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Hold on to your fedora and bullwhip: Although the much-anticipated fourth Indiana Jones movie won’t hit theaters until next year, kids can whet their appetite for hidden booty at a major exhibition now up at the Jewish Museum. “Archaeology Zone: Discovering Treasures from Playgrounds to Palaces” sends aspiring Indys on an interactive adventure to unravel mysteries of the past. No, they won’t find any Spielbergesque snake dens or speeding boulders, but wanna-be explorers ages three to ten can test out the methods that real-life artifact-hunters use, and learn firsthand the ways each object tells a tale.
Building on the museum’s existing archaeology programming, which regularly hosts simulated digs for school groups, the Zone invites young visitors to become part scientist, part sleuth, part storyteller. “We show kids what archaeologists do after they unearth the artifacts,” says Rachel Katz, the museum’s senior manager of family programs. “Using various interactive activities, they discover what these objects say about the past.”
This is no dry history lesson: Kids enter the exhibit through a giant storage crate, said to be on its way to a museum. Inside is precious cargo—a clay handle dug up from ruins dating to the late 8th century B.C. in Israel. A video reveals the story of this unassuming piece of pottery, from its origin as part of a storage jar in a palace—which was later destroyed by invaders—to the excavations that led to its discovery.
Visitors continue into the exhibit area, which calls out the basic questions an archaeologist asks when analyzing an artifact. First, the obvious: What is it? This space gives children the chance to handle trowels, brushes and magnifying glasses, and learn about the sometimes surprising tools of the trade (who knew that dental picks are handy for cleaning dirt off unearthed finds?). They pore over replicas of early vessels and a Greek helmet, and conduct hands-on investigations at a station equipped with color charts, magnifiers and measuring instruments.
After figuring out what an item is, the next challenge is to discover when it was made by studying how similar objects have morphed throughout history. “Artifact stackers”—large cubes covered with photos of toys, shoes and lamps from past to present—put an entertaining spin on object classification. (Yes, honey, that ancient die on display was a must-have for Roman gamers and a predecessor to your Wii.) Junior archaeologists also piece together fragments of two large vessels, ancient and contemporary, to compare and contrast their shapes and materials. The “Strat Wall,” embedded with artifact replicas from the Iron Age up through modern-day Israel, and a reconstruction of an Ottoman-period room (complete with a dress-up area) provide more up-close glimpses of how people lived back in the day.
Your kids probably won’t let you hit the exit until they’ve found their birth months at the Zodiac Table (above); inspired by an ancient mosaic floor on view in a nearby gallery, the table allows room to sketch original designs based on their astrological signs. Finally, at the symbol-rubbing station, they can create personalized pendants to take home.
A trip through the Archaeology Zone just might teach your little ones to view the world around them differently. That NO HONKING sign, their favorite slide at the playground, even the sneakers on their feet—any of these could reveal something about their own lives to future archaeologists on the hunt.
“Archaeology Zone: Discovering Treasures from Playgrounds to Palaces” is at the Jewish Museum through Jun 15, 2009.
