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From theDirector

Penn Museum receives Luce Foundation Grant

Exploring the archaeology ofthegreatMekongRiverhasbeenoneoftheUniversityofPennsyl-vania Museum’s more unusualendeavorsinrecentdecades.TheHenry Luce Foundation is sup-portingPenninthisspecialpur-suitwithafour year challenge grant of $300,000. TheLuceGrantfortheMuse-um’s bold proposal, Strengthening the Future of Southeast Asian Archaeol-ogy: Investigating Prehistoric Settlement of the Middle Mekong Basin,providesfunds for both our Ban Chiangresearch in Thailand and LuangPrabang research in Laos. Bothprojects seek new understandingof human settlement in this un-derstudied part of the globe. Weparticularly want to understand

the origins of the renowned BanChiangCulturalTradition. The Luce-funded programalso seeks to develop SoutheastAsianhumanandinstitutionalre-sourcesinarchaeology.ThustheMiddle Mekong ArchaeologicalProject’s(MMAP)2009seasoninLuangPrabangfocusedontrain-ingLaoandThaicultureheritagemanagers and archaeologists inbasic non-excavation skills need-edby today’sarchaeologists—ev-erything from managing com-puter hard drives, to designingexhibitions, to creating artifactcollectionsdatabases. Nextyearwewillputthoseskillsto work on a new excavation inLaos.DuringthethirdandfourthyearsoftheLuceGrant,wewillfo-cusonBanChiangresearch—anup-to-datestudyofourfamous(onloan) Ban Chiang ceramics andestablishing a GIS (GeographicInformationSystem)databaseforBanChiang-relatedsitesinnorth-ernnortheastThailand. Please help us meet the Luce

matchinggrantover thenextfouryears!Eachyearweneedtoraise$75,000.Thesefundswillparticu-larlysupportpublicationand digitization of theBanChiangrecords,pay-ing for salaries, equip-ment, and special archi-valprojects.Theultimategoal,inadditiontopub-lishing several books onPenn Museum scholar-

shipinThailand,isonlinepostingof the Ban Chiang archival dataandrecords.StaytunedformoreinformationinfutureissuesofThe Ban Chiang Update.

We did it...again!AfterlastSpring’snewsletterwereceivedtheneededfundstocompleteoursecondThaiArchaeologyChallenge (TAC-II)!Thesefundshavebeenquicklyputtowork,especiallyontheBanChi-angDigitalImageArchiveProject(please see Elizabeth’s article onpagetwo).v

Joyce White, Ban Chiang Project

Director

F•O•B•C•

The Ban ChiangUpDATENewsletter for the

Friends of Ban Chiang

Preserving a UNESCO World Heritage Site Issue #16 Spring 2009

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6324 http://www.museum.upenn.edu/banchiang

--FR

IEND of BAN CHIAN

G--

aU

NESCO World Herit

age

Site

Thai ArchaeologyChallenge II (TAC-II)

July 2004-June 2008Thanks to you, Friends, for

helping us reach our goal of $200,000 last June!

TAC-II

Ch

all

-o

-m

ete

r2 $200,000WE DID IT!

$150,000

$50,000

$100,000

again!

Elizabeth Hamilton trains two Lao in database entry.

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The Ban Chiang Digital Image

Project

Your FOBC dollars

at work!

Most long term archaeologi-cal projects have stacks of filmphotos stuck in a cabinet, setaside to be organized—someday. The thousands of imagesof pots, spear points, bracelets,bones,andexcavationlayerstak-enduringdecadesofexcavationand analysis in the Ban ChiangProject weren’t stuck in a cabi-net. Instead, slides were orga-nized in little boxes on shelves,andnegativesandcontactsheetswere loaded into large and un-wieldy loose leaf binders andstored in cardboard boxes. Tofind all the photographs takenof a certain pot required hoursofhuntingthroughdustyboxes,flipping through file folders,anddeciphering twenty-year-oldhandwrittennotes. To protect, preserve, andmake accessible the thousandsof images housed in the BanChiangProject’soffices(includ-ing several other sites Penn ex-cavated inThailand), JoyceandIbegan theBanChiangDigitalImageArchiveProjectlastJune.I designed an easy-to-use File-maker Pro database compatiblewith the Penn Museum’s photoarchive database, so that BanChiang photos can eventuallyand easily be incorporated intothe Museum archives. A crackteam consisting of work-studystudent Sasha Renninger andvolunteers Heather Saeger andStephanieWhite(norelationto

