Antiquities Exhibits

The Neoclassical Gaze: Myth and Reality of Ancient Sculpture. Through March 8, 2019 at the Martin Museum of Art, Baylor University, Waco, Texas. This exhibition features Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker’s Augusteum (1804-1811), a three-volume publication of engravings illustrating ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. These engravings will be displayed alongside plaster cast reproductions of ancient sculpture on loan from the Blanton Museum  of Art, The University of Texas at Austin. These compelling works will be examined from the perspectives of both the ancient world, as well as that of the Neoclassical Revival at the turn of the nineteenth century, Image courtesy of the Martin Museum of Art.

Art from the Chalcolithic to the Byzantine Period. Ongoing. At the Hecht Museum of the University of Haifa in Haifa, Israel.  The Hecht Museum's collections from the Chalcolithic period to the Byzantine period include coins, weights, Semitic seals, jewelry, artifacts from the Temple Mount excavations, Phoenician metalworking, woodworking, stone vessels, glass making, and mosaics. The museum is also home to the Ma'agan Michael Ship, the wreck of a fifth-century BCE merchantman. Image: Figurine of the Phoenician goddess Tanit. She was equivalent to the moon-goddess Astarte, and later worshipped in Roman Carthage in her Romanized form as Dea Caelestis, Juno Caelestis, or simply Caelestis.  Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Hanay.

Mosaic Arts International 2019 Fine Art Juried Exhibition and One Hundred Moments in Mosiac. Through May 19, 2019 at The Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee. Originally built for Tennessee's 1897 Centennial Exposition, Nashville's replica of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece serves as a monument to what is considered the pinnacle of classical architecture. The plaster replicas of the Parthenon Marbles found in the Naos are direct ca sts of the original sculptures, which adorned the pediments of the Athenian Parthenon dating back to 438 B.C. The Parthenon also serves as Nashville's art museum and now displays two exhibits of mosaic works from contemporary artists using techniques dating back to the 3rd millennium BCE. Image: A gilded and brightly painted Athena towers above visitors to Nashville, Tennessee's replica of The Parthenon. Note: I really enjoyed exploring Nashville's Parthenon replica many years ago when my husband and I stopped there on one of ...

The faces of the seven Britons, reconstructed from archaeological remains spanning 40,000 years, are on display at the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery in Brighton, England. Five of the seven individuals are true “locals,” forensically reconstructed from skulls excavated around Brighton in the southeastern county of Sussex. The most ancient natives are a Neanderthal woman and an early modern man. For full story see:   https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/01/facial-reconstruction-history-england-uk/

Kypriaka Chronika: Tales of Ancient Cypriote Ceramics in West Coast Collections. February 9 - April 28, 2019 at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. The exhibition features 26 ceramic vessels and figurines that date from the Early Bronze Age to Early Iron Age (ca. 2500 to 475 BCE). The exhibits include a bichrome ware horse and rider from the Cypro-Archaic Period from 700-600 BCE as a votive off ering for a tomb. Other animal forms produced during this period include bulls, birds, and fishes. Cypriot Bichrome ware is characterized by black and red lines defining geometric, floral or zoomorphic decorations. Examples of this pottery have been found all over the Levant but neutron activation analysis has shown the composition matched Cyprus-made pottery indicating its export to Palestine and other areas. Cypriot bichrome ware horse and rider 700-600 BCE. Image courtesy of the Hallie Ford Museum of Art in Salem, Oregon.

Cultural heritage of Urartu. Ongoing. At the History Museum of Armenia In Yerevan, Armenia. The museum's Urartian collection includes cuneiform inscriptions, bronze statuettes, wall-paintings, painted ceramics, arms, and weapons with sculptural ornamentation, excavated from the archaeological sites of Karmir Blur, Arin-Berd, and Argishtikhinili. The museum also houses a large collection of 3rd to 2nd millennia BCE bronze item s, wooden carts and chariots from the 15th-14th century BCE excavated from Lchashen, a collection of Miletian, Greek-Macedonian, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman, Sasanid, Byzantine, Arabic, and Seljuk gold, silver, and copper coins and 4th-5th century CE Christian finds from the cities of Dvin, Ani, and the fortress of Amberd. Urartian Shield of Sarduri II 753-735 BCE. Image courtesy of Wikimedia contributor Evgeny Genkin.

