The Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts, has organized an ambitious exhibition, Antioch: the Lost Ancient City, curated by Christine Kondoleon, chief curator for the museum’s Greek and Roman collections. The exhibition runs from October 7, 2000, to February 4, 2001, and will subsequently travel to the Cleveland Museum of Art (March 18–June 3, 2001) and the Baltimore Museum of Art (September 16–December 30, 2001). On display are about 166 objects from 24 American and European collections, including mosaics, sculpture, metalwork, coins, tableware, jewelry, grave monuments and inscriptions.
The Worcester Art Museum was one of the original sponsors of 1930s excavations at Antioch, along with the Musées Nationaux de France, the Baltimore Museum of Art, Princeton University, the Fogg Museum of Art at Harvard University and its affiliate Dumbarton Oaks.
For the first time since their discovery, many of the rich finds from the 1932–1939 excavations will be brought together in recreated architectural settings, vividly presenting the ancient city’s diverse population, its daily life and forms of entertainment, and its diverse kinds of religious worship. The most dramatic exhibit is the reconstruction of the Roman dining room from the exquisite House of the Atrium (see photos of Herakles and Dionysus mosaic and mosaic floor of the House of Atrium).
The exhibition is accompanied by a 250-page catalogue with color illustrations. Edited by Christine Kondoleon, the catalogue contains essays on aspects of life in Antioch by a number of scholars, along with entries for the items on display. The major sponsors for the show are the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation.
On November 18–19 the museum will host the Eighth Colloquium of the North American branch of the Association internationale pour l’étude de la mosaïque antique, co-sponsored by Clark University’s European Center in Luxembourg and the Centre Alexandre-Wiltheim in Luxembourg.
For information, contact Worcester Art Museum, 55 Salisbury Street, Worcester, MA 01609, tel. 508–799-4406, fax 508–798-5646, www.worcesterart.org/Antioch.