Joyce) thenbeganscanningthethousandsofslidesandnegativesof artifacts and entering basicdataabouteachartifactandim-ageintothedatabase.Itsoundssimple,evenroutine,butitisn’t.Thequalityoftheimagesvarieswidely,partlybecausetakingmul-tipleexposures,or“bracketing,”wascommonusingfilmcameras.Ourworkersusually choose thebestimageamongseveraldupli-catesandvariantsandconstantlyadjust scanning protocols. Theinitialscanproducesalargedigi-talfileinTIFFformat,buttheseimagesaremuchtoolarge(5-25megabytes each) to use in theimagedatabase. So, using Adobe Photoshop,Sasha, Heather, or Stephanieproduce a much smaller 300-

pixelby300-pixelversionoftheoriginalscanandplacethatver-sionof the imageintothedata-base. The data that need to beentered are complex. Some ofthe scanned images have up tonine separate artifacts in eachpicture, requiring our workersto painstakingly identify exactlywhichartifactsareontheimageand where, so that someone inthefuturecan interpret the im-age.Someoftheoriginalphotolog notes are incomplete, so toidentifysomeartifacts,ourwork-ers search the shelves (evengo-ing down to the rather spookyMuseum sub-basement) for theactualartifactandcompareittotheimage,oftenblackandwhiteand poor-quality. The excava-tionsiteandtimeperiodofeach

Upper image: BCES Burial 40 Pot A 1934.

Lower image: various clay rollers from the site of Ban Chiang.

Some of the gor-geous images in the Ban Chiang Digital Archives, soon to be part of the Museum’s “Digital Spine.”

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artifact need to be entered, noteasy when some images containseveral artifacts from differentsitesandperiods,and the infor-mationmustbe sought inothertablesanddatabases. Thentheworkersenterinfor-mationabouttheimageitself--itstype, physical dimensions, digi-tal size, scannedresolution,andmagnification. If the image hadeverbeenusedinapublication,thebibliographiccitationhas tobe tracked down and entered.This isnota jobwherethedataentry people can turn off theirbrains—it requires patience, at-tention, and intelligence. Wehavebeenvery fortunate inourmostly volunteer work team. AsofApril27th,2009,thenumberofimagesintheBanChiangdigi-talphotoarchivehasreachedanimpressive4,169!Thanks to funds provided by the Friends of Ban Chi-ang,wewereabletobuyahighercapacity computer and backupsystem, appropriate software,hire Sasha, our first worker andtrainerofour teamof scanners,and purchase archival qualitystoragesupplies. What’s the reason forall thiseffort?Adigitalarchivepreservesimagesforposterityandenableswideraccessanduse.Anyonecaneasily search for all images, forexample,ofPotA1943fromBanChiangBurial40,(seeimageonpage two) in any format—slide,print, or black-and-white nega-tive. No longer do we need tohunt through shelves, files, andfolders (often sneezing from allthedust).Afterourworkersscanthe image and enter the data,they store the physical image inarchival-quality,clean,numberedpolyethylene storage sheets thatcanbehungneatlyinafilecabi-

