In 1908, more than a decade before the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, American retired lawyer and archaeologist Theodore Davis made a remarkable discovery. While excavating in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, he unearthed about a dozen large storage jars. Their contents included broken pottery, bags of natron, bags of sawdust, floral collars, and pieces of linen with markings from years 6 and 8 during the reign of a then little-known pharaoh named Tutankhamun. The significance of the find was not immediately understood, and the objects entered the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art as a mystery. It was only several years later, after further excavations and study, that the Museum’s Herbert E. Winlock was able to identify them: the small cache contained the remains from the embalming and funeral of King Tut. These objects now get their own exhibition - Tutankhamun's Funeral - which runs at New York's Met until November 6th.
The answer is of course that the influence was huge: Roman copies of canonic Greek masterpieces ensued, there were aesthetic influences in the decoration of sanctuaries and funerary monuments, while every-day domestic objects mimicked Greek styles too.
Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs makes its Colorado debut at the Denver Art Museum, after a successful tour which combines over 50 treasures from the tomb of the boy-king with another 70 artefacts spanning two millennia of the great civilization.
For those with more than a passing interest in the historical knowledge of Egypt's most famous ruler, the show also features landmark scientific research on King Tut, culminating in the first 3D CT-scan of the pharaoh's mummy.
Submitted by Bija Knowles on Thu, 02/25/2010 - 11:06
Caravaggio was not a man of his time. As gay icon, father of modern painting and enigmatic artistic rebel, he speaks volumes to 21st century audiences visiting his current exhibition in Rome. The realism and drama that he transmitted onto canvas seem surprisingly fresh, while also connecting us with the feel and detail of life in the early 17th century.
But his portraits of youths - again, not typical of the early 1600s - seem to hark back to an era more than 1,000 years before his time. His sensuous appreciation of the male form, which scandalised his 17th century patrons, had more in common with Roman and Greek artistic traditions, which openly celebrated the male beauty, as well as pederastic relationships.
Submitted by Michael Kan on Wed, 02/10/2010 - 11:47
The tomb of Chinese warlord Cao Cao — one of China’s latest and most controversial discoveries — has yet to open itself up for firsthand public views. But an exhibit in Beijing offers the next best thing.
From weapons and coins to statutes and artwork, 1,800 year-old relics from Cao Cao’s era will be on display at Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts. The unique exhibit centers on China’s Three Kingdoms period, and will go on until March 15.
The Luxor Museum is a small, purpose-built museum in the Egyptian city of Luxor (ancient Thebes). Inaugurated in 1975, it stands on the corniche, overlooking the west bank of the River Nile in the city centre.
After the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the Luxor Museum holds the largest collection of items from Tutankhamun's tomb, KV62, in the world. These include his hunting chariot, and various votive weapons. Other key pieces include 26 well-preserved New Kingdom statues, found buried in a cache at Luxor Temple in 1989, the royal mummies of Ahmose I and Ramesses I, and a calcite double statue of the crocodile god Sobek and pharaoh Amenhotep III. Another major attractions is a reconstruction of one of the walls of Akhenaten's temple at Karnak.
The Luxor Museum features a far smaller collection than the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, but this is intentional - the Luxor Museum prides itself on showing a limited number of important pieces in a clear and uncluttered way, with multi-lingual labelling, that does them the best possible justice. The museum is regularly complemented by tourists as presenting a pleasant contrast to the clamour of the over-crowded Egyptian Museum.
Submitted by Jon Himoff on Wed, 01/27/2010 - 22:23
Zahi Hawass tells BusinessWeek that the touring exhibits including the King Tut and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs exhibition have netted Egypt $100 million USD since 2005. Considering that none of the major coffins or the ultimate, iconic piece the Death Mask are included in these shows (click here to see where they're hiding) it is quite an impressive yield for brand Tut and Egypt Inc. (King Tut's contracts are worth about as much as the world's most highly paid footballer Cristiano Ronaldo).
The official announcement is coming a week today (January 27) but news continues to trickle out about the exhibition of the Terracotta Warriors of the First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, set to hit Toronto in June.
Officials have been tight-lipped about this exhibit so what we've been hearing has been in drips and drabs.
Over a 17 year period Greenhalgh created fake art pieces that fooled museum experts and sold for sums as high as six figures. Sentenced in 2007 he is currently serving a four year prison sentence. His parents Olive and George Greenhalgh, who assisted in his activities, were given suspended sentences – they were both in their 80s when tried.
'allo, 'allo - what's all this 'ere then? The Met Police's Art and Antiques Unit are in the building, to demonstrate some of the investigative techniques they employ in detecting and preventing art forgery - a sophisticated, multi-million pound international criminal industry.
The exhibition will look at modern and historical cases of art forgery, as a means of highlighting the financial and cultural impacts they have on modern society. Various examples of forgeries will be on display, including a diverse array of pieces created by the notorious Shaun Greenhalgh. Currently serving a four-year prison sentence, over a 17-year period Greenhalgh made an estimated £10 million creating fakes of items such as the Amarna Princess, the Risley Park Lanx, Barbara Hepworth's Goose and various Thomas Moran paintings.
Can you spot the difference between the forgeries and the originals?
In 1908, more than a decade before the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, American retired lawyer and archaeologist Theodore Davis made a remarkable discovery. While excavating in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, he unearthed about a dozen large storage jars. Their contents included broken pottery, bags of natron, bags of sawdust, floral collars, and pieces of linen with markings from years 6 and 8 during the reign of a then little-known pharaoh named Tutankhamun. The significance of the find was not immediately understood, and the objects entered the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art as a mystery. It was only several years later, after further excavations and study, that the Museum’s Herbert E. Winlock was able to identify them: the small cache contained the remains from the embalming and funeral of King Tut. These objects now get their own exhibition - Tutankhamun's Funeral - which runs at New York's Met until November 6th.
Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs makes its Colorado debut at the Denver Art Museum, after a successful tour which combines over 50 treasures from the 
Caravaggio was not a man of his time. As gay icon, father of modern painting and enigmatic artistic rebel, he speaks volumes to 21st century audiences visiting his 
The official announcement is coming a week today (January 27) but news continues to trickle out about the exhibition of the 
This Saturday the 
