"Art of the Ancient Mediterranean World: Egypt, Greece, Rome"
A major new exhibition titled "Art of the Ancient Mediterranean World: Egypt, Greece, Rome" opened June 3 for a yearlong run at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art.
Admission is free for BYU students and employees and children age five or younger. General admission tickets are $5 for adults, $4 for seniors, $3 for students and $18 for families of up to six people. For ticket information, call 801-422-8287.
"Docents from across campus and from throughout the community will be taking our visitors through the gallery," said museum administrator Cheryll May. "We will not have audio guides as in the past. Most of our docents will be dressed in archaeologist gear with pith helmets and satchels, and we will have replicas of some of the artifacts available for children to handle."
Training for docents will be ongoing throughout the one-year residence of the exhibit. Those interested in volunteering should contact cheryll__may@byu.edu.
The more than 200 works displayed in the exhibition span a period from predynastic times in Egypt 6000 years ago, to the Roman late imperial period, about A.D. 350. The exhibition is from the renowned collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Egyptian works make up more than 60 percent of the collection. Some of the most spectacular pieces in the collection include the cartonnage, or inner coffin, and outer coffin of Pennu, a high official at the Temple of Karnak at Thebes.
Other items featured in the exhibition are gold and gilded amulets, a set of canopic jars made to hold the internal organs of the deceased, a gilded mummy mask, mace heads used by Egyptian soldiers, pottery, necklaces, cosmetic jars, various vessels and a mirror made of copper alloy.
Fine ceramic works from the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods highlight the Greek exhibit. Other pieces include statuary, coins and jewelry.
Roman works in the exhibition feature superb sculptural pieces, some based on earlier Greek (idealistic) models and some with a more distinctly Roman (realistic) appearance.
For the last five years the collection has been on display at the Nagoya/Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Japan. After its Provo run, it will travel to one of two additional venues in North America before returning to its home in Boston.
For more information, contact the museum at (801) 422-ARTS.
Writer: Cheryll May
