2825 Fish Hatchery Road, Allentown, PA 18103
Email: info@museumofindianculture.org / Phone: 610-797-2121
OPEN Friday through Sunday from 10am-4pm
New Exhibit: Native American Beadwork
Exhibits & Collections
Welcome to the Exhibits & Collections page of the Museum of Indian Culture. The museum maintains and displays a wide variety of items, including stone tool collections, ceramics, carvings, photographs, weapons, beadwork, and basketry from Native peoples throughout the Western hemisphere. Our collections range from Southwestern Hupa baskets, to Aztec ceremonial clothing from Mexico, to stone tools from a Lenape/Delaware rock shelter site in Pennsylvania.
Currently On Display:
MUSEUM HOURS
September through May
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
June through August
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
ADMISSION
$5 for adults $4 for seniors and children 12-17 Children under 12 are free
Members are free
Groups more than 10 by appointment only, please call in advance.
New Exhibit - Native American Beadwork: Evolution, Trade & Artistry
Discover the history and the evolving art form of Native American Beadwork: Evolution, Trade & Artistry, a new exhibit at the Museum of Indian Culture. This exhibit traces the progression of imported glass beads as a medium of trade, artistic expression, and identity for indigenous peoples throughout North America. It features early trade beads, beaded bags and moccasins, Ute child’s cradleboards, Iroquois raised beadwork, beaded fetishes and other works of art dating from circa 1800 to the present. This exhibit also examines the importance of Native American wampum, shell beads, and its impact on early trade, commerce and treaties with European colonists.
Take a journey through the Lenape past to their life in the present, beginning with key historical figures like Chief Tamanend, William Penn, and the infamous Walking Purchase of 1737. View a reproduction of the Penn Treaty wampum belt and the Coaquannock “Grove of Tall Pines” map depicting Lenapehoking before Europeans arrived. Learn about the Lenape language and practice your speaking and identification skills. Understand the Forced Migration of the Lenape from their ancestral homelands and their harrowing journey to where the federally recognized Lenape nations are located today. This exhibit series also includes an extensive timeline display, situating the Lenape within the broader expanse of both ancient and more recent Native American histories culture.
Walking in the Ancestors' Footsteps: The Lenape Past and Present
The Great Native American Toolkit
This exhibit features prehistoric stone tools and pottery used by the ancient Mississippian (Mound Builder) cultures, Northeastern Woodland Lenape / Delaware / Iroquois, and Anasazi / Pueblo of the Southwest, and ancient bone fishing tools carved by Alaskan Natives. The Great Native American Toolkit tells the story of the creative genius of North America’s first peoples and their ability to survive and thrive using similar tools made from regional resources.
Mystery Unearthed:
The Extraordinary Story of Two Lenape Rock Shelters
This exhibit features a unique collection of over 200 stone and bone tools, pendants, decorated ceramics, and European trade goods excavated in 1942 from the Broomall Rock Shelter sites in Broomall, Pennsylvania. This assemblage was featured in a 1947 article in the prestigious archaeological journal American Antiquity, and includes a fully-reconstructed steatite bowl and numerous archaic stone points that may date to over 3,000 years ago. Visit us to learn the incredible story of the site’s discovery, context, excavation, and the artifacts’ journey to the museum.
Treading Lightly around Prehistoric Digs:
1980’s Interstate-78 Southern Corridor Project - Upper Saucon
Prior to construction of Interstate 78 southern corridor and Route 309 alignment project, Penn DOT contracted a local cultural resource firm to excavate for evidence of archaeological sites in the path of I-78, a 31 mile narrow band in southeast Pennsylvania from Fogelsville to Easton.
One of the survey sites, known as P-42, located in Upper Saucon, was first discovered by local vocational archaeologist, Robert Kufrovich, in the 1970’s, after heavy rains from Tropical Storm Agnes unearthed stone artifacts and pottery sherds from an ancient Lenape settlement dating 8,000 B.C. to 1,500 A.D. This ancient artifact collection of hammerstones, celts, axes, stone points, game balls, and pottery sherds were reported to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and is today recognized as a key piece of evidence of Pennsylvania’s pre-history.