Feature - Museum of Man

A Glorious 90th for the Museum of Man

The Museum of Man in Balboa Park is a fascinating repository of objects, clothing, tools, body paintings (hey, you tattoo people, check it out), and everything else that makes people what they are, anthropologically speaking.

This year, the Museum has been celebrating 90 fascinating years of collecting, exhibiting, teaching and growing. It began as the Museum in the Park at the 1915 Panama California Exposition in Balboa Park and proved to be so interesting to San Diegans that it became permanent and just kept developing. 

Executive Director Dr. Mari Lyn Salvador and Sharon Smith, Director of Development, enthusiastically described plans for the upcoming year, which involve giving a facelift to the façade of the Spanish-style building and its famous tower, renovating the collections storage area and planning for a stunning new exhibit. The new exhibit is Journey to the Copper Age: Biblical Roots in the Holy Land. It will be held next June (2007) through January 2008, coinciding with the visit of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the San Diego Natural History Museum.

Mari Lyn notes that the exhibit, in conjunction with National Geographic, features 60 photos plus nearly 50 objects that have never before left Israel.

Both Mari Lyn and Sharon expect that the Museum’s 90th anniversary party on Nov. 2,
to mark the culmination of 90 years, will bring a new recognition of how important
anthropology is. The San Diego Museum joins the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Field Museum in Chicago as major exhibitors in showing how
mankind got to where it is.

If you’ve never been, check out the Body Decoration exhibit (which could put NBA and NFL players to shame), the gorgeous Guatemalan textiles collection and some of the standing exhibits. Were you aware that the beginning of the Copper Age, 5000 years ago, led to an increase in exploration because people learned to use milk to make cheese and could now carry food with them. Who knew?

Museum hours are 10am-4:45pm seven days a week. The building is beautiful and it’s right in the middle of Balboa Park, which gives you the opportunity to do your own anthropological observations. For info and directions, call 619-239-2001.