George Washington As A Black Perspective

Exhibit at Penn museum of objects excavated from 9/11 site

A pair of wire-rimmed glasses, split at the bridge.

These are some of the pieces included in the new exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, "Excavating Ground Zero: Fragments from 9/11," a collection of objects recovered from the World Trade Center site since the 2001 attacks.

The show, which runs through Nov. 6, will be bolstered by two special commemorative programs Sunday: a lecture about the architectural history of the twin towers and a unique theatrical performance called Cato: 9/11

The objects, which include a loudspeaker, glass ornaments, and a stairway sign, are on loan from the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York.

They raise a host of questions.

One piece, a melted computer keyboard, has been rendered almost beautiful by the heat - as high as 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit - which engulfed the Twin Towers. It's a surreal mille-feuille pastry, layer upon layer of black, gray, copper, and aqua-blue plastic curling around each other like frozen waves.

Is it beautiful? Are we allowed to find it poetic?

Yes, if we keep in mind that each piece represents a fragment of someone's life, says Kate Quinn, the museum's head of exhibits.

"And all these . . . will be the objects of daily life, which tell the story of the people who were there, hundreds of years from now," she says.

Each piece has been on a strange journey, Quinn says. First, "it went directly to the medical examiner's office" and then to the police, who "tried their best to try to find the original owners or next of kin."

In 2006, archaeologists began cataloging the objects for further study.

"What we are getting at," Quinn says, "is that archaeology pulls together lost moments of time and that archaeology defines history."

Jean Byrne, who helps run the museum's education programs, says the challenge of such an exhibition is to show that archaeology, which usually deals with ancient cultures, can bring a unique perspective to an event that is only a decade old.