Underworld: Imagining the Afterlife. Through March 18, 2019 at the Getty Villa in Malibu, California. Organized around a monumental funerary vessel on loan from National Archaeological Museum in Naples and recently conserved at the Getty Villa, this exhibition explores depictions of the Underworld in the art of Greece and southern Italy. The Underworld was a shadowy prospect for most ancient Greeks, characterized primarily by t he absence of life’s pleasures. Perpetual torment awaited only the most exceptional sinners, while just a select few—heroes related to the Olympian gods—enjoyed an eternal paradise. Initiation in the Eleusinian Mysteries, an annual festival in Greece, promised good fortune in both this world and the next. Outside of mainstream religious practice, devotion to the mythical singer Orpheus and the god Dionysos also offered paths to achieving a better lot after death. Beyond tales of famous wrongdoers and rulers of the dead, the objects on view highlight the desi...

The Roman past of Augusta Treverorum.  Ongoing.  At the Rheinische Landesmuseum in Trier, Germany.  The collection of this archaeological museum stretches from prehistory through the Roman period, the Middle Ages up to the Baroque era with a strong emphasis on the Roman past of Augusta Treverorum, Germany's oldest city. Its collections of (local) Roman sculptures, Roman mosaics and frescos are among the best in Germany. Reconstructed frescos are either from town houses or public buildings in Augusta Treverorum, or from villae rusticae in the vicinity. The museum also has a fine collection of Roman glass and the largest gold coin hoard ever found containing 2,650 aurei. Image: Mosaic floor depicting a chariot racer named "Polydus" from the Roman Imperial Baths in Trier 3rd century CE.  Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and the Rheinische Landesmuseum  Funerary stone monument found in Neumagen in the shape of a rowing ship for transport of wine barr...

Antiquities at the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio. The Toledo Museum of Art holds small but distinguished collections of Renaissance, Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Japanese art including a portrait bust of Gaius Julius Caesar believed to have been produced in the 1st century CE after his assassination. Its Egyptian objects include a beautifully preserved cartonnage mummy case from the Third Intermediate Period (943-716 BCE)  and a portrait head of Pharaoh Ahmose II from the Late Period, Dynasty 26, about 550 BCE. Portrait head of Gaius Julius Caesar believed to have been produced in 1 CE. Image courtesy of the Toledo Museum of Art.

Assyrian, Hittite and Phyrgian art. Ongoing. At the Kayseri Archaeological Museum in Kayseri, Turkey. Ceremonial jar in the shape of a Bull 1800 BCE Roman sarcophagus depicting the adventures of Heracles 2nd-3rd century CE Neo-Hittite Portal Lions 8th century BCE The archaeological site of Kültepe is just 14 miles southwest of Kayseri and so much of the archaeological museum's space is dedicated to artifacts recovered from the site. Kaneš, the ancient city at the heart of the Kültepe archaeological site, was inhabited continuously from the Chalcolithic to Roman times and flourished as  an important Hattian, Hittite and Hurrian city, containing a large kārum (merchant colony) of the Old Assyrian Empire from the 21st to 18th centuries BCE. Over 20,000 cuneiform tablets were recovered from the site and many of these as well as pitchers, vases, stamps, bowls, metalware and reliefs are displayed in the first hall of the museum. Phrygian ceramics are displayed in the...

Art of the Ancient World.  Ongoing.  At the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. This idealized female head, said to have been found at Memphis in Egypt, leaves it unclear who is represented. The flawless features and loosely fastened, undulating hair, are appropriate for a goddess such as Artemis or Aphrodite; the style may show the influence of Skopas, one of the leading Greek sculptors of the fourth century. Yet the head also bears a marked resemblance-especially the long, delicate nose-to portraits of Arsinoë II, queen of Egypt in the 270s B.C.; the ribbon in her hair could be a diadem, signature headgear of later Greek royalty. Image courtesy of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts is home to one of the world’s premiere encyclopedic collections of antiquities, featuring more than 85,000 works of art from Egypt, Nubia, the Near East, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, and Anatolia. These works range in date from about 6500 BCE to 600...

