* Monday through Saturday: 9:00 am to 5:00 pm
* Sunday: 1:00 to 5:00 pm

The Museum is CLOSED:

* New Year's Day
* Easter Sunday
* Memorial Day
* Fourth of July
* Labor Day
* Thanksgiving Day
* Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

The McClung Museum is a general museum with collections in anthropology, archaeology, decorative arts, local history, and natural history. The exhibits document ways of life, cultural trends, and technologies from prehistoric times to the present day, and showcase much of Tennessee's past -- its geology, history, art, and culture. The McClung Museum is a special place -- a place of discovery, a place to learn about the world around us.

As a part of the University of Tennessee, the Museum supports and participates in the University's mission to serve the state, region, and nation through scholarship, teaching, artistic creation, professional practice, and public service.

The professionalism and high caliber of the Museum are reflected in its accreditation by the American Association of Museums. In fact, the McClung Museum is one of only 12 museums in Tennessee to be so recognized.

I invite you to visit the Museum and to enjoy the many experiences we offer. As Lewis, a 4th grader, wrote to us: "It is the best museum in the world."

Exhibition
SHELLS: GEMS OF THE SEA
June 5-September 5, 2010

The Frank H. McClung Museum is pleased to present an exhibition of shells from the collection of Dr. Peter Stimpson .  Featured will be marine shells from around the world – big shells, tiny shells, delicate shells, rare and unusual shells, beautiful and colorful shells.  In addition to appreciating the inherent beauty of the various shells, the visitor will learn about the biology of mollusks and some of the uses that humans have made of shells.

Robert Louis Stevenson said: “It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells that to be born a millionaire.”  Collecting shells has been a pastime of many, young and old, for centuries.  It is only when collecting becomes a passion rather that a pastime that the finest examples are sought, and the subject researched in detail.  Such is the case with this collection.  Knoxville area physician, Dr. Peter Stimpson, has assembled one of the country’s finest collections of marine shells that includes over 1,000 species listed in The Registry of World Record Size Shells.  In his collecting, he has focused on six families of mollusks: cowries, cones, conchs, harps, volutes, and olives.  Within each of these families are incredible arrays of colors, shapes, and sizes-true gems of the sea.

Shells delight and fascinate us in the visual combination of shape and color.  Smooth or textured, symmetrical or not, single-hued or bearing the most complex and astounding patterns of markings, shells treat us to a remarkable display of nature’s art.  Nowhere is the variety of complex patterns more evident than in the family of cones.  Bands, zigzags, spots, and dots combine and recombine, not randomly, but according to a plan know to each species.

Also “showcased” are wonderful examples of mollusks.  Most, but not all, mollusks have shells.  The two largest classes are the gastropods, single-shelled animals and the bivalves, which have two shells.  While the exhibition focuses on gastropods, a few interesting bivalves are also displayed.

The exhibit also shows how people have used shells for thousands of years.  Mollusks have always been a major food source and still are, especially in communities adjacent to the ocean.  The beauty of shells also appealed to early people, and were collected and transformed into ornaments for personal decoration and embellishment of clothing and other objects.  In prehistoric times, shells were traded far from their place of origin, often becoming symbols of wealth and status.

This exhibit will give all the chance to learn about shells, enjoy their beauty, and see a variety seldom seen in one exhibition.

Sponsors for the exhibit are Henley and Peggy Tate Museum Fund.