Fremont1

The Museum of Peoples and Cultures

BYU's Teaching Museum

The BYU Museum of Peoples and Cultures announces opening of a new exhibition, In Search of Relics: The Pectol-Lee Collection of Artifacts from Capitol Reef and announces the publication of its companion catalogue, "Relics Revisited: New Perspectives on an Early Twentieth-Century Collection."

The Pectol-Lee collection created a sensation among early twentieth-century archaeologists, yet the artifacts themselves have never been fully published or researched for exhibit since their discovery so long ago. The exhibition and catalogue present findings of the Museum's research on this collection, providing an in-depth look at a one-of-a-kind Fremont cradle board and figurine, an intriguing deer headdress that may have been warn by a shaman, well preserved basketry in the collection and more.

The exhibition and catalogue will be celebrated at a public reception held on February 28th at the Museum from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Call 378-6112 for more information.

Press Release

The Museum of Peoples and Cultures

BYU's Teaching Museum

The Pectol-Lee collection is an intriguing assemblage of Fremont, Anasazi, and Late Prehistoric artifacts amassed primarily by Ephraim Pectol and Charles Lee, both early settlers and colonizers in the area of Torrey, Wayne County, Utah. Searching for "relics" among the rock shelters near their homes in the Capitol Reef region, the Pectols and Lees found some of the most fascinating artifacts ever recovered in Utah. Among the most celebrated artifacts are a one-of-a-kind Fremont cradle board and figurine, and a deer headdress that may have been worn by a shaman.

Although portions of the collection have been exhibited for many years at Capitol Reef National Park, the collection is privately owned and has been little studied in light of the modern scientific methods and theories. The exhibition and catalogue present the first, complete, detailed publication of these materials together with radiocarbon dates and scientific analyses that shed new light on the artifacts and their significance.

Catalogue articles review the history of the collection and the prehistory of the Capitol Reef region and provide an in-depth look at the cradle board, the deer headdress, and the well preserved basketry of the collection. A complete photographic and textual catalogue of the Pectol-Lee collection concludes the work.

The exhibition and catalogue will be celebrated at a public reception in the Museum on February 28, 2002 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. The Museum is located on the corner of 700 North and 100 East in Provo. Call 378-6112 for more information.

The Museum is grateful to the E. P. and Dorothy Hickman Pectol Family Organization for generously lending the Pectol-Lee Collection to the Museum for research, publication and exhibit. This exhibition and catalogue were funded in part by the BYU Office of Research and Creative Activities and the Utah Office of Museum Services.

Note: The Pectol-Lee Collection is no longer on display at Brigham Young University. Since February 2005 it is on display at the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum. Click here for more information.

For more information on the Pectol-Lee Collection, click here.

To learn more about Ephraim and Dorothy, click here and here.

To return to the Hickman Family Index page, click here.