Sculptures that tell stories. March 10 through June 23, 2019 at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in Santa Barbara, California. The Lansdowne Hermes Roman first half of the 2nd century CE photographed at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in Santa Barbara, California. This presentation features over 50 objects from the permanent collection, many of which have yet to be exhibited. The selected works of art reveal the impressive historical and geographical breadth of the permanent collection, including Pre-Columbian, Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Greek & Roman, 11th- to 17 th-century Southeast Asian, Ancient to 13th-century Chinese, 19th-century African, and 19th- to 21st-century French, English, and American sculpture. An unorthodox juxtaposition of works from such a diverse array of cultures allows for a more global interpretive approach to these works of art. Because the installation is organized thematically (Dance and Music; The Human-Animal; Flight; The Head; The Body), rather...

Gallo-Roman archaeology. Ongoing at Musée Rolin in Autun in central France. The museum's collections include a large number of figurines, small bronzes and statuettes, including a group of two gladiators in the round. There are also ornaments (jewelry, brooches, pins), tools ( 1st to 4th century), jars and pottery. Most of these works and everyday objects date back to the city's founding in the 1st century by the Roman Emperor Augustus . A room is dedicated to funeral steles decorated with bas-reliefs bearing the image of the deceased. Mosaics complete the collection. Among items of arms and armor is this beautiful ceremonial helmet of hammered bronze. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

South Asian Art, Islamic Art and Antiquities. Ongoing. At the Cincinnati Art Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio. Mithraic Relief with Bull 150-200 CE. Courtesy of the Cincinnati Art Museum The Cincinnati Art Museum possesses a distinguished collection of ancient art from the Mediterranean region and the Near East. Spanning some four thousand years from the fourth millennium B.C.E. to the early centuries C.E. this notable collection features major examples of stone sculpture, decorated metalwork, painted wall c arvings and ceramic vessels from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome.

It looks like the Genghis Khan exhibit will be traveling from Mobile, Alabama to Bozeman, Montana in May! Maybe I'll get a chance to visit it there once the snow melts! I really enjoyed Bozeman when my husband and I stayed there just before exploring Yellowstone Park for the first time. The Real Genghis Khan. May 18 - September 29, 2019 at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana.  Mongol warriors.  Image courtesy of the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana. Experience li fe in 13th-century Mongolia, entering the tents, battlegrounds, and marketplaces of a vanished world. Explore Genghis Khan's life and those of his sons and grandsons during the formation, peak, and decline of the Mongol Empire. View rare treasures from 13th-century Mongolia; more than 200 spectacular objects will be on display to illustrate this story, including gold jewelry and ornaments, silk robes, musical instruments, pottery, sophisticated weaponry, and numerous other fascinating ...

Art of the Ancient Mediterranean World. Ongoing at the San Antonio Museum of Art in San Antonio, Texas. Relief of Dionysos Roman 2nd century CE photographed at the San Antonio Museum of Art in San Antonio, Texas. Image courtesy of Yelp reviewer Michael S. The San Antonio Museum of Art houses one of the most comprehensive collections of ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Asian art in the southern United States. It also has an important collection of Latin American Art, from the Ancient Americas to the present. The Egyptian collection hold objects from the Pre-dynastic through  the late Roman and Byzantine periods. It also houses an important and rare collection of Greek and Roman sculpture that encompasses portraits, funerary sculpture, and mythological subjects.

Newly reinstalled! Art of the ancient Mediterranean. Ongoing. At the Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey. The mummy case of Henet-Mer 21st dynasty 1075-945 BCE.  Image courtesy of the Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey. The Newark Museum's art of the ancient Mediterranean cultures—Egypt, the Near East, Greece and Rome—includes one of the finest collections of ancient glass in the nation as well as classical antiquities that illustrate glassmaking over a 2,500 year period. The Egyptian Collection features the mummy case of Henet-Mer (pictured above), as well as sculpture, writing and funerary objects that provide a view of life in ancient Egypt, from Neolithic times through the Roman period. Unusual holdings of the Coptic art of Christian Egypt include rare textiles, pottery, sculpture and paintings. Sculpture from Greece, Rome, Cyprus and Etruria are also important pieces in the collections.

