California

Badè Archaeological Museum, Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, CA. The core of the collection is from the excavations of Tell en-Nasbeh (biblical Mizpah) by William F. Badè in the 1920s-30s. A digital catalog is also available.

El Camino College Anthropology Museum, Torrance, CA. The Eastern Mediterranean in Antiquity includes artifacts from several sites in Israel, including material from Hebron now on loan from USC. The exhibit features objects from the Gobekli Temple, Egypt, Canaan, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Islamic world.

Getty Villa, Malibu, CA. This collection of Greek and Roman antiquities is organized by themes, including deities, the theater, and the Trojan War.

Loyola Marymount University’s Center for Archaeology, Los Angeles, CA. The Archaeological Collection is comprised of two parts. The sherd collection includes thousands of diagnostic potsherds from the Neolithic to the Islamic periods. The display collection includes Chalcolithic material from Tuleilat Ghassul, Early Bronze pottery from a tomb, Egyptian scarabs, a large collection of Roman-Byzantine pottery, and more.

Passages, Santa Clarita, CA. This traveling museum is geared for the family and features cuneiform tablets, Dead Sea Scroll replicas and fragments, many rare Bibles, a replica of the Gutenberg press, and much more. This exhibit will become part of the Museum of the Bible, slated to open in Washington DC in 2017.

Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, CA. The largest collection of artifacts in California (nearly 4 million) includes objects from Egypt, the Near East, and the Mediterranean world. More than 210,000 objects are included in the online database. The museum is closed for renovation until the fall of 2014.

Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, San Jose, CA. More than 4,000 objects from Egypt are on display in a building architecturally inspired by the Karnak temple. An mp3 audio tour is available for download.

Woodland Museum of Biblical Archaeology, Woodland, CA. A ministry of Woodland United Fellowship, the goal of the museum is to help others find truth and freedom in Jesus Christ.

Connecticut

Yale Babylonian Collection, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. With more than 45,000 artifacts, the museum houses the largest collection of documents, seals, and other artifacts from ancient Mesopotamia in the United States. Displays are normally open to the public 2-5 weekdays, September through July. Visitors will need to secure a visitor’s pass.

Yale Egyptian Collections, Yale University Art Gallery and Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, New Haven, CT. The collection includes more than 5,000 objects from Egypt and Nubia, dating from prehistory through late antiquity.

Georgia

Explorations in Antiquity Center, LaGrange, GA. Founded by James Fleming, this teaching center specializes in daily life in Bible times. Numerous reconstructions provide the visitor with an authentic experience of the ancient world. The Biblical Life Artifacts Gallery has recently been constructed and will soon be filled with artifacts on long-term loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta, GA. The Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern Art collection includes what may be the mummy of pharaoh Ramesses I. The museum also has a collection of Greek and Roman Art. Over 1,000 high resolution images of works of art in the museum’s collections are available online.

Illinois

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. The collection of the Art Institute’s Department of Ancient and Byzantine Art spans nearly 4,000 years and is comprised of significant artworks from ancient Near Eastern, Byzantine, Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, and Roman cultures.

The Field Museum, Chicago, IL. The museum has one of the largest collections of Egyptian mummies found in the U.S. The exhibit includes a three-story recreation of a mastaba tomb, as well as a marketplace filled with artifacts relating to everyday life in Egypt.

Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL. The museum’s collections include objects from the Ancient Mediterranean.

Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL. One of the best of its kind in the country, this museum displays objects recovered by Oriental Institute excavations in permanent galleries devoted to ancient Egypt, Nubia, Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Anatolia, and the ancient site of Megiddo, as well as rotating special exhibits.

Spurlock Museum, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL. The museum has a collection of 368 carved and incised Neolithic figurines from Greece, Turkey, and Serbia, as well as 1,750Sumerian and Babylonian cuneiform tablets from Babylonia, Uruk, Umma, and other Mesopotamian sites.

Wheaton College Archaeology Museum, Wheaton, IL. The collection is built around the finds from Joseph Free’s excavations at Tell Dothan and is supplemented with objects from Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia. Museum visits are by appointment only.

Kentucky

Joseph Callaway Museum of Biblical Archaeology, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY. Recently closed. A few artifacts are on display in the library.

