Museum Guide

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Temporary Exhibits

Our Museum Guide this issue begins with a listing of noteworthy temporary exhibits currently on view around the country. Ranging widely, these exhibits—and the permanent exhibits that follow—focus on different aspects of the art and archaeology of ancient Israel, Mesopotamia, Egypt and elsewhere in the ancient Near East.

Cambridge, Mass.

Points of View: The Holy Land Then and Now

Through November 30

It has been 150 years since the French government offered “free to the world” the photographic process it had purchased from Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre. To mark this anniversary, the Harvard Semitic Museum is mounting two exhibitions focused on the Near East as captured by the pioneers of photography. Points of View features seventy-five 19th-century images by Beato, Beford, Bonfils, Dumas, Frith, Good and others depicting such sites as the pyramids at Giza and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Holy Land Then and Now consists of 50 double images of places as recorded in the 19th century and as they appear today.

Philadelphia

The Sigmund Freud Antiquities: Fragments from a Buried Past

September 8–October 15

This is the first stop of a 12-city United States tour of 65 items from Freud’s vast private collection of Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Asian antiquities. Also included are books on archaeology from Freud’s personal library, manuscripts and photographs. The exhibit is designed to demonstrate how Freud’s views on the history of civilization and the development of the human psyche were deeply rooted in his archaeological knowledge. He used archaeology as a favorite metaphor for the procedures of psychoanalysis: “The analyst’s work of construction, or if it is preferred, of reconstruction, resembles to a great extent an archaeologist’s excavation of some dwelling place that has been destroyed and buried,” he wrote in 1937. The exhibit commemorates the 50th anniversary of Freud’s death on September 23, 1939. On that date this year, the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, in cooperation with the University Museum, will present a symposium on Freud’s impact on culture and the arts. The exhibit next moves to the University of South Carolina at Columbia, Nov. 3 through Nov. 26. For information on the exhibit’s future sites, contact Sharon Zane at the Kreisberg Group (212-307-5921).

In addition, the museum has three temporary exhibits on view through June 1990: “Tokens to Tablets: Glimpses Into 6000 Years of the History of the Ancient Near East,” (described in Museum Guide, BAR 15:04), “The Egyptian Mummy Secrets and Science” and “Ancient Mesopotamia The Royal Tombs of Ur.”

Cleveland

Holy Image, Holy Space: Icons and Frescoes from Greece

September 9–October 22

Seventy icons and frescoes from the 10th to the 16th centuries are featured, many of them never before seen in America. Icons—devotional images in tempera on gold-covered wooden panels—are the embodiment of Byzantine spirituality and represent the highest achievement of Byzantine artists. The exhibit also includes a reconstruction of the small, domed 16th-century Church of Ayios Nikolaos in Veria with its original wall paintings. Another significant work is a panel showing St. Luke painting a Byzantine-type Madonna; it is signed by Domenikos Theotokopoulos, better known as El Greco. The panel testifies to El Greco’s early training as a Greek panel painter on his native Crete before his departure for Italy and, later, Spain. This is the panel’s first showing in this country.

Atlanta

Syracuse, The Fairest Greek City

September 13, 1989 through April 1990

A selection of 50 objects from the Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi charts the history, culture and religion of what was considered in antiquity Greek 055civilization’s greatest city: Syracuse. The objects date primarily from the sixth century B.C. through the late fourth century B.C. and include architectural sculpture and ornament, terracotta sculpture and vases, alabaster vessels, silver and bronze coins and examples of the craft of Greek and native Sicilian artists.

Permanent Exhibits

No matter when you visit the North American museums listed below, you are likely to find the following exhibits on display. This issue spotlights museums in the East and the South; our next issue will complete the survey by listing museums in the Midwest and West. Even these “permanent” exhibits may vary from time to time. If there is something in particular you wish to see, call ahead.

East

Yale University Art Gallery

A highlight of the Gallery is its display of a portion of the nearly 100,000 items the university excavated at the famous site of Dura-Europos, in Syria. Included are painted panels from the Christian building, decorative ceiling tiles from the synagogue, basketry, ceramic vessels, razors and mirrors and jewelry. Also in the museum’s holdings are artifacts excavated at Gerasa (Jerash), in Jordan. Among Assyrian holdings are four reliefs received by the university in 1853. Also noteworthy are the Whiting Palestinian Collection, which consists of 900 whole ceramic vessels from the Levant dating from the Chalcolithic period to Byzantine times.

