Antiquities Exhibits

Ancient Egypt now reopened at the San Diego Museum of Man in San Diego, California. The exhibit now explores the unique and complex peoples of ancient Egypt, with a focus on everyday life, the importance of animals and the relationship between ancient Egyptians and the environment, the importance of the afterlife, and the rule of pharaoh Akhenaten and his religious revolution. Objects dating as far back as 5000 BCE range from s erving bowls and makeup to funerary steles and protective amulets. The ancient Egyptians held a variety of professions including farming, building, and trading goods, and they participated in familiar pastimes like weaving, playing board games, and brewing beer. Inspired by the landscape and wildlife around them, their business practices, art, architecture, and religious beliefs reflect their connection to the Nile River and regional animals such as hippopotami, ibis, baboons, and falcons. Image: Ancient Egyptian funerary boat model photographed at ...

Pompeii the Immortal City through May 3, 2020 at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, Washington. This exhibition introduces visitors to residents of Pompeii just before the city was destroyed in 79 CE. Visitors meet people who are preparing for a banquet, rebuilding the thermal baths destroyed by the devastating earthquake of 62 CE, and architects and engineers involved in metal-working, stonemasonry and the pr oduction of glass objects. On display will be reconstructions of a variety of mechanisms including a calcatoria, the largest construction crane used at the time. Roman knowledge of nature, science and technology are demonstrated through the display of 80 original objects, 2 body casts, 10 models of ancient machines and structures, and an immersive 360 degree experience that allows visitors to relieve the final catastrophe. Images: Pompeii the Immortal City exhibit courtesy of the Exhibits Development Group.

"Rhythm and Ritual: Music of the Ancient Americas" March 26 - August 15, 2020 at the Museo de las Americas in Denver, Colorado. This exhibit includes 60 objects from the Denver Art Museum's ancient Americas collection dating from 1000 BCE to 1530 CE. It will also include 3D-printed versions of ancient instruments that visitors will be able to touch and play to provide a closer look at the musical cultural experiences of ancient  Mesoamericans. If you attend after June 6, you can also explore the ReVisión: Art in the Americas exhibit in the newly renovated Martin Building of the Denver Art Museum, too. This exhibit presents 180 objects from ancient America dating from 100 BCE to today. Image: Ancient Mesoamerican musical instrument on display at the Museo de las Americas in Denver, Colorado courtesy of the museum.

Objects recovered from the harbor of Alexandria and the underwater remains of the city of Thonis-Heracleion on display at the Egypt's Lost Cities exhibit in the Ronald Reagan Presidental Library and Museum. Thonis-Heracleion, was an ancient Egyptian city located near the Canopic Mouth of the Nile, about 32 km (20 miles) northeast of Alexandria. Its ruins are located in Abu Qir Bay, currently 2.5 km off the coast, under 10 m (3 0 ft) of water. Heracleion is mentioned by many chroniclers in antiquity, including Herodotus, Strabo and Diodorus. The city was said by Herodotus to have been visited by Paris and Helen of Troy who sought refuge there on their flight from the jealous Menelaus before the Trojan War. In the Late Period of ancient Egypt it was the country's main port for international trade and collection of taxes. During the time when the city especially flourished between the 6th and 4th centuries B.C.E., a large temple of Amun-Gereb, the supreme god of the Egyptians ...

At the Feet of the Gods: The art of footwear in ancient Rome, epic film and contemporary fashion" through April 19, 2020 at the Pitti Palace in Florence, Italy. This exhibit features 80 works from sculptures and decorative urns to sandals ancient and new, many on loan from international museums. In ancient times, shoes acted as a sort of "identity card" for their owner. They could reveal a great deal of information about the wea rer—such as their sex, profession or economic status. The prehistoric forerunners of the sandal date back as far as 10,000 years. This exhibit brings together massive feet in marble and bronze, the remnants of destroyed statues of gods and other delicate footwear on pottery dating back to the 5th century BCE. On one vase, Eros, the Greek god of love, helps a virgin change into the skin-exposing sandals she will wear as a bride. On an Etruscan urn, a nude courtesan laces up sandals whose nailed soles left impressions on carpets spelling, ...

PERGAMON. Masterpieces from the Ancient Metropolis with a 360° Panorama by Yadegar Asisi at the Pergamonmuseum temporary exhibition building in Berlin, Germany. This exhibition incorporates approximately 80 of the Antikensammlung’s most important works from Pergamon – including the largest piece of the Telephos frieze from the Pergamon Altar. In preparation for the show, the originals underwent extensive conservation and restorat ion. This is especially true of the large statues of women from the courtyard of the Pergamon Altar, and the sculptures from its roof. With the exception of the Statue of Athena Parthenos from the Pergamon Library (on loan to the Metropolitan Museum in New York), all of the city’s famous sculptures are on view, including the so-called Beautiful Head, the colossal head of Herakles, portrait sculptures of the king, the Archaistic Dancer from the palace, the Prometheus group, and the Athena with cross-strapped aegis. The panorama takes visitors back to the ye...

Virtual enhanced reality tours of the Roman city of Cartago Nova in Cartagena, Spain.  The Carthago Nova 2.0 tour, using enhanced reality goggles and tablets to see how the Roman remains in Cartagena looked 2,000 years ago, is being held every Sunday during March 2020.  The experience includes the Roman theater, the forum district, the temple of the goddess Isis, and the bath complex including the paintings and mosaics in its atrium.    The theater was built between 5 and 1 BCE, as it has been proven by the dedication of the edifice to Gaius and Lucius Caesar, grandsons of Augustus, who had designed them as his successors.  In the 3rd century CE a market was built over the theater, reusing its materials, with a semicircular open space which followed the plan of the orchestra. The market was perhaps abandoned after a fire caused by the Vandals in 425. A market quarter of the Byzantines was established on the site in the 6th century CE. Image courtesy of W...