Louisiana

Bible Lands Museum, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, New Orleans, LA. The collection includes artifacts in the following displays: Daily Life in Biblical Times, World of Abraham/Patriarchs, World of the Israelite Monarchies, Archaeological Method, Archaeology of Religion, The Earliest Evidence of Writing.

Maryland

The Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum, Baltimore, MD. Glass cases highlight Latin inscriptions and objects from ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and the Near East. Drawers contain cuneiform tablets and texts, Egyptian shabtis, ancient and Islamic glass, Hellenistic lamps and Roman stamped bricks.

The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD. The museum’s Ancient Egypt and Nubia collectionfeatures two monumental 3,000-pound statues of the goddess Sekhmet, sarcophagi, an intact mummy, as well as statuary, reliefs, stelae, funerary objects, jewelry and objects from daily life. Separate collections include objects from the Ancient Near East and Ancient Greece.

Massachusetts

Harvard Semitic Museum, Cambridge, MA. This museum features a life-size reconstruction of an Israelite four-room house as well as exhibits from Nuzi, Egypt, and Cyprus.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA. More than 83,000 works of art from Egypt, Nubia, the Near East, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, and Anatolia are on display in the Art of the Ancient World collection.

Michigan

Siegfried H. Horn Museum, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI. The collection of 8,500 objects from the ancient Near East are in storage while a new exhibit is constructed. A small display is open to the public on Saturdays, 3-5 pm, during the school year.

Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. The museum houses large collections of Parthian pottery, Latin inscriptions, Byzantine and Islamic textiles, glass vessels, ancient coins, and Greco-Roman objects from the Egyptian town of Karanis.

Mississippi

The University of Mississippi Museum, Oxford, MS. Founded with the personal collection of Professor David M. Robinson, the museum includes Greek and Roman sculpture, art, pottery, inscriptions, and coins. A small collection of Egyptian artifacts was purchased from the Met.

New Mexico

Museum of Archaeology and Biblical History, Trinity Southwest University, Albuquerque, NM. Features artifacts from Israel and Jordan from the Chalcolithic through Byzantine periods.

New York

Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY. Long-term exhibits include Egyptian mummies and “body parts,” Assyrian reliefs, and Islamic art.

Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY. The history of glass through 3,500 years is told through exhibits on glassmaking, Roman glass, Islamic glass, and more.

Jewish Museum, New York, NY. The Archaeology Zone puts children in the role of archaeologists, and the Culture and Continuity exhibition presents Jewish history through the last 3,000 years.

Living Torah Museum, Brooklyn, NY. This Orthodox Jewish museum located in a private home includes 900 artifacts related to understanding the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. One of the premiere museums in the US, the Met includes 7 galleries of Ancient Near Eastern Art, 39 galleries of Egyptian Art, 27 galleries of Greek and Roman Art, and much more.

Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY. The Ancient Near Eastern Seals & Tablets collection is one of the best of its kind in the world.

North Carolina

Ackland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC. While Greco-Roman works are the focus of the Ancient Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Art display, artifacts from Egypt, Iran, and western Asia are also on display.

North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC. The strength of the Egyptian collection is funerary material including mummy cases. The Classical collection shows the development of art from Greece and Rome from the Cycladic through the 4th century AD.

Ohio

Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH. The Ancient Art exhibit predominantly focuses on works from Greece, Egypt, and Rome, but it includes a smaller number of objects from Hittite, Sumerian, Persian, Etruscan, Phoenician and Cypriot cultures. Admission is free.

Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH. The Ancient Near East, Greek, and Roman Art collection is a small but distinguished part of this art museum.

Oklahoma

Armstrong College, Edmond, OK. A temporary exhibit of “Seals of Jeremiah’s Captors Discovered” displays seals of figures mentioned in the book of Jeremiah and recently discovered in Jerusalem’s City of David.

Oregon

Prewitt-Allen Archaeological Museum, Corban University, Salem, OR. This museum displays more than 900 artifacts from Egypt, Greece, and the Middle East.

Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, PA. One of the most impressive museums of artifacts related to the biblical world, this museum houses 30,000 clay tablets, 42,000 Egyptian and Nubian artifacts, 34,000 objects from the Mediterranean world, and additional collections from Syria-Palestine, Iran, and the Islamic world.