net. Each sheet and pocket orsleeve in each storage sheet isnumbered, and the exact loca-tionsoftheimageandtheaddi-tionalcopiesofthatimagearere-corded inourdatabase.Wecannow not only open every imageofPotA1943,butwecanquicklylocatethephysicalimageaswellby its storage sheet number, forfuture publication-quality scans.In addition, we will eventuallyput thisdatabaseonline, so thatscholars—andtheFriendsofBanChiang—can look at any imageof our artifacts and excavationstheydesire. The Ban Chiang Digital Im-age Archive Project is extraor-dinarily useful. Not only does itrecord and make accessible de-cades-worthoffilmimagesfromthishistoricproject,butitunitesimageanddata,preservestheim-ageinproperarchivalmaterials,andprovidesessentialbackupsofalltheimages.Thanks to contribu-tions from the Friends of Ban Chi-ang, the pictures produced by decades of photographic work on the Ban Chi-ang Project are safe, accessible, and above all, usable.v

Elizabeth Hamilton,Research Coodinator

Ban Chiang’sArchaeo-Database

Chet Gorman made surethathisBanChiangexcavationswould be cutting edge. It was apioneeringprojectinmanyways.The most important aspect was,of course, the unearthing of apreviously unknown civilization.

The archaeological project wasalsoamongtheveryearliesttore-corditsfindingsinacomputer. Morethanthirtyyearsago,be-fore the PC had been invented,everything found from the BanChiang dig was entered into acomputerdatabase.Inbasementrooms of the Penn Museum, acorps of volunteers measured,examined, and recorded eachartifact.ThedatawerepunchedintoIBMcards,codedasoneortwodigitnumberssinceinthosedayscomputershandled text in-efficiently. The cards were fedinto an IBM 370 mainframe, asix-foot-highmachinewithspoolsof magnetic tape on the front.These tapes were the machine’smemory,asharddisks(letalonefloppies)hadyettobeinvented. In 1990, all these data weretransferred from the old rollsof8-tracktapeontofloppydisks(with considerable difficulty!),which could be read by a then“modern” PC database. Thecoded data were translated totext; forexample, theconditionofabladewaschangedfrom“3”to “Slightly corroded.” Year byyear, additional information wasadded.Asnewerandbetterdata-baseprogramsbecameavailable,everything was migrated up tothem. The Ban Chiang Project iscurrentlyinthemidstofupgrad-ingandexpandingthedatabaseoriginallydevelopedinthe1970s.Asa trial,acoupleofyearsago,Elizabeth Hamilton used File-MakerProtopostthedatafromall metal artifacts from four ofthePennMuseumsites inThai-land, including Ban Chiang, onthe Museum’s Southeast AsianArchaeology Scholarly Web-

continued on page four

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site (http://seasia.museum.upenn.edu/). Anyone can view images,photomicrographs, provenienceandotherdatafromhundredsofmetal pieces and crucibles frag-ments, and even download thedata for comparison with othersites! Inhisfive-yearstrategicplan,RichardHodges,theDirectorofthe Penn Museum, named BanChiangasoneoffivePennMuse-um“keylong-termresearchloca-tions.”Hewouldliketoseeallofdataandrecordsputonline,thusbecomingpartof theMuseum’s“Digital Spine.” While the BanChiangProjecthasaheadstartindigitizingitsartifactsindatabasesduringthe1970s,muchworkre-mainstobedonetodigitizeandmigrateotherclassesofdataandrecords to a current online for-

mat. Paper records need to bescannedandaddedtotheartifactdatabaseand,asyoucanreadinElizabeth’spreviousarticle,scan-ningofimagesisongoing. The new Luce Grant willgreatly assist in the digitizationand study effort, particularly inyear 3 when the loaned collec-tion of Ban Chiang pottery willbe the focusof study.ChetGor-manwouldhavebeenamazedatthecurrentuseofcomputers inarchaeology. Today all archaeo-logicaldigsarecomputerizedinvariousways,butfewhaveaslongapedigreeasBanChiang.v

