A Torah believed to be of Yemenite origin and 350 years old, is on display at the Kelso Museum, part of the Presbyterian Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. (Photo provided by Karen Bowden Cooper)
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For those with an interest in Near Eastern archaeology, a trip to the neighborhood of East Liberty may be in order to unearth the hidden gem that is the Kelso Museum of Near Eastern Archaeology.
Signage is scarce, so if you don’t know the museum is there you will miss it. But tucked away on the lower level of the Presbyterian Pittsburgh Theological Seminary is a noteworthy collection of artifacts from ancient Israel and Jordan dating back to the Early Bronze Age, as well as photographs and films of archaeological expeditions of the early 20th century.
The Kelso Museum in its current incarnation — two moderately sized rooms and a workshop — opened in 2000, but its roots go back to 1924. That’s when Melvin Grove Kyle, president of one of PTS’s predecessor institutions, Xenia Seminary, and W.F. Albright, arguably the leading biblical archaeologist of his generation, organized a survey of the Dead Sea Plain in search of Sodom and Gomorrah.