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The Archaeological Museum of Aidone is a regional museum in Aidone in the province of Enna, Sicily. It is housed in a former Capuchin convent dedicated to Saint Francis. [1] It was inaugurated in the summer of 1984 and preserves the findings of over thirty years of excavations in Morgantina, ordered according to chronological and thematic criteria.
In the three rooms are materials of prehistory and protohistory of the ancient city, coming from the village "castellucciano": smoothed basalt stone axes, tiny cointainers and ceramic fragments worked without the use of a lathe, with an essential linear engraved decoration. At the following Sicilian city, of the early Iron Age, instead, the acromi ceramic in carenate forms, of red and brown paste, finds evidences in the culture of Ausonius in Lipari.
The exhibits belonging to the period from the ninth to the middle of the 5th century BC witness the coexistence of Sicels and Greek cultures in the town: antefixed of religious buildings, "pithoi", a domestic arula on which is depicted a boar, a "kernos" with three small cups and the greater crater of Euthymides, with simposium and "amazzonomachia" scenes, used for public banquets.
The findings of the classical and Hellenistic period, up to the destruction of the city (211 BC), consist mainly of earthenware coming from the necropolis and urban sanctuaries of Demeter and Persephone, including several busts of the latter, to which are added a large "black painted" lamp with three spouts and a fish dish, perhaps from Syracuse.
A limestone statue without head, most likely of the goddess Demeter found in the central sanctuary in 1955, provided the material to show that the famous "Aphrodite" of the Paul Getty Museum in Malibu (USA) comes from Morgantina.
In the former sacristy of the convent are exposed objects of common domestic use, agricultural and religious, offering a picture of the daily life of the inhabitants of the ancient city (kitchenware, children's toys, feminine trinkets, tools for agriculture).
The museum in the 2010s is at the center of events of historical importance. The Italian State has succeeded in obtaining the return of precious artefacts stolen by "tombaroli" and, through the clandestine market bought by the main American museums. On 13 December 2009, two acroliths (two heads, three hands and three feet in marble) from the Greek archaic period, probably belonging to the goddesses Demeter and Kore, very revered in antiquity in Central Sicily, returned from the University of Virginia Museum. December 5, 2010, was the turn of the return from the Metropolitan Museum of New York of a service of sixteen pieces in silver for ritual and table uses, belonging to that Eupolemos, as revealed by the inscriptions engraved in votive arula. Finally, in the spring of 2011, the so-called "Goddess of Morgantina" returned. It is a statue of a treacherous limestone school with an acrolithic technique, in which it is more probable that the goddess Demeter should be recognized. Now it is exhibited at the Regional Archaeological Museum of Aidone, where it was presented on May 17, 2011, in the presence of the authorities. Today it is visible to the public.
The Goddess of Morgantina, often called the Venus of Morgantina (though more probably Kore or Demeter) is a 2.25 m high statue, carved between 425 BC and 400 BC in Sicily. The author as likely a direct disciple of Phidias, operating in Magna Graecia.[ citation needed ] The statue was illegally excavated from the archaeological site. Purchased by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, it was returned to Italy on March 17, 2011, at the end of a dispute that lasted for several years between Italy and the United States.
The statue is made of two materials: marble was used for the face and for the naked parts of the body, similar to the Metope of Selinunte , but the drapery is instead in calcareous tuff, which has been ascertained to come from Sicily.
In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Persephone, also called Kore or Cora, is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She became the queen of the underworld after her abduction by her uncle Hades, the king of the underworld, who would later also take her into marriage.
Eleusinion, also called the City Eleusinion was a sanctuary on the lower part of the north slope of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, dedicated to Demeter and Kore (Persephone). It was the central hub of Eleusinian Mysteries within Athens and the starting point for the annual procession to Eleusis, in the northwest of Attica. Religious activity is attested in the area from the 7th century BC and construction took place throughout late Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. The sanctuary was enclosed within the new city walls built after the Herulian sack of Athens in AD 267 and it remained in use until the late fourth century AD.
Scopas was an ancient Greek sculptor and architect, most famous for his statue of Meleager, the copper statue of Aphrodite, and the head of goddess Hygieia, daughter of Asclepius.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa.
The province of Enna is a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily, Italy.
The sculpture of ancient Greece is the main surviving type of fine ancient Greek art as, with the exception of painted ancient Greek pottery, almost no ancient Greek painting survives. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages in monumental sculpture in bronze and stone: the Archaic, Classical (480–323) and Hellenistic. At all periods there were great numbers of Greek terracotta figurines and small sculptures in metal and other materials.
