Exhibition Watch

Exhibitions from one end of the country to the other are illuminating the Bible and archaeology.

Highlights from the Israel Antiquities Authority: The Dead Sea Scrolls and 5,000 Years of Treasures

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

February 9-August 10, 2008

Highlights from the Israel Antiquities Authority: The Dead Sea Scrolls and 5,000 Years of Treasures, at the Legion of Honor from February 9 to August 10, 2008, will include rotating examples of the rare and precious Dead Sea Scroll fragments in addition to artifacts spanning over 5000 years, from the Chalcolithic Age (4,000 B.C.) to the Fatimid Period (11th century A.D.). The Dead Sea Scrolls are one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in history. They were uncovered by Bedouin herders and excavated by archaeologists in caves along the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. Fragments of the scrolls were pieced together to form more than 800 documents, many of them Biblical and Apocryphal manuscripts. All of the treasures on view are on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), and most have never been seen outside of Israel.

Realms of Faith

Museum of Biblical Art

Continuing through July 13, 2008

Art museums typically present medieval European art from a purely aesthetic perspective, neglecting its original purpose: religious ritual. In Realms of Faith, the Museum of Biblical Art places selected European artifacts from the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore in the context of their function in Christian liturgical practice and personal devotion. Using primary sources such as texts and medieval images depicting works of art in use, the exhibition helps visitors understand religious experiences, both shared and divergent, of Byzantine and Western medieval Christians.

In the exhibit’s first section, “Faith and Practice in Medieval Europe,” visitors survey themes such as devotion to the saints, the celebration of mass and the practice of religion at home. The second section, “Art, Liturgy, and Celebration: The Realm of the Church” explores commonalities and differences in the two main medieval subdivisions of Christianity: the Western and Byzantine churches. This section features artifacts such as the Eucharistic Dove, a rare 13th-century altar piece used to hold the bread of the Eucharist. In “The Art of Prayer: The Realm of Personal Devotion,” visitors can examine objects used for devotion by individuals or small groups in more intimate settings such as the home and private chapels. The last section, “A Medieval Bestiary” is specifically designed for families and invites parents and children to discover the world of medieval animal imagery. Stories and legends about animals from the medieval bestiary reveal how religious traditions permeated everyday life and how a strict separation between “secular” and “sacred” imagery is a modern creation.

Faces of Ancient Arabia

Walters Art Museum

July 20-September 7, 2008

Little known to many westerners, Southern Arabia, the land of the Queen of Sheba, played an important role in antiquity. Drawn from 70 works—alabaster sculptures, statues, relief carvings and inscribed blocks—dating from the third century B.C. to the third century A.D., this exhibit focuses on the ancient kingdoms of Southern Arabia.

The kingdoms’ wealth was based on two factors: productive agriculture and precious commodity trade with Egypt, the civilizations of the Near East and, later, with the Hellenistic and Roman empires.

The Stela with Female Bust, which dates between the first century B.C. and the first century A.D., is one of the finest examples of its kind and was probably produced in one of the premier ancient South Arabian workshops. The alabaster stela depicts the upper torso of a woman emerging from a kind of roundel. An inscription on the base names the man who donated the piece to the temple. The figure has raised her right hand in a gesture of blessing or intercession and holds in her left hand a wheat bundle, a symbol of fecundity.

From the Land of the Labyrinth: Minoan Crete, 3000-1100 B.C.

Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation

Continuing through September 13, 2008

In From the Land of the Labyrinth, more than 280 artifacts and works of art tell the story of daily life in Crete’s luminous Minoan civilization, a culture with important ties to the ancient Near East during the second and third millennia B.C.

Based on objects excavated from the island’s burial grounds and settlements, the exhibition pieces together the culture’s past by focusing on objects such as gold jewelry deposited in the rich tombs of the elite, inscribed clay tablets that reveal the basic elements of the Minoan economy, ceremonial vessels found in both palaces and tombs and votive figures of clay.

