Sun, Moon and Stars Exhibition, Museum of Culture, Basel, Switzerland The excellent Museum of Culture regularly holds exhibitions which help to highlight certain themes within its collection. When I visited, they had an interesting exhibition which looked at the way the universe shapes people on earth – from the way we create calendars, to the gods we worship. Because of the…
Byzantine and Christian Museum, Βυζαντινό και Χριστιανικό Μουσείο, Athens, Greece Having attempted to write an ill-fated PhD dissertation on early Christian art, I have a somewhat difficult relationship with the subject. One the one hand, I find the whole subject of creating a visual language for a new religion fascinating, and on the other hand I associate it with the…
Museum of Fine Arts, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, France Knowing that Lyon is one of France’s most culturally significant towns, I had high hopes for its Museum of Fine Art. The museum is housed in an important former abbey, which has its origins in the 6th century. In 1659, the abbess Anne de Chaulnes began construction of the Royal Abbey…
…continued from Part Two… Near East A small but interesting selection of objects from the Near East starts our exploration of the ancient world – with a brief detour to the 14th century for a cute bowl from Antioch. Ancient Egypt The museum has an unexpectedly fascinating collection of Egyptian objects – I could have spent longer looking, but it…
The Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities, Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm, Sweden Clearly if a town has a museum dedicated to the ancient world, I’m there. And I’ll probably be there for a long time. And I was at the Mediterranean Museum for much longer than I expected – and still didn’t see the entire collection. I totally missed the Islamic section,…