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Elyse Richardson, left, a fourth-year student of classics and art history at ���˴�Ƭ, and Barbara Reeves, an associate professor and an archeologist in the classics department at Queen's with a poster highlighting a former archeological museum on the Queen's campus. (Supplied Photo)

A forgotten museum highlighting objects collected from excavations in ancient Jericho and Dhiban and briefly set up at Queen’s University in the 1950s has made a return, if only virtually, to the university.

The Museum of Near Eastern Archaeology opened in October 1954 in the Old Arts Building, now known as Queen’s Theological Hall, but only lasted for a little more over a year.

The project to bring the display back to Queen’s was led by Barbara Reeves, an associate professor and an archeologist in the classics department at Queen’s, and Elyse Richardson, a fourth-year student of classics and art history who was researching the forgotten museum.

“Our goal in creating this virtual museum was twofold: First we wanted to share the fascinating story that we had uncovered about this now forgotten museum; second we wanted to fulfil the museum’s original goal as an educational resource for exploring the cultural heritage of the ancient Near East,” Reeves said in an email.

According to the Queen’s Journal from the time, the museum contained materials from countries that cluster on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea with the largest number of items discovered from archeological digs conducted in Palestine.

Queen’s professor A. Douglas Tushingham was behind the creation of the museum, and most of the materials collected were from archeological digs that Tushingham participated in with his wife, Margaret, also an archeologist, and others in the early 1950s.

Tushingham, a biblical archeologist and scholar of Old Testament criticism, thought the museum items could be used in biblical study classes.

The 20 artifacts on display at the museum and now available to view online include a 7,000-year-old plastered human skull, a polishing stone, juglets, bowls, assorted beads and other assorted items from that era.

Tushingham left Queen’s about a year after opening the museum to accept the position of head of the Royal Ontario Museum’s Division of Art and Archaeology and was able to take the items with him where most remain to this day.

Reeves said the idea for the virtual museum was hatched well before the COVID-19 pandemic and self-isolating at home became the new normal.

“When we began designing this exhibit in January, we never could have anticipated the extent to which people isolating at home would embrace virtual exhibits for educational and entertainment purposes,” she said.

“As an archeologist who works in the Near East myself, this is a resource I intend to use both in teaching and in developing research projects for future students.”

The items can be viewed online at .

imacalpine@postmedia.com

Note: This article originally appeared in the .