Ancient Art of the Mediterranean Basin. Ongoing. At the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, California.  Late Ptolemaic period gilded cartonnage mummy mask and pectoral. 150-50 BCE. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user Fastily. Ancient art objects on view at the Legion feature a wide gamut of sculptures, figurines, vessels, jewelry, and carved reliefs made of diverse materials, such as marble and other stones, bronze, gold, ivory, terracotta, wood, and glass from Egypt, the Near East, Greece, and Rome. Notable works include an Assyrian stone re lief and carved ivories from the ancient site of Nimrud, an Achaemenid Persian wall relief from the palace of Darius in Persepolis, Egyptian mummies, coffins, and a 4,000-year-old carved wood figure of Seneb, the Egyptian royal scribe, as well as classical marble sculptures and painted vases.

Artifacts from ancient Egypt, the Near East, Greece, Rome, the Americas, Asia and Africa.  Ongoing at the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.  Some 17,000 artifacts from ancient Egypt, the Near East, Greece, Rome, the Americas, Asia, and Africa, as well as works on paper from the Renaissance to the present day, provide visitors with a glimpse into the art and history of world cultures. Image: Clothing and posture identify this 1st to 2nd century CE figure from Alexandria, Egypt as Hermanubis, a Greco-Egyptian deity who combines the essences of the Greek god Hermes with the Egyptian Anubis. The syncretism of Hermes and Anubis arises from the function of both deities to guide souls to the Underworld. Distinctive in the clothing of Hermanubis is a garment that wraps around the waist with a roll of cloth, with one end falling over the left shoulder. In his left hand he may have held a palm branch, while in his right the caduceus (herald's staff...

Ancient Mediterranean and Early European Art ongoing at Middlebury College Museum of Art in Middlebury, Vermont. Portrait Bust of Roman Empress Furia Sabina Tranquillina, 241-244 CE by the Gordian Master. Image courtesy of the Middlebury College Museum of Art in Middlebury, Vermont. The ancient civilizations of the Near East, Egypt, the Aegean Bronze Age, Classical Greece, and Imperial Rome are represented by choice works of art that range in date from the fourth millennium B.C.E. to the third century C.E. Objects cover a variety of artistic media and include a comprehensive set of Mesopotamian s eals, an Assyrian alabaster palace relief, sunken-relief hieroglyphics from an Egyptian tomb, a late Egyptian mummy case, a marble Cycladic figurine, a fine Greek pottery collection, and Roman bronze and marble sculptures. The collection is augmented with a rotation of vintage photographs of some of antiquity’s most prominent monuments.

Ancient Art of the Mediterranean. Ongoing at the Seattle Art Museum in Seattle, Washington. The permanent collection of ancient art at the Seattle Art Museum includes a wide variety of sculpture, ceramics, glass, reliefs, portraiture, utilitarian objects, and funerary art from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome. Alabaster head of a Qatabanian (Roman Arabia Felix - ancient Yemen) 3rd - 1st century BCE. The large eye cavities once held typical Near Eastern inlays. Photographed at the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington.

Arts of Africa and the Americas. Ongoing. At the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Minneapolis, Minnesota Bronze Graeco-Egyptian sculpture of a Ptolemaic ruler in the guise of Herakles 2nd century BCE. Image courtesy of the Minneapolis Institute of Art in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Arts of Africa and the Americas Department is dedicated to the immense creativity of Native peoples across the world, from prehistory to the present. The collection has grown significantly since the department was founded more than 30 years ago, and now numbers more than 5,500 objects, including masterworks of sculpture, ceram ics, textiles, metalsmithing, painting, basketry, and bead, shell, and quillwork, reflecting the diversity of these regions and cultures.

