Antiquities Exhibits

Ancient Nubia Now from October 13, 2019 to January 20, 2020 at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Between 2400 BCE and 300 CE, a series of kingdoms flourished in what is today the Sudanese Nile Valley, a region known in antiquity as Kush and by modern scholars as Nubia. Ruling from the capitals of Kerma (2400–1550 BCE), Napata (800–300 BCE), and Meroe (300 BCE–300 CE), Nubian kings and queens controlled vast empires and trade netwo rks, rivalling—and even for a brief time conquering—their more famous neighbors, the Egyptians. The Nubians left behind the remains of cities, temples, palaces, and pyramids, and their artists and craftspeople produced magnificent jewelry, pottery, metalwork, furniture, and sculpture. “Ancient Nubia Now” features more than 400 highlights from the collection, many never before exhibited. Among the highlights are the exquisite jewels of Nubia’s queens, the nearly lifesize statue of Senkamanisken from the sacred mountain of Gebel Barkal, the army of funerary f...

Ancient Art from the Palace of Ramesses III at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. Ramesses III was the last great military pharaoh of the New Kingdom. In his fifth year on the throne he defeated the Libyans and brought them back to Egypt as slaves. In his eighth year he faced an even greater threat: a confederation of displaced eastern Mediterranean tribes on the move, including Greeks and Philistines, known  collectively as the Sea Peoples. Fresh from their victory over the Hittites, the Sea Peoples attempted to invade Egypt with the intention of settling there. Ramesses roundly defeated them both by sea and by land, recording his victories on the walls of his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu, "United with Eternity," which remains the best-preserved royal mortuary temple on the west bank of Thebes. Images: Tiles depicting a Hittite chief, a Nubian Chief, and a Syrian Chief recovered from the Palace of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu, Egyp...

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...