Antiquities Exhibits

The Twelfth and early Thirteenth Dynasties comprised one of the most creative artistic epochs in Egyptian history.  Artists introduced many new sculptural forms - some that continued for centuries and others that were soon abandoned.  One of the period's most dramatic and long lasting innovations was the cloaked statue.  The cloak symbolized the god Osiris, whose corpse was wrapped tightly in bandages and who was eventually reborn to everlasting life.  Individuals shown with their bodies shrouded in a thick mantle thus expressed the wish to be reborn following their own physical deaths. - The Brooklyn Museum. Image: Cloaked Official, Middle Kingdom, early Dynasty 13, 1759-1675 BCE, red quartzite, that I photographed at the Brooklyn Museum in 2014.

 A newly conserved bust of an Antonine period military commander (140-160 CE) at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California is now on display.  The cloak, known as a paludamentum, worn over the left shoulder signifies that this man was a military commander. His short beard and tousled hair were fashionable during the reign of the emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161 CE), providing an approximate date for the sculpture. - Getty Villa Bust of a Roman military commander (140-160 CE) at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California