John Hastings, Ban Chiang Volunteer

MMAP 2009

by Beth Van Horn (BH), Elizabeth Hamilton (EH), and Joyce White (JW)

JW: The Luce-fundedMMAP 2009 season inLaoswasn’tintendedasan excavation season.Theprimaryaimwastotrain thirteen Lao andtwoThais inbasicnon-excavation archaeologi-cal techniques. Whenyou say “archaeology,”everyone thinks of dig-ging, but of coursemostoftheinformationcomes from a protract-ed and often tediousprocessofanalysis.EH: Over thesixweeks

of the season, a rotating cast ofteacherslecturedandtrainedthestudents in computer care, data-bases,artifactdrawing,rawmate-rial analysis, rock identification,GIS, survey,andexhibitprepara-tion.EH: ButfirsttheteamhadtogetfromVientianetoLuangPrabang.Joycerentedaminibustotaketenof us on the spectacular 8-hourride up the ominously namedRoute 13. A few years ago thedrive would have been too dan-gerous because of bandits; nowit’sjustdangerousbecausethere’snoguardrail.LuangPrabangisinthe mountains, and most of thedrivewasspentcareeningaroundhairpin turns and observing tinyclusters of wood and bamboothatched houses, usually builtbyvillagesofHmongorKhamu,which clung to the narrow cliff

A File Maker Pro page taken from our database of images.

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side of the road, and frequentlyhalf off. The inhabitants surviveby slash and burn farming onslopessosteepIcouldn’tseehowtheycouldstanduprightonthem,muchlessfarm.BH: Althoughachallengeforthecarsick-prone,Route13istheonlyway to get to Luang Prabang byroad,notjustforus,butforhugeChinese industrial trucks andtour buses. The mountains werelikenoothersthat I’ve seenbefore—dra-matic towersof tall lime-stone “karst”that are theproduct ofhundreds ofthousands ofyears of ero-sion.BH: Ofcourseone of thedraws of be-ing an MMAPvolunteer isliving in Lu-ang Prabang,a UNESCOWorld Heri-tageSite in itsown right. At-tractions in-clude stayingin guest hous-es steps fromthe Mekong,gettingaroundtown via the motorcycle-driven orsmall-truck “tuk-tuks” (named forthesoundofa2-strokeenginethattypically powers the gaily paintedsmallerones),watchingwholefam-iliesridebyonasinglemotorbikewhileweeatstickyriceataroadsidestall,allwhilePhiladelphiawasun-der8inchesofsnow!

BH: MMAP2009was thebiggestMMAP team in the project’s 5-year history—a diverse bunch ofarchaeologists, museum workers,anthropologists,culturalheritageworkers,ITspecialists,ageologist,ageographer,andaPennMuse-um volunteer (me). Twenty-twopeople—Lao, British, Thai andAmerican—participated in all orpartofthe6-weekintensivetrain-ing inpost-excavationarchaeolo-

gydisciplines.ThemainfocuswasonhelpingtobuildLao“humancapital” for Lao archaeologicalprojects.Laoshasnoformaltrain-ingforarchaeologists,yetitisbe-comingapparentthatithasaricharchaeologicalheritagethat is inurgentneedofstudyandpreser-vation.

EH: Ourtraineesworkedhard,sixdaysaweek.Ihopewetaughtthemwell,becausetheywillbethefutureofLaoarchaeology.Oneimmedi-ate result was the formation ofthefirstcountrywideprofessionalnetworkofmuseumworkersandarchaeologistsinLaos.Thetrain-eescame frommuseumsandof-fices of culture and informationfromalloverthecountrythatarenormallysoseparatedandpolar-

ized that very lit-tle contact takesplace. The sixweeks they spentwith the MMAPtraining forgeda professionalnetwork that canonly improve in-teragency com-munication andcooperation inthefuture.EH: Every day ateam of traineesandstaffwentoutto survey, askingvillagers if theyhadseenartifactsand frequentlyhaving to climbfar up to reachremotecaves.Weadded 12 newsites to the 57found in 2005.I quite enjoyedcrawling aroundonmystomachin

thetunnels,butwhentheygottoonarrow, I sent in young slenderLao to take over, much to theiramusement.JW: Our headquarters in LuangPrabangwasinanoldFrenchco-lonial bank building, completewithchickensandagoatwithkid.

