Antiquities and Ancient Art

Which Museum Exhibitions of Antiquities were Hottest in 2007?

It is interesting to analyze museum exhibition attendance each year because it offers a broad, though admittedly imperfect, reflection of the public's current appetite and relative interest in the different cultural segments of antiquities.

Not surprisingly, the heavily promoted blockbuster Egyptian exhibition entitled Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs which moved to Philadelphia and Chicago topped the charts again this year, each drawing more than one million visitors.   This is significantly more than the third most attended exhibition, Ancient Peru Unearthed, held at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, which managed 369,699 attendees.

But total attendees can be a false barometer because it is a function of the length of an event. By comparing average number of attendees per day, the two Egyptian mega-events still top the list at 5,375 (Phila) and 4,771 (Chicago) visitors each, but the Praxiteles exhibition held at the Louvre was the third most popular bringing in 2,223 attendees per day, with Ancient Peru Unearthed dropping to fourth place at 2,077 attendees per day.

Oddly, Egyptian antiquities captured only three slots this year -- #1,2 and 10 -- which is unusual given its propensity to draw visitors and dominate the rankings. Also Asian art had but one entrant in the Top Ten -- the Angkor: Sacred Heritage of Cambodia -- exhibited in Bonn, and Pre-Columbian antiquities were represented in two of the Top Ten.

In what is one of the most interesting aspects of the Top Ten this year, no less than four exhibitions of ancient Greek and Roman antiquities, including The Perfumes of Aphrodite, The Capitoline Wolf and A Bronze Horse for Many Knights, all of which were held during the year at the Capitoline Museum in Rome.   

Ancient St Augustine Manuscript Unearthed in German Library

Not all spectacular discoveries are the result of digging through dirt with a trowel. Scholars from the Austrian Academy of Sciences "digging" through the Bibliotheca Amploniana in Erfurt, Germany, made a remarkable discovery when they turned up six previously unknown sermons attributed to St. Augustine.   

The sermons, dating to the 12th century, were concealed in a medieval parchment manuscript they were studying.  Some of the sermons were know only by their titles cited in Possidius' Indiculum.

Three sermons are on the topic of brotherly love and alms-giving, one is on martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas, and another on the martyr Cyprian who condemned alcoholic indulgence on saints' feast days. Another sermon discusses resurrection of the dead and biblical prophesies.

The manuscript, which may have originally been produced in England, was part of an enormous collection of 630 books donated in 1412.  Click for more color images of the manuscript.

Israeli Archaeologists Announce Coin Find Related to Second Temple Head-Tax

According to the Jerusalem Post, Israeli archeologists have unearthed a coin in Jerusalem's City of David that, they now believe, was used to pay the head-tax in the Second Temple period. The find was announced by the Antiquities Authority.

The rare silver coin was discovered in an archeological excavation outside the walls of the Old City in what was Jerusalem's main drainage channel 2,000 years ago.

Archeologists earlier uncovered thousands of nondescript small bronze coins that were used in every day life, said Prof. Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa.

"A drainage pipe is, not surprisingly, a place where you find lots of history," he said.

In the book of Exodus, Jews over age 20 are commanded to contribute half a shekel each year to pay for public sacrifices and the furnishings of the Temple.

Israeli archeologist Eli Shukron said the coin found at the dig was probably dropped in the drainage ditch by accident.

"Just like today when coins sometimes fall from our pockets and roll into drainage openings at the side of the street, that's how it was some two thousand years ago - a man was on his way to the Temple and the shekel that he intended to use for paying the half shekel head-tax found its way into the drainage channel," Shukron said.

The shekel weighs 13 grams, and shows the head of the chief deity of the city of Tyre on one side, and an eagle upon a ship's prow on the reverse.

Despite the importance of the half-shekel head-tax to the economy of Jerusalem in the Second Temple period, only seven other shekel and half shekel coins have been found in archeological excavations in Jerusalem.

Strange Case of a Forged "Egyptian "Antiquity" that Cost a UK Museum Nearly $1M

As the old adage proves time and again, if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. Such is the case with an "ancient" Egyptian fragmentary figure with no head, arms or legs that cost the Bolton Museum in the UK nearly $1-million ... and is a modern forgery.

The forgery was produced by the notorious Greenhalgh family, which include the 84-year-old wheelchair-bound father George, his wife Olive (83), and their son Shaun (47). The parents were given suspended sentences in January for health reasons, and the son nearly five years in prison after their conviction in the UK courts. The Greenhalghs apparently had a uncanny talent for faking works of art that ranged from antiquities to modern painting and stretched over a 17 year period.

While fakes and forgeries exist in every segment of the art market, it is ironic that the highest end of the market, where one assumes the greatest access to scientific and art historical expertise, is no less susceptible. In fact, it is at this level, that the intense competition and the allure of discovering a great new masterpiece can cause a blind spot fooling the the few experts privileged to quietly examine the object in private (for fear of tipping off potential competitors) to accept it as "authentic" when it surely would not have stood the test of time when opened to public scrutiny by the wider global community of curators, dealers, art historians and scientists.