The exhibit features a rare boar’s tusk helmet, a bull’s-head rhyton and a beekeeping vessel. It also examines the culture’s mysteries, such as the legends of King Minos of Knossos, who commissioned the fabled labyrinth of Greek mythology.

The Minoans used a hieroglyphic script most likely derived from Egypt and a linear script, Linear A, which may have evolved from the languages of the eastern Mediterranean and has yet to be deciphered. Examples of this mysterious script, such as a Linear A clay tablet from 1450 B.C., are displayed. This sun-dried clay tablet is from the Palace of Kato Zakros.

Three Gutenberg Bibles

The Morgan Library and Museum

Continuing through September 28, 2008

For the first time in more than a decade, the Morgan Library and Museum presents all three of its Gutenberg Bibles, the largest number of copies in any single collection. This exhibit allows visitors to see important differences in copies of the first substantial printed book in the Western world—a groundbreaking technological innovation and a high point in the art of graphic design.

Each of the three copies at the Morgan has a special story to tell about its design and manufacture. Marketing considerations dictated the large size of these stately folio Bibles, ideal for reading in a monastic refectory. They were never intended to be luxury books, but they did contain headings and ornamentation to help the reader navigate the long, complex text. The Morgan’s copies demonstrate the artists’ techniques as well as the inventor’s artistry, which resulted in a beautiful book and a new chapter in the history of visual communication.

Imagining Christ

The Getty Center

May 6-July 27, 2008

Medieval and Renaissance images of Christ functioned as powerful inspirations for prayer. Drawing on manuscripts from the Getty’s permanent collection, Imagining Christ demonstrates the multiple overlapping ways in which Christ was understood through the visual medium: as the son of God and as God, as the sacrificer and the sacrificed, the judge and the judged, the dead and the risen, the human and the divine. Visitors may examine the role images of Christ played in the devotional life of the faithful. In particular, the exhibit reveals how manuscript depictions allowed viewers to participate imaginatively in Christ’s life, sacrifice and acts of salvation. One of the featured items on display is a depiction of St. John the Evangelist from a 17th-century Armenian manuscript.

Idol Anxiety

Smart Museum of Art, Chicago

Continuing Through November 2, 2008

Idols are worrisome objects. From ancient times to the present day, theological traditions have reflected on idolatry and questioned the transcendence, significance, and power of objects.

By juxtaposing Mesopotamian cult figures with Classical antiquities and Renaissance paintings, Idol Anxiety examines how objects become idols and offers insight into the sometimes uneasy relationship between people and things.

Archaeology Zone: Discovering Treasures from Playgrounds to Palaces

The Jewish Museum

Continuing through June 15, 2009

In an interactive new exhibit at the Jewish Museum, children ages 3-10 can explore how archaeologists analyze objects that they unearth. Four questions will guide families through the exhibition: Where did it come from? What is it? When was it made? And why was it made? Children will piece together two larger-than-life vessels, examine replicas by weighing and magnifying, interpret symbols in a colorful reproduction of the sixth-century C.E. Beth Alpha synagogue mosaic in Israel, create works of art inspired by objects in the museum’s collection, and dress in costumes from long ago. The exhibition also includes an introductory video, original artifacts and colorful illustrations that provide a visual context for how objects were used and preserved over time.

Hadrian: Empire and Conflict

The British Museum, London

July 24-October 26, 2008

The Roman Emperor Hadrian (117 to 138 A.D.) is best known for his passion for Greek culture, interest in architecture, his love for Antinous and the eponymous wall he built between England and Scotland, then Caledonia. This exhibition will look beyond this established image and offer new perspectives on his life and legacy, exploring the sharp contradictions of his personality and his role as a ruthless military commander.

Art and Empire: Treasures from Assyria

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

September 21, 2008-January 4, 2009

From the ninth to the seventh centuries B.C., the Assyrians emerged as the dominant power in the Near East, controlling present-day Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt, as well as large parts of Turkey and Iran. It was the largest empire known until that time.

