Harvard Museum Of The Ancient Near East

The Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This museum was originally founded in 1889 to teach students about the Middle Eastern cultures that spoke Semitic languages, such as the Israelites, Moabites, Babylonians, and Phonecians. The museum houses over 40,000 artifacts including pottery, coins, and cuneiform tablets, which the museum acquired on museum-sponsored excavations in Jordan, Israel, Cyprus, and Iraq. Harvard displays most of these artifacts in museum exhibits that are related to current university courses. However, non-Harvard students can still tour the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East to learn about these Semitic cultures.