Morgantina is an archaeological site in east central Sicily, southern Italy. It is sixty kilometres from the coast of the Ionian Sea, in the province of Enna. The closest modern town is Aidone, two kilometres southwest of the site. The site consists of a two-kilometre-long ridge running southwest-northeast, known as Serra Orlando, and a neighbouring hill at the northeast called Cittadella. Morgantina was inhabited in several periods. The earliest major settlement was made at Cittadella and lasted from about 1000/900 to about 450 BCE. The other major settlement was located on Serra Orlando, and existed from about 450 BCE to about 50 CE in Magna Graecia. Morgantina has been the subject of archaeological investigation since the early 20th century.
Aidone is a town and comune in the province of Enna, in region of Sicily in southern Italy. The extensive archaeological site of Morgantina is on a ridge close to the town.
The National Archaeological Museum in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the greatest museums in the world and contains the richest collection of Greek Antiquity artifacts worldwide. It is situated in the Exarcheia area in central Athens between Epirus Street, Bouboulinas Street and Tositsas Street while its entrance is on the Patission Street adjacent to the historical building of the Athens Polytechnic university.
The Getty Villa is an educational center and art museum located at the easterly end of the Malibu coast in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. One of two campuses of the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Villa is dedicated to the study of the arts and cultures of ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria. The collection has 44,000 Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities dating from 6,500 BC to 400 AD, including the Lansdowne Heracles and the Victorious Youth. The UCLA/Getty Master's Program in Archaeological and Ethnographic Conservation is housed on this campus.
Kore is the modern term given to a type of free-standing ancient Greek sculpture of the Archaic period depicting female figures, always of a young age. Kouroi are the youthful male equivalent of kore statues.
Marion True was the former curator of antiquities for the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California. True was indicted on April 1, 2005, by an Italian court, on criminal charges accusing her of participating in a conspiracy that laundered stolen artifacts through private collections and creating a fake paper trail; the Greeks later followed suit. The trial brought to light many questions about museum administration, repatriation, and ethics.
Despoina or Despoena was the epithet of a goddess worshiped by the Eleusinian Mysteries in Ancient Greece as the daughter of Demeter and Poseidon and the sister of Arion. Surviving sources refer to her exclusively under the title Despoina alongside her mother Demeter, as her real name could not be revealed to anyone except those initiated into her mysteries and was consequently lost with the extinction of the Eleusinian religion. Writing during the second century A.D., Pausanias spoke of Demeter as having two daughters; Kore being born first, before Despoina was born, with Zeus being the father of Kore and Poseidon as the father of Despoina. Pausanias made it clear that Kore is Persephone, although he did not reveal Despoina's proper name.
The Archeological Museum of Eleusis is a museum in Eleusis, Attica, Greece. The museum is located inside the archaeological site of Eleusis. Built in 1890, by the plans of the German architect Kaverau, to keep the findings of the excavations, and after two years (1892) was extended under the plans of the Greek architect J. Mousis.
The Archaeological Museum of Lamia is a museum within the archaeological site of Lamia Castle in Lamia, Greece. The museum is housed in a refurbished barracks built in 1830 by King Otto of Greece. It presents prehistoric and Classical antiquities, covering the Neolithic era, Helladic period, Early Iron Age, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods.
The Morgantina treasure is a set of 16 pieces of Greek silverware with details in gold dating from the 3rd century BC, illegally excavated from Morgantina, an ancient Greek city in Sicily, near modern Aidone. The hoard includes two large bowls, a cup with two handles, plates and several drinking utensils. It was probably excavated around 1978, and was bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1981 and 1982. After protracted pressure, in 2010, the treasure was transferred from the Metropolitan to Rome, before returning to Sicily.
The Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi of Syracuse, Sicily is one of the principal archaeological museums of Europe.
The Archaeological Park of Dion is the most important archaeological site at Mount Olympus in Greece, located in Dion. In the area comprised by the Archaeological Park of Dion, sanctuaries were found from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The park displays the importance of ancient Dion in the history of Pieria.
The regional archaeological museum of Kamarina is in the vicinity of Scoglitti in the Libero consorzio comunale di Ragusa (Sicily) and consists of three pavilions and seven rooms exhibition.
The Lycosoura Demeter is a remnant of a colossal sculpture of Demeter, created by the sculptor Damophon in 180 BC for the Temple of Despoina in the ancient city of Lycosura, now Arcadia, Greece.
37°24′49″N14°26′51″E / 37.4135°N 14.4474°E
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