The Alan and Muriel Pense Biblical Archaeology Museum, Evangelical Seminary, Myerstown, PA. Nearly 500 artifacts are on display from Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Phoenicia, Assyria, Babylonia, Sumer, Persia, Cyprus, Asia Minor, Crete, Greece, and Italy. The museum is open Monday through Thursday 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. More info here.

Kelso Bible Lands Museum, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, PA. Current exhibits include: “Towns and Tombs: The Dead Sea Plain in the Early Bronze Age,” “Every Day in the Land Between, 2000 BCE – 1000 CE,” “Worlds Made Visible,” and “A Photographic Memory: Ninety Years of Archaeology at PTS.” Requests for tours by groups are welcomed.

Gannon University Archaeology Museum Gallery, Erie, PA. The focus of this new museum is artifacts from Khirbet Iskander, Jordan. An official website for the museum is not yet available.

Bible History Exhibits, Ronks, PA. This museum includes replicas of the key archaeological finds related to the Bible as well as some artifacts and an archaeological dig-for-a-day experience.

Tennessee

Art Museum of the University of Memphis, Memphis, TN. The collection of the University of Memphis’ Institute of Egyptian Art & Archaeology is housed in the university’s art museum. It spans the entire range of ancient Egyptian history and prehistory (ca. 100,000 BC through 700 AD) and includes over 1,400 objects, including mummies, religious and funerary items, jewelry, sculpture, and objects from everyday life.

Lynn H. Wood Archaeological Museum, Southern Adventist University, Collegedale, TN. This is the home of the William G. Dever Near Eastern Collection which has on display more than two hundred objects from Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Syria-Palestine, Greece, Cyprus, and Anatolia. Highlights of the exhibit include an ancient Babylonian brick stamped with Nebuchadnezzar’s name, a complete series of lamps from the Chalcolithic to the early Arabic periods, a rare Syrian clay model of a chariot complete with wheels, handwritten cuneiform tablets from the ancient Ur, and a series of Syrian toggle pins from the Middle Bronze Age.

Museum of Biblical History, Collierville, TN. The museum exists to present to the public, especially young people, the historical and cultural context of the Bible the living word of God. The exhibit features replicas of significant artifacts from the British Museum and the Louvre including: the Assyrian Flood tablet, the Moabite Stone (Mesha Stela), a relief panel from the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, the Taylor Prism (Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah), the Babylonian Chronicle, the Cyrus Cylinder, and the the Rosetta Stone.

Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery, Nashville, TN. The collection includes works of art from Egypt, Etruria, and Greece.

Texas

Dunham Bible Museum, Houston Baptist University, Houston, TX. A large collection of rare Bibles is supplemented with special exhibits, including for 2014 “Khirbet el-Maqatir: History of a Biblical Site.” Khirbet el-Maqatir is a site believed by some to be biblical Ai.

The Museum of Biblical Art, Dallas, TX. The recently opened Charles C. Ryrie Library includes one of the best collections of Bibles in the world, including the Wycliffe New Testament (1430), Tyndale’s Pentateuch (1530), Bomberg’s Biblia Hebraica (1521), the Complutensian Polyglot (1520), and the “Wicked Bible” (1631).

Naranjo Museum of Natural History, Lufkin, TX. A back-room gallery contains artifacts from the biblical world.

Tandy Archaeological Museum, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, TX. The focus of this small collection comes from the seminary’s excavations at Tel Batash, biblical Timnah, in the Shephelah of Judah.

Washington, DC

National Museum of Natural History and Freer and Sackler Galleries (aka National Museum of Asian Art), Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. The Natural History Museum includes a gallery of Egyptian mummies. (In the past, one was able to view artifacts from Nelson Glueck’s excavations at Tell el-Kheleifeh, including a ring-seal of Jotham, but we are not able to confirm that these items are on display at this time.) The Freer and Sackler Galleries include collections of Ancient Egyptian Art, Ancient Near Eastern Art, and Biblical Manuscripts.

Notes

We want to thank A.D. Riddle for his help in compiling this list. We also thank those who provided suggestions, including Gordon Franz, Ferrell Jenkins, Brenda Duff, G. M. Grena, John Pleasnick, Scott Ashley, Christopher Jones, and Darrell Beddoe.

Please send any suggestions or corrections to Todd Bolen. Suggestions are also welcomed for a forthcoming list of Bible Parks in the US, including tabernacle replicas and the Holy Land Experience.

Last updated: December 12, 2015