Marbles and mosaics on display
AS PART of the year-long Egyptian-Italian cultural festival celebrating cooperation between the two countries, an impressive collection of marbles and mosaics were on show at the Egyptian Museum. Nevine El-Aref attended the opening
Wednesday's exhibition, in hall number 34 on the first floor of the museum, was attended by journalists, museum curators and archaeologists who were delighted at the small, but distinctive, selection of works of art on display. The pieces provide a glimpse of Roman art as it developed in Egypt during their long occupation.
Highlights of the exhibit include a dignified and beautifully carved marble statue of the god Serapis in human form with the characteristic basket symbolising abundance and fertility on his head, as well as a small statue of Venus rising from the sea carved with graceful lines. Busts of several Roman emperors can also be viewed. It is an impressive display, as marble lends itself to the delicate carvings and details of hair, military uniforms and robes of emperors and public officials. Also noteworthy are the wonderful mosaics that once decorated homes and palaces. One is of Medusa, another is of a cock with a red crest chasing three hens inside a barn and the third is a geometrical design.
Two lectures were given for the occasion. One was on the location of marble quarries in Egypt and in Rome from which the imperial government drew its raw materials for temple construction and statue carvings. The second outlined the diffusion of polychromatic Egyptian marble in Imperial Rome and the reaction of the conservative elements within Roman society towards the ostentation and apparent luxury of the widespread use of marble and other valuable stones from the Roman provinces.
* The exhibition will be open for the period of the festival
