Museum Guide

058

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. Be sure to check Museum Guides in previous issues as well. Some of the exhibits listed there are still on view.

Chicago

Vaults of Memory: Jewish and Christian Imagery in the Catacombs of Rome

Through December 31, 1990

Nearly 200 color photographs of frescoes, epitaphs, sarcophagi and graffiti, as well as casts of burial markers, illustrate the common influences on Jewish, Christian and pagan funerary practices in second- to fourth-century Rome. The exhibit focuses especially on the historical details of the period as gleaned from catacomb inscriptions and images and on the many symbols shared by pagans, Jews and Christians of the time. Early Christian and Jewish artifacts from the museum’s permanent collection and from local collections augment the exhibit. For background, see Charles A. Kennedy, “Were Christians Buried in Roman Catacombs to Await the Second Coming?” BAR 06:03, and Letizia Pitigliani, “A Rare Look at the Jewish Catacombs of Rome,” BAR 06:03.

Los Angeles

Carthage: A Mosaic of Ancient Tunisia

Through Jan 7, 1990

Brightly colored mosaics, Etruscan bronzes and rare Punic jewelry—more than 300 objects in all—illustrate the life of this great city from 800 B.C. to 700 A.D. The exhibit traces the settlement of Carthage by early Libyans, its rise to power under the Phoenicians, its complete destruction by the Romans during the Punic Wars and its rebirth, first as a Roman city and then as a center of late Roman and early Christian culture.

Ancient Tunisian buildings have yielded the world’s richest collection of mosaics. The exhibit showcases nearly 20 such mosaics, including the head of the Gorgon Medusa (intended to ward off evil), a basket of fish (the local symbol for good fortune; even today Carthaginians will throw a fish into the foundation of a house under construction) and a banquet scene showing five professional hunters who captured animals for amphitheater spectacles.

Baltimore

Splendor of the Popes: Treasures from the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Museums and Library

November 5–January 7, 1990

All of the approximately 30 works on view are papal commissions and most were produced for use in the Sistine Chapel, the private chapel of the 16th-century popes. On view for the first time in the United States is one of the Vatican’s greatest treasures, the ninth-century gold and enamel cross-reliquary of Pope Paschal I (811–824). It was designed to house five fragments of the True Cross and was originally decorated on both front and back, but the front scenes have been lost. Other highlights include two tapestries designed by Raphael, a monumental painted altarpiece, gold-threaded vestments, goldsmithwork and illuminated manuscripts. The exhibit coincides with the bicentennial of the Baltimore Roman Catholic Diocese, this country’s first.

Ann Arbor

Art, Life, and Holy Power in the Early Christian House

November 17–March 19, 1990

More than 150 objects of everyday life, bearing Christian motifs and images, convey how their owners endowed day-to-day experience with religious significance. Among the items on display are a terra-cotta lamp bearing the busts of the twelve apostles; pottery tableware impressed with jeweled crosses, portraits of saints and lambs; and flasks made to contain spiritual medicines. Inlaid wooden furniture, kitchen implements, basketry sieves, lamps, jewelry, ornamented textiles, toys and toiletries from early Christian Egypt, Syria, Asia 059Minor, Italy, France and North Africa complete the exhibit.

Detroit

Holy Image, Holy Space: Icons and Frescoes from Greece

November 21–January 28, 1990

For a description of this exhibit, see Museum Guide, BAR 15:05, under Cleveland.

Atlanta

Radiance in Stone: Ancient Sculptures in Colored Marble from the Museo Nazionale Romano

December 6–April 8, 1990

Twenty-one Roman sculptures and 35 fragments from the Roman “Imperial Treasure” in exotic colored marble make up this exhibit of a type of artwork virtually unrepresented in American museums. The trade in colored marble, marble that is naturally veined and has several distinct hues, began in earnest in the first centuries B.C. and A.D. Sculptors in Rome imported large quantities of this material, especially from Asia Minor and North Africa, and used it for decorative and religious sculptures. Different types of marble became associated with particular subjects. On view are three basalt statues of dancing women from the imperial residence of the emperor Caligula (37–41 A.D.) and a head of Bacchus in black marble laced with seashells. See also Museum Guide, BAR 15:05, for a description of the museum’s continuing exhibit on the Greek city of Syracuse.

Washington, DC

The First Egyptians

December 8–April 1, 1990

See Museum Guide, BAR 15:04, under Los Angeles, for a description of this exhibit.

Permanent Exhibits

In our previous issue, we published a listing of museums in the East and South of North America with permanent exhibits on the art and archaeology of the ancient Near East. Here we complete our survey by listing museums in the Midwest and the West. Even these “permanent” exhibits may vary from time to time. If there is something in particular you wish to see, call ahead.