Left: Beth Van Horn and Elizabeth Hamilton tak-ing a rare day off to enjoy an elephant ride in the Khan river. Photo by Katherine Arrell

Right: Later that day, Katherine Ar-rell scrubbing an elephant. Photo by Beth Van Horn.

continued on page five

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While the survey teamswereouthaving fun, other trainees andtrainers struggledwithcomputertasks, endured periodic poweroutages, organized the artifactsfrom past and current MMAPseasons, and got lots of practicewithdigitaldata.Afternumerousvirus outbreaks of the computerkind,MMAP trainerShawnHylafromPennMuseumITfoundoutwecouldgetwirelessatourlab!!Beingabletosendthepersonatthe next table computer files byemail(viaPhiladelphia,Thailand,Australiaandmore)inseconds—which for someone like me ofthecarbonpapergenerationwasa magical experience—broughtthatproblemundercontrol.BH: Inadditiontomygeneralvol-unteerduties,IwastheinstructorforPublicCommunication,basedonmycareerbackgroundinmar-ketingandcorporatecommunica-tions. Not only did I teach basicconcepts, but I worked with theMMAPteamtocreateandprepareMMAPexhibitsforLuangPrabangand Vientiane National Museum.Occasionallytherewasadayoff…

EH: Onehighlightofmyoff-timewas theelephant-ridingtrip.Sev-eralofuswenttoanelephantres-cuecamp,whereelephantsretiredfrom logging work give rides toearntheirsugarcaneandvetcare.Wefirstrodeonaseatwithama-hout, feeling very imperial.Thenwe rode bare-back. Elephants, itturnsout,arebristlyandverytall,andtheydon’thavemuchtoholdonto.Theyswayastheywalk,andI felt certain my elephant wouldfalloffthenarrowpath.Werodethemintotheriverandscrubbedthemwithbrushes,theelephantshavingagreat timeduckingandtrying to have us float off theirnecks. Elephants have a greatsenseofhumor.Ha-ha.BH: We wrapped up this seasonwith an ambitious exhibit in Lu-ang Prabang that summarized5 years of MMAP work in Laos.Much prep work was involved,from class assignments on com-municating archaeology to thepublic, to evaluating what ap-pealed toLaoversuswesternau-diences, to massive translationsfor this bilingual exhibit. At the

“GrandOpening”onMarch12th,pottedplantsappearedtospruceuptheentrance,twoelaborately-dressedandmade-upyoungLaoladiesshowedupjusttoholdtheceremonial ribbon,anddignitar-iesgaveformalspeeches.Inaddi-tion,ahugecontingentofschoolchildrencameandwerefascinat-edbytheexhibit,aswellasafewwesternerswhoweredrawnbythebannerpostednearby.Foodandwinewereenjoyedbyall,andLaodancing wrapped up the day forthestragglersintotheevening.Itwas a very gratifying day for thewearyMMAPteam.JW: Aftertheformaltrainingsea-son,wespentafewdaysinVien-tiane. On one day, Elizabeth,Beth, and I, along with 27 staffmembers of the Lao NationalMuseum, tooka road tripacrosstheMekongintoThailandtovisitBan Chiang and its spectacularsitemuseum.Newbuildingsanddisplayshadbeenaddedsincemylastvisitafewyearsago.TheLaogot to see what an up-to-date ar-chaeologicalmuseumcouldlooklike,andIgottoseethat inonepartoftheMuseum,theSmithso-nianexhibitionIcurated27yearsago is still intact. The visit dem-onstrated how archaeology cantransformavillageintoathrivingtown.GuardsintheMuseumtoldme that they remembered mefromwhentheywerestudentsatthe primary school across frommyhousewhenIlivedinBanChi-angin1979-1981.Iaskedaretheyand the people of Ban Chiangnow happy? “Oh YES!!” was thereply.v