Across campus, at the Peabody Museum of Natural History (203-432-5050), is “The Past Rediscovered: Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt.” The Sterling Memorial Library houses the Yale Babylonian Collection (203-432-1837), one of the most important resources in America for the Study of the ancient Near East. It includes 40,000 cuneiform tablets and inscribed objects and the largest collection of ancient seals in this country. The Yale Babylonian Collection is open to researchers by appointment.

B’nai B’rith Klutznick Museum

Coins chronicle Jewish history over four centuries: from the Maccabean period in the second century B.C., when common images on coins included objects related to Jewish festivals and plants indigenous to Israel; from the Herodian period (beginning about 40 B.C.), when coins hailed Roman military conquests and reinforced imperial policy; from the First Revolt years (66–70 A.D.), when coins expressed the Jews’ hope for freedom; and from the Second Revolt period (132–135 A.D.), when coins recalled the Second Temple and its vessels and carried such mottoes as “For the Redemption of Israel” and “For Freedom of Jerusalem.”

Dumbarton Oaks

The Byzantine Collection Galleries have recently reopened following renovation and expansion. They house one of the most significant collections of Early Christian and Byzantine art objects, manuscripts and textiles of the fourth through 15th centuries. Also displayed are a limited number of Greek and Roman art works, Egyptian and Sassanian objects and post-Byzantine icons. The galleries will close again briefly this fall, so it is best to call ahead for schedules.

National Museum of Natural History

The museum’s “Western Civilization: Origins and Traditions” is a comprehensive exhibit that traces the development of society since the shift to animal herding and agriculture through the rise of urban centers and political states. Included are items from ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Cyprus, Greece and Italy. Notable among the ancient Near East items are a bronze ring with seal from Tell el-Kheleifeh (on the northern shore of the Gulf of Eilat/Aqabah) inscribed “Belonging to Jotham” possibly referring to the king of Judah (750–731 B.C.)—and a reconstructed cave-type burial at Bab edh-Dhra, in Jordan, dating to 3100 B.C. The museum also has the only collection in the United States of material (primarily pottery, bronze and stone) excavated at Troy by Heinrich Schliemann.

Walters Art Gallery

Holdings in Egyptian, ancient Near Eastern, Greek, Etruscan and Roman art from 3000 B.C. to 300 A.D. include marble, bronze and wood sculpture, vases, metalwork and jewelry. Particularly notable are seven perfectly preserved Roman marble sarcophagi, excavated from a tomb on the Via Salaria, that constitute one of the finest series of Roman relief sculptures in America. Egyptian mummies and mummy cases are a long-time favorite of younger visitors.

Museum of Fine Arts

The ancient Near East collection features many important objects representing the art of Sumer and Akkad, Babylon, Assyria, Anatolia and Iran. Notable among them are fragmentary victory stelae of Naram-Sin, king of Akkad (2254–2218 B.C.); the diorite head of Gudea, prince of Lagash (c. 2150 B.C.); a group of reliefs from the Assyrian palaces at Nimrud and Nineveh; a glazed brick panel of a standing lion from the Processional Way of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon (604–562 B.C.) who destroyed Jerusalem; and reliefs from Persepolis, capital of the Achaemenian Empire. Also in the collection are more than 500 seals and gems.

The museum also boasts one of the finest collections of classical art in the world.

Harvard Semitic Museum

A permanent exhibit of items excavated in Samaria, Nuzi (in present day Iraq), Carthage and Ashkelon, as well as items purchased for the museum at its founding in 1889, is scheduled to open early in 1990. 056The museum almost always has a temporary exhibit on view, such as the two detailed in the Temporary Exhibits listing.

Brooklyn Museum

Notable in the museum’s collection of ancient Near Eastern art are 12 colossal alabaster reliefs of King Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria (883–859 B.C.). Classical artifacts include Greek and Roman sculpture, mosaics, painted pottery and gold jewelry. The museum’s antiquities collection is most renowned, however, for its Egyptian art, encompassing four millennia, from the pre-Dynastic period (4000–3000 B.C.) to the Moslem conquest in the seventh century A.D.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of the leading museums in the world, the Met has major holdings in nearly every field of art. To mention only a few that relate to the ancient Near East, it has stone relief sculptures from ninth-century B.C. Assyria, Sumerian stone sculptures of the third millennium B.C., Iranian ceramics from the fourth through second millennium B.C., silver and gold vessels of the Achaemenid (sixth-fourth centuries B.C.) and Sassanian (third-seventh centuries A.D.) periods and ivory carvings from Nimrud (modern-day Iraq).

