Former name | Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology |
---|---|
Established | 1876 |
Location | 571 South Kilgo Circle Atlanta United States |
Type | Art museum |
Visitors | 120,000 annually |
Director | Henry Kim |
Website | carlos |
The Michael C. Carlos Museum is an art museum located in Atlanta on the historic quadrangle of Emory University's main campus. The Carlos Museum has the largest ancient art collections in the Southeast, [1] including objects from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Near East, Africa and the ancient Americas. The collections are housed in a Michael Graves designed building which is open to the public. [2]
One of the oldest museums in Georgia, the museum's collections date back to 1876, when a general museum known as Emory College Museum was established on Emory University's original campus in Oxford, Georgia. After the university was relocated to Atlanta, a small group of professors officially founded the Emory University Museum in 1919. The collections were housed and displayed in various buildings around the campus. [2]
Over the years, Atlanta businessman Michael C. Carlos donated over $20 million to create a permanent home for the museum, which opened in 1985. The museum was renamed again to the Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology and was officially accredited by the American Alliance of Museums as a museum of antiquities and fine arts. Carlos died in December 2002 at the age of 75. [3]
A major expansion in 1993 transformed the museum into one of Atlanta's top arts institutions. Upon the new building's opening, the museum became known as the Michael C. Carlos Museum, named after its most generous patron.
During the 1996 Summer Olympics, the museum presented two major exhibitions: one on the Emory campus highlighting the work of Thornton Dial and the other in City Hall East (now Ponce City Market) titled "Souls Grown Deep: African American Vernacular Art of the South". Originally pitched to the High Museum of Art, the latter exhibit featured folk art and self-taught art from African-American artists across the American South, curated by local art collector William S. Arnett, and opened to "glowing reviews". [4]
In June 2022, it was announced that Henry Kim would be the new associate vice provost and director of the Museum beginning August 22, 2022. [5]
The museum's collections comprise more than 25,000 works, [6] and the facility attracts 120,000 visitors annually. In addition to permanent and temporary exhibitions, the museum is a source of educational programming, providing lectures, symposia, workshops, performances, and festivals. The Carlos Museum also operates a teaching laboratory and conservation center, and publishes scholarly catalogues. The museum also brings art, history, and archaeology to the classroom of Georgia children through its outreach program, Art Odyssey. The Carlos Museum also runs Odyssey Online, a Web site for school-age children that explores the various cultures reflected in the museum's collections. [2]
The museum's permanent Egyptian holdings were bolstered with the acquisition of 145 works from Canada's Niagara Falls Museum in 1999. The elaborately decorated ancient coffins and mummies of both humans and animals form the centerpiece of the permanent exhibition of ancient Egyptian art. Also in 1999, Carlos bequeathed a $10 million gift specifically for the purchase of ancient Greek and Roman pieces. As a result, the museum now owns and exhibits the finest existing portrait of the Roman emperor Tiberius and one of the country's best examples of Hellenistic sculpture, a depiction of Terpsichore, the Greek muse of dance. A total of 450 works of art are now on display in galleries devoted to Greek and Roman art. [2]
In 1999, the Carlos Museum purchased an unidentified male mummy that some thought could be a New Kingdom pharaoh. Through research and collaboration with Emory University medical experts, museum scholars were able to identify the mummy as pharaoh Ramesses I. The museum returned the mummy to Egypt in 2003 as a gift of goodwill and international cultural cooperation. [7] [8] His remains are permanently on display in a plexiglass case at the Luxor Museum. [9]
On June 6, 2006 the museum purchased a headless statue of Venus, for $968,000 at a Sotheby's auction in New York. A private collector in Houston, Texas, agreed to sell to whoever purchased the body, the head as well, which was last documented attached to the body in 1836. The head was sold for an additional $50,000. [10]
In November, 2023, The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Italy and Emory University announced that they reached an agreement for cultural cooperation which includes the restitution to the Ministry of five objects in the collection of the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory, with three of the objects remaining on loan to Emory. [11] At least 562 artworks in the museum collection are alleged to have had sellers linked by authorities to the illicit antiquities trade. [12]
On Jan. 22, 2024, Emory University and the Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic signed a long-term agreement of cultural cooperation, which includes more educational opportunities for students and the return to the Greek ministry of three objects in the collection of the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory. [13] In 2023, the Michael C. Carlos Museum also returned an Assyrian ivory furniture applique to the government of Iraq following research which revealed that it belongs to the Iraq Museum. [14]
Egyptology is the scientific study of ancient Egypt. The topics studied include ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious practices in the 4th century AD.
Usermaatre Meryamun Ramesses III was the second Pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty in Ancient Egypt. Some scholars date his reign from 26 March 1186 to 15 April 1155 BC, and he is considered to be the last great king of the New Kingdom.
Mummy portraits or Fayum mummy portraits are a type of naturalistic painted portrait on wooden boards attached to upper class mummies from Roman Egypt. They belong to the tradition of panel painting, one of the most highly regarded forms of art in the Classical world. The Fayum portraits are the only large body of art from that tradition to have survived. They were formerly, and incorrectly, called Coptic portraits.
