Golden oldies bound for Scottish Capital museum

Submitted by vicky on Thursday, 11 December 2003 Page Views: 811

Spectacular gold pieces, urns and life-sized sarcophagi will go on display in Edinburgh next year when the Royal Museum’s next "blockbuster" exhibition opens to the public. Hundreds of rare Etruscan objects are to feature in the exhibition at the Chambers Street attraction. The display, Treasures from Tuscany, will showcase some of the region’s most stunning objects from the Etruscans, a pre-Roman civilisation whose beginnings lay in the ninth century BC.

Altogether, almost 500 objects from the finest collections in Tuscany are going on show for the first time in the UK. The exhibition is expected to attract thousands of visitors to the city and is considered a major coup.

Museum bosses hope the three-month event, opening in July, will match the success of the Dino-Bird and Game On exhibitions, which were both held at the Royal Museum this year.

Record-breaking crowds attended Game On, while hundreds of thousands of people also flocked to the Dino-Bird exhibition.

A wealth of treasures collected from Etruscan tombs will go on show. They are set to include fine ceramics, life-sized sarcophagi and objects from temples and sanctuaries such as architectural reliefs and bronze figurines.

The Etruscans heavily influenced the Romans, and therefore modern-day Italy.

The origins of the Etruscan civilisation, which lasted for about 900 years, are not clear. In Italy, they developed what is believed to have been a refined culture and sophisticated agriculture, but their history was long shrouded in mystery because little was known about their language.

The Etruscans, who are credited with building Western Europe’s first cities, occupied lands in an area between present-day Florence and Rome, bordered by the Arno and Tiber rivers, in the regions known today as Umbria and Tuscany, as well as northern Lazio all the way to Rome.

In Etruscan society, women were elevated to a higher status than in Roman and Greek times.

The Etruscans traded internationally, importing luxury items from Greece and the Near East, including gold, silver, bronze, ivory and ceramics. They also excelled as goldsmiths.

The power of the Etruscans was eventually overtaken by the might of the Romans and today, modern towns and cities stand on many Etruscan sites.

The Etruscan colonies in northern Italy and Greek settlements in the south were the earliest major civilisations in the country. But most of the famous Etruscan ruins, such as Cerveteri, contain little more than the sophisticated burial sites.

A spokeswoman for the National Museums of Scotland said: "This exhibition will give a fascinating insight into the Etruscans, an ancient civilisation of highly sophisticated people.

"Contemporaries of the Ancient Greeks, the Etruscans were pivotal in contributing to the cradle of European civilisation, and can be credited with having a lasting influence on modern-day Italy.

"This exhibition, shown for the first time in the UK, gathers almost 500 objects from the finest collections in Tuscany, giving visitors a rare opportunity to view a rich and comprehensive display of Etruscan life and death."

Dr Robert Leighton, a lecturer in archaeology at Edinburgh University, said the exhibition would be "quite special".

He said: "This is rather unusual. This will be quite special in the sense that these will be of a high quality.

"They [the Etruscans] put a lot of their valuables in tombs, unlike the Greeks and the Romans. They were generally high-quality craft items."

Source: The Scotsman 11/12/2003

Contributor Bio for vicky: Ex Megalithic Portal Editor, Co-author of 'Rock Around the Peak - Megalithic Monuments of the Peak District' and... More

<< Dog centre pause for ancient remains hunt

News

UK let down Isle of Man over Tynwald Hill, says MHK >>