Bible Lands Museum

A Step into the Past

The Kelso Museum has its roots in a program of archaeological field work in the Near East that began in 1924 focusing on the Lands of the Bible: modern day Israel, West Bank, and Jordan. Its exhibits highlight daily life in ancient times:

• landscape and settlement patterns
• domestic and communal architecture
• agriculture and food preparation
• technologies, crafts, and stylistic traditions
• trade
• religious observance
• memory and writing systems and practice

Visitors are welcome to visit during regular open hours or to make appointments to browse. The museum also offers tours for groups of all ages and sizes. We are happy to adapt tours to the curricula and to the needs and interests of students and teachers.

The full collection and associated archives of excavation records, drawings and photographs are available to scholars and students by appointment.

Watch WQED's Pittsburgh 360 segment on the Kelso Museum.

The museum is part of a multifaceted archaeology program that includes an on-going excavation at Tel Zeitah in Israel, now in its 14^th year, as well as academic courses and a lecture program that brings leading archaeologists to Pittsburgh.

Interested in learning more about future lectures and events? Send your name and address to kbowden@pts.edu to be added to the mailing list. 

Upcoming Public Lectures   

Free lectures featuring some of today's most prominent archaeologists are held throughout the year at PTS. Upcoming lectures include: 

• Sept. 17, Gabriel Barkay, Bar Ilan University and Hebrew University;
• Oct. 22, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, University of Oxford; and 
• Nov. 9, Christoph Uehlinger, University of Freibourg, Germany.

Additional details will be posted as they become available.  

During one such recent lecture, Richard Talbert, William Rand Kenan Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, discussed “The Magnificent Peutinger Map: Roman Cartography at its Most Creative.” Listen to the lecture.