Midwest

Field Museum of Natural History

“Inside Ancient Egypt,” a dramatic $2.2 million exhibit, provides visitors the only opportunity outside Egypt to explore a life-size Egyptian tomb complex. This fully reconstructed, authentically detailed tomb is that of Unisankh, son of Pharaoh Unis (2356–2323 B.C.) and contains two of the original tomb chambers excavated and transported from Saqqara in 1908. Visitors tour the upper levels of the tomb and then descend a 35-foot burial shaft to the burial chamber below. After exiting the tomb through a typical robber’s tunnel, visitors can view 23 authentic mummies in realistic burial scenes, a working canal, a living marsh, the extremely rare burial boat of Pharaoh Sen-wosret III (1878–1841 B.C.), a shrine to the cat goddess Bastet and an Egyptian marketplace.

Oriental Institute

Five galleries, devoted to Palestine, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Egypt and Persia, reflect excavations by Oriental Institute archaeologists. The Palestinian gallery exhibits objects from Megiddo, primarily from the Canaanite period (c. 1300 B.C.), including a statuette of Baal cast in bronze and covered with gold leaf and a large collection of carved ivories. Artifacts in the Mesopotamian gallery portray the religion, writing and crafts of the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians through pottery, votive statues, architectural remains, cylinder seals and artifacts of daily life. The Assyrian gallery is dominated by reliefs from the palace of Sargon II at Khorsabad (in modern-day Iraq) and includes items excavated in Syria and Anatolia. The Egyptian gallery spans the years 3000 B.C. to the Roman conquest of 30 B.C. On display are a colossal statue of Tutankhamun, mummies, coffins, statues of gods and goddesses, household objects such as a wooden chair and a bed, jewelry and writing on stone, clay and papyrus. Most of the exhibits in the Persian gallery come from the Oriental Institute’s excavations at Persepolis, Tall-i-bakun and Chogha Mish.

Spertus Museum of Judaica

The museum’s ARTiFACT Center aims to enhance children’s appreciation of Biblical archaeology. Geared primarily for grade schoolers, the center features a 32-foot multi-tiered sandy tell with 11 digging stations. Children use authentic tools to discover pottery and other replicas of artifacts. An open marketplace features five activity booths where children can spin an ancient potter’s wheel, make a rubbing of an ancient calendar carved in stone, create a seal stamp out of wax or make jewelry, amulets or sandals. An Israelite house allows preschoolers to experience life in ancient times. It includes a junior dig site, a stuffed camel to climb and domestic furniture and implements to touch and explore.

Kelsey Museum of Archaeology

Nearly 100,000 objects, focusing on art and artifacts from Dynastic and Greco-Roman Egypt and the ancient Near East, Greek and Roman sculpture, Greek vases, Roman inscriptions, Coptic and Islamic textiles, Roman glass and Greek and Roman coins. Many of the items were excavated by university expeditions in the 1920s and 1930s. The museum’s Mummy Room displays ancient Egyptian animal mummies, x-rays of mummies of the pharaohs and mummy paraphernalia. Interactive display cases allow visitors to explore ancient ritual practice and modern technological studies of the mummies’ diseases and infirmities.

Horn Archaeological Museum

The museum houses 8,000 artifacts from the Early Bronze Age to the Byzantine Period, 3,300 of them from excavations at Tell Hesban and Tell el Umieri. The exhibit area is arranged in three tiers: a pottery typology sequence, murals that show the artifacts in their cultural setting and the artifacts themselves. Notable 060holdings include an eight-inch bronze Canannite Baal figurine (c. 15th century B.C.) and one of this country’s ten largest collections of cuneiform tablets, dating from the Dynasty of Ur (c. 2500 B.C.) to the Seleucid Dynasty (c. 200 B.C.). The museum was initiated by, and later named for, Siegfried H. Horn, professor emeritus at Andrews University and a member of BAR’s Editorial Advisory Board.

Detroit Institute of Arts

Artifacts in the collection from ancient Israel include Paleolithic stone implements from the Mt. Carmel caves, pottery from the Bronze Age through the Roman period and stone ossuaries of the Maccabean period. From the ancient Near East are a sixth-century B.C. colored tile relief dragon from the Ishtar Gate at Babylon (the only example of its subject in North America) and an Assyrian relief of Tiglath-pileser III (744–727 B.C.) excavated at Nimrud by Austen H. Layard in the 1850s. In the ancient Egyptian collection is a relief of cattle herdsmen and fishermen, acquired by the museum in 1930 through the efforts of Howard Carter, the discoverer of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Carter was also responsible for obtaining a Middle Kingdom limestone head and a large scarab of Amenhotep III. An Old Kingdom tomb wall from Giza dating to the Vth Dynasty (c. 2494–2345 B.C.) is on view for the first time since it was excavated more than half a century ago. The museum also has many important items from ancient Iran, Greece and Rome.

Museum of Art and Archaeology

The museum has an extensive exhibit of pottery, metalwork, lamps, figurines, jewelry and stone tools from ancient Israel dating from 3100 B.C. to 586 B.C. One item, a hand axe, is 250,000 years old. Also on view is a model of a shrine and its associated offerings dating to about 800 B.C. Three limestone ossuaries, used by the Jews of Palestine for reburial of the dead during the brief period from 30 B.C. to 70 A.D., are on display through September 1990. Nine Mesopotamian vases and terra-cotta figurines date to about 2000 B.C. Ancient Egypt is represented by sculpture, pottery and stone vessels from about 4500 B.C. to Roman times. Many Greek and Roman objects are also on view, including a display of molded and blown glass from the third century B.C. to the fourth century A.D.