Egypt and Sudan at the Oriental Museum in Durham, England. - There are more than 7,000 objects in the Oriental Museum's Ancient Egyptian collections, ranging in date from the Pre-Dynastic (5500-3100 BCE) to the Coptic periods (after 395 CE) and covering almost all categories of object from monumental sculpture to woven sandals. The core of the collection was formed by Algernon Percy, the Fourth Duke of Northumberland (1792-1865) i n the mid-nineteenth century. The Duke had developed a fascination for Egypt following his visit to the country in 1826 and in later years he developed large collections of both British and Egyptian antiquities, which he proudly displayed at the family seat of Alnwick Castle. Image: Steatite dyad of Amenhotep I and Queen Ahmose Nefertari. Amenhotep I is thought to have still been young when he came to the throne and so his mother Ahmose-Nofretiri appears to have acted as his regent. They are believed to have founded the workmen’s village now ...

Roman antiquities. Ongoing at the Musée Départemental de l'Arles Antique in Arles, France. Exhibited in a 2,800 square-meter / 30,000 square-foot permanent exhibition space, the vast collection of the Archeological museum of Arles comprises, along with scale models and reconstructions, artifacts dating from Prehistory to the late Roman Empire, including vases, mosaics, sarcophagi, sculptures, and a series of remarkable marble bu sts including a head thought to be a middle-aged Julius Caesar dredged from the nearby Rhone River. bronze sculpture of a captive Gaul, last quater of the 1st century BCE dredged from the Rhone River. photographed by Carole Raddato in 2014 and provided by Wikimedia Commons with a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license. Head of a middle-aged Roman thought to be possibly Gaius Julius Caesar  photographed by Mary Harrsch in 2013. 

When Istanbul was Constantinople - Ongoing. At the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada Floor mosaic of Artemis 400-500 CE Eastern Mediterranean. Image courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum. The dedication of Constantinople (now Istanbul) by the Emperor Constantine I in 330 CE began a new phase in the history of the Roman Empire. Power gradually shifted towards the eastern Mediterranean, and a new empire emerged. The people of this empire thought of themselves as Roman, but later historians have called it the Byzantine Empire –  named after Byzantion, the original town at Constantinople. The Byzantine Empire was crucial for the early history of eastern Christianity. It was here that the Orthodox Church was founded and continues to flourish to this day. This gallery encompasses the centuries from the dedication of Constantinople, through the fall of the classical Roman empire and the Medieval Crusades, to its final conquest by the Ottoman Turks. The exceptional objects...

Egyptian Mummies: Exploring Ancient Lives.  September 7, 2019 to February 2, 2020 at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal, Canada.  During the Third Intermediate Period, burial practices shifted toward a close concentration on the body rather than elaborate tombs: remarkable painted coffins like this one, papyri, and wooden stelae constituted most of the imagery associated with ritual provision for the afterlife.  Image courtesy of The British Museum. A North-American premiere, this exhibition of the British Museum reconstructs the lives of six individuals who lived along the Nile from about 900 BC to AD 180. Non-invasive techniques have enabled researchers to build a profile of each individual, painting a picture of who they were. Age, beliefs and the diseases they suffered from – each mummy has a story to tell.  Digital visualizations will present new discoveries that, when viewed alongside over 200 objects from the British Museum’s renowned Egyptia...

Ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian Art. Ongoing at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis, Tennessee. Etruscan profile of a bearded man 3rd century BCE Italy. Image courtesy of the Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis, Tennessee. Dating between 1400 B.C.E. to 100 C.E., the collection represents Greek art from both the mainland and southern Italian colonies, and pieces by Roman and Egyptian artists. It includes ceramic vessels, textiles, and metalwork as well as stone carving and mosaics. Among the museum’s notable works is a pair of late Roman sarcophagus pa nels depicting The Good Shepherd and a Greco-Roman torso of Pan. Complementing the Brooks’ holdings is a collection of ancient objects from around the Mediterranean and the Middle East which are on long-term loan from the Clarence Day Foundation. These comprise ceramics, metalwork, glass, and stone carving, ranging in date from ca.2000 B.C.E. to 1100 C.E. Highlights of the Day collection include Roman portrait busts, ...