Beth Van Horn, Ban Chiang Volunteer

Trainee Phousavanh (Phou) Vorasing explains to Lao school children the shell key he developed for the MMAP 2009 analysis and exhibit.

phot

o by

Beth

Van

Hor

n

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ConferencesvInearlyJanuary,Joyceco-orga-nized and presented a paper attheworkshop:Dynamics of Human Diversity in Mainland Southeast Asia in Siem Reap, Cambodia.Support came from a Wenner-GrenFoundationGrant.

vPublicationsJoyce C. White, Dating earlybronzeatBanChiang,Thailand.InPautreau,J.-P.,etal.,Eds.From Homo erectus to the living traditions: Chiang Mai, the 11th International Conference of the European Associa-tion of Southeast Asian Archaeolo-gists,pp.91-104,2008.

Joyce C. White and Stephen Lang,“The Asian Section”, in Arts of Asia, Vol. 38, No. 5, pp. 96-120,2008.

Joyce C. White,“Bronzeandrice:Digging in the Middle MekongBasin”,Current World Archaeology, No.30,pp.50-55,2008.

Yanik Ruiz-Ramón, “Trench Fe-ver:Writinghistoryfivecentime-tersatatime”,Penn Gazette,Vol.107,No.2,pp.14-15,2008.

OnlinevYanik has posted online twovideos taken from the MMAP2005 (footage taken by volun-teer Bill Henderson) and 2008(takenbyYanikandBill)seasons.Please enjoy this insider’s viewinto“A tasteofLuangPrabang”and “ThamVangTaLeow,Laosexcavation 2008,” both avail-ableonwww.youtube.com. Search“MMAPvideo.”

vPlease check out the search-able Metals database which canbe found at the Ban ChiangScholarly website: http://seasia.museum.upenn.edu/.AndournewFlickr address: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pennmuseum/page6/.

vAn article about The Middle Mekong Archaeological Project (MMAP)byJoyceetal. inAntiq-uity (2009) can be accessed on-line at http://antiquity.ac.uk/proj-gall/white/

vOther NewsJoycegavethetalk,“NewSurprisesfromBanChiang,Thailand,”fortheGreat Sites of the Ancient WorldlectureseriesatthePennMuseumonDe-cember3rd,2008.Thereweremorethan100attendeesatthisevent.

vSoi Eyre receivedapostdoctor-al fellowship from the AmericanCouncilofLearnedSocieties foraprojectentitled,“PrehistoricLo-cal Systems in Central Thailand:AnalysisofaCeramicSubregion--ItsStylisticPatternsandTechnolo-gy.”Shewillbedoingpetrograph-ic analysis on sherds collectedfrom her 2001-2002 PhD surveyandotherarchaeological sitesoftheChaoPhrayaRiverValley.

vThailand Archaeometallurgy Project (TAP) Awarded Ameri-can Philosophical Society (APS) Grant. Vincent Pigott and Oli Pryce, a recent Ph.D. from theInstitute of Archaeology, Univer-sity College London, have beenawardedanAPSgranttocontinuetheir investigation of prehistoric

copper smelting technology intheKhaoWongPrachanValleyincentralThailand.TheirTAPstudywillfocusonlabanalysisofsmelt-ingcruciblesfromthesiteofNilKham Haeng, which dates fromthe 1st millennium BC into theearlycenturiesAD.