A wide variety of items—most of which were first excavated in the 19th century—will be displayed. Military dress and equipment and horse trappings and harnesses illustrate life in the army. Carved ivories, furniture fittings and metal vessels showcase the luxurious, cosmopolitan lifestyle enjoyed by the king and his court. Exorcisms, omen texts, mathematical texts and literary compositions from the royal library (where the king sought to gather together all the world’s learning in one place) enshrine the wisdom of ancient Mesopotamia, the cradle of western civilization.

The Dead Sea Scrolls

North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences

June 28-December 28, 2008

The Dead Sea Scrolls, widely acknowledged to be some of the greatest archaeological treasures ever found, are making their way through the United States. Their next stop: Raleigh, North Carolina. Among the scrolls are some 207 Biblical manuscripts that represent nearly every book in the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament), predating any previously known copies by more than 1,000 years.

The Museum of Natural Sciences will display 12 original Dead Sea Scrolls during the six month exhibition (six different scrolls each three-month period) representing portions of the books of Genesis, Isaiah, Deuteronomy, Exodus and others. All Scrolls will be fully interpreted with translation of text and background information. Also included in the exhibition will be more than 100 authentic artifacts from Qumran, the ancient Dead Sea settlement closest to the caves where the scrolls were discovered.

Louvre Atlanta: The Louvre and the Ancient World

High Museum of Art, Atlanta

October 16, 2007-September 7, 2008

This exhibition features masterpieces from the founding cultures of Western civilization and will include more than 70 works from the Louvre’s unparalleled Egyptian, Near Eastern and Greco-Roman antiquities collection.

Illuminating the Word: The Saint John’s Bible

Mobile Museum of Art, Alabama

October 10, 2007-April 10, 2009

This exhibition is devoted to a single work of art, an illuminated, handwritten Bible commissioned by Saint John’s University and Abbey in Minnesota. This contemporary Bible is at once old and new: a masterpiece of the ancient crafts of calligraphy and illumination that could only be made by artists of today. The Saint John’s Bible is being created by professional scribes, under the direction of Donald Jackson, one of the world’s foremost calligraphers. In the Middle Ages, monumental Bibles were made for daily use in monastic communities, yet they were carefully preserved for future generations. The Saint John’s Bible is the modern representative of that great tradition.

Neither Man nor Beast

The Art Institute of Chicago

Ongoing

Depictions of animals pervaded the imagery on the gold, silver and bronze coinage of ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt. Although they often appear in their natural state, animals sometimes share the features of humans or other beasts, taking the form of mythical creatures like centaurs and sphinxes. Ancient Greek and Roman coins also featured heroes, divinities and rulers depicted with animal attributes to emphasize their special powers or to promote a specific political identity. Minted in third-century B.C. Naples, the coin pictured depicts the nymph Parthenope on the obverse side; on the reverse a man-headed bull is crowned by Nike.

This exhibit examines ancient notions of mixed identity—the idea of being neither man nor beast, neither fully mortal nor fully divine but somehow both. The ancient concept of a hybrid self was a significant element in the development of both political and religious thought, which imagined God as a being of multiple identities and faces and, in some cases, of mixed lineage.

Temples, Tells and Tombs

Milwaukee Public Museum

Permanent exhibition

Now showing at the Milwaukee Public Museum is an exhibition titled “Temples, Tells and Tombs.” The exhibition mixes the ancient and the modern to help visitors interpret the past.

Amarna, Ancient Egypt’s Place in the Sun

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, PA

Begins November 1, 2006

Beginning in November, Philadelphia will host “Amarna, Ancient Egypt’s Place in the Sun,” a new exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The exhibit will focus on the royal city of Amarna built by the pharaoh Akhenaten, which was Tut’s childhood home.

The Leon Levy and Shelby White Court

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

Official opening April 20, 2007

The new Greek and Roman galleries at the Met officially opened on April 20, 2007. The new exhibition complex centers around a completely refurbished Roman court named after Leon Levy and Shelby White.