Giovanni Barracco Ancient Sculpture Museum in Rome, Italy

Giovanni Barracco Ancient Sculpture Museum in Rome, Italy

What was once known as the Ancient Sculpture Museum and is now known as the Museo Barracco, houses a collection of ancient Egyptian, Near Eastern, Etruscan, Cypriot, Phoenician, Hellenistic, Italic and Roman art once owned by Giovanni Barracco, quaestor of the Senate of the Kingdom who donated them to the city of Rome in 1904.  The first two rooms are dedicated to Egyptian and Near Eastern art.  Highlights include a female sphinx attributed to Queen Hatshepsut, a black granite portrait of Ramses II, and a diorite figure of a bearded priest that Barracco believed to represent Julius Caesar, dated to the third century CE.  There is also a large basalt hourglass attributed to Ptolemy Philadelphus found in fragments at the Campense Serapeum in Rome.  Near eastern art consists primarily of a variety of reliefs from the Assurbanipal's palace in Nineveh depicting Assyrian archers, Elamite warriors, and grooms and horses in harness.   Room Three contains Etruscan art including funerary portraits and a stele with iconographic narration from Chianciano dated to between 500 - 460 BCE. Room IV features Cypriot and Phoenician art dating back to the 5th century BCE, rooms V, VI, and VII contain Greek and Hellenistic Art including a beautifully detailed bust of Silenus Marsia, a 2nd century CE Roman copy of a 5th century original that, together with a statue of Athena, was part of a statuary group inside the Athenian Acropolis.


Image:  Portrait head of a priest dated to the third century CE that Baron Barracco thought resembled Julius Caesar courtesy of Trip Advisor contributor ACM1899Pier.

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