State exhibit.
Talk about having a great day at the museum!
On Friday, we hosted 37 very cool middle school students from Eton School over in Bellevue for a day of hands-on ocean science. Our focus: squid research. With scientists in the UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences (SAFS), we explored our exhibit In Search of Giant Squid, planned research expeditions, saw real at-sea footage from an expedition up in Alaska’s Bering Sea, and dissected some of the biggest squid around!
The squid we dissected is called the Magister Armhook Squid or Berryteuthis magister. Here’s a picture, straight from the boat that caught them.
I overheard a lot of fun comments during the dissection. Notice these statements all end in an exclamation point!
“That’s awesome!”
“Don’t poke the ink sac!”
“Whoa – eggs! Now we know it’s female!”
“So all the water is polluted with squid poo? EWW!”
One of my favorite parts of the day was hearing more about the research expedition in the Bering Sea. Sandy, a UW Research Associate, showed us all amazing photos and video footage of sending the trawl out to sea, bringing in the catch, measuring squid, and some of the strange creatures they caught. That whole trip looked fun.
Lots of people helped pull off this special program. Sandy, Kirsty, John, and David from SAFS; five college students from an ecology class up at the UW’s Friday Harbor Labs; four or five parent-chaperones; a pair of teachers; and a couple educators from our Burke Education office. Let’s not forget the students: some of them just may be our future ocean researchers and educators.
So this is a call out to all the students: what did you think of the day? Anything you’d like to share with us bloggers?
- Tim
The last of the images are hung and labels are in place. Join us on Sat., June 16, 10 am – 5 pm for the opening day of Yellowstone to Yukon: Freedom to Roam.
Opening Day Schedule
10:15 am ~ Photographer Tour with Florian Schulz
11am ~ “The Origin and Status of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative”
12 pm ~ “The Columbia Highlands - Making the Rockies to Rainforest Connection”
12:30 pm ~ Photographer Tour with Florian Schulz
1:30 pm ~ “Wildlife Bridges Across Interstate 90”
2pm ~ “From the Cascades to Karakoram – a global exploration of bears”
2:30 pm ~ Photographer Tour with Florian Schulz
3 pm ~ “Bringing Critical Wildlife Conservation Issues to the Public”
I’m most looking forward to the tours with featured photographer, Florian Schulz (pictured left). I’ve been working with his images for months now in preparation for the show, but when I finally met him and heard him talk about trailing grizzlies through the mountains for 10 years, it struck me how deep the stories these pictures tell really are. Florian hangs off of precipices, dives underwater, tracks animals that could kill him in an instant, and sits still for hours and hours at a time just to capture that one glorious instant we see in an image on the gallery wall. It seems like there is so much wisdom living in those mountains, and it lives in him now too.
- Rebecca
Look! Here are a few images of the installation process for our new exhibit, Yellowstone to Yukon: Freedom to Roam. The hallways here at the museum are buzzing in anticipation of opening day for our new show (June 16).
The Burke's powerful show of contemporary indigenous photography, Our People, Our Land, Our Images, closed yesterday.
But the exhibit space won’t stay empty for long. Up next is a gorgeous wildlife photography show, Yellowstone to Yukon: Freedom to Roam, opening June 16. Photographer Florian Schulz spent 10 years following the trail of the grizzly through the 
If the subject is "what goes on in collections," let's remember that ethnology isn't the only one. We other curators deserve equal time!So what happens when someone brings in a spider? The first question is, does the specimen have good data? If I can't pinpoint the collection locality within 100 meters, date to the nearest day, macrohabitat (old growth forest? urban residential?), microhabitat (web in rotten stump? running across kitchen floor?), and collector's name (as a check on the accuracy of the rest), then the specimen isn't worth much, no matter how cool it may look. Second, is the specimen identifiable? This usually means an adult in reasonable condition (not stepped on!). Third, do I already have 50 specimens of that species from nearby localities? If all the answers are right, I (and my hardworking volunteers) preserve the specimen in alcohol, then as time allows, transfer it to a permanent vial with a permanent label, catalogue it, and install it in the collection.
Specimens that I and my helpers collect ourselves are even better because they can give a general picture of the fauna of a new locality, something a single specimen can never do. The Spider Collector's Journal site will tell you all about what spider field trips are like.
Fortunately, spiders don't have to be pinned and spread like butterflies or skinned like birds. Since this streamlines the process somewhat, we were able to curate over 7,000 spiders last year (including some backlog from previous years). Anyone curious about the fine details of how it's done can download our curation procedure (PDF).
Photo: Callobius pictus, male. Courtesy of Susan
-Karyn
Burke specialist Rina Luzius takes you through the major steps of processing and caring for museum objects behind the scenes…
Hello, my name is Rina and I am a preservation and museum specialist in the ethnology division here at the 
You can find the detailed records for this newest collection through the Burke’s online ethnology collections database.
Use the search field at the bottom right of the page titled “Object # Search” and type in the accession number as follows: 2006-159%.
- Rina
In the Spirit of the Ancestors is opening with a great celebration this Saturday, which means that our handy prep crew here at the Burke is nearly done with the installation. I got to sneak a preview of the exhibit today, and I have to say, it’s looking amazing.
There was something indefinably moving about seeing the masks and robes up-close just before the protective glass was installed. They seemed somehow larger and more powerful. It was also a first for me to see all the styles and types of masks together in one place to compare and contrast.
But even as fabulous as all that was, I still fell prey to one of my
girly obsessions: my favorite objects were the woven basketry shoes by Haida weaver Lisa Telford. Not only were they adorable, but they’re artful too. How many people do you know who can craft a pair of cedar bark high heels with their own two hands? These are a must see! Although, you know, everything else was pretty amazing too.