A major attraction of the ancient Egyptian holdings is the temple of Dendur, built in the service of the goddess Isis in Nubia during the reign of Augustus Caesar (27 B.C.–14 A.D.). The temple was a gift of the Egyptian government to the United States in 1965 in recognition for its aid in building the Aswan Dam. The temple, on the Nile’s bank, would have been completely submerged by the rising water; instead it was transported to the Met and re-assembled.

The Greek and Roman period is equally well represented, notably by a head of Constantine that dates to 320 A.D., the Sardis column from the Temple of Artemis and the largest collection of Roman frescoes outside of Italy.

Royal Ontario Museum

Featured exhibits include: Chalcolithic artifacts from Iran, the rise of the first civilizations in Mesopotamia and Old Kingdom Egypt (including reconstructions of the Eanna temple complex in Iraq and the Saqqara step pyramid in Egypt), an historical overview of Israel, Jordan and Syria from the Early Bronze Age to the Iron Age (including pottery bowls, lamps, jugs, scarabs, copper or bronze spearheads, gypsum vases and a reconstructed burial tomb from Jerusalem) and a small gallery on the concept of monotheism that displays scrolls and manuscripts, ossuaries and coffins and a collection of coins and stamps with such images as the menorah, a palm branch and the facade of a Jewish temple.

University Museum of Archaeology/Anthropology

Gathered principally by its own expeditions, the museum’s ancient Near East collection spans Syria-Palestine and Mesopotamia. From the former come tools, weaponry, jewelry, cult and funerary objects, cosmetics, stone vessels and implements and pottery. Important excavations include the Biblical sites of Beth-Shean, Gibeon and Beth Shemesh as well as Mt. Carmel in Israel and Tell es-Sa‘idiyeh, Tell Heshan and Sarepta (Sarafand) in Jordan. The Mesopotamian collection derives from expeditions to Nippur, in Iraq, from 1888–1890 (the first excavation in the Near East by an American institution) and later expeditions to Ur, Tel Billa, Tepe Gawra, Fara, Khafaje and Tel al Rimah. The collection is best known for its small but spectacular holdings from the Royal Cemetery at Ur. Items from Iran are also well represented.

South

Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology

Ancient Israel is represented by a range of Bronze Age artifacts from Jericho, glass vessels of the Roman period and a collection showing the evolution of oil lamps from about 3000 B.C. to the Islamic period. Also on view are objects found in underwater excavations at the Sea of Galilee and at the harbor at Caesarea, built by Herod the Great. There is a large collection of Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets, some still in their original clay envelopes, as well as stamp and cylinder seals, Persian pottery and Luristan bronzes. The Egyptian gallery includes rare pre-Dynastic pottery from Abydos (3200–3050 B.C.), an illustrated papyrus fragment of the Book of the Dead and a mummy and three mummy cases. The museum houses the largest collection of ancient Greek art in the Southeast.

Eisenberg and Nicol Museums

On view are cuneiform tablets and replicas of famous inscribed objects such as the Hammurabi stela, Shalmaneser’s black obelisk, the Rosetta Stone and the Moabite inscription; Palestinian pottery from 2000 B.C. to the Roman and Byzantine periods; Coptic textiles, papyri and parchments from the fourth to eleventh centuries A.D.; and a collection of coins from the Greek through the Roman and Byzantine periods. The museums also feature special exhibits of artifacts excavated at Jericho and Ai.

Chrysler Museum

The museum houses more than 4,000 years of art in 54 recently expanded and renovated galleries, including Egyptian, Greek and Roman holdings. The oldest item is a wooden Egyptian striding attendant, from about 2200 B.C. Also in the museum is the 8,000-piece Chrysler Institute of Glass, dating to ancient times.

Temporary Exhibits

Our Museum Guide this issue begins with a listing of noteworthy temporary exhibits currently on view around the country. Ranging widely, these exhibits—and the permanent exhibits that follow—focus on different aspects of the art and archaeology of ancient Israel, Mesopotamia, Egypt and elsewhere in the ancient Near East.