The MassQ Ball 2022: Origin will feature the diverse artistic expressions of Boston’s communities of color. Interact with the landscape in new and creative ways, transform into a walking work of art through the practice of MassQing (a ritual application of paint to the face derived from ancient traditions of body decoration), and enjoy performances and art work by Boston cultural artists including:
Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge
Latino/a/x teens in the Hear Me Out/Escúchame project exhibit a group artwork that challenges stereotypes. What is important to know about Salvadoran or Honduran culture? What is overlooked in Mexican, Colombian, or Guatemalan culture? Drop in to see their response, and create “light-up” postcards or an art piece about your identity with simple art materials. Sketch and try other hands-on activities. Take your place with us and share how you want to be represented.
Limited metered parking available on Oxford Street or...
Bradley Rosaceous Collection, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Led by Castle of our Skins’ Director of Education Taylor Lena McTootle, “Making a Mythos” focuses on the creative power of storytelling. Young participants will experience firsthand how fictional tales can reflect our cultural values and create them.
Experience an epic day of archaeological events with the family! Activities are scattered across two museums so explore Native North American, Central American, Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Mediterranean archaeology. Throw a spear with a spear thrower. Talk to student archaeologists who excavate in locations around the world.
For the first time in the museum’s history, women who labored in the collections, offices, and labs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology in the late 19th century are being revealed in a unique online exhibit from the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture. The exhibit is curated by Reed Gochberg, Assistant Director of Studies and a Lecturer on History and Literature at Harvard University.
Women like Elizabeth Hodges Clark, Elizabeth Bangs Bryant, and Elvira Wood persevered diligently behind-the-scenes, gaining unparalleled expertise in what were previously thought to be men’...
Virtual experiences connect the collections of the four Harvard Museums of Science & Culture. In HMSC Connects! Celebrating Women, go behind the scenes with women in academia while listening to the HMSC Connects! Podcast, discovering women’s work, Story Time videos, and coloring pages.
Celebrate the glamour, labor, humor, and discoveries of archaeology at Harvard. Join student archaeologists as they share their experience with an Irish castle, a shaft tomb in western Mexico, monuments on the Giza plateau in Egypt and drones used to study El-Kurru in ancient Nubia, among other locations. Place a friendly wager on an atlatl (spear throwing) demonstration, observe chew marks on bones from the Zooarchaeology Lab and experience a virtual-reality view of the Great Sphinx.
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian—Online
Join the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian for a virtual Public Observatory Night with guest lecturer Donavan Moore, author of "What Stars Are Made Of: The Life of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin."
It was not easy being a woman of ambition in early twentieth-century England, much less one who wished to be a scientist. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin overcame prodigious obstacles to become a woman of many firsts: the first to receive a PhD in astronomy from Radcliffe College, the first promoted to full professor at Harvard, the first to head a department there. And, in what...
Presenter: Willeke Wendrich, Joan Silsbee Chair of African Cultural Archaeology; Professor of Egyptian Archaeology and Digital Humanities, University of California, Los Angeles
Archaeologists study stylistic and technological changes in excavated materials—especially pottery—to better understand developments in ancient Egyptian society. However, little attention has focused on using the archaeological record to understand the transfer of cultural knowledge. How did people learn the arts and crafts of potters, basket makers, metalworkers, and scribes?...
Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford St., Cambridge
Scavenger Hunt Dates: December 21–December 23 December 26–December 31 January 2–January 31
Have you ever wished that you could talk with other animals? Doctor Dolittle, the imaginary character in the Hugh Lofting book The Story of Doctor Dolittle, could do just that! Doctor Dolittle learned animal languages and made animal friends all over the world. Use the clues to find six of his animal friends in the museum and learn how that animal really communicates. Then, like Doctor Dolittle, tell us what you think that animal is saying by drawing or writing...
Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford St, Cambridge
Scavenger Hunt Dates: December 21–December 23 December 26–December 31 January 2–January 31
Have you ever wished that you could talk with other animals? Doctor Dolittle, the imaginary character in the Hugh Lofting book The Story of Doctor Dolittle, could do just that! Doctor Dolittle learned animal languages and made animal friends all over the world. Use the clues to find six of his animal friends in the museum and learn how that animal really communicates. Then, like Doctor Dolittle, tell us what you think that animal is saying by drawing or writing...
Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford St, Cambridge
Scavenger Hunt Dates: December 21–December 23 December 26–December 31 January 2–January 31
Have you ever wished that you could talk with other animals? Doctor Dolittle, the imaginary character in the Hugh Lofting book The Story of Doctor Dolittle, could do just that! Doctor Dolittle learned animal languages and made animal friends all over the world. Use the clues to find six of his animal friends in the museum and learn how that animal really communicates. Then, like Doctor Dolittle, tell us what you think that animal is saying by drawing or writing...
Between the paws of the great Sphinx is the Dream Stela, a monument which describes how a young prince fell asleep in the shadow of the Sphinx by the Giza Pyramids. Visitors to the Harvard Semitic Museum galleries will be able to experience the iconic Sphinx and its Dream Stela in 3D augmented reality.
A gallery facilitator will use a tablet to allow the Sphinx to loom above and around a real life-size cast of the monumental stela. With a tap, the ancient hieroglyphs will be highlighted and translated into English. Another tap to adjust the timeline later, and a pyramid will...
"Travel" in fifteen minutes to an archaeological site in Ashkelon, Israel to explore the first-ever excavation of a Philistine burial ground. For years archaeologists have searched for evidence of these Biblical people. Transport yourself to the center of 360° scenes of an archaeological expedition while your gallery facilitator explains what you are seeing. Borrow a device from the museum or download the virtual reality app on your smart phone and bring it to place in a 3D viewer at the museum for an immersive experience.
Free, fun, family activities allow visitors to explore arts from the ancient Near East! Activities change daily: construct models of an Egyptian pyramid, inscribe clay tablets, or decode hieroglyphics.
Activities take place on the first floor of the Harvard Semitic Museum. This HMSC museum explores the rich history of cultures connected by the family of Semitic languages. Exhibitions include a full-scale replica of an ancient Israelite home, life-sized casts of famous Mesopotamian monuments, authentic mummy coffins, and tablets containing the earliest forms of writing.
Free, fun, family activities allow visitors to explore arts from the ancient Near East. Activities change daily: make Egyptian accessories, inscribe clay tablets, or decode hieroglyphics. Drop in for five minutes—or 30—to see what is new every day.
Self-guided activities take place on the first floor of the Harvard Semitic Museum. Explore the rich history of cultures connected by the family of Semitic languages. Exhibitions include a full-scale replica of an ancient Israelite home, life-sized casts of famous Mesopotamian monuments, authentic mummy coffins, and tablets...
Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge
During April school vacation week, drop in to the third-floor galleries to touch a Maya hieroglyph and create your own glyph rubbing to take home. In the Arts of War exhibit, hunt for animals hidden in designs on weapons and armor from around the world.
Activities are free with regular museum admission. Self-guided activities change daily.
Admission is free for Massachusetts residents every Sunday morning (year-round) from 9:00am-12:00pm and on Wednesdays from 3:00pm-5:00pm (September through May). Proof of residency required. This offer is not available to...
Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge
Join Harvard archaeology students in the museum galleries as they share their experience from excavations around the world and across time. Examine artifacts and see what archaeologists do. Try launching a spear with a spear thrower (weather permitting), carve cuneiform writing on clay, and experience up-to-the-minute technologies such as 3D printing and augmented reality. Test your listening skills in the World Music Challenge game hosted by colleagues from the social anthropology department. Activities will be spread across both the Peabody and the Harvard Semitic Museums.
Free, fun, family activities allow visitors to explore arts from the ancient Near East. Activities change daily: make Egyptian accessories, inscribe clay tablets, or decode hieroglyphics. Drop in for five minutes--or 30--to see what is new every day.
Activities take place on the first floor of the Harvard Semitic Museum. This HMSC museum explores the rich history of cultures connected by the family of Semitic languages. Exhibitions include a full-scale replica of an ancient Israelite home, life-sized casts of famous Mesopotamian monuments, authentic mummy...