Zahi Abass Hawass is an Egyptian archaeologist, Egyptologist, and former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, serving twice. He has also worked at archaeological sites in the Nile Delta, the Western Desert and the Upper Nile Valley.
Menpehtyre Ramesses I was the founding pharaoh of ancient Egypt's 19th Dynasty. The dates for his short reign are not completely known but the timeline of late 1292–1290 BC is frequently cited as well as 1295–1294 BC. While Ramesses I was the founder of the 19th Dynasty, his brief reign mainly serves to mark the transition between the reign of Horemheb, who had stabilized Egypt in the late 18th Dynasty, and the rule of the powerful pharaohs of his own dynasty, in particular his son Seti I, and grandson Ramesses II.
The New Kingdom, also referred to as the Egyptian Empire, was the ancient Egyptian state between the 16th century BC and the 11th century BC. This period of ancient Egyptian history covers the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties. Through radiocarbon dating, the establishment of the New Kingdom has been placed between 1570 BC and 1544 BC. The New Kingdom followed the Second Intermediate Period and was succeeded by the Third Intermediate Period. It was the most prosperous time for the Egyptian people and marked the peak of Egypt's power.
Robert Brier is an American Egyptologist specializing in paleopathology. A senior research fellow at Long Island University/LIU Post, he has researched and published on mummies and the mummification process and has appeared in many Discovery Civilization, TLC Network, and National Geographic documentaries, primarily on ancient Egypt. He is recognized as one of the world's foremost Egyptologists.
Merneptah or Merenptah was the fourth pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. According to contemporary historical records, he ruled Egypt for almost ten years, from late July or early August 1213 until his death on 2 May 1203. He was the first royal-born pharaoh since Tutankhamun of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt.
The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London is part of University College London Museums and Collections. The museum contains 80,000 objects, making it one of the world's largest collections of Egyptian and Sudanese material. It is designated under the Arts Council England Designation Scheme as being of "national and international importance".
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 Grand Egyptian Museum, also known as the Giza Museum, is an archaeological museum under construction in Giza, Egypt, about 2 kilometres from the Giza pyramid complex. The Museum will host over 100,000 artifacts from ancient Egyptian civilization, including the complete Tutankhamun collection, and many pieces will be displayed for the first time. With 81,000 m2 (872,000 sq ft) of floor space, it will be the world's largest archeological museum. It is being built as part of a new master plan for the Giza Plateau, known as "Giza 2030".
The Niagara Falls Museum, in Niagara Falls, Ontario, was founded by Thomas Barnett in 1827. After a number of moves and varying fortunes it closed in 1998. The museum is known for housing the mummy of Ramesses I for 140 years before its return to Egypt in 2003.
The Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst is an archaeological museum in Munich. It contains the Bavarian state collection of ancient Egyptian art and displays exhibits from both the predynastic and dynastic periods. The associated small Middle East section displays objects from the areas of Assyrian and Babylonian culture. For decades, the Egyptian museum was located in the Munich Residenz, but it was moved to the Kunstareal in June 2013.
The National Museum of Sudan or Sudan National Museum, abbreviated SNM, is a two-story building, constructed in 1955 and established as national museum in 1971.
Ramesses II, commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III of the Eighteenth Dynasty, he is often regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the New Kingdom, which itself was the most powerful period of ancient Egypt. He is also widely considered one of ancient Egypt's most successful warrior pharaohs, conducting no fewer than 15 military campaigns, all resulting in victories, excluding the Battle of Kadesh, generally considered a stalemate.
William Jamieson was a Canadian treasure and antique dealer and reality TV star. Jamieson was also known as the Headhunter. He was the star of History Channel's Treasure Trader. He was also a world-famous dealer of tribal art, described as having "a taste for the bizarre", and as "Indiana Jones meets Gene Simmons". He was also described as a treasure hunter who "is Indiana Jones, minus the rolling boulders, aliens and savage tribesmen".
The archaeology of Ancient Egypt is the study of the archaeology of Egypt, stretching from prehistory through three millennia of documented history. Egyptian archaeology is one of the branches of Egyptology.
The Terpsichore from Dodona is a Greek marble statue under lifesize depicting Terpsichore, the Greek goddess of dance, created around the second century BC. The Hellenistic work of art was discovered in Epirus in northwestern Greece and illegally smuggled out of the country in the late nineties. It then became part a prized piece of the Ancient Greek and Roman collection of the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, until it was finally repatriated to Greece in early 2024.
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: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)An ancient Egyptian mummy thought to be that of Pharaoh Ramses I has returned home after more than 140 years in North American museums.
A 3,000-year-old mummy that many scholars believe is ancient Egypt's King Ramses I is the star attraction of an exhibit at the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta that will run from April 26 to September 14.
For the first time in possibly 170 years, a Roman marble statue of Venus will be reunited with its head as both are coming to the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University, where conservators will piece them back together.