In the LabvKatherine Arrell, University ofLeeds inGreatBritain, visited thelabtwiceinthefalltogooverMMAPGISwithJoyceandElizabeth.

vHelen Lewis, UniversityCollegeDublin Ireland, visited the labin December to work on MMAPpublicationsandthedatabase.

vOneofourlong-timevolunteers,Fred KeithpassedawayNovember2008.FredhadbeenavolunteerwiththeBanChiangProjectsince1994.Hewas thebestpot-recon-structerweeverhad.Whenevery-oneelsehadgivenuponapot,hefoundthepieces,didthegluing,andmadethestrutsthatputtheseseeminglyimpossiblybrokenpotsbacktogether. When there were no morepots to reconstruct, Fred workedonadatabaseofradiocarbondatesfromSoutheastAsia,withover800entries.Soonthisdatabasewillbeavailable online in our growingscholarly Southeast Asian Archae-ologydata-sharingwebsite.

vA bittersweet goodbye to ourwork-study student, Yanik Ruiz-Ramón. Yanik startedat theBanChiang Project in his freshmenyearatPenn.Hebeganasourbib-liographerbutsoonwasarchivingvideo footage from the MMAP2005season.Lastyear,Yanikwasable to travel with the team toLaosandmadehisownvideodoc-umentationoftheproject.HewillbespendingFall2009inMoroccostudyingArabicandthengraduat-ingintheSpringof2010.

vSave the date! On the eveningof November 4th, 2009, Joyceis speaking on the discovery ofAngkor.

notesLAB

Display case of BC artifacts and pots at the Great Sites of the Ancient World lecture series at the Penn Mu-seum. Photo by Ardeth Abrams

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FRIENDS of BAN CHIANG3260 South Street

Philadelphia, PA 19104-6324www.museum.upenn.edu/banchiang

in theBan Chiang Lab

N e wF a c e s

vHeather Saegerhasbeenwork-ing as a volunteer for the BanChiangProject sinceJune2008.HerfirsttaskwasorganizingtheBC offices with Sasha, but hermost important work has beenscanningandarchivingthethou-sands of slides, negatives, andphotosoftheBCProject.Heath-er also works at the Philadel-phia Museum of Art as a visualmerchandiser for theMuseum’ssevengiftshops.Sheisveryinter-estedinmuseumcollectionsandwillbeattendinggraduateschoolinthefallatGeorgeWashingtonUniversity. Her studies will in-clude museum collections man-agement and preventive conser-vation.

vStephanie White graduated inthe summer of 2008 with a BSc(Hons) in Archaeological Sci-ences from Bristol University(England).She spent tenweeks

helpingwiththedigitalarchivingof images from theBanChiangProject. This involved scanningslides and negatives of artifactsfrom the various excavationsat Ban Chiang, and compilingthe scanned images into a newdatabase. Upon her return toEnglandsheintendstoapplyforMastersprogramsinMuseology,andtolookforfurtheropportu-nitiestoworkinmuseums.

vConnie Ko is a freshman atPennandhasbeenawork-studystudentat theBanChiangProj-ect since September. She re-placed Sasha Renninger as theBan Chiang Project Bibliogra-pher. She enters new and looksup old resources on SoutheastAsia and compiles them in ourbibliographic database, accessi-bleathttp://seasia.museum.upenn.edu/.

vLevels of Giving:over $1000 Bronze Caster$500-999 Pottery Painter$100-499 Iron Smith$25-99 Stone Carver

vSend to:Friends of Ban ChiangUniversity of Pennsylvania Museumof Archaeology and Anthropology3260 South StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19104-6324

Renew or Join FOBC(Friends of Ban Chiang)

Enclosed is my tax deduc-table contribution of $ . I would like to renew my sup-port with a $ contribution.

please make checks payable to the TRUSTEES OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

I would like more informa-tion about the Ban Chiang Project.

I have changed my address. See new address above.

If you can’t make your contribution in U.S. dollars, please contact us!

ardeth@sas.upenn.edu

address

city,state,zip

name

e-mail

YOUr CONTrIbUTIONwill help us match the $300,000 Luce Grant

v v v v