Ancient wonders come alive at U-M museum

Associated Press

Long-hidden art and artifacts from the ancient Mediterranean will see the light for the first time in years in the University of Michigan's newly expanded Kelsey Museum of Archaeology.

The 20,000-square-foot addition to the museum, which opened Nov. 1, was funded by an $8.5 million gift from the late Edwin and Mary Meader.

"As an undergraduate in the 1930s, Edwin Meader saw rare artifacts, pottery and sculpture, excavated by U-M scholars in the Mediterranean and Near East, being delivered to what was then called the Museum of Classical Archaeology ... and said to himself, 'These things deserve a better place," university spokeswoman Maryanne George wrote on the school's Web site.

In 2003, the Meader estate made the gift for what has become the William E. Upjohn Exhibit Wing. It's named for Mary Meader's grandfather, who founded the Upjohn pharmaceutical business.

The museum itself bears the name of the late Michigan professor Francis Kelsey and holds more than 100,000 ancient artifacts. Many are materials excavated from Egypt, Turkey and elsewhere in the Middle East in the 1920s and '30s.

Items include art, toys, burial items, pottery and jewelry.

"Professor Kelsey was a man ahead of his time," museum director Sharon Herbert said in a statement. "He understood the power of objects to connect today's people with people of the past."

But for decades, the space limits prevented many of the objects from going on public display.

"People have no idea what we have here," said Elaine Gazda, the museum's curator of Hellenistic and Roman antiquities. "People will be stunned by the richness and depth of collections."