Cleveland Museum of Art

Eleven hundred pieces of ancient art—Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan and Roman—date from 3200 B.C. to 500 A.D. Included are vases, stone and metal sculpture, jewelry, coins and paintings in wax.

Toledo Museum of Art

This museum features an extensive collection of ancient glass. Other items from the ancient Near East include an alabaster winged deity relief from the palace of the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud (883–859 B.C.), an alabaster head of a woman from third millennium B.C. Sumer 061and a limestone portrait of Ummabi from Palmyra, Syria (c. 175 A.D.). The Egyptian holdings feature an early IVth Dynasty (2680–2560 B.C.) limestone relief of the administrator Akhet-hotep, a granite sculpture of Pharaoh Tanwetamani from the XXVth Dynasty (712–663 B.C.), a Middle Kingdom (2134–1786 B.C.) boat of painted wood and a fragment of a manger with ibexes from Tel el Amarna from the XVIIIth Dynasty (1580–1350 B.C.).

Cincinnati Art Museum

The museum’s collections include Near Eastern, Egyptian and Classical art, with particular strength in Iranian metalwork. Especially noteworthy is an extensive collection of Nabatean sculpture excavated from the sanctuary site of Khirbet Tannur in Southern Jordan. Other items of interest include a kneeling hero bound with serpents, from ancient Lagash (c. 2800 B.C.); a bronze Sumerian votive calf (c. 2400 B.C.); and a limestone relief of Seti I (1313–1292 B.C.), of the XIXth Dynasty of ancient Egypt.

Skirball Museum, Cincinnati Branch

The collection of more than 100 objects includes pottery, seals, tablets, jewelry, coins, tools and figurines. Also displayed are a jar and lid from Qumran (the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered) dating to 68 B.C.; a Sumerian tablet from 2250 B.C.; and a collection of oil lamps from the Middle Bronze II to the late Roman periods.

West

Badè Institute of Biblical Archaeology

Archaeological displays on view include how archaeologists work (tools, stratigraphy and pottery typology), artifacts from Tell en-Nasbeh (probably Biblical Mizpah), agricultural tools, a reconstruction of an Iron Age tomb and a model of an Iron Age four-room house with typical artifacts. Boxes of artifacts from Tell en-Nasbeh can be rented for two weeks if reserved a month in advance. The museum also features a display on the history of printed English Bibles from the Tyndale Bible to the King James Version.

Skirball Museum, Hebrew Union College

Among the 1,300 objects from ancient Israel, Egypt, Mesopotamia and Phoenicia, dating from the Chalcolithic to the Byzantine periods, are oil lamps, hand- and wheel-made pottery vessels for food storage and preparation and for ritual use, cuneiform tablets, Mesopotamian female idols, tools and weapons, jewelry, amulets and Roman glass. The nucleus of the collection derives from site surveys led by Nelson Glueck (1900–1971).

“A Walk Through the Past,” a permanent exhibit, concentrates on ancient Israel as a crossroads in the ancient Near East. It focuses on the shared development of writing in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Canaan and on the contact between these peoples as a result of trade. A mock cutaway tell displays pottery types in the level appropriate to their production and use and a life-size balk demonstrates the way archaeologists divide an area for excavation.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

The Near Eastern gallery is dominated by massive panels from the palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 B.C.), king of Assyria. Other objects include a seated baboon from Elamite Iran (dated to the late third millennium B.C.) and two items from Syria: a bronze smiting figure with remains of gold and silver overlays (1550–1150 B.C.) and a steatite lion bowl (ninth-eighth centuries B.C.). Also on exhibit are stamp and cylinder seals, ceramic cones and tablets with hieroglyphic or cuneiform inscriptions, terra-cotta human and animal figurines and a group of Phoenician bronze bowls.

The museum has an outstanding collection of artifacts from ancient Iran (fourth millennium B.C. through the Sasanian period [225–650 A.D.]).

The core of the Egyptian collection was donated by publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst in the late 1940s and 1950s. Noteworthy are bronze figures of the goddesses Neith and Sekhmet, two VIth-Dynasty (2323–2150 B.C.) tomb reliefs, a limestone head of a Sphinx and a figure of the goddess Sekhmet.

Stanford University Museum of Art

A small but distinguished collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts ranging from pottery of the pre-Dynastic period to Coptic textiles. Highlights include Old Kingdom relief fragments from the False Door of the Tomb of Wedjkaiankhi at Dashur (c. 2500–2350 B.C.), a diorite offering table, New Kingdom canopic jars, Saite statuettes of Osiris, an especially fine mummy portrait in encaustic of a woman from the cemetery at Hawara in the Fayum and a red granite bust of Ptolemy VI or VII from the second century B.C.