In the specific case of the Bolton Museum's 'Amarna Princess', as the discredited alabaster torso has been called, here are some of the opinions that were offered along the way and led to the purchase of the statue for  £440,000 in 2003:

In 2002 a London auction house valued the statue at £500,000.

Bolton Museum and funding bodies involved in the purchase sought and received additional independent advice and those experts concluded that it was an authentic figure from the Amarna period.

There were few comparable objects to compare the statue to, apart from a statue in the Louvre Museum in Paris. For this reason the statue’s provenance (ownership history) played an important part in the authentication of the statue

Experts at the British Museum also concluded that it was a genuine piece, according to a statement from the Bolton Museum.

In a copy of the British Museum's original report recently acquired under the Freedom of Information Act by The Art Newspaper, the report described the statue as a "fine example" from the Amarna Period and "the quality of the sculpture and the presence of the side-lock indicate that it must depict one of the daughters of Akhenanten himself." The report goes on to say that "the rarity of sculptures of this size and quality from the period makes this one of the most important Egyptian antiquities to come to light for many years."

According to The Art Newspaper, the BM report did make one ominous statement about the object: "On the back of the figure are areas of white deposit on the surface, the origin of which is not clear. Scientific testing could almost certainly indicate whether this deposit is ancient or modern."

Its not clear what the result of such tests would have revealed. What is clear is that in pursuit of the object Bolton never ordered such tests. 

Greek and Roman Museum Gallery Tops 1-Million Visitor Mark in 10 Months

In an age of newsbytes, youtube, and Britney Spears, it is easy to despair over the state of our cultural health. Popular taste seems a never-ending obsession with the temporal and the inconsequential. One wonders whether at the current pace, our appreciation for the classical heritage that lives at the root of modern society will wane from the distraction.

At least one data point offers hope. On February 21, the one-millionth visitor walked into the newly renovated galleries of Greek and Roman art at the Metropolitan Museum. That's a fairly impressive showing since the galleries were opened to the public just 10 months ago.  On average, more than 3,700 people daily walked through the marble sculpture gallery, or more than one out of every four that entered the Met.

The Met's galleries house one of the finest assemblages of Greek, Hellenistic, Etruscan, South Italian and Roman art collections in the world. The new galleries doubled the number of objects on public display, including 5,300 objects that were gratefully removed from storage. The centerpiece of the new galleries is the majestic Leon and Shelby White Court - a monumental, peristyle court with soaring two-story atrium bathed in natural light. In an era when the classical collections in some museums have been delegated second-tier status in money, resource and attention to more sensational exhibits, it is worth hoping that perhaps the Met's success with spark a new, more widespread revival in the classical past. 

Jewish Mosaics Exhibit at Boston College Examines Links Among Religions

The McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College hosts Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire, on view now through June 8, 2008.

According to the Brooklyn Museum—which organized the exhibition and first displayed it in 2005-2006—it examines the role of Roman-period mosaics in the development of synagogue decoration in the late Roman Empire.

The exhibition presents the reconstruction of an ancient mosaic floor from a synagogue in Hammam Lif, Tunisia—the ancient town of Naro, later called Aquae Persianae by the Romans.

“Superbly conceived by the Brooklyn Museum to pose larger questions about links among various faith communities in Late Antiquity, this exhibition and its public programs draw on strengths of the Boston College faculty’s research and curriculum and on the University’s commitment to exploring the relationship among Jews, Christians and Muslims from antiquity to the present,” according to McMullen Museum Director and Professor of Art History Nancy Netzer. “We look forward to welcoming at the McMullen visitors from all three faith groups.”

A Latin inscription in one of the surviving panels records that the mosaic floor was a gift to the synagogue from a certain Julia, a resident of Naro in about 500 C.E. Other mosaic panels in the exhibition, datable to the first or second century C.E., originated either in an earlier part of the same synagogue or in a nearby building.

The mosaics were discovered by chance in 1883 by a French army captain, Ernest de Prudhomme, while preparing ground for gardening. In 1905, the Brooklyn Museum acquired most of the panels Prudhomme had owned and transported back to his home in Lyon. According to Ruth Langer, associate professor of Jewish Studies in the Theology Department and academic director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College, “Today, these panels provide a fascinating contrast to the much richer archaeological evidence for synagogues of this period now known from the Land of Israel.”

Twenty-one mosaics—along with some 40 works from the Brooklyn Museum’s Roman art collection, including contemporary jewelry, coins, marble statues, ritual objects and textiles—shed light on the role of synagogues in the Diaspora during Late Antiquity, the development of Jewish art in the Roman period, the importance of female patrons in the ancient Jewish community, connections among early Christian, Jewish and Pagan symbolism in this period, and the relationship between ancient and modern understanding of the synagogue as an institution. The works of art included in the exhibition reveal a society where Jews were more integrated and accepted than ancient texts would suggest.

A catalogue by the exhibition’s curator, Edward Bleiberg, Curator of Egyptian, Classical and Ancient Middle Eastern Art at the Brooklyn Museum, accompanies the exhibition.

Museum Hours: Monday – Friday 11-4, Saturday and Sunday 12-5.
Closed: March 21 and 23, April 21, May 26.