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The collections of the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology are vast and diverse. The number of catalogue entries for all the Museum's collection is about 634,000 items. Because numerous entries contain multiple object listings, however, the number of objects in the collections has been estimated to be about 3.8 million.
Yet until the catalogue records are fully computerized, it is difficult to present a complete and accurate summary. Until then, we offer this listing of what we feel to be some of our most important collections. The collections are presented here by "accession," a group of objects that came into the museum from a single source at a given time. This list contains approximately 1700 entries, out of a total of 4,500 accessions that have been designated since the museum's founding in 1901.
The entries are grouped by the museum's combination of collection classifications: geographical region, disciplinary specialty ("ethnology," objects collected from living or historic peoples, or "archaeology," objects generally obtained from excavations), or recording medium (such as film, still photography, or sound tape). Within each section, the entries are ordered by the date that the collection entered the museum. While this date is almost always known, we may not necessarily know the year that the objects were collected or made. Countries and cultures are presented in a condensed form, starting with the country, then the region or state, and with the culture or archaeological site given in parenthesis; for example, "United States: California (Sierra Miwok, Tachi Yokuts, Mono)." For the media collections, the creator is the painter, photographer, or performer. Some accessions, which contain more than one kind of material, are listed twice.
This summary is thus intentionally selective. It was compiled by reviewing scholarly publications, exhibition catalogues, annual reports, and various catalogue records. Because of the nature of these sources, entries for the more recent years tend to be more inclusive. We have provided as much information as was readily available. The term "unspecified" generally indicates that this particular data was not listed in museum records, although it may be possible to reconstruct it with further investigation.
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