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Paper Maché Figurine (Alebrijes). Linares Family, Mexico.

Camel Cover. Uzbekistan.

Nutting Stone. Native American, North Carolina.

Girls' Day Set. Japan.

Explore Global Cultures

Discover North Carolina’s only museum dedicated to the study of global cultures. Explore stories of humanity, from ancient archaeological sties to the celebrations and struggles of today. Learn about people from around the world through their everyday objects, ceremonial artifacts, and visual arts.

We hope that you’ll check out our exhibits and events, and plan your visit to see everything we have on display for yourself.

News

New Name, New Look

August 12, 2021

The Museum staff is very excited to formally introduce our new name and logo. The logo of the... Read More »

MOA Receives Naming Gift

May 11, 2021

In 2012, Wake Forest alumnus Timothy S. Y. Lam (’60) donated his collection of more than 500... Read More »

MOA Artifacts Inspire Upcoming WFU Hackathon

February 18, 2021

In 2005, hundreds of earthenware pots and other pre-Columbian artifacts from ancient West Mexico... Read More »

Events

Archaeology of the Oyo Empire and Materiality of Atlantic Modernity (West Africa)

November 9, 6pm

Museum Closed for Thanksgiving

November 24 - 28

Museum Closed for Winter Break

December 11 - January 3

See All

tripod bowl

Artifact of the Month

Each month we select a different artifact in the museum to highlight. See what we’ve picked for this month!

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Oct 26

Open

WFU students in Biology 105: Plants and People had the opportunity to work with our collection of bark cloth from around the world in class today. 🌳 🌴 So fun!

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Oct 21

Open

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Oct 19

Open

We're excited to have a new display of WFU student artwork up outside of our education room! Students in Prof. Leigh Ann Hallberg's Art 211 and 221 classes drew artifacts in the Museum's collections for a class project. 🎨 @wfuart

#lammuseum #wakethearts #wfu

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Oct 15

Open

For the final day of #HispanicHeritageMonth, our latest #CulturesUpClose post will show you how to make a simple Day of the Dead mask! 💀 Check out the Cultures Up Close link in our bio.

#lammuseum
#wakethearts
#MuseumFromHome #DayoftheDead #DiaDeMuertos #DiaDeLosMuertos

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Oct 14

Open

Our Assistant Director, Sara Cromwell, will be the speaker for the @mountairymuseum 's History Talk this Sunday. Come learn about the Day of the Dead!

#lammuseum #mountairymuseumofregionalhistory #DayoftheDead #DiaDeLosMuertos #DiaDeMuertos

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Oct 11

Open

Today is #IndigenousPeoplesDay. As part of our annual recognition, David Anderson, the Horticulture Operations Supervisor for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, will speak at the Museum at 6pm tonight about "Putting Culture Back Into Agriculture." We hope to see you here!

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Oct 8

Open

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Oct 6

Open

The Tohi Garden Tour portion of our #IndigenousPeoplesDay event is now sold out! We hope you'll still be able to join us for David Anderson's lecture at 6pm at the Museum. See all the details via the Events 🔗 in our bio.

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Oct 1

Open

Happy October! For #HispanicHeritageMonth, our #ArtifactOfTheMonth is a Chupícuaro Tripod Bowl.

Chupícuaro is a late Pre-Classic archaeological culture located in west central Mexico. It is best known for its bold polychrome ceramics like this tripod bowl, which dates to between 300 BCE and 400 CE. Chupícuaro pieces take a variety of forms including hollow figures, jars, bowls, and the characteristic “spider-leg” tripod, with long, thin legs, seen here. The vessels are made of a brown clay, which was moderately fired and then burnished. Most designs are geometric and are categorized by archaeologists into a number of color schemes. This bowl is an example of “Red on Buff,” where the buff background is the natural color of the clay.

The Chupícuaro culture is part of a larger designation called the West Mexican Shaft Tomb Tradition. This tradition ties together disparate cultural groups with a common practice of burying their dead in shaft tombs, subsurface burial chambers cut into the ground that are accessed by a vertical shaft. These burial chambers often hold a variety of grave goods including numerous ceramic vessels containing food and drink offerings to the dead. Bowls like this one would have held food for the deceased.

West Mexican Shaft Tomb ceramics are popular with collectors and are often reproduced with the intent of passing off high-quality forgeries as authentic. Some fakes have even made their way into museum collections. Real West Mexican Shaft Tomb ceramics have dark, lustrous, and blotchy stains on their surface resulting from necrophilous insects that fed on the dead bodies in the shaft tomb, as well as from bacteria that grew on the ceramics. On this piece, you can see the small dark blotches on the underside of the bowl, showing that it came from a gravesite.

This bowl is currently on display in Culture at Stake, where you can learn about its connection to unethical collecting, the consequences of looting, and what is being done to connect it with other stakeholders.

#lammuseum #wakethearts #Mexico #ceramics

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Timothy S. Y. Lam Museum of Anthropology

The Museum is open to the public Tues.–Sat., 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
Special arrangements can be made for groups and events.
Admission is free. Donations are gratefully accepted.

336.758.5282
lammuseum@wfu.edu

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Timothy S. Y. Lam Museum of Anthropology

Explore Global Cultures

News

New Name, New Look

MOA Receives Naming Gift

MOA Artifacts Inspire Upcoming WFU Hackathon

Events

Artifact of the Month

lammuseum

Lam Museum E-Newsletter

Timothy S. Y. Lam Museum of Anthropology

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