Richard M. Leventhal

Founder and Executive Director of the Penn Cultural Heritage CenterProfessor, Department of AnthropologyCurator of the American Section, University of Pennsylvania Museum

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Richard M. Leventhal is Executive Director of the Penn Cultural Heritage Center of the Penn Museum as well as Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania. He serves as Curator in the American Section at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology where he formerly served as the Williams Director. Prior to coming to Penn, he was the President of the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico and the Director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. Leventhal received his PhD from Harvard University. He is one of the Directors of the Tihosuco Heritage Preservation and Community Development Project focused upon the 19th century Caste War rebellion in the Yucatan. He has written extensively about the ancient Maya and about cultural heritage preservation. 

Leventhal’s research interests include cultural heritage preservation and economic development, particularly the direct connection between local communities and heritage preservation and community development, along with implementation projects for heritage preservation and development in Mexico, Syria, Iraq, and other locations throughout the world.  He has an active field program in the Maya area within the Yucatan of Mexico called the Tihosuco Heritage Preservation and Community Development Project.  Other interests include museums and monuments in the 21st century, the archaeology of ancient Mesoamerica, and the intellectual history of American archaeology.