Artifacts - Collections - Milwaukee Public Museum

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Aztalan Collection: Aztalan is the largest and most significant archaeological site in the State of Wisconsin. Located on the Crawfish River in south-central Wisconsin, it is near the town of Lake Mills, about fifty miles west of the City of Milwaukee.

Bandolier Bag Collection: Bandolier bags are large, heavily beaded pouches with a slit at the top. They have a beaded strap worn diagonally over the shoulder, thus resting the bag at hip level. The design is created using glass beads, a European trade good that replaced the traditional porcupine quills. The bags themselves are typically constructed from trade cloth, such as cotton, wool, velvet, or leather.

Cudahy-Massee Expedition: The Cudahy-Massee Expedition was the brainchild of Milwaukee Public Museum director, Dr. Samuel A. Barrett. Barrett wished to broaden the museum's collections and help foster understanding about life in, what was at the time, British East Africa.

Iranian Ceramics: The Iranian collection at the Milwaukee Public Museum consists of over 300 artifacts spanning more than 6,000 years of history, from the fourth millennium B.C. to the early 19th century.

Mambilla Collections: The Mambila (Mambilla) are an agricultural people living on a plateau straddling the Cameroon/Nigerian border in Africa. The Milwaukee Public Museum is proud to be the caretaker for the Mambila collection, the largest outside of West Africa.

Sumner W. Matteson Collection: From 1898 to 1908 Matteson crisscrossed North America taking photographs. Primarily a photojournalist, Matteson charmed his way into other people's work places and social celebrations. He photographed the elusive Ute Indians, the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, and the life and rites of Pueblo Indians in New Mexico and Arizona. In Mexico he photographed old churches, Peons, ruins, and fiestas. He toured the Pacific Coast from San Francisco north to Seattle and Vancouver photographing fishermen and loggers.

The Lacandon Collection: The Lacandon are an indigenous Maya-speaking people, numbering between 300 and 500 individuals, who live in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The Milwaukee Public Museum has a representative collection of Lacandon material culture totaling 113 objects and numerous photographs. Peter Thornquist collected the majority of the artifacts while visiting a Lacandon village in Metzabok, Mexico in 1979.

The Ledger Art Collection: Plains ledger art was a means of historical representation for the Indian peoples of the Great Plains during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although the Plains Indians had no written language, they did have a long tradition of preserving oral histories pictorially.